Derive by Jamie Magee Read Free Book Online

a desperation in that tone that only made her words more confusing.
    “Just relax,” I whispered as my eyes slowly traveled up her body. With just a slight shift in my eyes, I could see her energy reaching for me.
    I didn’t refuse it. I wanted to see this girl. All of her.
    At first I thought the images were false, that instead I was seeing my deep desires. I was holding her flesh against my flesh, I was whispering in her ear, smiling and laughing as I stole private moments of both innocence and seduction. I felt our energy weaving together as if it were made of one.
    The atmosphere around us was eccentric, regal, dark. She was not the same in those visions, and neither was I; there were obvious years of trepidation behind our gaze that we sought to hinder or make up for with each stolen moment of passion.
    Then the images turned horrid. Her grieving over my lifeless body. Her watching over me as I slept, curling her shadowed image against me. Her standing at my side as I engaged pure evil.
    I could not comprehend this. I saw tracers backward. The end, the path, then the beginning. How could I have seen us at some end, savoring that end, only for the next scene to show my death?
    Maybe she saved me from that death. That had to be it. Had to be why we seemed so grateful for each second we had together.
    Every time I tried to focus on her, her energy pushed more images of me forward. I did see my image playing the drums. I didn’t recognize the place at all. There were instruments everywhere. A couch angled in the room. Windows that looked out onto distant treetops. And sitting behind a fierce looking drum set, I was there. I was playing. Commanding a rhythmic sound to life. She wasn’t there. I felt my heart clench.
    I could swear I could feel the vibration of the music, as if it were screaming around us now. That vision paralleled with others for a flash or two. I saw myself performing in auditoriums, outside venues, and then oddly I saw myself performing for what looked like the dead.
    I rapidly searched everywhere for her as the scenes moved closer to the beginning. I could feel her in those images. Afraid, scared, lost, hidden. Her energy was reaching for me, but I could not see her. I was blind, which made no sense. No man could ever be blind to her; it was just impossible.
    I winced every time I saw myself die, when I saw other girls in my arms.
    At that point, I overpowered her energy with a few simple words. “I see my torrid path. Show me where you are.”
    A shuddering breath left her, one that enshrined shame.
    I didn’t like anything I saw. She was fragile. She was targeted. For some reason, she seemed far more aware of me than I was of her, and she was terrified that if she took one misstep that she would not find me. That thought made her a victim. It made it easy for others to take advantage of her, and most of all it made her lonely.
    What was mystifying was that I only saw one death of hers, and it didn ’t even seem to be a death. It’s hard to explain, but it was as if her soul became shadowed, masked, and that mask hid her even more. That mask put her in grave danger, next to souls that were far more selfish than giving.
    The notion that she had created a porthole to reach me this very day was no longer a mystery. Her heritage, the one life she was born in to was one that recognized the energy of the universe, the power of thought, spoken words, or the simplest herb. Her mother taught her quickly; it was almost like she knew her daughter would be in danger.
    Seneca only told me half her name. I heard her mother call her Skylynn. I loved that name.
    I started this process because I wanted an anchor, I wanted her to remember her past, but as this moved forward I didn ’t want her to remember any of this. I wanted her to forget it. I wanted to secure her away and ensure she never saw the other side of The Fall, not even a glimpse of it.
    I kept shifting back between the images I had seen of her and