Back to the Dream Page
Chapter 19
Don urged his sore feet and tired limbs to go even faster. Unseen spirits helped him find his way in the darkness. The full moon was barely able to shed any light through the thick clouds overhead.
As he neared the path's end that led to the top of Bridalveil Falls, a shrill scream burst out somewhere nearby overhead and was abruptly cut off. Don doubled his efforts and came to the end of the trail, stumbling both in exhaustion and horror at what he saw before him.
The moon burst through the clouds, bathing all in silvery light as the shadow of a man forced himself inside her again, raping her despite her cries and weak struggles.
Desolation washed over Don as he witnessed the senseless act take place but was quickly replaced with the craving for vengeance. Always known as one of the more hot-blooded in the class, he stayed true to his character and rushed forward to stop this meaningless act of brutality. Before he could reach them though, bars sprang up from the ground and caged her off just as the shadow figure melted away as a wispy cloud covered the moon's pale face.
Don prowled the perimeter of the cage, trying to see if he could squeeze himself in between the narrow bars that separated him from his love, but he wasn't a shape changer and he could not get in. He felt his grip on the metal slip and he looked down. Judging from its dark color and sticky, warm texture, he knew it was more blood. Furious, he glared into the cage, reaching in and calling to Mel to get up if she could or do anything that would comfort him and tell him she was still alive.
Somewhere past her tortured senses, Mel could sense the urgency in another voice. She opened her eyes and blinked at the weak moonlight, the first light she'd seen since the blindfold had been put on her. She guessed it had finally slipped off during her struggles.
The voice called to her again, pleading her to do something. That voice brought her out of the shock. She knew that voice and knew it wasn't meant to harm her.
She turned her head and promptly screamed.
He was still registering the thunderous shot that rang slightly in the air and making sure Mel was okay before he realized that he was the one bleeding. He looked over at his arm and found a slight trickle of the warm liquid oozing out of a shallow cut from where the bullet had grazed him. "What the…" He whirled around but found no one there.
He turned back to Mel and began to plead in earnest, knowing time was running out. He urged her to come closer, coaxing her and encouraging her as she began to crawl her way painfully toward him. She inched closer and closer and soon, she reached out a hand. It faltered though, and even drew back a little while Don still reached for her. Her eyes glazed over and her jaw dropped slightly. He was still trying to understand as the rope tightened around his neck.
"No."
It came out as a whisper as she watched the shadow begin dragging Don away, toward the river.
"No."
It came out stronger, a sob against facing reality.
"No!"
The tears flowed as the two made it, splashing into the water, getting ever closer to the waterfall's dangerous drop. She stumbled across her small cage and reached out her hands in a futile attempt to stop them. "No, Richard! Stop this at once!" She fought against the rising sickness inside her, letting her anger drive her now.
Finally named, the shadow assumed his true form. He glared at Mel for changing him but shrugged. "You're too late, Mel. Knowing my identity won't stop my plan from coming true. Fate seemed to halt our future for awhile so I decided to help it along."
"What are you talking about?" She watched in horror as he violently pushed Don underneath the water's surface and then set the rope free. The two were supposed to be evenly matched. Both had trained in the martial arts. They were both the same height; Don may have even been a little taller. He was definitely more built than Richard. But unfortunately, Don had stopped training and she knew he was no match for the other who looked as if he'd continued with his training even now.
She shouldn't have asked. His eyes blazed and he began to storm back out of the water. "I'm talking about us, Mel. I've waited and waited and still you never came back."
"What would I be coming back to? A boy who didn't understand that what I needed, you couldn't give me? You were always there all right, supporting me, helping me out, making me believe I needed you. You were smothering me, Richard. I nearly lost myself when I was with you."
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Don pull himself out of the freezing water. Despite her weakening grasp on the world around her with her fight against the potion flowing in her body, she struggled to hide it. She needed to buy time.
"Those are excuses and you know it. You stayed with me because you wanted to and then you got afraid that someone might actually care for you. What's the saying, if you love someone set them free and if they come back, it was meant to be? I let you go, Mel, but it seems like you lost your way coming back."
"If I had wanted to come back, I would have, but I didn't. You hurt me-"
"That's crap, Mel. I hurt you?" A crude laugh spilled from his lips, rumbling from deep inside his cold heart. "I can't believe I allowed myself to believe that one for so long. No, Mel. It was you who hurt yourself. You always had to think too much and this time it got you into trouble."
"What are you trying to say?" The bars disappeared as he stepped forward and powerfully gripped Mel's illness weakened shoulders. She bit back a cry.
"I'm trying to say that despite all that's happened, I'd be glad to forgive you your wanderings and pitiful longings and take you back."
She rebelled, trying to pull away but the world was swimming in her eyes. "Look at what I'd be going back to. A boy who still can't see that the world doesn't revolve around him. A boy who still lies and hurts as he pleases. I don't want to go back and put myself through another loop of our painful cycle. I won't do it."
The two glared eat each other a second before Richard brought his hand forward and slapped her. "Take that back," he growled. "I can forgive your tongue."
