Free A Shift in the Air by Patricia D. Eddy Page B

pack, and don’t contact me
again.”
    She didn’t watch him go, couldn’t
stand to see the pain in his eyes, or risk him turning one last
time to plead with her. When the door slammed, shaking the
apartment’s thin walls, she sank down to the floor, broken and
alone.
    ***
    Bits and pieces of her memories fell
into place slowly at first; then a fire hose opened, and she spent
hours huddled in her bed, praying for the agony to end. Whatever
Katerina had done to her, the effects faded to leave her a
terrified, shaking mess. The true reason for the charmed crystal
threatened to drown her, and the feel of Fergus’s fists, the
rasping threats, the sweetly crooned apologies drove her to silence
her thoughts with alcohol, which then made everything worse. The
whiskey lowered her ability to focus on the good memories: her
childhood with her mum, college, discovering a passion for
calligraphy and letterpress, and Liam.
    She couldn’t bring herself
to leave town, though her mostly packed suitcase lay open on the
floor, ready to go at a moment’s notice. Liam texted a handful of
times, but she ignored him—or tried to. She read each message,
usually with tears in her eyes, but stopped short of deleting them.
One message contained a faded photo—the two of them at a rugby
match, bundled up against the cold, smiling and snuggling close.
She typed out a reply: Please stop, but couldn’t hit send.
    Her life—however long she
had left, for she still expected Bowman to show up and tear her
apart—resumed. Days at her job, nights spent alone, researching
Fergus Tharp, trying to discover the one piece of her memory she
hadn’t been able to access. He’d taken something from her—a part of
her she ached to recover but didn’t know how. When she’d wake,
screaming or gasping for air, the memory of Fergus’s fists or his
words paralyzing her with terror, she’d focus on Liam. His hands,
his voice, his lips. Their last day, their first kiss, laughing,
shopping on Grafton Street, and the crowded pub where they’d met
for the first time. “I won’t forget…any of
this…you…never,” she’d said with his hand
in hers, sitting in a coffee shop as she’d prepared to run. And
yet, weeks later, she’d allowed Katerina to take her past and lock
it away. The guilt chewed at her insides, widening the rift she’d
created between her and Liam.
    Her nights stretched endlessly before
her; every time she closed her eyes, Fergus came for her. She ached
to be Bella again, unaware of the horrors of her past, but even if
she could, the few hours spent with Liam tempted her with an
impossible future: one in which they loved each other. With a
muffled groan, she turned her face into her pillow—the one that
still smelled vaguely of him—and let her mind wander towards
sleep.
    “ Give me yer hands, Catie.
When we’re done, we’ll be closer than any two people have ever
been. Are ya ready?”
    Breathless, excited,
Caitlin held on tight. She wanted this, wanted him. “You won’t
leave me?”
    “ Never, lass. Ye’ll be my
first.” His dark gaze searched hers.
    First what? she wondered. He started to chant and nodded
towards the paper he’d set in her lap. She brushed her worry aside.
Fergus loved her, and she loved him. They’d be together
forever.
    Fergus smiled at her. A
lock of black hair fell over his forehead. “ Air to Earth, Fire to Water. Four become one. Do ya give me
this gift freely?”
    “ I do.” She read aloud from
the words he’d written for her. “My heart to your heart. My air to
your earth. My strength to your strength. What was two will be
one.”
    The quartz clasped between
their joined palms warmed, and Fergus threw his head back. “Yes!
More!”
    White hot pain sliced
through her. A vise tightened around her lungs, and she pulled her
hands away, the stone tumbling to the floor. She clutched her
throat, desperate. Fergus’s face shimmered over her, so handsome
she wanted to kiss those firm lips, the