The Glassheart Chronicles Read online

  I answered by grabbing both her hands in mine once more. Baptism by fire. The immediate warmth soothed the edges of my heart, preparing me to give her answer. It was different but it was unquestionably our gift, perfect in all its simplicity. There's more, I intuitively thought, unsure why I knew this.

  "That, Madeleine Gray, is our gift," I whispered, in awe of our sinuous light.

  "Our gift?" She whispered back, in disbelief.

  I slid my hands up her arms as she whimpered in satisfaction, drawing her body into mine the way I wanted to the night before. Pressing her front to my chest, I buried my face in her neck and a low hum buzzed through my shivering blood, blood that raced through my veins at an absurd rate. Her pulse quickened and I could feel the throb of her vein against my lips. My tongue darted at the pulse and I couldn't stop myself from tasting her skin. Her hands were wrapped around my shoulders but the heat of my tongue made them drop limply at her sides as I groaned from her heavenly flavor, pressing my face deeper into her neck, inhaling her intoxicating fragrance deeply, nearly falling to my knees in acquiescence.

  The winding, soft illumination brightened with each accelerated heartbeat. I entangled my fingers in her silk-like hair, dragging them through until the tips escaped my fingers but the lights never faulted as my face was still buried in her remarkable neck. I slid my fingers through her hair once more, from the sides of her face to the base of her neck and gripped there, pulling her head back to meet my gaze.

  I married my lips with hers, the taste of her mouth too saccharine to be real, too hard to believe, too delicious to be true and then my tongue met hers, sending quivers throughout my entire body. She moaned into my lips, throwing the kiss into deeper frenzy. Our minds melded as one, reading every thought, every feeling and I felt her within my own thoughts, experiencing what I felt for her and it was overpowering.

  I want you so, she thought. I think...I think I'm losing control.

  You have me, I told her, and I won't let you lose control. You mean too much to me.

  But then, our considerable gift was beyond a doubt revealed as a cloud of energy burst between us sending our clothing and hair to whip in its wake. A loud, low boom sounded, drowning out all other sound. When the translucent ring pushed from us like a ripple in water the buzzing pitch only seemed to grow higher in tone as the ring grew larger, dissipating from us, but it wasn't over. The ring lashed back at an exponential rate, covering us completely and igniting upward in a large mushroom of white energy, ending in an even louder boom. We tried to pull away but the kiss couldn't be broken.

  Hundreds of images ran through our shared, undeniably connected minds. My parents at someone's wedding, beautiful children running through a backyard sprinkler, my much older mother crying at my father's funeral, Maddy's brother Elliott middle-aged and walking through the door of my home for a very familiar visit, Maddy, yet not Maddy, as a child, crying over a skinned knee, Jesse Thomas covered in blood and laughing, Old man Thatcher serving Maddy and I food, Maddy's mother and father, Shelby and Mark, dancing in front of a Christmas tree, and finally me, yelling Madeleine's name into a fire just as a flash of something flew past me into the house ablaze before me, an image so disturbing I wanted nothing to do with it.

  The magnet driving us together broke abruptly, jolting us apart and we both skidded to the floor beneath us, the tunneled sounds of our visions fading into nothing. Darkness surrounded us once more and the stillness after such an implausible act was eerie. I lay on the marble lobby floor of The Ridglea breathing deeply, trying to piece together the assault but my thoughts were interrupted by faint crying. I bolted upright.

  "Maddy?" I whispered, afraid to startle her.

  "Here," she wept.

  I crawled her direction but withheld my touch, not wanting to alarm her.

  "Things seem strange to you, I know," I said, a pathetic attempt to appease her.

  She sat upright, "But...but not to you?" She asked.

  "No, not to me," I said, shaking my head in the pitch blackness surrounding us, as if she could see me.

  I heard her swallow. "Why Sawyer?"

  I sighed. "I'm not sure you'll believe me."

  "I was just flooded with alarming images that looked a lot like they could be our future, Sawyer Tuttle, and an image so disturbing I want nothing to do with it," she shuddered, repeating my very own thoughts.

  I slid my hand across the dusty marble floor until it met Maddy's but she didn't pull away as I feared she would. Our faces became illuminated by our dancing globes, like giant bobbing fireflies. We scanned our surroundings, terrified at the damage our blast should have caused, but as our eyes searched, we found nothing. The lobby was perfectly undisturbed, as if nothing had ever happened. We brought our disbelieving eyes back to each other.

  "You and I share a supernatural gift," I whispered.

  Maddy searched my face.

