The Tracker's Mate: Sunderverse (Mate Tracker Book 1)

by Ingrid Seymour

  My gaze darted from him to Rosalina, my eyes practically screaming for help. She took a step back out of Jake’s line of vision and began signing. She tripped over the words in the worst possible way. And I didn’t blame her because I doubted even one of those professional TV interpreters used during press conferences would’ve been able to keep up with Jake’s twaddle. Honestly, it had to be twaddle. No one could move their mouth that fast and make any sense.

  Rosalina signed something that read like “Pink puppies have taken over the White House.”

  I stared at her, open-mouthed. “What?”

  She tried again. “Finger, fucking finger.”

  What was she going on about? Whatever it was it sounded dirty. Or did she want me to give Jake the finger? I’d gladly do it, but I didn’t want to be out of context. It would let him know I had no clue what was going on.

  Jake glared at me, his frown causing that little groove between his eyebrows to appear. He seemed expectant, probably waiting for me to say something. Rosalina signed some more, but I couldn’t make heads or tails out of any of it. Jake’s attention snapped to Rosalina.

  Her hands froze in midair. She smiled awkwardly and smoothed her dress, trying to act nonchalant. Holy goblins, she would starve in Hollywood.

  Jake made a “what’s wrong with you?” face, then he grabbed her by the arm, led her out of the room, and clicked the lock behind her.

  “Hey, this is her place. You can’t do that,” I said, furious at his nerve.

  He whirled, his lips already moving faster than Mom’s when she found out I’d been out past curfew. I backed away as if his silent words were lashes. He pressed forward, driving me against the bed, and kept ranting.

  I’m freaking deaf, right now. I’ve no idea what you’re saying, I wanted to yell in his face, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want him to know anything else about me. Once, I’d given him everything. I’d opened up about my feelings, my teenage secrets, and fears. And how had he treated me?

  Nope. Not doing that again.

  “Stop!” I pushed him out of the way.

  As Jake staggered backward, I rounded the bed and walked to the window, my back to him.

  The thing about not being able to hear... it allowed me to shut the world away. I squeezed my eyes shut, picturing Jake behind me, still ranting about helping him find Stephen. I couldn’t imagine anything else bringing him here. He’d come back from the past with a one-track mind and a bone to pick.

  After a long moment, a hand settled on my shoulder. I glanced at it, hoping to find delicate, manicured fingers. But instead, I found Jake’s large and strong ones. He made me turn, gently, which surprised me. However, the fury absent in his touch was evident in his stormy, silver eyes. His lips had stopped moving, and instead, formed a thin, unforgiving line.

  Slowly, his hand slid from my shoulder down the length of my arm, unleashing a violent shiver across my body. Then, he pressed something into my hand and squeezed my fingers around it, until I crumpled what felt like a thick piece of paper.

  He let go and took a step back. His head shook from side to side as disappointment and incredulity washed over him. Without another word, he walked away. As the door swung open in his wake, Rosalina appeared at the threshold.

  Her expression told me everything I needed to know. Whatever had brought Jake here was bad. Really bad.

  Afraid to look, I brought my hand up and unclenched my fist, releasing what turned out to be a Polaroid picture. Carefully, I smoothed it open and stared at the image in horror.

  My stomach convulsed, and I dropped the gruesome photograph and ran to the bathroom.

  With the image of a swollen, severed finger flashing before my eyes, I retched until my ribs ached.

  There had been a caption under the photo that read: Stephen Erickson’s Ring Finger.

  Chapter 15

  “Jake said a note arrived with the actual finger,” Rosalina explained once my hearing had returned five hours later. “It also said that if Ulfen doesn’t comply with their demands, they’ll deliver Stephen’s head next.”

  My stomach did a flip, then filled with about two tons of guilt.

  We sat in her living room, several boxes of Chinese take-out strewn about the coffee table. Rosalina was on the sofa, and I was cross-legged on the rug, a greasy plate in front of me. After puking violently, no one should eat. At least that was what seemed reasonable, though I seemed to challenge that theory every time I threw up. I’d demolished an entire order of shrimp lo-mein all by myself.

