by Elicia Hyder
His grandmother was pacing a small circle in the living room, her face flushed with panic. “How will we know if it was Kush burned up in that fire?”
“The detectives will let you know if they come across any forensic evidence. In the meantime, we need to find out if anyone else has seen Kush. If not, a missing-persons report should be filed,” I explained.
“Borg came by earlier today. He mentioned Kush was slackin’ at lookin’ after his brother, so I don’t think he’s seen him.”
I thought of us seeing Teek and Borg earlier at the ice cream shop.
“Do you know where Borg is?” Essex asked.
“Beats the shit outta me. I stopped by to make sure Teek got his dinner.” She picked up her cell phone from the coffee table.
Essex’s hand shot forward. “Who are you calling?”
“If you’re worried about getting your ass kicked again, don’t. I ain’t callin’ Borg.”
A quiet snicker escaped my nose.
“I’m callin’ Kush.” She pressed the phone to her ear and immediately lowered it. “Voicemail.”
“We need to search Kush’s room,” I said quietly to Essex.
“You know that’s not happening without a warrant, missing person or not.”
He was probably right.
Teek carried a pair of black boots out of his room. I gestured toward the camouflage-print sofa. “Put them on, Teek. We’ll go in a minute.”
Obediently, he sat in the chair.
A flash of headlights and the familiar grind of gravel under tires turned us both toward the door. “Shit,” Essex whispered.
Borg.
“What the absolute hell is going on here?” Borg shouted, followed by the slam of a truck door.
Gramma T ran out the front door.
I grabbed Essex’s sleeve. “Take Teek out the back and put him in the car. I’ll deal with Borg.”
Worry filled Essex’s eyes as he searched mine.
“He won’t hurt me. But if he walks in and finds you in his living room, he’s liable to blow a gasket.”
Essex didn’t want to leave me, but he knew I was right. “You’ve got ninety seconds to meet me at the car before I bring every LE officer in the state down on this place.”
I held his gaze for a second. “Ninety seconds.”
With a nod, he hooked his arm through Teek’s and pulled him off the sofa. Teek’s untied boots flopped up and down on his feet as Essex dragged him out the back door.
Gramma T was crying outside. I needed to get out of the house and distract Borg as Essex took Teek to the car. I walked out with my hands raised. “Borg, I just need to talk to everyone. Nobody’s under arrest. Nobody’s—”
Borg jabbed his finger in the air toward me. “You need to get off my goddamn property if you don’t have a warrant!”
I cautiously walked down the front steps. “Trust me, I’m not staying here a second longer than I have to. But before I can leave, I need to know if you’ve seen Kush. I’m afraid his life might be in danger.”
Borg blinked with the slightest flash of concern for his eldest son. “I ain’t seen Kush since I got out of jail.”
“And when was that?”
His temper flared again. Borg didn’t like being questioned. “I don’t have to tell you—”
Gramma T shook his arm. “I swear to god, Borg Fleming, if you don’t help them find my grandson, I’ll bury you under that trailer and burn the whole shitpile to the ground.”
Behind them, Essex peeked around the corner.
Glaring at his mother, Borg finally answered me. “I haven’t seen Kush since he paid my bond on Thursday morning.”
Kush paid his bond?
“Thank you, Borg,” I said calmly. “Can you tell me if Kush knew Ryder Stone?”
All the emotion went out of Borg’s face. “Why?”
“They think Kush might have died in that fire,” Gramma T said.
Borg looked at me for confirmation.
“We think it’s a possibility. We found his car in the parking lot outside.”
Borg’s sigh puffed out his cheeks. He put his hands on his head and began to pace. When he started to turn toward the road, where Essex and Teek had almost reached the SUV, I panicked.
“Heroin!” I blurted out.
Borg froze and looked at me. “What?”
I swallowed. “Do you know if Kush might have been using heroin, or if he’s come into the possession of a substance similar to heroin?”
Borg crossed his arms. “So you’re not really looking for my boy. You’re looking for drugs.”
Oops.
“We’re looking for both, but the drug they found in Ryder Stone’s safe was the same drug that poisoned—”
“Bitch, get off my property!” He pointed toward the road and saw Essex helping Teek into the back seat. “Teek?”
Teek waved. “Hi, Dad.”
Borg whirled toward me then, and I jumped back out of swinging-distance. “What do you think you’re doing with Teek?”
“Just taking him in for questions.”
“The hell you are!”
I backed slowly toward the road. “He’s a consenting adult, and he’s not under arrest.”
Snarling, Borg started toward me.
I pulled out my Taser. “Don’t make me drop you like last time. I’ll take you right back to jail.”
When his eyes fell to the stun gun, he stopped. Couldn’t blame him. Tasers hurt like hell. Like being attacked by electrified bees.
I kept backing toward the SUV.
“You can expect a call from my lawyer!” Borg hissed.
I wanted to remind him that public defenders don’t get involved in other people’s cases, especially when no one’s been charged, but I didn’t. No sense in poking the dragon when I just wanted out of there.
