Scars and Songs (Mad World)

  Scars and Songs

  Mad World Book 3

  Shane’s Point of View

  A novel by

  Christine Zolendz

  Scars and Songs

  Copyright Christine Zolendz © 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by okaycreations.net

  Editor extraordinaire: Frankie Sutton http://frankiesfreelanceediting.blogspot.com/

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to all of you that asked to hear Shane’s side of the story.

  To my lovely Porn Fairy Crystal Faulkner

  To the BEST BOOK CLUB EVER…The Triple M Bookclub - for all your support and just for being as obsessed with reading as I am.

  To Tracy Thurlow Lebo for the title – it was all her idea!

  To my mom – I could not have done this without you.

  And to Dan (my rock star) and my little monsters – Hailey and Emmy.

  And to Hurricane Sandy who destroyed Shane on October 29, 2012 – Eff you!

  To all the effing amazing readers and authors that came out and helped me raise money to rebuild especially Rebekah Gardiner Covay – I seriously love you.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  A warm breeze fell on my skin and I could smell the lush fragrance of the wildflowers that she always twisted into her dark midnight hair. Anticipation of seeing her for the very last time pulled and gnarled at my insides. Gabriel and I would walk the pathway to the human’s home every evening. I could not help myself; her soul intoxicated and called out to me in low whispers. As we arrived, a low roll of deep thunder resonated through the thick glades and lush forests that surrounded us. Was that my only ominous symbol of what was to come?

  In a time when we didn't yet know what love truly meant, a day when her fingers traced my lips…how had she captured my immortal heart so completely?

  The truth was that I had not been touched by the gentleness of human hands and my heart ached at the thought of my loneliness and want for it; for her. Only her. My thoughts were consumed by only her.

  I knew what my brothers and I, the Grigori, the Angelic Watchers were brought into this world for; to guard over the humans. Simple. Yet, I could not stop myself from thinking of the utter pain of not knowing her. I could not just watch over and protect her without loving her. I needed to know her, to be near her…And I was. For years, she and I had a special friendship, a tight bond that coiled deep around my heart. The archangels said this would be the last day we were on Earth, the last that I would ever see of her because of what the others had done. The other Grigori, in all their lust and glory, took the human women for themselves and created chaos. Now the world needed to be purged and cleansed of their crimes. The floods were coming.

  For so long, Selah and I sought out each other’s companionship, each other’s innocence, while the world churned in its maelstrom of evil. Sitting with our toes dipping into the river…composing music together…my heart was captured one piece at a time with each day she let me hold her hand…until that last night when her beauty in the moonlight overwhelmed me. She was the only good and pure thing left in the world. Untouched.

  How do you say goodbye to your heart? Your soul? The one thing that you loved more than yourself. I could still feel her arms slide around me as we gathered each other closely, her face nestling into the crook of my neck; fitting into me perfectly. She felt made for me, as if I was standing there for the first time, a whole being. How could this be wrong?

  Am I supposed to forget this? Forget her? Just turn a blind eye to the mountains of emotions and pretend I never lived this? This is where the great love story of my existence ends? At its beginning?

  The most bitterness of sorrows is made out of the hardest goodbyes. I held her until her tremors stilled and her tears slowed, and there seemed no more left in her to cry. I held her until her cheek pressed against mine, and her heather colored eyes looked up into my soul. I held her until a slow heat began to build between us. Until a pure innocent moment of madness overwhelmed us; where our bodies overruled our minds, and that rising heat between us turned to fire that roared over our reason and senses.

  My hands glided over her back slowly, and barely touching, with the heaviness of feathers, they slid into the silky cool waves of her raven hair. Trembling, I lightly brushed my lips over her cheek, breathing her in. A gentle graze of the lips like a soft caress from a butterfly’s wings; a shy hesitation as they touched, as if we both were taking the time to memorize the feeling before our lips met for the first time. Hovering in that moment, just before our lips touched, we whispered words that bound us forever. Love.

  Softly, tentatively, with our lips barely touching, as if we were lovers looking for each other in the dark. Her lips as soft as rose petals drew me in, and I kissed them slowly and sensually. My desire; my love. It completely stole my breath away. How could this be wrong? Our lips moved together, opening to each other, melting into each other. Heart. Soul. Body. Mind. Twisting like a musical symphony pulsing through the night. Clinging to each other in our beginning and our ending. Her lips were aching with sweetness, the pure black silken cascade of her hair gliding across my skin. Twisting and grasping it in my fingers, I pulled her in deeper. I kissed her slowly, reverently, and I knew without any loss in faith that nothing would ever compare to that single moment when I first kissed my Selah, and knew that my love for her would last beyond what forever was. My lips smiled against hers, and when I pulled away from her lips, I gazed into her beautiful silvery gray eyes. I whispered my last words to her, “You have my heart, forever.”

