Destiny Fulfilled Read online

  “Mama?” Wren walked down the narrow hall of their trailer. This old home was tucked against a steep mountainside, way up an isolated holler, where her mother, her mother’s mother, and generations before them, had been born.

  It was in this holler that, as a child, her mother had captured and kept dozens of wrens, the bird she’d been named after. Now, though, the little brown birds and their melodious songs were gone.

  But there were pictures of these birds all over the house, along with shiny ceramic or wooden figurines, especially in the kitchen, where Wren stood now. The world lay gray and somber outside the windows, indicating another cloudy autumn day in October.

  Wren turned on the dim light over the stove. There were no dishes in the sink or food on the counter.

  “Mama?”

  Outside the window, the trees were bare, the ground covered in decaying brown leaves that smelled of mold and earth, even inside the house. Walking out the creaky front door, Wren was hit with a blast of cold and her breath escaped in white wisps. Duke, her beloved bloodhound, followed her out.

  “Mama?”

  She continued into the front yard, past her old red pickup truck, and scanned the lawn. Seeing nothing, she veered around back where the mountain soared skyward like an impenetrable wall. The grass, brittle and dead, crunched under her feet.

  “Mom!”

  Sometimes caring for her mother was like caring for a child.

  “Here I am, Destiny.” Her mom only called her Destiny—Wren’s first name—when she was off her medication. It was one of the many quirks Annie possessed.

  Her mom’s voice sounded alert, but shaky, like her teeth were chattering. Pulling her own sweater tight, Wren hastened toward the edge of the forest.

  “Mom, are you in here?”

  “Yes, honey. I’m right here.”

  Wren found her mother several yards in with nothing on but an opened robe. Pieces of dried brown leaves and purple berries peppered her graying red hair, and dirt was smudged on her cheek. She was dancing to a rhythm only she could hear, right in the middle of a perfect circle of gray stones.

  Duke sniffed, then peed on a nearby tree, grunting in satisfaction. Wren cracked a smile. She loved that dog and his simple manly delights.

  “Destiny.” Annie’s graceful hands were floating, waving, and twisting through the air like a ballerina’s, her hips swaying side to side. “Did you know that it’s almost the autumn equinox?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Oh, but dear.” A serene smile pulled Annie’s lips upward. “It is. Such a beautiful time of year.” She grabbed handfuls of leaves and threw them in the air, then twirled beneath them as they cascaded around her.

  “Mama, I have to get to work.” Wren motioned for Annie to leave the circle of stones.

  Relenting, Annie tiptoed out of the forest as if something would bite her heels should she flatten her feet.

  “They said they were going to visit today. Or did they say at the equinox?” Annie stopped at the bottom porch step and turned to Wren, their noses inches apart. “You know, Destiny, that’s only a few days away.”

  “Wren, Mom. Call me Wren.”

  “But Destiny is your name.”

  “Yes, but I go by my middle name, Wren. I always have.”

  Annie pivoted back toward the house and scrambled up the stairs unassisted, passing through the weathered door without another word.

  “Mama, who was going to visit?” She hoped her mom meant the nurse.

  “The little people.”

  Nope. That wouldn’t be Kelly who was nearly six feet tall. “Oh, okay. Well, maybe they were busy. Did you take your medicine before you went outside?”

  When her mother didn’t respond, Wren led her to the recliner and wrapped an old quilt around her that Annie’s great-grandmother had woven. The colors were faded, the thread unraveling, but it was soft and always brought solace to her mother, like a child with a blankie.

  Wren searched for the pillbox that Annie had moved from its resting place by the kitchen sink, and found it in the breadbox. A quick rattle of the plastic confirmed she hadn’t taken her meds today. In fact, it was likely she’d been spitting out the pills for the past several days. Sometimes when Wren dropped her guard, this kind of thing happened.

  “Mama, I know it’s early, but I have to leave for work. I’ll call a little bit later so make sure you answer the phone.”

