Oracle Saving (The Phoenix Files Book 3) Read online

  Oh, Oracle his ass.

  He was about to take that crown, end her, and become the one that they all wanted to be. He sent out the challenge in the static, and for the first time, there was silence there.

  The other psychics were horrified.

  They were worried.

  This was a battle of wills, and he was going to win.

  “I’ll beat you, Oracle. You’re nothing. I’m going to start with that pathetic woman you want to protect. I’ll make her dreams so horrible that she’ll never wake up again.”

  Still, there was nothing.

  “I’ll break her and then come for you.”

  When the challenge was issued, he could hear the chatter come to a screeching halt.

  It pleased him.

  “If you want to save your friend, Oracle, then you need find me, and fast. If you can’t do it, then she’s going to be on my list.”

  There was a soft laughter through the static.

  It came out of nowhere.

  It was calm, and felt like icy cold snowflakes on a chill winter day as they landed on your flesh.

  Then he heard her.

  There was no mistaking her intent.

  ‘I will find you. I will stop you. I am Oracle for a reason. You can play your games, but I’ll make the rules.’

  He screamed in anger over her words. She taunted him, just like all the others. She made him feel like he was nothing but some hick from a small backwoods town.

  She had no right.

  There was no way Oracle could end his reign.

  He didn’t think she had it in her.

  But that was fine.

  He’d take her down like he took down the five women last year, and the first one this year. He’d already made his list, he’d picked his prey, and he was ready to do what needed to be done. He would add the pesky coroner to it—just because.

  There would be no looking back.

  There would be no way she’d end up the winner in this fight. He had the upper hand.

  He had the power.

  In the end, he had the one thing she needed most.

  Roxanne Faust needed to live for her to complete her mission, and for him…

  She needed to die.

  * * * O R A C L E * * *

  Happy

  Tuesday

  Evening

  She was like a lamb to the slaughter, and that was exactly what he had expected. They all were just like her.

  Stupid.

  Simple.

  Unsuspecting.

  It was easy to track her in her dreams. She was a schoolteacher in Happy, and she was the rising star at the school. This woman loved her kids, and she loved teaching them. She was all about the job. It was her claim to fame in the tiny little shithole that no one talked about.

  That was about to change.

  She had been lucky to get a coveted spot as a teacher in the small town. There was only one school district, and they’d wanted the best of the best that Happy had to offer.

  It was a joke.

  Nothing good came from there.

  He was the proof.

  In fact, the pool here was so shallow that the talent wasn’t impressive at all. He knew because he watched them all. He listened to the gossip.

  He studied his prey.

  As he slipped into sleep in his own bed, he reached out through the static, past Oracle’s attempt to block him, and right for the woman he had targeted.

  It amused him that the other psychic was trying to save the pathetic people of the world. He was entertained that she was trying to do battle with him.

  She’d never win.

  He was unbeatable.

  Here was his proof. As Brianna Moyer sat on her couch, falling asleep as she was supposed to be grading papers, he knew it was time. He’d chosen her because they all had secrets.

  No one was sin free in Happy.

  No one.

  On the outside, they looked perfect and smiling, but on the inside…they were all the same. It was time to see what made this pretty schoolmarm tick.

  Once in her mind, he slipped around her thoughts. He found the one thing that scared her, and he focused on it.

  To him, it was silly.

  To him, it was incredibly ridiculous, but to each their own. If he wanted to end her life, he had to use what terrified her.

  It was how his gift worked.

  They all had the right to fear what they wanted, and he wasn’t going to judge that. Instead, he was going to enjoy the process. He was going to play with the silly little mouse.

  After all, he was the hunter.

  She was going to die.

  In her mind, he set the scene. She was at the beach, wearing her pretty little bikini. She was a lovely sight and everyone around her took notice.

  As she headed toward the water, the woman naturally began fearing it. Her instincts were already telling her to stay away, but he cajoled her closer.

  She listened.

  They always did.

  As she headed toward the soft blue waves that were calmly splashing against the white sand, he waited until she got into the water.

  She was dreaming about her vacation.

  This was something she had been looking forward to for days, weeks, and months.

  It was going to be what ended her.

  How ironic was that?

  Her pleasure was about to become her pain.

  As she moved toward the surf, diving in, he knew it was time to play with her. That was the best part. He loved that he could make her whole world unravel with simply a thought.

  With a snap of his fingers, the pleasant could become the hellish.

  As her head broke the water, not too far from shore, he took the opportunity destroy her world.

  It began…

  The more she tried to reach land, the further away the shore seemed.

  That wasn’t all.

  The crystal blue water got dark with the creepy things she feared, the sky changed into a brewing storm, and her heart began pounding in response.

  Her adrenaline shot up as she fought to save her life.

