Page 5 of Forever Frenzy
“How is it up to me?” she asked.
“He said that I’m strong enough to bring him back, but if you don’t want that, he’ll cross into the Underworld. It’s all up to you.” Her mouth gaped open. “And before you say anything, I want you to know I’ll support your decision no matter what.”
“This is too much,” she said, shaking her head. “I need time to think.”
She stripped the apron from her waist and grabbed her coat, wrapping a red scarf around her neck and grabbing her crossbow. “Go to work, Seth.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I was over the ridge of the hill before Seth shut the door behind him. Angrily stomping through the worn paths, I made quick time to the clearing.
“Tage?” I yelled.
Only birds fluttered their wings in response, tucked into nests in the bare tree above me. Most flew south for the winter, but these were determined to survive it.
“TAGE!I know you can hear me.” At least, I thought he could.
I was proven right when the world in front of me shimmered and tore apart, revealing a dark night sky beyond the daylight of my own. My breath caught in my chest. Tage, looking exactly as he did when he saved me and forfeited his own life, smirked at me from within The Sand. My heart thundered. In all these years, I never expected to actually see him, and then to have him so close to home? It was unfathomable.
“Can you come out here?”
He shook his head. “I can’t, but you can enter,” he replied. I wasn’t sure about trusting him. “I’ll make sure you make it safely back,” he answered, seemingly aware of my inner monologue.
“I’m trusting you... for now. But don’t hurt me or Seth.”
“I would never do that.” His brows pulled together and his golden eyes flashed in anger.
I stepped from my world into his, my crossbow dropping to the snow with a soft thud. In The Sand, the dunes glistened in the moon’s light; a thousand tiny diamonds glittering in the pale light.
“You’ve spoken with Seth?” Tage was suddenly all business. No,How are you?Nothing.
“I have.”
“What are your concerns?”
“What choice do I really have, Tage? To let my son bring you back from the dead so that my dying husband can live here? Is it really possible? What will happen to Saul if he comes to The Sand?”
I looked around at the palm trees beyond the dunes. Flashes of memory from the night I spent with Tage flitted through my mind; the night Seth was created. I had never regretted our stolen moments, but I felt bad for thinking about it at a time like this.
“It’s not a decision to make lightly, and I think you need to talk to Saul about it. Have Seth bring him here if he wants to speak to me.”
He stood in front of me, his chest bare and only a small dark skirt covering him.
“Why is this happening?” I asked myself more than him.
“The Infection.”
I knew he was right. Almost everyone who’d been Infected was now sick with something. Mercedes had female trouble. Somehad problems with their major organs. Others, like Saul, had cancer. The defects that lingered had already cut far too many lives short, and now it was going to take Saul from us.
“If Saul chooses to come here,” my voice broke, “and you leave this place for the Underworld, what happens to Seth? Will he still be able to speak with you?”
He shook his head. “No, I won’t be able to see or talk with him again.”
“Not even in dreams?”
He shook his head sadly. “No.”
“And if you leave this place and come back to life, what will happen then? What are your expectations?”