  Annie stared at the muted television and said nothing.

  “Answer the phone when it rings, okay?” She handed her a glass of water and the medicine.

  “Okay.”

  “Kelly will be here later. Okay?”

  “Kelly who?”

  “Kelly is your nurse. You know, she visits you every week? Twice a week?”

  “Okay. Destiny?”

  “Yes?” Wren swallowed a sigh the size of a walnut.

  “Is Kelly a real nurse?”

  Wren bit back a surge of anger. She knew these were Erika’s spiteful words.

  “Yes, and take your medicine before I go.”

  Annie popped the pills into her mouth.

  “Show me.”

  Annie opened her mouth and moved her tongue around to prove she’d swallowed the pills.

  Wren kissed her cheek and stroked Duke’s big head. “Watch over her, boy.” She locked the door behind her.

  Her mother’s behavior had become such the norm that she rarely noticed it anymore. What she was beginning to notice, though, was her own mental health. Now that was becoming a cause for concern. Annie had been twenty-two when she’d had the first breakdown that landed her in the psychiatric ward for a week and led her to being branded with a diagnosis she would never recover from.

  Wren was twenty-one and just starting to hear strange sounds, like little voices chattering over her shoulder. She’d whip around to find who was talking, but no one was ever there. Ever.

  She’d mentioned it to her therapist but didn’t want to divulge too much information lest she be forced into a hospital and unable to take care of her mom. There couldn’t be two crazy women in one household, could there?

  Thankfully, the chatter was subdued today. At least for now.

  She suppressed the weighted sigh hovering in the back of her throat and slid into her old truck. To say she had a busy morning was an understatement, with finding Jerry shelter at the top of her list. He was going to hurt someone if he had to keep sleeping under the bridge, or he would die from the bitter cold like he almost had last winter.

  She maneuvered the one-lane road as it twisted around a mountain that soared to the side. On the other side was a plummeting drop into a dark ravine. The only protection from falling over the edge was her focus on the road, and a metal guardrail that didn’t elicit the confidence it was meant to instill.

  The foggy morning hid the distant peaks behind a white, hazy blanket, and Wren drove with both hands clutching the wheel. Her office was ten miles away, nestled in a row of abandoned buildings that represented the sparsely populated area perfectly. Twenty minutes later, she turned into the empty parking lot, slid out of the truck, and started toward the office.

  She inhaled, letting the air, fresh and crisp, cleanse her lungs. The moistness of the fog filled her nostrils like cool steam.

  “Miss O’Hara?” The question was simple. The sharp burst of syllables behind it was not. She whipped around as Jerry stumbled out from behind the corner of the building.

  He moved forward, his gait heavy and unsteady and jerky like he’d spent the night sitting on a metal chair. His slurred speech suggested he’d been on the bottle last night, or this morning, or just a minute ago. He looked impatient, angry, psychotic.

  “Jerry.” A gentle voice usually placated him.

  “You no-good bitch. You ain’t done shit for me.”

  Maybe that tone wouldn’t work today.

  The hair on her neck bristled and rose to salute. A quick look around the lot told her not another soul was around.r />
  “Jerry, look at me.”

  His eyes were darting yet unfocused. He stood several feet from her, his tall frame skeletal in the layers of ill-fitting clothes. With hands outstretched, she backed toward the office.

  His brown eyes followed her, but he didn’t seem to register her words. Did he even see her? And if he didn’t, what was he seeing?

  She took another step back. Though the mountain air was cool, perspiration peppered her hairline, and a bead of sweat traveled down her spine. The sound of the silence surrounding them was deafening, stifling. Terrifying.

  He tilted his head and stared out of the corner of his eye, listening to voices she could not hear.

  She stole a glance at the door to the agency, confirming Tiffany wasn’t at her desk on the other side of the glass doors. Confirming there was no one to call 911.

  It was so quiet she could hear Jerry’s labored breathing.

