Miss Jack: I'll keep it short this go around. If there is anyone willing to vote for my story for the La Campenalla Awards, I would greatly appreciate it:

http : / / www . campanella-awards . webs . com / vote . html (or go to my profile page for an easy-access link)

Thanks for the reviews. And to a certain Mafis, Alexander has asked me to tell you that he'll be taking you up on your offer should things not work out.

Chapter Thirteen

We All Fall Down

Don't go please stay
I'll beg for one last day
There's so much more I have to learn from you
I swear I'll miss you when you're gone

We all fall down
But you refuse to get back on your feet again
You closed your eyes
And said goodbye to all of those who loved you

I froze.

He froze.

It was the last thing I expected to hear, and by the look on his face, he was more surprised by his admission than I was.

“Alexander…”

“Don’t,” he said in a strangled voice. He stepped back. I reached out a hand and he withdrew further, panic etched into his face.

He turned on his heel and strode away from me. I didn’t know if it was him or me, but it was warm in the enclosed rock. “Don’t say anything,” he said; quiet, dangerous.

I bit my lip against the, Did you mean it? I had planned. If I wasn’t allowed to speak, he was probably serious. If it had been a slip of tongue, if he hadn’t meant it, he could have said so, and I would have accepted it without question.

Alexander looked ready to blow at any moment. He hadn’t yet, but his fuse was ticking at a frenzied pace.

Slowly, creeping in beneath the shock, was a strange sense of… joy. Even if I hadn’t known it, I’d wanted him to say what he had.

I needed to sit. I needed to sit and think and not be in a confined space with him. Due to the fact we were now half-sprinting to get out of the cave, I figured Alexander’s feelings to be somewhat similar.

“We should talk about this,” I said.

“There’s nothing to say,” he replied evenly. “And I told you not to talk.”

“I don’t care what you told me to do.”

“Don’t push me.”

And I really didn’t want to push him. We were dancing a very delicate dance, but as much as I didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire, I was afraid he would get swallowed up in his own explosion if left alone, that the shrapnel would tear him apart and leave nothing behind.

Light washed into the cave as we rounded a corner and found the exit. We dropped our flames at the same time and wind whipped around us. My once warm body dropped several degrees in temperature. I stoked my inner furnace and wrapped my arms around my middle.

Outside the cave, the terrain sloped down and opened into a trail bordered by pointy hills and large, craggy boulders. Black mountains peaked in the background.

“Should we wait for the others?” I asked.

Alexander’s hair blew in front of his eyes, hiding them from view. “There’s only one way to go,” he replied tonelessly. “It won’t be hard to find.”

We started down the slope, but had only gone a few steps before Alexander’s arm came out, pressing against my collar bone. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

I shook my head, puzzled, straining my ears against the wind. And then a formless sound brushed over the outside of my ear. It vanished and came back again, playing on the wind; only audible when it blew a certain way.

“I hear it,” I said.

Alexander nodded once, shooting me a glance from the corner of his eye as if to say: Great, now shut up.

We continued down, and now I heard the sound clearly for what it was. Voices. More than one, probably male. It was impossible for Armand, Genn and Gloom to have arrived before us. Never rule out the impossible, I reminded myself, especially in the Isle of Morpheus. Even so, it seemed highly unlikely. But if not them, who would actually be in this desolate place?

Alexander ducked under the jutting edge of a boulder and disappeared from sight. I followed him, but before I could straighten, his hand came over my shoulder and shoved me back. I fell back onto the rock, catching myself with my left elbow, my wounded thigh flaring up.

My inner flame ignited full force —I choked in surprise— and Alexander’s husky voice reverberated through my chest.

“Who are you?”

Three Nightmares (or Dreams, I couldn’t tell) swam into my vision; dirty, big, covered in head wraps and brown cloaks. I saw them not just from Alexander’s eyes, but from his perspective. His personality and thoughts shaped the discernment of the scene like a tinted lens. “We might ask the same,” one commented.

“I’m trying to find the Well of Disillusion,” Alexander replied. He knew from experience telling the shortened version of the truth was the best way to lie.

“By yourself?” the third one asked in doubt.

He shrugged.

“You came awfully close,” the one closest to him said, all faux charm and apology. “Unfortunately, you’ve stumbled on another secret, one we can’t risk you blabbing to anybody else.”

Dreams. Renegades, probably— that was the secret they were sniggering about. Didn’t they recognize him? Apparently not. The one in the back. He was the real leader. He kept quiet, letting his guard dogs take care of the problem for him.