  “What are their demands?” I asked, patting my belly.

  “I didn’t exactly have a chance to ask. Jake is... something when he’s mad.”

  I considered for a moment, avoiding Rosalina’s gaze, fearing her reaction at the direction of my thoughts. She had kept me on a straight path for over a year. Without her, I wouldn’t have gathered the pieces of my life back together. Hell, I would be addicted to drugs or scattered in pieces all over the city.

  “Um,” I started, my voice breaking, “please, don’t be mad at me but—”

  She shook her hands. “I already know what you’re going to say.”

  “I have to help. If I don’t, Stephen...”

  “Stop! Do you really think you have to convince me? I thought it would be easy to coach you from the sidelines and tell you to stay out of it, but man, it’s hard.”

  We both smiled sadly.

  Her change of heart didn’t surprise me. This was Rosalina, the woman who picked up stray teens off the streets and invited them to watch Netflix.

  “Yes, it’s really hard.” I patted her hand.

  She stood and started pacing along the coffee table. “I’m not even the one with the skills to help, and I can see why you got involved in this kind of stuff before, how Jake dragged you into it.”

  “And now, it’s happening again.” My voice sounded so resigned it scared me.

  “It feels like giving up, doesn’t it?”

  I nodded. “Like Jake’s winning.”

  “That’s infuriating,” Rosalina growled, picked up an egg roll, and bit its tip off.

  Yep, totally infuriating. And yet, here I was, trapped by my damn morals and facing one single way out: tracking Stephen, even if it killed me.

  Why, oh why did I have a Mother Theresa complex? A baby one, but still.

  Rosalina gave me a sad smile. She knew me well enough to figure out what I’d decided.

  “Early tomorrow,” I said, “can you drop me off by Mom’s. I think I need my car.”

  AT 7 AM THE NEXT DAY, Rosalina dropped me off in front of Mom’s house, the place where I’d grown up.

  The two-story cape cod had light gray siding and teal shutters. A white railing surrounded the teal-painted porch. The front door sat off to the side, flanked by hanging plants, matching teal porch steps leading straight to it.

  I stood on the sidewalk for a long moment, a familiar heaviness weighing my heart down. I hadn’t felt this way in a while, and I hadn’t missed it. Mom wouldn’t like this, not at all. I stretched my back, feeling stiff. I’d missed kickboxing class again last night, and it showed—not that I was in any shape to work out after a trance.

  A car came driving up the street behind me. I felt it slow down, and out of nowhere, panic hit me. I hurried away from the curb, glancing over my shoulder as a sporty convertible came to a stop. A handsome teenage boy sat at the wheel of a black BMW. He angled his shoulders in my direction, resting his tan forearm casually on the steering wheel. He smiled, checking me out without shame.

  “Good morning,” he purred.

  Damn, where did these kids get their confidence? It had to be the cars they drove, had to be.

  He was handsome. I had to give him that. Large brown eyes, trendy brown hair, strong jaw, and GQ features the envy of the Sexiest Man Alive, whoever they’d picked this year.

  “Good morning,” I replied with a raised eyebrow.

  “You must be Lucia’s sister.”

 
“And you are... ?”

  “Connor, her boyfriend.”

  “I see. I’ll tell her you’re here.” I turned and walked toward the door, sure the kid was checking out my ass. I resisted the urge to glance back and give him the finger. Funny how I kept calling him a kid, but I wasn’t that much older. Three years at most.

  The moment I stepped onto the stoop, I breathed a sigh of relief. Home was safe. It had always been. Mom kept protection spells around the entire property capable of stopping intruders, magical attacks, and horny boyfriends. I glanced back at Connor and found that, indeed, he was admiring my posterior. I sighed.

  I placed a hand on the door handle, and it unlocked for me. This was also part of Mom’s spell. No one who’d ever lived in the house would be kept out. Protection spells were her specialty. She could have probably made a lot of money casting them over businesses and homes, but she never cared about money, only about protecting her own.