  "Sawyer, you're..you're scaring me. You speak with such confidence, it's unsettling. You act like this was expected! And why is the lobby in such perfect condition? Nothing should have survived that blast," she said, glancing around her, still so very unsure.

  "I did expect it and I don't know."

  "How could you have possibly known that this was going to happen?" she asked, her hands beginning to tremble.

  "I...I didn't know exactly what would happen but, I admit, I wasn't surprised either.

  "I recognized something in you yesterday and because of that called someone I know who shares a gift, similar to ours, with another person and his advice for me was to touch you. That, in order to be sure we shared this something, I needed to touch you.

  "I had planned on explaining everything to you before but lost myself and accidentally grabbed your hand without thinking. I'm exceedingly sorry. I never meant for you to find out this way. I meant to prepare you."

  I wanted so badly to reveal names but I didn't have the right to. I knew it would be up to Elliott to explain it to Madeleine. Plus, I considered what happened in that lobby shocking enough for one afternoon.

  "That's too cryptic, Sawyer." She thought carefully, "You said 'his'. Who is it? Do I know him?"

  Do you know him? "I'm sorry. I can't tell you."

  "Then I think it best you let go of my hand," she said, her eyes turning unexpectedly cold. I gripped harder, ignoring her plea. "You have information, Sawyer, and you won't give it to me? After what we just shared?" she asked, betrayal painting every line of her face.

  She jumped to her feet, ready to sprint but I met her before she could escape, wrapping my arms tightly around her body, her back pressed closely to my chest.

  "Please don't go," I whispered in her ear, her hair wisping out as my breaths blew across the strands. "Just hear me out."

  Her breathing became strenuous and a warm tear splashed onto my forearm. I whipped her around to face me, holding her face in my hands. I wished so badly to kiss her cheek, her forehead, chin, and lips but I refrained, afraid of what more could be revealed with the tie, settling to run my hands across her face instead, staring at her pleadingly.

  "Very well," she scarcely agreed.

  She freely laid her head across my chest and I covered her head with my hand, stroking her hair until our shared warmth calmed us both down. The light was all consuming yet peaceful, soothing.

  "This is incredible," she said quietly.

  The words filled me with such exhilaration, I panicked at giving myself false hope.

  "Look at me," I said. "Please, Madeleine."

  She did just that and I realized I would never call her Maddy again because Maddy was reserved for the ten year old I used to tease incessantly, the one who always fought back, for the sixteen year old I used to shake my head at, for the eighteen year old I pretended not to notice but could never quite pull off. This woman was not Maddy. This woman was Madeleine. My Madeleine.

  I opened my mouth to speak but my cell phone interrupted me. I grabbed my phone to smash it into the nearest wall but I rememb
ered myself, knowing it could be my mom needing help with my dad. I hit the 'Accept' button, not familiar with the number.

  "Hello?" I asked, wrapping my arm tighter around Madeleine's shoulders. She sighed.

  "Sawyer, it's Danny."

  "Hey, Danny," I said, wondering how he got my number. Madeleine looked at me curiously.

  "Hey, your mom gave me your cell number. I hope that's okay."

  "Of course."

  "I need you to meet me at the station, if you can. The sooner the better, I have to have you sign an affidavit. You know the drill."

  I did. I put many people in jail using those sworn statements.

  "We'll be there in ten," I said and hung up the phone.

  "Feel like visiting your uncle?" I asked her.

  "Sure, why not."

  The two of us had to kick the crap out of Annie, but she eventually started and Madeleine kissed the dash in apology. For the briefest moment, I wished I still had my Land Rover but quickly recanted that wish. It was hot outside, so she rolled down her window, sweat trickling down her throat. She twisted her hair, toppling it on top of her head, fanning herself with her free hand. She searched the seat and found an old t-shirt of mine underneath an older law book. She used it to wipe the sweat dribbling down her neck and I found myself wishing I could be that t-shirt.

  Danny was outside pacing on the creaky wood porch of the ancient station when we arrived, his arms folded across his chest. When he saw us approaching, he stopped, shaded his eyes from the sunlight to get a better view of my cab and I almost laughed out loud when I saw his hands go to his hips and he shook his head back and forth. Rattling the Bramwell bear cage. I stepped from the cab and rounded the front, nodding my hello to Danny. I reached Madeleine's door and helped her from the car. I wasn't prepared to see our light but our brief contact made us both remember that we'd almost forgotten.

  "Hey, Uncle Danny," she said.

  "Don't 'hey Uncle Danny' me, Madeleine Gray! What do you two think you're doing?" He asked us both before turning his heated gaze onto me and I stepped back slightly, "She's too young for you Tuttle," he pointed in my face.

