Viator (The Viator Chronicles Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

minute and rose to his feet beside her. Erin rested her hand on his shoulder. “You’re punishing yourself. Why?”
    His face clouded and he shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”
    She gripped his shoulder and shook him. “How can you say that to me? Didn’t I just fall with you? I deserve to know why.”
    He looked up at the mountainside, then his eyes darted to Erin. “My brother fell from that bridge.”
    “And was that your fault?”
    “He died in that fall.”
    Erin heard the water bubbling in the nearby creek and the wind stirring the branches of the trees. Paul sat down on the grass again and put his head in his hands. Erin sat next to him. She knew enough about grief and guilt. Her own pain was always close to the surface, but she pushed it back down.
    Paul lifted his head and looked at Erin’s face. “Who are you?”
    “My name is Erin.”
    “Why are you here?”
    “You called for help.”
    He sighed. “Look, I asked my brother to go to the store to pick up some beer. He didn’t want to go, but I talked him into it. The bridge was icy, and his car went over the side. He died because of me.” He covered his face with his hands.
    Erin wrapped her arm around his shoulders and said, “You had no control over that event, and you couldn’t have foreseen your request would result in your brother’s death.”
    “Oh, don’t give me that bullshit! I know all that. But if I hadn’t asked him to go, he’d still be alive. I would have been the one to die. I should have died, not him.”
    Erin was silent and rested her hand on the back of Paul’s head for a few minutes.
    “We all die someday,” she said.
    He nodded.
    “And there’s no guarantee you would have died had you gone to the store that night. Your brother might have died that very night by some other means if he had not gone on that errand.”
    He frowned at her.
    “You have your life for now. Live it for your brother’s sake,” she said.
    She saw her clothes had changed to a long white dress that gleamed in the sunshine, and her feet were bare.
    She kissed his forehead. “Sleep now. When you wake, you will be refreshed. And remember, you can always float like a feather in your dreams.”
    He lay down on the grass. Erin stood and watched him, and he faded from her sight. She sighed and walked toward the creek. Her former black clothes returned, and she was dressed as before.
    She’d left her jacket where she’d been lying before Paul had called her, and she wanted to go back and get it while she was still in this place. She leapt over the creek and made her way through the forest, heading back toward the road. Sunshine glimmered through the trees, and it was easy to find her way through the scattered brush. She wondered if she would see Paul here again sometime, or if he’d be able to put his guilt behind him. Sometimes it took a dreamer many visits to move past such a traumatic event, even when no mortifers were making things worse.
    When she reached the road she turned left and followed it down the slope. A crow landed on a tree branch overhanging the road and eyed her. A short distance further, Erin heard voices arguing up ahead, and she slowed her pace. Two men were shouting in the forest. Erin paused in the shadow of the trees and listened.
    “Out of my way—you can’t stop me!”
    The second man’s voice was quieter but just as angry. “You fool. Do you know what you’re doing?”
    “Go to hell.”
    The first man crashed through the trees and sprang out onto the road right in front of Erin. He stopped when he saw her. He was blond, a very good-looking man. Was it Gary? The other man rushed out of the forest, grabbed his arm, shoved him up against a tree and held him there by the throat. He was tall with dark hair, dressed in black. Erin stepped backwards into the shadows under the trees, her hand on the knife at her waist. But the tall man let the other go and nearly threw him to the ground with a snort. “You’re right.