In the Arms of Stone Angels - By Jordan Dane Page 0,17
Why had I skulked out of town with my tail between my legs like a damned coward? He was my friend and I abandoned him to a town full of strangers. He had no parents or anyone who believed in him. Not even the tribe he loved had lifted a finger. All anyone saw was a cold-blooded killer, a half-breed Native boy who was different.
I choked on my sobs and wiped away tears, but when I looked at him again, White Bird had lifted his head and stared straight into my eyes.
“White Bird? Can you see me?”
I touched his hand to make a connection after the years we’d been apart. But when I did, something strange happened.
In the blink of an eye, everything turned black and I lost sight of him. I couldn’t feel his hand in mine. Hell, I couldn’t feel anything. Even the ground under me had dropped away and left me floating weightless in a murky void as if I had spiraled into a dark bottomless pit.
My stomach pitched and rolled. And with a haunting thunder rumbling in the distance, streaks of lightning flashed in violent fury, casting images in a glimmer of bright light. A large bear erupted out of the darkness and gnashed its teeth at me, barely missing my arm. I screamed and the fierce animal roared so loud that the sound blocked out the thunder. When I tried to run from it, I only grasped at air, unable to move in the thick, inky black.
Between the bolts of lightning, I couldn’t see at all. And I had no way to stop it.
“Oh, my God. What is this?” I choked.
That’s when a strange memory rushed into my mind. The wounded bird that White Bird had healed when we first met flew into my line of sight. It came at me fast and scared me when its wings hit my face. I gasped as the tiny bird thrashed through the void in sheer panic with its beak gaping open.
“White Bird? Where are you?” I called out to him, but he didn’t answer.
At first, the memory of the wounded bird had been a comfort. It reminded me of White Bird, as if he’d sent a messenger to me so I wouldn’t be afraid. But when I reached for the little thing, to clutch it to my chest, I tumbled forward and the terrified bird got swallowed in the darkness. And a sound from my imagination that I couldn’t shake—from countless nightmares—smothered its frantic chirping.
A girl’s screams gripped my heart.
I couldn’t see her as I spun out of control, but I heard a torturous thud as she cried out in pain—the meaty sound of a knife striking her body. Warm blood splattered my face and I flinched. I could smell it. Taste it. And all I wanted to do was run. I careened through the blackness and toppled end over end, flailing my arms. Everything jumbled together—the bear, the knife, the blood and the gut-wrenching screams that usually invaded my own nightmares. Images and sounds pummeled me from every direction.
“Heather?” I called to her. I knew she was there. I felt her.
But when I yelled, White Bird finally cried out from far away. I heard him. I recognized his voice, but I didn’t understand what he said. I only knew—with dead certainty—that he was afraid. Did he know I was with him? Did he care?
His cry was the last thing I heard.
I was sucked out of the waking nightmare and thrust into the bright sunlight. Still gripping White Bird’s hand, I came to with a gasp. I shielded my eyes from the glare and squinted around me until I remembered where I was—the damned mental hospital.
“Shit! What the hell—” I muttered, panting out of control. “What’s happening to me?”
My heart was like a battering ram slamming against my ribs. And I was shaking all over. When I looked at White Bird again, he was slumped back into his wheelchair the way I had found him. It was as if I had never come. Seeing him like that made me deathly afraid that I had imagined the whole thing. Touching him had triggered everything, but maybe that dark nightmarish world had been inside of me. Me!
Maybe I was the one who deserved to be locked away in a straitjacket.
“I’m sorry. I gotta…get out of here.”
Like the coward that I was, I ran and didn’t look back. If I had, I never would have left him alone.