Disclaimer: All original characters from the House of Night books belong to P.C and Kristin Cast but the storyline and new characters belong to myself. The beginning of this chapter also belongs to P.C and Kristin Cast up until when the italics stop.
My Version of Burned
Chapter 2
Zoey's POV
I breathed a long, contented sigh. Peace...Seriously, I couldn't remember ever feeling so stress-free. Goddess, it was a gorgeous day. The sun was amazing – all golden and glowly in a sky so birthday-cake-icing blue that it should have hurt my eyes. But it didn't.
Which was kinda weird. Bright sunlight should hurt my eyes.
Huh.
Oh, well. Whatever.
The meadow was totally beautiful. It reminded me of something. I started to try to remember, but decided I didn't want to think that hard. The day was too pretty to think. I just wanted to breathe in the sweet summer air and breathe out all the stupid tension that had been coiled like a slinky inside my body.
The grass was waving around my legs softly, like delicate feathers.
Feathers.
What was it about feathers?
"Nope. No thinking." I smiled as my words became visible, creating sparkly purple patterns in the air.
In front of me was a line of trees that were filled with white flowers that reminded me of snowflakes. The wind brushed gently through their branches, making music on the air that I danced to, skipping and pirouetting through the grove, breathing deeply of the blossoms' sweet scent.
I wondered for a second where I was, but it didn't seem all that important. Or at least not as important as the peace and the music and the dancing.
Then I wondered how I'd gotten here. That stopped me. Okay, well, it didn't really stop me. It just slowed me down.
That's when I heard it. It was a zing, plop! sound. It seemed comfortingly familiar, so I followed it through the grove. More blue peeked through the trees, this time it reminded me of topaz or aquamarines. Water.
With a happy little cry I ran out of the trees to the bank of an amazingly clear lake.
Zing, plop!
The sound was coming from around a little bend in the lake's shore, so I followed it, humming my favourite song from Hairspray softly to myself.
The dock jutted out onto the lake, perfect for fishing. And, sure enough, there was a guy sitting on the end of the dock, casting out his line with a little zing and then a plop! as it hit the water.
It was strange. I didn't know who he was, but suddenly a terrible panic intruded on my wonderful, beautiful day. No! I didn't want to see him! I was shaking my head and starting to back away when I stepped on a twig and the snap had him turning around.
The big smile on this handsome face vanished when he saw me.
"Zoey!"
Heath's voice did it. My memory rushed back. The sadness knocked me to my knees. He was up and running toward me so that he caught me in his arms as I fell.
"But you don't belong here! You're dead!" I sobbed against his chest.
"Zo, babe, this is the Otherworld. It's not me who doesn't belong here – it's you."
Memory crashed over me, drowning me with despair and darkness and reality as my world shattered, and everything went black.
"Zo?" Heath's voice broke through my unshakeable barrier of darkness.
"Heath?" I mumbled groggily, reaching up for him from the floor.
"I'm here baby, it's okay, it's all okay..." He soothed me, stroking my hair as my tears splattered down onto his shirt.
"Oh, Heath!" I cried harder, completely drenching him, "This can't be happening! You can't die; I need you so badly!"
"What are you talking about babe? I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere." He reassured me, holding me to his chest as tight as humanly possible.
"But you died, Heath! I saw it..." My voice broke at the end of my sentence as I remembered the amount of pain I had felt in that very second. The pain, anger, sadness, sorrow and guilt.
"I know I died Zoey but I'm okay here. The Otherworld is great!" Heath said as happily as he could manage.
I looked up at him, spotting the worst parts of him which showed his wasn't okay. Completely messed up hair, and not in a good way, dark circles around his eyes, a small stubble around his mouth and dirty clothes. I guess my crying on them didn't really help though.
"Oh yeah, you look perfect Heath." I said as sarcastically as I could manage, looking at him in a you-can't-fool-me kind of way.
"Okay, okay," Heath confessed, smiling his oh-so-cute bad boy smile, "I feel like crap, is that what you want to hear? But I've made my peace with what's happened and I even have a plan."
"A plan?" I sniffed, confused. What kind of plan would get him, us, out of this mess? If he was that good at coming up with plans, I didn't know why he hadn't told me earlier when it actually would have been useful.