“Hey,” Alexander said, feigning fluster and sudden worry. “I don’t want any trouble. I won’t say anything, whatever it is. I don’t even know who you are.”

“See, that might be true. And you might be a spy. You working for good ol’ King Jack Ass?” The first snickered at his own cleverness.

Moron.

“No!” Alexander’s eyes widened. “I swear.” What he really wanted to do was melt the blood in their veins until they self-combusted, but whether or not they knew his face, they knew who he was, and conjuring flames from the pits of hell would definitely tag him as the infamous Prince of Nightmares.

“I don’t believe anyone would come to the Eye of the World mountains by themselves. Who’s with you?”

“Nobody.” He unconsciously shifted, blocking the path that would lead them to me.

—Violet! What are you doing? Get out of here already!

Alexander’s warning shouted through my head. I clamped a hand over my mouth to smother my gasp as I returned to myself. Still trying to shake the sensation of occupying Alexander’s body, I stumbled up the slope and hid back in the cave.

My inner flame flickered nervously, and I nudged it into expansion. It swelled beneath my rib cage and pushed into my limbs. A breathy sigh passed through my lips and Alexander and I were connected again.

“It’s been real, it’s been fun, but it hasn’t been real fun,” the third (and most obnoxious) Dream said. Alexander was glad for the opportunity to tune him out.

—Are you safe?

—Yes. I’m in the cave.

And he severed the connection. Perplexed, I tried to call it back, but I’d never tried to call our link intentionally before, and I felt him block my attempts with little effort.

I sat in the quiet of the cave, listening to the wind with my knees hugged to my chest. How long should I wait to go after him? Alexander would kill me if I showed up when they were still there; if, of course, the renegades didn’t beat him to it.

But what if he needed help? Would he fight them? What if they discovered who he was? He might get taken prisoner, or—I put a clamp on my imagination. Not the time.

After fifteen minutes, give or take a century, I crawled to the mouth of the cave, looking out. I didn’t see him. I pursed my lips and tried to summon our link. It was easier the second time, and I felt our souls intertwine. An abrupt scorching pain slammed into me. I reeled, clutching at my chest, using every ounce of strength I possessed to control my abruptly wild breathing. What’s happening to me?

It was too much. Something in me knew the source of the pain and cut off the connection, leaving me face-down, panting on the ground.

“Alexander…”

I scrambled to my feet and bolted from the cave, thundering down the slope like an out of control train. Alexander leaned against a boulder, his arm trembling with the effort of holding himself up. His other hand clutched his upper waist.

“Alexander!”

He moaned in pain as red blood leaked from the wound in his side. His face twisted in agony. “Don’t,” he whispered, and tipped forward. I caught his chest and struggled to keep him upright.

“Lean on me—” I didn’t know who was talking, because Violet Darcey was having an unintelligible freak out session in her head, “We can make it to the cave, come on.”

We shouldn’t have made it. He was too heavy for me and slipping farther and farther from consciousness with each step, but I was driven by things outside of common logic, and we did make it, collapsing the moment we breached the cave entrance.

Alexander rolled onto his back; face white, breathing raspy. His wound smoked with his inner heat.

“What happened?” I asked, panicked.

“The third… he was fast, too fast…. I killed… other two…”

He killed two? “Alright, shut up, don’t talk.”

I tore off one of his sleeves and lifted the sticky fabric of his shirt from his side, prying his hand loose. It dropped palm up at his side, blood stains on his fingers like spills of paint. At the sight of his wound, I dry heaved and had to count to three with my eyes closed to recover my equilibrium. Bandaging the wound was the only thing I could think of to do. I applied pressure and blood soaked the sleeve within seconds.

A sob racked through me and I pressed a fist to my mouth. “Don’t die, please don’t die,” I whispered, brushing soaked strands of hair off his forehead. The pasty pallor of his face and neck glistened with sweat, and his breathing sounded like his lungs were sucking air in through a coffee straw. His eyes were closed. He couldn’t hear me.

I touched my shivering lips to his temple. “I think,” I whispered, jaw clenching with the ironic hurt, “that I love you.” I loved him. When I’d seen the red of his blood and thought one of the Dream renegades had taken his life, I’d known —with a sudden, perfect, horrible clarity— that I loved him.

