The Lost Garden (The Lost Garden Trilogy Book 1) by K.T. Tomb Page B

discovered she had been holding her breath. She could only think, He is the Chosen One, and I almost cut his head off.
    “Is there anything else you see?” she asked.
    He did not answer immediately, but he broke his connection with her, tearing his eyes away. She wanted him to gaze at her again. Never in all her life had she ever felt a stronger connection to anyone, than to this mortal now, in his living room. The sensation was appealing, but frightening because it created within her a longing she was unaccustomed to feeling. A longing for a deeper connection that she knew she must never allow herself to feel if she was to stay an effective Guardian.
    “Yes. I do see something else, but only sometimes.” He inhaled, looking away toward his kitchen and into the darkness that filled his home. “I see destruction. Everywhere. First, the light in the Garden is extinguished and then, there is a great pain that rips through me physically. I feel as if someone is extracting my heart through my chest. It is a profound sense of loss, of something torn away from me that was never meant to be torn away. And then, I see the destruction and the endless death, the tidal waves, the earthquakes, and the massive storms that rage against the earth. There is nothing I can do, but I sense there should have been. I feel I should have had an answer, but I fail to come up with it in time.”
    He was sweating, large drops falling from his thick hairline. He didn’t notice and she felt that he was releasing himself from a great weight that had been on his heart for perhaps his entire life.
    Tenderly and cautiously, she used her fingertips to wipe the sweat away. He looked at her and she saw the tears in his eyes. She knew he was holding an incredible burden with the fate of the world and he didn’t know who to turn to. Until now.
    “You never spoke of this to anyone,” she said quietly, this time catching and holding his gaze with her own.
    “No,” he said. “Who would believe me? I would have been locked up in a mental institution. No, I chose to live my life and look for my own answers.” He caught hold of her hand and held it. “But it appears my answer may have found me.”
    His skin was scorching hot to the touch, or perhaps that was her imagination. She sensed again within him, his overwhelming relief at having found her.
    “You are not crazy, Evan Knight,” she said softly. “You are simply the last hope for Earth. You are the Chosen One.”
    The doorbell rang.
    He blinked, breaking their intimate connection. “Pizza’s here.”
    “But it hasn’t been forty minutes,” she said.
    He stood and gave her a lopsided smile. “I told them the lady was hungry and if they hurried, I’d throw in a bigger tip. I could use a little myself. After all, if I’m the last hope of Earth, then I need to keep up my energy, huh?”
     
    * * *
     
    “This is nothing like the pizza pie I remember,” she said.
    “Well, do you like it?”
    “Yes. It appeals to me, but I sense its uselessness.”
    “Wasted food?”
    “Yes,” she said. “Very little nutritional value, although quite tasty.”
    “That’s when you know it’s good.” He grabbed another piece from the box and closed the lid, adding some hot peppers to the slice with a tap of an open packet. “When was the last time you had pizza?”
    Her mouth was full, cheeks puffed out. She swallowed hard and said, “Forty-two years ago.”
    That would have been a perfectly normal statement if not for the fact she didn’t look a day over twenty-eight. She nibbled on the crust and finally tossed the remains on her paper plate. There was one slice left and he had ordered the extra-large. He had only eaten two slices and she had voraciously eaten the rest. Her appetite was unlike anything he had ever seen in his life. He discovered only later that he had unconsciously moved his fingers and toes from anywhere near her, lest they be eaten, too.
    She sat back and rubbed her full belly.