Covenant Read Online Free Page A

consequence. The only important thing is seeing her coughing
up water and breathing on her own. As I thought, she has taken in
much water, and I’m afraid if I leave her on her own, she’ll choke,
so I gently turn her onto her side and lightly pat her back between
her shoulder blades. Both hands instinctively grip my forearm, and
she shivers, suddenly cold in the middle of a very warm summer. Her
teeth chatter noisily, and I close my eyes, shielding her with a
bit of warmth. Once, I wouldn’t have let a human get so close, but
this time, I manage not to react.
    “ Lev,” she says, and Celia
looks up at me worriedly as I hear the first strains of sirens cut
through the silent world.
    We must
go , Celia says in my mind. These two will be well looked after.
    All right, I think . Let me detangle
myself.
    “ You’re going to be fine,”
I whisper and lean forward. Before I know what I am doing, I kiss
her forehead. “Now sleep.”
    As she senses me pulling
away, she tries to fight, but she is weak and tired. “No,” she
says, her fingers trying to hold on even tighter, but her grip is
no match for mine. “Please don’t leave.” Tears pool in her eyes.
“Please!”
    I tug harder at her fatigue,
unable to leave her struggling as she is. Her eyes grow heavier
until, at last, they close. Two EMTs head this way, and I look at
Celia and nod toward the sky. Seconds later, we both head back from
the Lower Realm, but I feel so much heavier, more encumbered.
Whatever connection I have with Elizabeth, it troubles me. I sense
the fine tuning of her balance is off, and I don’t know why or even
how to fix it for her. Or why I should. Still, I sense somehow that
failure in precision has something to do with me.
    Yet another
mystery.
    I keep finding myself
thinking about Elizabeth lying on that ground, waiting for the EMTs
to take her away. I still see her face, her long eyelashes touching
her cheeks just below the eyes; she doesn’t look healthy. Closing
my eyes, I remember my name tangled in her voice, and I can’t deny
the brokenness of the sound. It seems like I have done her some
kind of irreversible damage. And yet I remember nothing at
all.
    How can that be? How could
Evan have wiped everything away so completely? That question makes
me burn with fury; I have no possessions, nothing to lose except my
memory, which has now been stolen. I can feel Celia watching me,
and I wish I knew what she was watching for and why. But then Evan
has told her to keep quiet. Dutiful, dutiful Celia.
    It’s then the pain seizes my
chest and stills my flight. I dip momentarily, but she is there,
her hands ready to catch me.
    “ Lev, are you all
right?”
    Why should she care? Is
this my torment—torment for a mistake I can’t remember? Perhaps she
should let me fall.
    I nod slowly, wishing I
could hold onto this fury. It’s easier than feeling the mysterious
ache and all these feelings I don’t understand which should have no
place in my existence. Yet for the moment, I am grateful to Celia
for her help, and by the time we have made it back, I am sweating
profusely. My shirt clings to my body, and I stagger to the ground,
grateful to lie there and wait for the blackness. The darkness.
Perhaps that, too, has already come.
Of course, Celia must believe that I sleep, because when Evan joins
her, I hear them converse in low tones again. This time, I am not
so near the edge of sleep.
    “ It was a disaster,” she
says. “I thought we would be safe in a different state, but of all
the people who had to be involved in that wreck, he found
Elizabeth.” Her tone is worried.
    “ Their spirits are bound by
a covenant, Celia. No matter how much we fight to keep them apart,
even for the greater good, we are fighting a battle that we may not
be able to win.”
    I open my eyes slightly and
watch as they stand together. Celia chews her bottom lip. It would
appear she does not know what to do. “It wasn’t just that. It was
the callous demeanor he