I slept on and off. I was awake more than I wasn’t, and when I did sleep, it was restless and plagued with nausea. I measured time by the shallow rate of his breath; it worsened by the hour.

It was darker in the cave when his eyes cracked barely open; trembling wildly beneath heavy lids.

“Alexander?” I asked, barely able to get his name out through my relief.

“I’m not… I thought I was going to…” He broke off and squeezed his eyes shut. I placed my hand over his forehead and immediately withdrew my singed fingers. He was too hot to even touch.

“Enna,” he murmured, his voice pained. “Enna…” Tears streamed out of the corners of his eyes.

I brushed the tears off his burning skin. “You’re not alone. It’ll be over soon.” I repeated the words near his ear until his tensed frame relaxed, and he fell back into uneasy slumber.

This time I did sleep, and it was the stone-dead recuperation of the emotionally exhausted. I awoke to fingers running through my hair above my ear. My brow furrowed and I squinted, pushing myself upright.

My eyes widened. “Alexander?”

He was upright, leaning on the wall of the cave. Half of his mouth hitched up in a tired smile, and I leapt up, kissing his face. “You’re alive—I can’t believe it—!”

“Barely. Ow.”

“Sorry.”

I touched his side and gingerly removed the blood-encrusted bandage, holding my breath. A crimson gash serrated his side, but it was smaller than I remembered, and beginning to scab over.

“Well… it’s healing, um, pretty good I’d say.”

He laughed softly, and the laugh turned into a wracking cough. My hand flew worriedly to his chest. He exhaled a shuddery breath. “More than pretty good,” he said quietly. “Don’t tell anyone how powerful you are.”

“Maybe it was you,” I said. “I did command you to live. You were powerless to obey.”

“That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.” He still looked weak; pale, a shadow of his usual self. He leaned his head back, his eyes clouding. “I thought I was going to die. I told myself I was ready, ready to see her…”

His voice cracked and I slipped my hand into his.

“I lied, before, when I said I didn’t care anymore.”

“I know you did,” I said.

His eyes met mine. “I know.”

I didn’t reply, and after a minute, he sighed. “We met in Dreamland, she was selling caramel apples, and I was just passing through. I didn’t like to spend a lot of time there, but she had this theory that if Nightmares would just try their candy, we’d all get along better. She made me try one. I spit it out, but she knew I liked it.”

And just like that, he told me about Enna. He told me some of the things they did, the things he liked most about her, and the things that drove him crazy. He told me how she called him Sandy, because Alexander was a mouthful, and Alex was too typical. Sandman, on special days. He told me about her freckles and the gap in her teeth she could whistle through.

“She loved Andrew Jackson,” he said.

“The American president?”

“Yes.” He laughed, though it came out more as a choked sob. He dropped his head and drew his legs up, draping his forearms over his knees. He sort of hung there, lifeless, for a moment, before raising his eyes. With almost cautious fingers, he touched the bracelet on his wrist, twisting it around so the engraving was visible. Best. Somewhere, Enna had the Friends counterpart. “I loved her.”

Something frightened and vulnerable passed through his eyes. A strangled noise slipped between clenched teeth, then he bent his head and wept.

The bomb had diffused rather than exploding.

No loud sobs or tortured groans, but his shoulders trembled, and years of pent up pain flowed out into his lap. Seeing such a human reaction from him was strangely consoling to me. I rested my fingertips on his shoulder. I had no experience in comfort, but I kept my hand on him.

He leaned into me, curling his face against my lap like a lost child, and I clutched onto him. “You’re not alone,” I whispered. “It’ll be over soon.” My own cheeks were wet watching him writhe under his demons. After awhile, his tears subsided and he fell asleep, exhausted. Gently, I shifted his head out from under me and snuggled in next to him.

When I opened my eyes from a restful, dreamless sleep, our noses were almost brushing. Color had seeped back into his face. His eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, we stared at each other, silent.

“Your eyes… are the color of the sky just before night,” he said, with a hint of astonishment.

“Mmm.”

He frowned. “I feel funny.”

“You look funny too. But you had that problem before. How‘s your side?”

“I can’t feel it.”

“That could be good or bad.”

“It’s dark outside,” he said, though his gaze had yet to leave mine.

I broke the contact and twisted to look over my shoulder at the dark sky outside the cave, particularly deep and oppressive in the Eye of the World atmosphere. I shivered.

“Cold?”

“Not too bad.” And I wasn’t, intertwined with Alexander as I was.