“Get in the car, Nyx,” Essex said calmly behind me.
I jogged around the hood and got in the passenger’s seat. My heart was pounding so hard my pulse thumped against my staples. “Teek, you all right?”
“I’m good, Nyx.”
Essex pulled back out onto the road. “Well, that was almost a disaster.”
“It certainly didn’t go well.” I turned around in my seat and grabbed the sliding window to the back seat. “Hey, Teek, I’m going to close this, OK?”
He held up two thumbs. “Can you put on some music?”
“Sure. What do you want to hear?” I asked.
“Got any Freckled Misters?”
I wasn’t sure anyone had the Freckled Misters. “Sorry, bud. How about rock?”
“OK, Nyx.”
Bon Jovi was on the radio. Teek gleefully bobbed his head behind the glass when I closed it. “His brother’s dead,” I said to Essex.
“I know.”
“And we need to search that house for hypnox.”
“How would Kush get hypnox? He’s not exactly a botanist or an international drug lord.”
True.
“What did Borg say about the heroin?” Essex asked.
“You heard that?”
“I think the whole town heard it.”
“What do you think he said?” I asked with a smirk.
“Is that when he called you a bitch?”
“Yep.” I shook my head. “People really need to get more creative. I should have a swear jar for how many times a day I get called a bitch or a whore.”
“Don’t forget the C-word.”
I laughed. “The C-word? What are you? Twelve?”
“Oh no. Twelve-year-old-me would have totally said it.”
Smiling, I looked out the window at the sun setting over the trees. Teek sang loud and off-key in the back seat. Essex turned off the main highway toward my neighborhood.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Dropping you off at home. I’ll take Teek the rest of the way alone.”
I started to argue, but he put up a hand. “Nyx, you’re supposed to be off. I’m not pushing it b
y parading you around the station if I don’t have to.”
He was right, so I let it go and settled back in my seat and listened to Teek murder “Livin’ on a Prayer.”
“It doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not,” he sang at the top of his lungs.
Essex cut his eyes at me. “Did he just say ‘if we’re naked or not’?”
I laughed. “I don’t know, but I’m glad his window is shut.”
When we reached my street, Essex slowed the car. “Want me to drop you here, or do you care if I pull in your driveway?”
We’d never be anywhere near my home if it were anyone other than Teek in the back seat. Teek was harmless, and he’d probably forget where I lived anyway.
“It’s fine,” I said, and he pulled through the gate.
He put the car in park.
“Am I still riding with you tomorrow?” I asked.
“If you still want to.”
“Yeah. See you then.” I reached for the door handle.
“Nyx?”
I paused and looked back.
“I’m sorry about Rivera. I do recognize that you have to work harder at this job than the rest of us.”
My mouth smiled, but my eyes were somber. “Thanks. To be fair, I overreacted, so I’m sorry too.”
“Don’t be.” He held my gaze for a second. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I got out and closed the door. I expected him to drive off, but he didn’t. Instead, he waited in the driveway until I was safely inside my condo. Then I watched him leave from the kitchen window. I wilted over the sink, under the weight of my heart.
I hated leaving things so unsettled. I really wished I could tell him everything. Essex was my closest friend, and as my boss, my closest ally. If I couldn’t trust him, who could I trust?
A ripple of cool air kissed the back of my neck, and I suddenly realized how alone I was. With a shudder, I remembered the bright blue eyes leaning over me and the pressure of the hand clamped around my throat.
But there was no time left for fear.
I straightened my spine and lifted my chin. “If you can hear me, I’m ready to talk.”
And in response, the hallway light flickered.
Chapter Sixteen
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
The deep voice came from the silhouette backing slowly away from my bedside. In the moonlight from the window, I watched the man sit on the chair in the corner. Even in the shadows, his eyes were bright and topaz blue.
Something weighed on my chest. Looking down, I grabbed the handle of the heavy dagger laid between my breasts.
“It’s a shadow blade, one of the only weapons in existence that can kill me. Call it a gesture of goodwill.”
My spirit slowly sat up. “Goodwill exhibited by your choking me out the other day?”
“I didn’t choke you. I simply disrupted the neural transmissions in your cerebral cortex. You fainted.” Balancing his elbows on the armrests, he steepled his fingertips. “I only wanted to talk to you.”
“So talk. Start with a name.”
“You know my name.”
“Orion?”
He nodded.
“Do you want me dead?”
“What?” He sounded genuinely confused.
“It was your fault I was almost creamed by a Tesla.”
“That was an accident.”
“You almost got me killed.”
“Are you dead?”
I scowled.
“Then I didn’t almost do anything.” His eyes darkened. “If I’d wanted you dead, you would be.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“You don’t even know who I am. Or what I’m capable of.”
My eyes were still locked on his. “Neither do you.”
Amusement tugged at the corners of his lips. “Good thing we’re on the same side then.”
I relaxed a bit. “How did you make me faint?”
“Every scion has a nerve here.” He pressed two fingers between his clavicles. “It functions like an emergency off switch.” He pointed to my broken alarm clock on the nightstand. “It’s similar to the way I assume you shorted out your clock.”
