Destiny Gift (The Everlast Trilogy) - By Juliana Haygert Page 0,48
my body, the tingles crawling over my skin. The room revolved into darkness.
A vision.
A younger Micah wandered with an older couple in what looked like a marketplace. The air was cool but humid, almost stifling. Improvised stands stretched through the crowded streets, with vendors selling fruits, grains, fabrics, shoes, jewelry, and anything and everything else. Nobody seemed to care about the dark sky and the dangers that came with it.
Like the older Micah, this younger version was dressed in black, but without the leather jacket. His hair was cut shorter, the same style as the tall man beside him. They had the same pose, the same wide set of shoulders. The man was, without a doubt, Micah’s father. Beside them, with long brown curls and the same deep black eyes, a woman observed and touched colorful veils hanging from one of the stands, then she stepped closer, linked arms with his father, and smiled up at him. Micah’s mother.
His parents seemed content with each other as they sauntered around and looked at the things that interested them.
I accompanied them, trying to understand their foreign words, or at least interpret their body language.
Suddenly, people around them started shouting words that sounded like curses. Micah looked around. He was taller than most, so he gazed over the heads of others, probably seeking the source of the commotion. He stiffened, and I was curious about what he saw.
Without wasting a second, he grabbed his parents’ arms and pulled them toward a stand to hide, as many others were doing.
But, out from the path they had chosen, emerged a man wearing a brown robe and a white turban and holding an automatic rifle. The man shouted something. Micah pulled his mother behind him and retreated, hands in the air. His family moved back until they were in the middle of the street, together with other scared people who also held hands up. Six men in robes and turbans surrounded them, pointing their rifles at their heads.
One of the armed men shouted hurried words. I guessed orders or instructions. Shuddering, the trapped ones—there were at least twenty—took off jewelry and expensive pieces of clothing, then handed them over, along with wallets and money, to the men with the guns.
Micah’s mother held on to her necklace, trying to hide it, but the man closest to her saw it and advanced toward her, brandishing his gun in her face. I gasped, wishing I could pull her out of there. Micah and his father reacted and tried to reason with the man who shouted at her.
Chaos erupted. More people saw that as a distraction. With the probable intention of stopping the attackers, men and a few women lunged at the armed males, who started firing random shots. Micah ducked, pulling his mother with him, but she flopped like jelly in his arms, blood spilling from her mouth. With tears brimming in his eyes, he searched for her wound and found not one, but four. He choked out a sob as his father dropped beside him, a bullet in his forehead.
The color drained from his skin, and Micah stared at his parents, frozen, until one of the armed men pointed his weapon at his head.
Yelling like a dying animal, he lunged at the man who, unprepared, tumbled back, cracking his head on the stone floor. He stilled. Micah took the rifle and stood, the evil shine in his eyes startling me. He turned to the other men and started shooting. He immediately took three out with shots. The other two charged him, causing him to lose the rifle and fight hand-to-hand.
But there was something going on with Micah. His eyes shone, the rage spread through his features, and he didn’t seem in control of himself.
He punched and kicked the men until they lay on the ground with the others, bleeding and motionless.
The people watching drew back, now scared of him, but he didn’t notice. He knelt beside his parents’ bodies and, with tenderness, reached under the neckline of his mother’s dress, taking the delicate golden necklace she had been trying to hide. With a sob, he fastened the jewelry around his neck, then the mask of emotion that had covered his face fell and he began to cry.
“Nadine!”
I could hear Micah calling my name. I blinked several times, then my gaze focused. We were back in my living room, and he held my arm with too much force, his eyes wary and too close to mine. “What was that?”