The Forsaken (The Chosen Series Book 2), Patricia Bell [e textbook reader .txt] 📗

“Would any of it have to do with that boy at your mom’s house?”

If nothing else, he was perceptive. “Yeah, well that’s part of it. A big part.” She took a bite of her loaded bagel and then wiped at the cream cheese that mustached her face.

“Do you love him?” he asked.

Strangely enough, Luna didn’t feel uncomfortable talking to him about relational things. “I think I do. But...” How could she know for sure?

“I loved your mom at that age,” he confided. “People said we were too young to know what real love was, but I never got over your mother. It was real.”

“Then why aren’t the two of you together?”

“Maybe someday,” he answered. “But we're talking about you, not your mother and I.”

Luna took another bite of her bagel and chewed slowly. “It’s not just that. It’s a lot of things. After being locked up in that ... that ... crazy camp, I had lots of time to think about life. To grow up, I guess. But I missed out on my last semester of high school. I was supposed to graduate.”

“That’s no biggie. You can get your GED.”

She’d thought of that. In fact, she and Jonathan had agreed to study together when she got back from her visit with her father. At present, he was living at her house, sleeping on her mother’s couch. Her mother agreed to it since Jonathan had nowhere else to go, and they had promised to abstain from any type of intimate relationship. That hadn’t been hard. After seeing what Rachel had gone through, being an unwed pregnant teenager, Luna was certain she wasn’t ready for any such life.

“What else?” he asked as if he knew there was more.

There was.

He took a bite of his own cream cheese bagel and watched her as she decided just how much she wanted to tell him.

“Abigail.”

As the wheels spun in her father’s head, he stared at her for a moment, before it came to him. “The girl who was left behind?”

“Yes. Jacob promised her he would come back for her. And now Jacob is gone. She’s Rachel’s sister and, well, I keep having these creepy dreams where she is ... never mind ... it’s stupid.”

“If it’s important to you, it’s certainly not stupid, but if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”

She did want to talk about it. She wanted someone to tell her she was not going insane. That her dreams were only ... dreams and they had no greater meaning.

“Well,” she spoke slowly. “Abigail was the girl who started the fire in the old barn as a distraction so we could get out.”

Her father nodded patiently for her to go on.

“So, every night, I have this same creepy dream. It’s Abigail, and she’s standing in the middle of her living room. Before her stands her father and three of the elders. They stare down at her in anger, and she bows her head in shame. Then, Elder Aaron, he’s the meanest guy I’ve ever met, he says ‘Abigail Pence. You are being charged with the crime of Arson. How do you plead?’ And then it all goes kinda crazy. They grab her up and drag her to this door. I don’t know where the door is. In my dream, it’s like it’s right there, but it can’t be.” Luna realized she was rambling and stopped.

“So, what happens when they bring her to the door?”

That was the worst part. Each time Luna had the dream, they would throw Abigail in the door and then ― “It disappears.”

“You don’t see what’s inside?”

“No, well, not exactly. There’s this little window that appears where the door disappears. Only it’s not a window.” Luna was frustrated. She didn’t know what it was herself. How could she explain it to him? “It’s a small square opening. Barely big enough to put a hand through. Only you can’t pass anything through it because metal pieces are going across it like shutters.” She didn’t expect him to understand. She didn’t understand it herself.

“Like an air vent?”

“Yeah, maybe.” It was quite possible that was what she’d seen.

“Do you look through it?”

“Yes. It’s a dark room. In the middle there’s a pole and Abigail is attached to it by a thick chain locked onto her ankle.”

“Why do you think you are having this dream?”

That’s the thing. At first, the dream was fleeting. By the time she woke up from it, she would forget most of it. Only bits and pieces would stick in her head. And none of it made sense. But as time went on, the dream was more regular. And it was precisely the same each time. She’d memorized it from start to finish and tried to wake herself up before she got to the part where Abigail cried out to her, begging Luna to save her life. The guilt overwhelmed her.

“It’s my fault if something happened to Abigail. If she is really in danger, then it’s my fault. I was the one who thought of the idea of her starting the fire as a distraction ... and ... now she cries out to me in my dreams ... begs me to come back for her.” A picture of Abigail entered Luna’s mind. Her dress, torn and dirty. Her face swollen and bruised. Her hair a tangled mess. “She’s hungry and dying.”

“You know.” He took a sip of coffee. “Dreams can seem incredibly real. And they’re fueled by our imagination. After you were born, I had nightmares about you chasing after me like a Chucky doll. Bloody knife and all.” He put his hands in the air zombie-like. “Blake, how could you leave me? I’m gonna kill you,” he said spookily.

“That wasn’t a dream. That was for real.” Luna laughed. “Only not until I was a teenager. I didn’t know you, but you weren’t exactly my favorite person.”

“You hated me, didn’t you?” He shifted in his wheelchair. “It’s okay. You can say it. I deserve it.”

“Yeah, I guess I