“So you’ve just been hanging around my condo, waiting to short-circuit my brain?”
“Yes.”
I was surprised by his candor. “Who are you? Or what are you?”
“Human, same as you.”
My brow pinched.
“Well, at least I was human, once upon a time.” He stood and walked to the door, pulling something from his pocket. It was a black glove. He slipped it on and flipped the light switch.
Aside from the unearthly blue eyes, he looked human enough. Dark-brown crew cut, athletic build, strong and scruffy jaw. He wore dark blue jeans and a fitted white T-shirt. “Now I’m a guardian of the Boundary and Imera.”
“OK, but why are you in my bedroom?”
“Because your world is at risk. The hypnox, have you found its origin yet?” he asked.
“I’d hoped you could tell me.”
“Trust me. I wish I knew.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t have to trust me, but can we talk?”
I looked at my body open-mouth breathing on the bed. “Yes, but let’s go somewhere else. This is creepy.”
Using the glove, he opened my bedroom door. “Let’s go outside. There’s something I want to show you.”
“OK.” I took the dagger, just in case.
He followed me through the living room, and at the sliding-glass door, I reached for the handle. It didn’t move. Orion walked straight through the glass, fighting a smile at me as he went.
I groaned. This is going to take some getting used to.
Outside, he sat on a patio chair. “I imagine you have lots of questions. I know you and Elias weren’t close.”
“You knew Elias?”
“Yes. I hated him.”
Common ground already. I eased onto the chair across from him. “OK. Why can I move through glass but not through walls?”
“You only exist inside the Boundary because your consciousness has left your body. In the same way your brain tells your legs to move, your mind moves your spirit. You have to be able to see or envision where you’re going in order to get there. Glass you can see and move through. Walls you can’t.”
“Why can I sit on this chair, but a semi-truck drove straight through your friend Flash?”
A quiet snort escaped his grin. “Oh yeah. I heard about your running.”
I pointed at him. “Don’t start.”
He put his hands up in defense. “I wasn’t going to say a word.”
“Sure you weren’t.”
“You don’t exist to your world in this form, so the truck can’t hit you. But your mind sees the chair, allowing you to interact with it here without actually influencing it in your world.”
“I moved a shoe.”
“Congratulations.”
I frowned. “You just said—”
“Yes. You can move objects with enough momentum or energy, but as I’m sure you’ve learned, it takes a lot of effort, unless you have one of these.” He pulled out the glove again.
“What is that?”
“The fabric is called ergane. As long as it comes in contact with light, it can exist in both realms at once. So don’t try to walk through windows with it out in the open.”
“Can I get a glove?”
“I thought Elias left you some.”
“Elias left nothing but a bad taste in my mouth for all this shit.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“What about clothes?” I looked down at my uniform. I’d only removed my weapons belt and radio before lying down. “Am I doomed to wear whatever I slept in?”
“Yes, but the next time I come I’ll bring some clothes you can put on here. What else?”
“Can I die here?”
“Yes, and if you die in the Boundary, your b
ody dies on Earth. But only things of this world, like the dagger, can kill you here. I believe something like it was used to kill your father.”
“Why was he killed?”
“I don’t know, but you should be careful in case someone is hunting gods.”
I laughed. “You think Elias was a god? Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”
Orion looked confused. “You do know who Nyx is, right, Saphera Nyx?”
“And you know my last name was supposed to be Charis, right? Elias changed his name in 1982.” A few times I’d considered changing my name to match Gran and Paps’s, but in the state of Nevada, their family name, Marcotte, was just as notorious as the name Nyx.
Paps’s mother was one of the only women ever executed in the state of Nevada. When he was a baby, she killed her husband and her mother before she died in the gas chamber.
In the end, I stuck with Nyx simply because it had a cooler ring to it.
“That doesn’t mean he was wrong.” Orion studied my smug face. “Are you telling me you’re sitting here, outside your body, talking to a ghost, and you still doubt what he said he was?”
“No?” Even to my own ears, I didn’t sound so sure.
“No?”
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. “I mean, I don’t know. To be honest, I was really hoping that when Elias died, this disability of his would die with him, that my brother wouldn’t inherit it, and that I’d never have to hear about the Boundary or Nyx or detaching ever again.”
Orion stared at me a moment, a muscle working in his jaw. “I understand this is a bit of a personal crossroads, but can you please save that shit for later? Close by, a little girl and her parents don’t give a damn about how you got here.”
I blinked a few times. Had to give it to him, Orion was direct, a quality I respected. I jumped back on point. “Nyx was the Goddess of Night.”
His face softened. “Yes, and her power now flows through you. It makes you a valuable target.”
“Why do you care if I’m a target?”
“Because I don’t want you to end up like your father.”
That made two of us.
“Elias could have done great things to help others with his gift, but he was selfish. You have a chance to do better, for all of us.”
“No offense, but I’d really just like to do my job. There’s way too much shit happening in Sapphire Lake to worry about my whole world and yours right now.”