  Beneath my hands, her lush body, just barely brushing against my chest, hummed with her wildly beating heart. The last sound I would ever feel or hear from her.

  I hadn’t counted on Gabriel bearing witness to my transgression. Gabriel, my Grigori brother, my best friend, and my betrayer.

  Therefore, for just a few moments, we believed the illusion of belonging to our own precious world; our own paradise. As I locked my eyes with Gabriel, who was watching us, hidd
en, I knew that there was no such thing as us. Love had smiled on us for the briefest of time, but it did not welcome us; its brilliant face had turned away from us, leaving us to say our goodbyes.

  In the place where Gabriel hid, tears rimming his eyes red, the forests and green slopes turned black. The sweet orchards and splashing waterfalls rotted and ran dry. As Gabriel stood over me, watching, the stars began to rain down from the sky, as great tears do when paradise is lost. His expression changed frighteningly fast—it was anger and hatred, greed and jealously, envy and despair. My personal apocalypse felt to me, both one of the most beautiful and most heartbreaking events of my existence. It’s where my beloved was torn from my arms, and Gabriel, my brother, dragged me to hell; all for the innocence of one kiss.

  This is where I thought my story ended, but it was truly only the beginning.

  Then the darkness came.

  When I opened my eyes, I felt for the very first time in my existence, what it truly was to experience fear. I knew exactly where I stood from the smell of utter despair rising from the cold stones of my cell, and the complete lack of light. I knew that standing there, not in my human form, but in my angel form, that my wings were gone.

  I once heard Michael and Gabriel call that type of prison a Renounce or Tergiverse. The only cell in Hell that can break an angel from their faith, from their soul, from anything that meant anything to them, if they didnʼt fight hard enough. It strips you of your being and breaks your spirit; a human would be brought to dust.

  It was so narrow that my back and shoulders touched the icy cold stones of the two walls on the side of me and the one my back leaned against. I only had room to lift my fingers to brush them against the smooth metal of the prison door that stood in front of me. If I could, I would have fallen to my knees. I remained there days, months, years, decades. Time was no longer there.

  After an eternity of imprisonment, the harsh light assaulting my eyes blinded me when my cell door opened. I could see nothing of the creature that bound my hands with thick cord, only heard the bristling of its feathers to know it was one of my own.

  He pulled me through a long tunnel that held nothing but door after door of the small standing prisons. The sounds of angels weeping filled my ears until I thought they would bleed. Horror. Terror. Maddening Desperation.

  The creature pulled me through a small entryway and into a cavernous room. Above us, I could hear the sounds of choirs singing and the laughter of paradise. I knew what I would see if I looked up, and my body ached to be home.

  Beneath my feet, blood red cobblestones stretched into a narrow walkway that would guide me across the great expanse of the pure darkness that lay below. Iʼve heard many times that somewhere there was a doorway to the opening of hell. Little did I know that it was so wide, so empty and silent, and so easy to fall into.

  The creature pushed me across the stone scaffold until I stood before four golden thrones. The four archangels, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Phanuel occupied each throne.

  Before I could utter a sound, Gabrielʼs voice echoed throughout the room, thunderously vibrating the stones underneath my feet. “The corruption brought on by the Grigori degrades the human race. We saw much blood being shed upon the earth and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth. The souls of men have called their suit against the Grigori, who said to bring our cause before the Most High. Thou seest what hath been done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were in heaven, which men were striving to learn. For your involvement, Shamsiel, you will be condemned.”

  I looked straight toward Gabriel, “Where is Selah?” I knew I did nothing wrong.

  Gabriel turned his head from my stare. He rose up from his throne and stormed off into the background. “That pathetic human is worth more to you than your wings, than your eternity, so be it. You should have never fallen in love with the girl. It would have been better to fall from the top of Mount Sinai though. It would have hurt a hell of a lot less,” he whispered.

  Michael’s expression softened as he listened to our brother’s rant. “The child will be brought straight to paradise. She will be spared,” he promised me.

  Instantly, Gabriel’s wings engulfed me. Devoured me. I stood at no trial; I was NOT given a chance to plead my case. I was condemned; exiled. Fallen.

  Then came the darkness again, illuminated only by the burning fires of Hell. Fiery. Fury. Breaking. Shattering my soul.

  Lifetimes.

  Ions.

  Eternities.

  Hell.

  Until the low whispers of hope blew across my soul on a slight cool breeze. I fell to earth; set free.

  Free?

