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“I was terrified when I heard your scream,” he goes on. “Finding you on the floor, unresponsive like that. If my heart actually beat, it would’ve stopped in that moment. All I could think to do was rip that necklace off you.”
“I had another vision,” I say, and he nods as if he suspected as much.
“What did you see?”
I shake my head. “Another woman in labor, but this one was more recent than the first one. A modern-looking bedroom with tile floors. Two women assisting the birth and a man…he might’ve been the baby’s father. He seemed terrified and wanted to take her to the hospital. But someone said it was too dangerous. He called the pregnant woman––”
My words cut off, and Jesse brushes my hair back from my face. “What?”
“He called her Evie.”
Jesse goes still, studying me. “As in Eve?”
I feel my brow furrow as I frown. “It couldn’t be the same Eve I saw being born in the first vision. The bedroom had modern electricity. I saw a television across the room and a digital clock on the nightstand. The time frame is all wrong.”
“Didn’t Bernadette say the women in your family alternate names? Perhaps this Evie is the great-granddaughter of the baby you saw in your first vision.”
“That actually makes sense,” I murmur.
The vision plays through my mind again as I try to recall more specifics. The woman giving birth was blonde, but I can’t really remember any other details about her physical appearance. The man had dark hair and a scruffy beard. And––
I grip Jesse’s hand squeezing it tightly. “The man was wearing a band t-shirt. Like something you’d buy at a concert.”
“Okay,” he says, his voice filled with expectancy.
“Jesse, it said Green Day.”
“Solid band,” he says, obviously trying to ease some of my tension, but I shake my head.
“Don’t you understand? That band is from the late eighties, which means…”
Jesse’s eyes widen, and I can practically see him doing the math. I hold my breath to see if he’ll come to the same conclusion I have. A look of wonder fills his expression, and he slides his hand into my hair, gripping it lightly.
“Which means the baby being born was you.”
14
PROMISES KEPT
As the light outside the window dims, filling the sky with a riot of colors, I’m still trying to process the vision I had and what it might mean. Why does the necklace call to me, and why does it keep showing me birthing scenes?
And what would’ve happened next in my latest vision if Jesse hadn’t pulled the necklace off me and snapped me out of it?
“I need to go back in,” I murmur. “I need to see why they decided to give me up.”
“You don’t know what you’ll see, Eden, and we have no idea what being sucked into these visions is doing to you. Hearing you cry out in pain, finding you unconscious, and not knowing if you’ll ever wake up…” Jesse’s words trail off as he holds my stare. “I can’t bear it.”
I dip my chin and look up at him through my lashes. “Jesse––”
“I know,” he snaps, cutting me off. “I know I’m making it about me, and I’m sorry. But what if something goes wrong? What if that damn necklace and those visions pull you in and never let you go? You’d be lost to me, forever, and I couldn’t even die to escape the pain because your body would continue to exist. I’d have to suffer through the loss of you forever.”
I give him a sad smile, and he sighs. Stepping forward, he pulls me into his arms, holding me tightly as he nuzzles my neck.
“And I’m still making it all about me, aren’t I?”
Gripping his hair, I pull his face up so I can meet his dark eyes again. “I’m not going anywhere. I love you too much to risk losing you or risk you losing me. We’ll figure this out safely. Okay?”
“Thank you,” he breathes, pressing his lips to mine lightly before repeating, “Thank you.”