  I tried to defend myself but Madeleine's fire, my old familiar friend, came out with a vengeance.

  "Uncle Danny! Not that it's any of your business, Sawyer's only six years older than me."

  "Six years is a good amount of time, young lady! You weren't even in high school yet when he was a sophomore at Yale! This is just too weird. Your dad is going to flip!"

  Madeleine calmed at his words as if something had dawned on her.

  "If I'm not mistaken," she said, "it's one year less than the age difference between you and Aunt Becky."

  His mouth gaped open. "Uh, yeah, but, well," he stammered before collecting himself. "Young lady! Your Aunt Becky was a mature woman when we met! You're just a girl."

  "I'm twenty-two. You and Aunt Becky were already married a year when she was my age!"

  His mouth fastened tightly, his eyes narrowed and he could only gesture to both of us to get inside the station.

  "Come on, you two."

  I winked at her when Danny turned to walk through the door, trying very hard to hold back the laughter bubbling in my throat. Fiery Madeleine Gray, the purest definition of gumption.

  Inside, as I signed my sworn statement and answered a few more questions from a cranky Danny, Madeleine wandered around the station for awhile. I hadn't realized it yet but I'd brought reporter Gray with me that afternoon.

  "And what's this, Sheriff Danny?"

  "What, Maddy?" Danny asked an invisible Madeleine as he rumbled through a few pieces of paper on his desk.

  He looked up. She was in the evidence room.

  "Dang it, girl. I think you're going to be the death of me. That room's supposed to be locked! Carson!" He yelled, getting up and heading Madeleine's direction.

  He emerged with a guilty looking Madeleine by her upper arm, leading her out the door. She started to walk away. "Wait a minute!" he said. "Give me your phone."

  She handed it over. Danny started flipping through her phone pictures.

  "Aha!" He said, deleting the obvious photos she had taken. "Listen to me Maddy girl, if you sent any of these pics already to that damned paper you work for and they print them? I'm going to have to charge you with tampering with evidence and impeding an investigation. You understand me, young lady? Those are serious charges." He turned over and caught my stare in the doorway. "Both of you," he continued. "Get out of here before I invent something to ticket you for."

  "Yes, sir," Madeleine said, throwing him an exaggerated salute. I wanted to laugh but all I could think of was how Julia that was of her and became slightly uncomfortable.

  "Maddy, you're pressing your luck."

  We hopped into Annie and both breathed a sigh of relief when she started at the second turn of my key and before we knew it, we were traipsing toward my house so I could help my mom with my dad's lunch.

  "What'd you find?" I asked, barely able to contain my curiosity.

  "Oh boy, wouldn't you like to know," she teased, wagging her eyebrows.

  "Come on," I urged, pulling into my parent's driveway.

  We started for my front porch when she pulled me short by my sleeve.

  "I saw the weapon," she said.

  All the color drained from my face. "Madeleine, you didn't pick it up, did you?"

  "Of course I did!" She scoffed but at the look on my face she said, "But it was sealed in a clear plastic evidence bag, hadn't even been processed yet. It's alright. I just wanted to see what kind of weapon could remove a man's head." I cringed. "It'll give me an edge in my article to know what type of knife was used."

  "You'll implicate yourself if you mention that knife, Madeleine Gray. You can't do that, not until the investigation's over and they've apprehended their suspect. You hear me?"

  She smiled flirtatiously at me.

  "Protecting me are you, Mister Tuttle? Mister district attorney?" She teased, sidling closely to me.

  "Without a doubt."

  She brought her face to mine and I slid my hands to her neck. We leaned into one another.

  "Are you sure?" I asked quietly.

  "Let's just try it." She said. "What's the worst that could happen?"

  That was all the encouragement I needed. I greedily pressed my mouth to hers, a crazed heat engulfed my stomach, working its lovely magic up into my heart and into the fingertips holding so strongly to her face.

  A single image came flooding to our minds.

  A man, murdering a young woman outside an abandoned barn late at night, a weighty full moon highlighting the blood splattered across her lifeless face. The murderer's meaty fingers gripped tightly onto a wood handled butcher knife as he tossed it into the field near the barn, the knife landing with a dull thud in the grass. Not recognizing the haunting dead woman, there was only one reason I could think Madeleine and I shared this image and I wanted far away from it and the weapon Madeleine had held in her hands not half an hour before.

  The mushroom cloud hadn't yet dissipated before we forced ourselves apart with every ounce of energy we had in us, the image too disturbing to endure any more of its message. The energy cloud may not have knocked us off our feet but it might as well have because panic flooded both our veins.

  Madeleine's face was drenched with tears as I read the message in her eyes. Flee.