  As my eyes opened for the first time in centuries, the soft light of a dying sun streaming through a tarnished dirty bar window met me. My body, now completely human, was splayed across a cold wet tiled floor. Somewhere above me was a lone dripping sound, which joined with the incessant buzzing of an insect trying to fly to its death against the filthy window. Now here, everything is a dimmed, lackluster and dulled vision of the world I once knew. My surroundings left a bitter taste in my mouth filled with despair and numbed each of my senses. I felt this air was not worth the breath, yet my heart continued to pump its blood, the dirty oxygen running rampant through me. The body I was in trembled, shook and racked with convulsions. A silver tipped needle lay beneath the sickly ashen skin of one of my arms; a small trickle of rusty red blood rolled away from the brightly bruised puncture. Then my new body purged itself of its contents; heaving foul toxic wretchedness all over myself.

  A pale-faced girl sat next to me with deep purple moons beneath her wide dilated eyes and giggled. Then the memories of this life I now have to live, introduced themselves to me. This is me now, a miserable waste of life, Shane Maxton. Heroin addict. Junkie. Sexual deviant. Thief. Liar. Filth. Human scum.

  It took three weeks for this disgusting human body to go through withdrawals from whatever God-awful substance it shoved in its veins or up its nose. Twenty-one nights of vomiting, convulsing, craving, sweating, and trying to tear the skin off my new shell as I accustomed myself to living someone else’s life. Three long weeks shivering and sweating under thick blankets, alone and confused.

  Actually, living in this man’s body, being human, with all the irrational emotions that came with it, was worse than hell itself. This world was less of a shadow of what it once was. It owned its own darkness, chaos, and evil. It was impossible to describe how different the sunlight shone on Paradise compared to here now. Everything once radiated with warmth and a glow, and you could see, feel, and taste each and everything living thing…where now it was a dull worn down substitute of a world that was long ago left to its own anguish. Earth was a deeper, richer place then, where everything from a speck of dust to a blade of grass to a mountain peak had its own life and story; everything was just made of More.

  Now, Selah was gone. I am nothing more than a bag of flesh and bones, Shane Maxton, when I was once a god among men.

  Months passed as I stayed in Shane’s body and became him. There was nothing else for me to do, but to be Shane.

  I had been Shane for nine months. Nine excruciating months in this human body that is roughly nothing more than a highly advanced mass of nerves. Emotions, hormones, wants, and needs rule it. Walking, talking monkeys. With their own minds, their own reasons, and their very own freedom.

  Since I was no longer an angel, since my wings and my everything was taken from me, I fit right fucking in.

  The only thing to do was try to forget who I was. Forget whom I loved. Just. Fucking. Forget.

  Chapter 1

  I was so drunk, the room spun and tilted around me. Music was playing in the background, some upbeat pop song that made me want to smash the speakers with the almost empty bottle of whiskey I was holding onto. Jack Fucking Daniels and I were hoping he could cure me of this life. The thumping of the bass was vibrating whatever it was I was sitting on. Thump. Th
ump. Thump. It pulsated through my bones. Thump. Thump. Thump. My head pounded to the music, the rest of my body was comfortably numb. Thump. Thump. Thump. The whiskey thumped through my veins; I sincerely thought they were fuller of alcohol than my own blood. I had kept the poison swimming in my veins for the last nine months trying to block out this sad, pathetic life I had been thrown into.

  I felt a slight tug on my bottle. A strange pair of hands was wrapping themselves around it. Peeling my eyes open slowly, I saw they were attached to a girl who was sitting with her head between my legs. For a second, I wondered how I got there and I looked around. It was Tucker’s apartment, the one he shared with two of my band mates, and it seemed as if there were a few girls here too. Must be another party. Tucker was sitting next to me eyeing the girl at my crotch. “Hey, sweetheart. When you’re done with him, you should come over here with those hot little lips,” he said.

  Squeezing my eyes shut tight, I tried desperately to crush the sharp sense of panic that started building beneath my skin. I’m still Shane. I’m still in Shane Maxton’s body. Stuck. Human. Forever.

  My body felt as if it were caught in a violent riptide, pulling me, yanking me under. Drowning me. I had no more strength, or want, to try to break free; I just needed to sink to the bottom. Lose myself to some sort of oblivion; let myself be consumed by the darkness.

  “Oh, beautiful, for spacious skies! For amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! Blah, blah, la, la, la, laaaaa…” Tucker’s voice drunkenly sang off key.

  “What the hell are you doing?” The question was mumbled, garbled so that I could barely understand it. Opening my eyes to watch the conversation, the girl was kneeling between my legs, lips over my dick; talking to Tucker. “Well?” She asked. “Why in the world are you singing the National Anthem while I do this?” I’m sort of surprised that my dick found its way into a willing mouth while I was unconscious, but not too surprised. It wasn’t the first time; not even the fifth time. Yeah, I seemed to live a charmed life. Although it seemed sort of surreal having her suck me off and talk with Tucker at the same time. That should disturb me more, shouldn’t it?