  It began.

  She started swimming toward shore, and he made sure to make it one hell of a swim. There was no way she was going to make it. With each stroke, he added a mile.

  With each sob from her, he added something vile to the water.

  As she thought she was close enough and about to save her life, he changed the game.

  He really destroyed her.

  That slimy tentacle crept up from the depths, seeking the treasure. Without warning, it wrapped around her leg, pulling her under the water.

  Here was where he really got his enjoyment.

  Here was where he felt the power.

  As she struggled to wake herself up, he wouldn’t let her. He held her trapped in his psychic trance until she would scare herself to death.

  As she fought, he watched her aura and energy changing into something so fraught with fear that it fed his sickness. He could feel it flooding from her and into him.

  He was feeding his need.

  He was building his power and making a name for himself. With each death, he was becoming a god among men.

  There was no way any of them would escape now. From here on out, they were his to play with as he saw fit.

  She was doomed, as were the rest.

  He was joyous.

  As he watched the pretty little schoolmarm fight for her life, he enjoyed the show. More tentacles appeared, tearing away her pretty little bikini so she would know what humiliation felt like in the truest sense of the word.

  As she fought to save herself, he was pleased.

  She deserved this.

  From his slumber, he saw her struggle to break the surface. He enjoyed the way the tentacles wrapped around her lithe body, offering no way to escape. He loved every second of her fear as she was being manhandled by the sea creature. When it was face to face with her, it’s hideous eyes checking out it
s prey, she began the screaming.

  It was muffled by the water.

  Then she took a breath.

  She began drowning not in an ocean, but in her own terror. Her nightmare was coming true. She had been afraid of the water for this reason.

  There were things alive in it and now they’d gotten her.

  As it pulled her deeper, refusing to let her go, he felt her trying to wake up.

  He refused to let it happen.

  He refused to give in.

  She was going to join the others and he was going to add her, as a notch, to his belt.

  She was his.

  In the end, she wouldn’t live because he said so.

  As her hair fanned out around her in the water, he listened to her heartbeat as it slowed. When you died in your dream, your body didn’t know the difference.

  You were simply dying.

  He told her organs to shut down, and they were.

  First her lungs.

  Then her heart.

  Then…she was gone.

  As the sea creature carried her away in her dream, life ebbed away, just out of the pretty teacher’s reach.

  She’d succumbed to his whims.

  She’d died because he chose to take her.

  As he drank in her fear, gulping it down like cool water on a hot day, he knew Oracle was watching.

  ‘Still want to play?’ he asked, grinning in pleasure. It was a challenge he hoped she’d take. There was nothing more he wanted than to break her too.

  ‘I’ll stop you.’

  ‘Yeah, you really won’t, but welcome to my world, Oracle. I’ll win this one.’

  ‘You can’t be certain,’ she stated. ‘I know how to beat you. I’ve seen it in Fate’s design.’

  ‘Oh, I am.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Getting worried?’ he asked, knowing she was still there. He could feel her in his head, digging around for little tidbits of information on his whereabouts.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  ‘Because in the end, there will be only one outcome. Fate has already declared it. I’m just following the path.’

  ‘Where does it lead?’ he asked her.

  There was another pause.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It leads right to your nightmares.’

  The connection slammed closed and he howled in anger. She wouldn’t win. She couldn’t.

  He’d worked too hard setting this up. Fate couldn’t stop him.

  Oracle couldn’t stop him.

  The women couldn’t either.

  There would be only one outcome.

  In the end, he’d find a way to destroy her too. She was nothing.

  He was a God.

  * * * O R A C L E * * *

  Fire Bay

  Across the South

  Tuesday Night

  He sat in his truck staring at the building. It was some seedy backwoods bar that he’d been to many times before in the last two months. It was like a sick addiction he couldn’t stop.

  He hated it.

  He loathed it with every fiber of his being. Even being there made him want to rage around, hurting himself and all the whores inside.

  It was never a good trip for him.

  It ate away at his heart and soul, and it never ended well. It always concluded with him picking out one of the trashiest whores inside, taking her to some cheap motel to fuck, and then walking away to forget what he’d done.

  With each one, he left a little piece of his soul behind. His heart was already gone. She’d made sure of that. It had been ripped from his chest, and it had left one hell of a gaping hole.

  This was how he filled it.

  He didn’t ask their names.

  He didn’t tell them his.

  With each loose woman, he tried to forget what love felt like, and he tried to stop giving a damn.

  This was his life.

  This was all Jagger was meant to have.

  There would be no love.

  No happiness.

  He wouldn’t be like the people he called family. His fate was different. He was paying for his father’s sins, and he would until the day someone put a bullet in his head.

  This was his penance.

