Horizon (The Soul Seekers 4)

As a daughter of the wind, this is no accident.

Rather it’s a timely reminder that I’m not as alone as I feared.

Never have been.

As Paloma once said: To become powerful is to allow a great power to work through you. No one walks alone.

While I know she was referring to the ultimate power, at the moment, I take great comfort knowing she and Django are included.

The sun continues to drop. Wind swirls and skips. And I rise to my feet and brush myself off.

Soon,

it’ll be time to head back and confront the night still to come, but well before then, I have something important to do.

Though I didn’t realize it until now, as it turns out, it’s the reason I’m here.

I heave a deep breath and face the glorious, sun-shadowed peaks of the Sangre de Christo mountains. Finally willing to admit that until I confront my grief, I won’t be able to confront anything else.

For the last six months I’ve buried my sorrow in a punishing regimen of grueling workouts and daily six-mile runs. Then, after tending to the never-ending stream of Paloma’s former clients I’ve taken on, I drop by Dace’s apartment in a state of exhaustion, looking to numb myself in his arms.

Yet, in the wee hours of the morning, when the streets grow hushed and Dace is slumbering beside me, there’s nowhere to hide. And that’s when the pageant of things I should’ve done differently parades through my mind. The most glaring among them: allowing Cade to get the best of me—the best of us—when I gave that cursed tourmaline to Paloma.

Still, no matter how many times I reframe it, it’s not like I can change it. The outcome is final.

What’s done is truly done.

In the end, life amounts to little more than a series of choices. Some big, some small, but every action causes a reaction—and there’s no doubt it’s my own actions that landed me here.

Just like Paloma and Django’s actions landed them six feet below.

Despite Paloma’s warnings, Django chose to run from his destiny and it ended tragically.

Despite suspecting the tourmaline was cursed from the moment she laid eyes on it, Paloma chose to keep it.

Tormenting myself won’t change what’s been done. The only purpose it serves is to punish myself for things that were never mine to control.

Besides, what if there’s a chance Dace is right?

What if love really can overcome evil?

What if it’s as simple as that?

My thoughts toward myself are pretty much the opposite of loving. I’ve been ruled by self-hate and fear, and maybe it’s time I do better.

After all, Paloma trusted me, believed in me.

Maybe it’s time I trust and believe in myself.

With the sun quickly descending, glazing the mountains in a glorious sheen of purples and reds, I take a deep breath, steeple my hands to my chest, and make a true and solemn pledge to do better than I have.

To stop denying my grief.

Stop torturing myself by reliving a past I can’t change.

To let my friends in.

Lita was right. We’re all in this together. For a short while I knew that, yet ever since Paloma’s death I’ve been driven by fear, and so I’ve pushed them away in a misguided attempt to spare them from the kind of things that aren’t mine to control.