"Yeah, a plan. A plan to get us out of here and back to the normal world." He emphasized the word normal.
"What's your plan then?" I snorted unattractively even though I was hoping that this supposed plan actually would work.
"Are you sure you want to know?" He chuckled jokingly, looking at me straight in the eyes,
"No, I just asked for the sake of it." I said sarcastically, whacking him over the head with my hand.
"Ow! Somebody is feeling especially sarcastic today." He complained, rubbing at the spot where I had hit him.
"Sorry," I apologized, smiling sweetly, "Please can you tell me the plan?" I was starting to get seriously impatient.
"Erm, yeah, about that..." He started, shifting me on his lap awkwardly, "I kinda can't tell you..."
I just looked at him. Was he being serious?
"You're joking, right?" I deadpanned, crawling out of his lap and sitting cross-legged in front of him.
"Zoey," All humour left his face as he reached over and took my hand from my lap to hold it, "If this is going to work, I need you to trust me. I will get back somehow, I just need your co-operation with this."
For a few seconds, I just looked at him.
Without Heath, I was nothing, so I guessed that trusting him with this was the best thing I could do if I wanted to get him back.
In a split second decision, I jumped on top of him and started hugging him manically.
"Hey, hey, hey," Heath said curiously between hugs, "I'm not objecting from this but may I ask why you are enjoying yourself so very much?"
"I trust you, Heath. I trust you and I love you and I can't wait for you to come back so we can be together again."
Judging by the tears forming in his eyes, I knew this meant a lot to him. I knew that I had been messing him around a lot with all the other guys in my life and that it wasn't fair to him. He needed to hear that no matter what I had said before, he was mine and I would always be his.
"I'm yours." I whispered before capturing his lips with mine. As expected, he responded very eagerly.
Before we could get too carried away, I suddenly squealed loudly into his mouth. He pulled back slightly and covered his ears while giving me a questioning glance.
"You're going to be alive again!" I giggled happily into his face, feeling slightly giddy with excitement, "Hey, maybe I could throw a welcome back party! Yeah, Damien and the twins and Stark could help me, I mean, it's not like they would find it weird after all the stuff that we've been through. To be honest, it will seem fairly normal to them..."
"Zo, wait up!" Heath cut me off, "There are a few things you need to know about before you go getting ideas. Firstly, I'm not going to be exactly the same as I used to be while I was human, secondly, you won't be able to drink my blood anymore and lastly, if you tell anyone about this who you do not trust with your life, I will die for good. So if I was you, I wouldn't take any chances." His face showed dead seriousness.
"Why can't I tell anyone?" I complained conspicuously – a word I learnt from Damien – not truly upset so giving him playful evils to show it.
"Because you just can't!" Heath growled shakily like he didn't want to tell me the truth. I started to feel slightly upset until he carried on, "Please Zo? Just don't tell anyone." I frowned, annoyed.
"You're so cute when you frown babe." He murmured, smiling at me. I couldn't stay mad at someone who had that adorable grin...
"Whatever." I mumbled, standing up and taking Heath's hand before starting to walk towards a deeper part of the forest which gave me an intriguing feeling.
"No!" Heath said abruptly, standing his ground but still holding my hand so that I went bang to the floor, "You can't go out there!"
"Ow." I whined, getting back up and rubbing my butt. Heath laughed gently at me and pulled me into a hug.
"No, because I should get back to my fishing now and you have to get back to your friends..."
"Fine, but you have to take me here more often." I laughed, winking at him and knowing that he was going to smile my favourite smile of his.
He did and surprisingly, it made me cry thinking about the seriousness of the situation. Thinking about how much I would miss that smile...
A look of horror came across his face before he pulled me into a hug.
"We will see each other again." He reassured me, his voice soft and soothing.
"I know." I said, pulling him in for our last kiss. As much as I wanted to believe he was going to come back, the more I thought about it, the more unrealistic it seemed and this just made me cry harder.
I couldn't live without him. He was my Heath.
A/N: This chapter was pretty good for length in comparison to the others, almost 2,000 words. I know that the beginning bit was from the original Tempted but I had to use it so that you'd know where I was in writing. Hope you liked it!
Favourite line? /lydia xox