  Closing the door behind me, I walked in. The smell of breakfast sausage wafted through the air. I placed my purse on the console table and took a moment to peer at the portrait that hung above it. Six people peered down at me. My parents, brother, two sisters, and a younger version of me. It had been taken when I was fifteen, the last year we would all be together, before Leo moved out to travel the world. I’d only seen him twice since then: the first Christmas after he moved out, and during Dad’s funeral. Now, only Lucia still lived at home, and even she would be graduating soon.

  Dad was a Stale, but all his children were Skews because of Mom. She came from a long line of witches, mages, trackers, healers, you name it. Leo, her eldest, was a skillful mage. Daniella, her second was a witch with great healing abilities. I was a tracker, and Lucia, the youngest, also a witch with strong telekinetic powers. We all had a variety of skills that seemed to keep changing and growing with time.

  Nonna had been a tracker, too, which allowed Mom to pinpoint what I was early on. When Snitch, our dog, went missing, and I found him twenty blocks away from home, his chew rope in my tiny five-year-old hand, Mom knew. After that, she let me spend summers with Nonna in upstate New York, and I trained with her. She called me her little hound and said I had more talent in my pinky than she ever did in her whole body. She taught me everything she knew and suggested I trained with others to explore the depths of my powers, which she insisted hadn’t peaked yet. But that sort of training was expensive, and I was happy with what Nonna had taught me.

  I crossed the foyer into the living room. The decor hadn’t changed in years, same tan sofa, same walnut TV cabinet, same scratched end tables, same lamps with tasseled shades, same faux Persian rug.

  Wishing to catch Mom and Lucia in their natural habitat, I peeked around the corner. My sister sat at the kitchen table, while mom stood in front of the stove, her back turned. Lucia was wiggling her fingers, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. I followed her gaze and realized she was using her magic to nick a twenty-dollar bill out of Mom’s pocketbook, which rested on the island.

  My mouth dropped open as I watched the bill float in Lucia’s direction. Really?! I tried to decide what to do. Should I stop her? I never stole from Mom or Dad—no matter how desperate I got. This was wrong.

  But if I said something, Lucia would get mad at me, which might be counterproductive at the moment, considering the hot boyfriend outside and her need to steal money—a sign that she might be in some kind of trouble and in need of a conversation with her Big Sis. I decided mum was the word.

  Just as Lucia was about to snatch the bill from the air, Mom suddenly whirled and pointed a spatula straight at my sister.

  “Gotcha!” she exclaimed, a gleeful look in her eyes.

  “Oh, c’mon,” Lucia whined. “I almost had it.”

  Mom noticed me then. “Antonietta!”

  She set down her spatula, turned off the stove, and ambled over to wrap me in her arms.

  Mom was a petite fifty-one-year-old woman with a few extra pounds “stocked-piled for the apocalypse,” her words not mine. In her youth, she’d been 125 pounds of pure curves and sex appeal, also her words. Now, she was critical of herself, though she had no reason to be. She speed-walked circles around the neighborhood and, in my opinion, and probably the opinion of half the middle-aged men in The Hill, she looked fine in her yoga pants.

  “How long have you been standing there?” Mom asked with a huge smile. She looked very pretty with her hair and makeup already done, and her colorful apron that read “I don’t need a recipe... I’m Italian.” We’d all inherited her golden tone and brown eyes as opposed to Dad’s paleness and blue eyes.

  “Long enough to witness Lucia’s attempt at thievery.” I gave my sister a raised eyebrow.

  “What’s up, Toni?”

  “Hey, Luz.”

  She nodded and walked toward the island. She was wearing skinny jeans with holes, black Converse, and a red hoodie. Her long, brown hair was loosely curled and flowing down her back, and she had those perfect, symmetrical eyebrows that made me suspect she watched the same YouTube videos Rosalina did.

  “I’ll get it next time, Mom.” She stuffed the twenty in the pocketbook. “You’ll see.”

  “You’re welcome to try,” Mom said in a singsong voice.

  I walked to the stove, snatched a piece of sausage from the skillet, and popped it in my mouth. “What’s this all about?” I mumbled.