  Jagger hated every single second of it too.

  It was never ending. The pain kept coming, even as he buried his body in some cheap piece of ass. It never stopped. No matter what he did to push it back, the tide kept returning and it was even worse than before.

  He couldn’t escape.

  He was sunk.

  During the day, he would patrol Fire Bay to keep them safe. At night, when Maura and Luke went to bed, and Nate and Avalon cuddled in sleepy splendor, he snuck out to do the deed.

  It was embarrassing.

  Still, he couldn’t stop. Roxy made him this monster, and he couldn’t escape the icy cold clutch she had over his heart. With each woman, it squeezed tighter and tighter, ending any love he would ever feel.

  He’d given up hope.

  Instead, he’d become focused on making himself hurt. It was the only way he could feel anything anymore. He needed to weep, suffer, and break himself in punishment for breaking his cardinal rule.

  He fell for the girl.

  This was his punishment too.

  Jagger would head to this shithole dive to try to forget. It wasn’t with booze. It was with cheap women and likely the end of his life. He was risking so much for so very little.

  It was sad, and he knew it.

  Still, like the rising sun, he couldn’t stop it. The visits kept coming, and he kept going back for more and more punishment.

  He’d like to say he was above hookers and sluts, but apparently, he wasn’t. He wanted to hurt, and this was the one sure-fire way to make that happen.

  The nightly fornication was doing one thing.

  It had dulled the pain of her leaving and only gave him another pain to focus on.

  He wasn’t worthy of anything.

  His father had been right all those years ago. He’d told him he wouldn’t amount to anything if he turned away from the life. He told him he’d die a broken mess.

  And here he was.

  Fuck!

  His father had been right.

  That was the worst part of all. He’d been a failure. He couldn’t get a woman to love him. Instead, he’d pushed her far away.

  Jagger had no one to blame but himself.

  He’d fallen in love, and that was his destruction. He should have known it couldn’t work. There was no such thing as love. His childhood proved that.

  While Nate and Avalon had it, and Maura and Luke reveled in it, they were the aberration.

  That could be the only reason.

  He was a hot mess.

  Growing up, his father, that foul, murderous bastard, had destroyed all of their happiness. He allowed their mother to be murdered in a bomb meant for him, he’d locked them away behind a wall that did as much damaged to them as possible, and he’d threatened to take away Jaxon too.

  She was all he had left in life.

  It’s why he left.

  When his father came to him at eighteen and told him to make a choice, he did. If he stayed, he’d have to be part of the family, hurting people, and watching the ones he cared about die because of it.

  Or…

  He could leave.

  So, he’d done the one thing he could. He’d joined the Marines and headed out to make a difference in the world. He didn’t take the dangerous missions because he wanted to be a hero. He took the dangerous missions to do one thing.

  He was erasing his bastard father’s legacy.

  One person at a time, he was making sure that he saved the world.

  Now he was drowning.

  How did he know that sleeping with Roxanne Faust would be what ended him?

  On the outside, he looked the same.

  On the inside?

  He was already gone, and he didn’t think
anything would save him from what was coming.

  He was the master of his own fate, and it sucked.

  The day he’d lied to himself and believed it would be okay, he’d been wrong. Roxanne Faust wasn’t safe at all.

  He fell in love with someone who could destroy him, and she had. For the first time in his life, he allowed his heart to override his head and gut, and this was the outcome.

  It was a disaster.

  He couldn’t function.

  Jagger was falling apart.

  He had been an idiot to believe he’d come through this unscathed. This was exactly why he never gave them his cell number or his name. He didn’t ask theirs, and when he was done screwing their brains out—with protection—he walked away.

  He could.

  There was no intimacy.

  In the end, he didn’t have to worry. He’d left nothing behind—until her. He’d left his heart behind. When they’d made love in her bed, he actually believed they had a shot.

  When he kissed her, sharing what was in him, he swore he felt it for himself too.

  Yeah, no.

  She’d been a coldhearted bitch.

  He’d been wrong.

  She ran away as fast as she possibly could, and Jagger was still paying for it.

  Two months later, and he was still suffering her loss. Each and every day, he plastered on a fake calm face when inside, he was a storm of emotions.

  He felt horrible.

  He’d been short with Avalon.

  He’d slacked in his duties with Maura.

  He stopped joking around with Nate and Luke.

  Jagger had isolated his heart, afraid to get hurt again, even if he knew they’d never do that to him. He was scared. This whole thing sucked.

  Honestly, Jagger didn’t want to do this anymore. He didn’t want to save people when he couldn’t save himself. What gave him the right to pretend to be a hero when he couldn’t get one single woman to find the good in him?

  NONE.

  He was so cold and dead inside that his father’s corpse had more life in him.