"I take nothing back." Again, he slapped her, sending her head snapping back and throwing her so off balance that had it not been for his other hand still gripping her, she would have fallen over backwards.
"Take it back!"
"What for?" she answered through gritted teeth. "So I can be forced into being with someone I feel nothing but pity for? Someone who'd dare strike someone they supposedly care for and love?"
He glared down at her. "Of course, I love you. Don't you ever forget that."
"You sure do have a strange way of showing it."
"Will you stop that? Wipe that grin off your face," he snapped, slapping her across the face once more to emphasize his anger. "Believe me, I don't like doing this but it's for your own good."
She glowered up at him. "You had me fooled."
He smiled, transforming his face and giving him a boyish look, a look she knew to be nothing more than a mask. "What can I say? I fool a lot of people. Still, you can be sure that I won't be doing any of that with you. I hold you too close to lie to you."
"And yet you can justify feeding me that crap?"
Again, he shrugged, further infuriating her as he went on. "The drug is necessary. Until I can be sure that you're following me out of your own heart and mind, your addiction to this potion will ensure that you stay with me."
Her eyes narrowed dangerously and he had the gall to laugh at her. "You drug me so that I am forced to stay with you indefinitely and you expect me to end up loving you in the end? What kind of sick, twisted person are you?"
He drew his face close to hers, close enough so that she could feel his warm breath on her face. He kissed her softly. "You know, you're cute when you're angry like that."
Furious, she pushed him away, trying to ignore his hysteric laughing. He wouldn't be pushed aside though. Still laughing, he went after her, pushing her to the ground and tickling her.
"Laugh with me, Mel! Let me hear that wondrous voice of yours ring out happily once more."
And so, she laughed heart-wrenching tears. She remembered the last time they'd spent together in her room. A flashback of him on top of her, incessantly tickling her despite her mind begging him to stop. She didn't have the heart to tell him no then and so she had hid her screams, burying her face in pillows when she could or flashing her smiling mask when he watched.
She had no trouble saying no now. Through her painful laughter, in between gasps of air, she begged for him to stop. It was too much. The weight of him pressing down on her, the lack of air from laughing, the poison still pulsing through her veins, and the remnants of her sickness all added up against her. She grew weak quickly and she could feel him preparing himself to take her again. "Please, no," she whispered.
He stopped.
Something cracked in the air.
Richard pulled himself up off Mel's trembling body and turned around. She could see two faint lines of blood on his back.
"X number one. Never turn your back on an enemy." Don deliberately stalled, allowing Richard enough time to realize the game had come full circle.
"Well, well, well," Richard snarled in return. "If it isn't the Healer himself."
"Don, get away from here," Mel pleaded.
"Not without you, Mel, and definitely not until I finish a little business with him."
"And what business do I have with you? Do you have a proposition? Very well. I accept your offer to have you killed and have Mel for myself."
Don was still panting from their earlier struggle and soaking from head to foot. "Big words from such a pathetic creature. You couldn't even kill me the first time."
"I'll be sure to remedy that problem soon enough." He started to stalk his victim.
"Wait, stop!" Mel cried, struggling to get up from the strength she'd regained in that short break. But Richard wouldn't be stopped. He easily ripped the stolen whip from Don's hands and flung it into the river to be washed away. The two men lunged at each other and began to fight in earnest. "Oh, Tanek, no!" she whispered to herself as she watched them splash into the chilly water to continue their fight. "My friends, it looks like I need your strength after all. Please, help me."
Even as the two continued to fight, Mel felt her own Energy start to strengthen and build. Closing her eyes, she let the sound of the rushing water guide her into its wild embrace. When she was knee-deep in the river, she reached down and cupped a handful of water.
"Spirit of Casta, hear me, one of your water children. Let me cleanse this foul being from the earth you long to purify. Give me the strength to follow your ways and be ever faithful to your world."
She threw the water up into the air and the river around her split the two men away from each other. Don was sent sprawling back onto dry ground and he cried out in horror as he watched Mel approach Richard, a wild look in each of their eyes.
Richard stood in front of her, his back to the water's drop just feet away from them. Neither seemed to notice the icy chill of the spring water around them.
"If I die, you will die soon after me," he reminded her.
"Better that we both die than to have you keep up with this senseless game of yours."
"I will come after you. If not in this life, then in another."
Mel smiled. "No, Richard. Not anymore. It's high time this spiral of ours came to an end."
With that, she pushed him, knocking him off balance. She let the current carry him a couple feet further but he clung onto a rock and pulled himself back up. "Is that all you can do?" he screamed at her, laughing, already believing that triumph was his.
"Surprise," she smiled. A gleaming ice pike had found its way into her hand, a remnant of the winter before and a gift from Casta, herself. With a throw strong and true, the icy dagger found its way into Richard's frozen heart. Of course, his soul had fled that hopeless body. Before it could even find a temporary place to hide and regroup however, Mel had trapped it with a bit of her own self.
"Good-bye, Richard," she whispered.
She allowed that part of herself to die.