  “Look at me.” Jerry bared his teeth like a feral animal.

  “Jerry.”

  “What?”

  The stench of his unwashed body made her eyes water.

  “Have you taken your meds today?”

  “No, I ain’t taken my medicine. Did you forget that asshole stole my bag?” With each word, he bobbed his head closer and closer to hers. “I told you that yesterday.”

  Right. “I thought you were given new meds from Dr. Martin.”

  “That asshole stole ’em.”

  “The new meds?”

  Jerry mumbled a clipped string of words she didn’t understand.

  “Dr. Martin will be in again today and we can get you more meds.” She fought to keep her voice calm, but the thunderous pounding of her heart—ba bomp, ba bomp, ba bomp—told her she was on the verge of panic.

  She was just a case manager, for goodness’ sake. Not a therapist or psychiatrist. Or a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

  “Do you want to go to the hospital? Remember how much that helped last time?”

  His shoulders, thin as reeds, tightened.

  He glanced toward the office door.

  She took another step back. Even if she got to the office door, her keys were in the bottom of her large bag. If he didn’t calm down, there was little she could do.

  But he would calm down. He always did. Though, if she was honest, he’d never been this agitated.

  “Do you remember the last time you were in the hospital? How well you ate? And didn’t you stay up all night watching television?” Her lips shook against her teeth as she forced a smile.

  He’ll calm down. He has to.

  She watched his lips move, speaking words she could not hear, like a television on mute.

  Then a shot of laughter burst out of his mouth, loud like a foghorn, quick like a bullet. Just as suddenly, his face fell to stone, and his gaze landed on her once again.

  “I ain’t goin’ to no hospital. You just wanna send me back there so you don’t have to help.”

  “We’ve worked hard to get you off the streets. As you know, there’s not that much housing.” What she wanted to say was, It is so hard for an alcoholic, schizophrenic veteran to find a job that will pay for an apartment, but she decided now was not the time.

  “You’re worthless.”

  “Please don’t say that.” Her voice cracked with the plea, like a walnut shell at the wrong end of a hammer.

  He laughed again, the sound hysterical and unhinged. “I’m gonna kill you.”

  Someone help, her mind screamed as every cell in her body coiled with blood-red terror.

  “Look.” He pirouetted, slowly, slowly, in a circle. “You’re all alone.”

  “Help me.” Her voice was nothing but a whisper—swallowed as soon as it was released. Her knees knocked together, and she tried to force them to statues of marble.

  A Mustang’s tires squealed down Main Street but the driver did not pull in. Likely didn’t even look over.

  “Jerry, I’m sorry you’re angry with me. Let’s try to work this out.”

  He lunged for her.

  She cried out as he shoved her to the ground. She slammed into the concrete, her head cracking into the solid surface. Flashes of light burst in front of her eyes like fireworks.

  “You BITCH. You ain’t gonna help me.”

  He grabbed her arm, his fingers an unyielding clamp.

  “You ain’t done nothin’ to help me.” He jerked her to her feet like a rag doll.

  She screamed, the force of her own sound surely splitting her skull into tiny bone fragments. Her head hurt so badly; bile shot up from her stomach and pooled in the back of her throat.

  He reared back with his free hand, then smacked her across the face. The hard, angular surface of his ring, the only valuable he owned, cut across her cheekbone like a sharp knife’s slice. He dropped her to the concrete, and she hovered on the edge of a black abyss.

  She tried to sit up, but her mind and body no longer seemed connected. Her head. Her head hurt so badly she couldn’t see. She couldn’t think. Vomit threatened but remained settled—for the moment.

  She tried to roll over, but her body wouldn’t respond to her wishes. It felt broken. Disconnected.

  Blinking, she tried to force her eyes to focus. When she did, she saw his booted foot coming straight for her head.

  She screamed.

  RIAGAN STRUGGLED TO breathe, suffocating in this new, foreign realm. Sure, he’d visited most of the varying realms, including that of man, but he’d never done so in a human body. A mortal body.