“Let’s warm you up,” he murmured and leaned forward to press his lips over mine. My toes curled all the way into my stomach and my heart flat-lined for two beats before picking up its race. Unhurried and sweet, the kiss seemed to go on forever. This time, the fire inside me had time to wrap around Alexander, bring him back and fuse us together in a slow, scorching welding pot.

Want of oxygen at last required me to pull away, my hands in his hair and on his neck, my breathing a little ragged. He smirked at my dumbfounded expression. “Not bad, huh?” he asked, kissing the corner of my mouth.

Not bad at all.

My brain chose that time to figure out something important. “Armand!” I gasped.

Alexander gave me a new Look, still disapproving, yet lacking the harsh sarcasm of his usual arsenal. One I would later learn meant: Sometimes I wonder why I like you so much.

“No,” I said hastily. “I mean, where is Armand— and Genn and Gloom? Didn’t he say it would only take half a day to get here going around? We’ve been here longer than that.” My stomach growled as if to prove my point.

Alexander’s brows knit together, and I knew what he was thinking.

“The rebels…” he murmured, face darkening. He stood to his feet and walked the short distance to the mouth of the cave, looking out into the night.

He didn’t move or say anything, his face and body perfect caricatures of calm, but I knew from experience this absolute stillness meant he was at his most frustrated. The energy inside him had no outlet and had shut down to churn in his center until it could be released.

He sighed heavily and I thought perhaps the energy had an outlet after all; keeping him upright.

“They’ll have moved on from the Well by now, if there are, as I suspect, more of them.” He glanced at me. “In the morning—”

“We have to look for the others.”

“We can’t keep tempting time, Violet. We don’t know how long your body can survive without you.”

I moved beside him, touching his arm. My inner flame instantly hummed when our bodies connected. “You need me,” I said.

He turned his head to look at me, saying nothing for a long time. “Yeah,” he agreed finally, and I warmed at the new transformation in him. “That’s why I can’t risk you dying.”

“We can find them together, and then we can get me home.” My lips twitched as I tried to fight a sudden grin, and I ducked my head when it slipped out anyway.

He raised an eyebrow. “What’s so funny?”

“Us. We’re cheesier than a Nicholas Sparks novel.” I clutched my shirt dramatically and gave him my most imploring Scarlett O’Hara face. “Together, we can do anything.” Cue eyelash flutter.

“Actually, I thought it was kind of touching, but not now, since you ruined it.”

I pulled a face, but he ignored me, glancing down at my leg. “Is your leg still hurt?” he asked.

I examined the tear in my pants, and the blood stains, but my skin was smooth. “Guess not.”

“Look. Look at this.” He hiked up his shirt. It was too dark to see clearly, but with his fingertip illuminated, he pointed to the jagged red line that would have ran the length of his ribs, if his ribs were visible. Alexander was built solid, not that I was looking.

“You are a freak of nature,” he concluded.

“At least I’m real,” I countered, miffed.

“Oh, I’m real, honey.” He stepped right against me and the breath left my body in a whoosh. Fingering my jaw line, he guided my chin to a better angle and then sighed abruptly, pulling away. “You’re really distracting.”

I didn’t realize I was pouting until he pushed my lower lip back in with his finger. “We should go now if we’re going to find them.”

“In the dark?”

“We’re only a few hours away from morning, and there’s no better coverage than darkness.”

“How will we find them?”

“It’s cold. I imagine they’ll have some sort of fire going, and the Eye of the World Mountains are so devoid of warmth and life… I’ll be able to sense it easily.”

“Ah.”

I felt particularly useless. Alexander was the brains and the brawn. I would have to settle for the role of moral support.

“Are you still….warm?” he asked.

“What? Oh.” I flexed a few inner muscles and the fire Alexander’s lips planted in me roared full force. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, and for a moment, I honestly believed the concern in his expression.

Oh. “Actually, now that you mention it, I think it’s weakened in the past fifteen minutes.” The reality was if he kissed me again, he would take his powers back.

“Maybe I should refuel you. Just in case.”

“Good idea. Better safe than sorry.”

And he kissed me.

“Wait a minute,” he declared, “Now you’re cold again.”

“So I am. Sorry, I should have thought about that. Better kiss me again.”

“I’d better.”

After the second kiss, a warmth that was becoming familiar filled my chest, and for the first time ever, Alexander slipped his hand into mine instead of grabbing my wrist as he led me into the night. Operation Rescue: commence.