  “Just a bet she and I have,” Mom said. “If she can take the money without me noticing, she can keep it.”

  “How’s that an appropriate game? And how come you never played it with me?”

  Mom put her hands on her hips. “Hey, with only the two of us ‘round here, we have to keep things interesting.”

  Lucia glanced past the threshold, toward the living room, frowning. “Connor is late.”

  “Oops,” I thunked my head with the heel of my hand. “I was supposed to tell you he’s out there.”

  “Gotta go.” She popped a forkful of eggs into her mouth, picked up her backpack, and pointed an adamant finger in my direction. “You need to come back at a better time so we can talk.”

  “I will,” I promised and returned her hug as she leaned over and squeezed me.

  With a smile, Lucia turned on her heel and rushed out of the house.

  “Do you know this Connor guy?” I asked Mom when I heard the front door close.

  “He’s Lia Baresi’s kid. He gets good grades, brings her home before curfew, and brings me chocolate. I think that’s all I need to know.”

  God, how things had changed! The list of things she used to require from Daniella’s boyfriends as well as mine was way longer and meaner than that.

  Mom served two plates and set them on the table. She also poured me a cup of black tea, her favorite thing to drink in the morning.

  “How are you, honey?” Mom scanned me carefully. “Are you feeling well?”

  “I guess.”

  “Any headaches?”

  “Just one the other day.” Mom worried too much. Since I was little, headaches bothered me every once in a while, and she pestered me about them all the time.

  Mom pursed her lips, looking worried. I sipped my tea and glanced around the kitchen, noting she’d gotten a new copper adornment to go on her knickknack shelf. She had a farm theme going, and she’d added a rooster.

  “So what brings you here this early?” Mom asked with a slight frown that let me know she already suspected something was up.

  “Um, I came to get the car. I’ll need it for a few days.”

  The car was a convertible 1970 Camaro Z28 in light blue with two black stripes running down the hood. It had belonged to Dad and was now mine. I kept it here, stored in Mom’s garage since I didn’t need to drive anywhere most of the time. I lived, ate, satisfied my salted-caramel ice cream cravings, and got my clothes dry cleaned all on the same street. In the end, it was cheaper to Uber when I needed a ride.

  “How come?” Mom narrowed her mascaraed eyes.

 
I shrugged one shoulder and shoveled sausage into my mouth until I felt like a squirrel getting ready for winter. I had never been able to lie to Mom. I thought getting older would help, but the woman’s eyes were like squishy lie detectors.

  She waved her fork around. “Are you done?”

  I swallowed thickly and plastered on a smile. “Good sausage, Mom.”

  “Same sausage you’ve been eating for twenty years. From DiGregorio’s. Now, spit it out.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “That would just be gross.”

  Mom gave a tired sigh and patiently waited for me to break down and spill every single bean. I pondered how to start: the piecemeal method or the ripped-off-the-Band-Aid one. After a moment’s thought, I decided the former had no real benefits, the chew-out would be the same either way. Besides, she would eventually find out. She always did. Gossip spread through The Hill like a tsunami.

  “I need the car because I’m staying with Rosalina, and I gotta go to the police station to talk to Tom to tell him I’m gonna help him track Stephen Erickson.” No doubt she’d read the papers and knew of the kidnapping and the brewing war, so I didn’t elaborate. And cleverly, I left out all mention of Jake.

  Mom did a slow blink as she processed what I’d just said. As the full meaning of my words hit, her face went red. I winced, waiting for it: a rant, a scolding, an are-you-out-of-your-mind? But all I got was a “hmm” before she resumed pushing pieces of egg around the plate.

  Odd.

  I sipped my tea and watched her over the rim of the cup. I waited. Still nothing. I should’ve considered myself lucky and left it at that, but I was a glutton for punishment.

  “No... disapproving words?”

  “Oh, there are plenty of them spinning ‘round in my head,” she admitted.

  “But...?”

  She picked up both our plates and took them to the sink. “But I think you know what they are.” She scraped the leftovers into the garbage disposal, then pulled the Camaro’s keys out of the junk drawer.

  “Here you go.” She deposited them in my hand.