Chapter 28

Christian watched her read his book from a distance, watching her glasses sliding down her long nose. She only wore them when she was all alone and he was glad to see that. Because she looked impossibly more sexy when she wore her specs. The fact that he thought so made him smile when all of a sudden he heard a voice. 

Her voice.

He hadn't heard that voice in a such a long time that it took a minute to recognize it. 

"Amira." He muttered before he lunged forward.

Feeling the eminent danger she was in, his fingers reached out to her grab her waist. Feeling the naked flesh of her waist. He felt it in that single moment as he went into a sort of trance. Hearing the memory with her as they connected.

It was their memory. A memory from his childhood. 

She was Hope. The specter he saw every day in his life. The only reason he survived. He had been in love with the ghost of the woman he met all those years ago. She was gentle, she was kind but most of all she was sad. She sounded older than Athena did right now, Christian did not know how he had not recognized Athena right away. He had loved long before he laid eyes on her. 

He remembered the first time she had appeared. It was the day he first saw her just as clearly as he remembered the first memory he had of Summer. It was years after, by then Summer and her had grown distant and his mother had gotten worse. The physicians said that she would not survive anymore. His father had long ago died in a drunken haze by then and Christian was growing weary of life himself. If not for the specter, he would have wasted his life and never gone to Tyrinia. He always loved and resented the specter for that very reason. She in that moment saved him, but at what cost?

The specter which he now knew was Athena, initially appeared as a dream. Not properly a dream but late at night through the sleepy haze of one. Christian had just come back from tending to his mother the entire night, sitting beside her bed, trying whatever he could do to help her. He knew he had to wake up in a few hours to tend to the business his father had left behind for him. His uncle would soon come back and insisted on managing the estate for him so he could finish his studies in Tyrinia. 

And there lay in his bed, that sad specter in glowing dimly. Almost like the specter was nothing more than a reflection of the moon. Dull. 

He recognized it as a woman from the shape and yet the specter lacked face. He knew that logically he should have been scared but he was not. He walked closer to her as he heard her sob. 

She did not know he could see her.

He watched the wet tears spatter against the floor like she really was here. 

"Excuse me miss?"

She jerked in surprise as he turned to face him. He could not see her eyes but knew he had surprised, he felt her aura brighten again.

"You …Christian… you're … here?"

"Sorry?"

"You're … here … how? You look different. So, much younger … how?"

"I am sorry miss but how do I?"

"You're not really here are you? This is an unraveled thread in time isn't it? Tell me Christian … how old are you?"

"Twenty …"

"I knew it."

She reached out, her fingers close to his face and yet she never touched him. Almost as if she was reveling in the heat of his skin. Like she was scared if she touched him he would disappear. 

"You look sad …" She had said.

"As do you … Why are you sad?"

"I lost someone … I hate to see you sad … it's about her?"

"Who did you lose?"

"You."

Christian had found that quite odd in that moment. But, now he knew … he knew he would leave her. He would someday force her to go through the misery of loosing him. But, it also meant she would love him someday. 

He found himself thinking of this as he stood motionlessly staring at Athena pound against the wall as she drew blood. It was odd that despite seeing it he could not register it and by the time he did he found himself back on the tree watching her come out of her trance and a single word painted in blood.

"COME"