  As soon as he materialized on Earth, he found an isolated and remote forest where he could remain hidden, and he gave up. He let hopelessness and resignation settle into his soul like a fatal disease.

  It was the height of irony that to become a druid of the Brotherhood, he had to forgo any and all emotion. He was not even allowed to love his own mother, having been taken from her when he was just two, never to see her again other than during fleeting moments over her life span. And now he was supposed to find love, as if he’d recognize it, and fall into its intricate web of ways?

  Insane.

  Now, he lay on a bed of soft moss, his druid senses dull as his body settled into the mortal life. First his sight dimmed and everything turned blue, then gray, then black when he closed his lids, unable to bear the blurring of his formerly razor-sharp vision. Then his sense of smell shut off like a switch and the metallic scent of the universe was gone.

  Then feeling. The nerves in his body shut off one by one, like he was hibernating. Suddenly he couldn’t feel his toes. The tips of his fingers went numb. His mind told his hand to clench, but there was no way of telling if it responded.

  He was falling into a stupor, a fog, a coma of his own making. Maybe it was a way of protecting himself against the inevitable—he wouldn’t know he was dying a mortal death if he was already unconscious. Brilliant logic, he decided and allowed his breath to become shallow as he slipped further into the trance-like state.

  His mind numbed, and soon he could no longer feel a heartbeat, could no longer move his muscles, could no longer form a thought.

  But then, in the farthest point of darkness, he heard a voice. He did not want to hear a voice.

  Somehow it pierced the void.

  Then the dimmest of lights appeared, bright behind his closed lids. He did not want to see a light.

  His eyes struggled to focus when they opened.

  It was a woman’s voice. He certainly did not want to come across a woman. Wasn’t a lass the root of all his ills?

  The voice grew louder. The light became brighter.

  Life began to pump back through his body, despite his desire to stay in a subconscious state.

  The voice carried across the wind.

  She was upset.

  It became louder, more frantic, more upset. The fire pumped through him now, with the regular rhythm of a human heart.

  Why?

  Because of the voice.

  He opened his eyes, and the brilliant sun n
early blinded him.

  She was screaming. Frightened, terrified.

  His body burst with a thousand beating rhythms and jerked him upright until he was standing in the middle of the forest.

  The voice was deafening. “Help me,” it cried.

  He took off in a sprint, toward where instinct told him the voice would be. He did not question how his mortal hearing picked up the distressed call from seemingly so far away.

  Thrashing through trees, bolting down roads, flying past abandoned buildings, he chased that voice until he found from whom it sprang.

  Lass, are you ok?”

  The question came through a tunnel, a long, narrow tunnel—somewhere to the right or the left, or to the top or the bottom. It was a man’s voice, only Wren didn’t know whose. She knew she should open her eyes but couldn’t remember how to work the muscles.

  Did he ask if I’m okay? No, I’m not okay. I have a headache. That’s why I can’t open my eyes. My head, it hurts.

  A cool hand, so large her entire face fit in it, cupped her cheek. She felt its warmth and struggled to blink. When she managed to focus, she saw an angel kneeling before her, a heavenly man with a halo of straight blond hair so fair it was white. The sunlight glistened through the long strands that fell well over his shoulders. His eyes, glassy as marbles, were vibrantly green against his pale, translucent skin. His lips were dusty pink and full.

  If I’m dreaming, do not wake me up.

  “Lass?”

  “Quit calling me that.” The angel should not talk like a Scotsman.

  His hand moved from her face to her arm, and he helped her sit up. The light, though dim, hurt her eyes, and she squinted as she tried to focus on his beauty. Yes, beauty. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

  Was this the angel of death? If so, where were his clothes? She kept her eyes glued to his face, not his unexpectedly nude body, though somehow she’d managed to notice a torso so toned, she could count the muscles.

  “Be careful, la—I mean, miss.” The deep baritone caressed her eardrums.