by Kyoko M
"But I don't understand," Kamala said, frustration bubbling up in her tone. "Why do I become this way around him when he's one of the only people in the world I trusted completely?"
"Because love isn't easy. You're trying to run from it, my flower."
"It's not about love. The decisions we make now will affect the rest of our lives."
"True. You do have to consider your feelings against what will become of your child. I did the same when I was around your age."
Kamala blinked at her mother. "You did?"
"Yes. I could have converted to Islam like Daeshim's parents insisted, but I chose to keep my Hindu faith instead. Things were difficult for a number of years, working as a doctor in a country we didn't fully understand at the time, and with no financial help from his parents after they disowned him for marrying me. My family was more understanding, but they too had reservations. Then you came along and changed their minds. You brought our family together. You helped them realize that there is more to life than labels and old traditions. I think it will be the same for your child. It will open your eyes to the possibilities you hadn't considered before. And I think the baby will bring you both back to where you belong."
"But I don't know that, mother."
"It's not for you to know. Life is erratic. We change our paths, our destinies, all the time. You aren't who you thought you would be when you were younger. You found a new calling and you found love in someone you would never have expected. If you stop trying to control the situation, the answer will come to you, my dear. As a woman of science, you feel the need to understand each aspect of life, but it's not that simple. Neither is love."
Kamala stared out at the pool for a while, considering her mother's words. "I don't know if I'll be able to forgive him. To forgive Faye. I know they didn't mean to hurt me, but they still did."
"It will take time," Sahana said. "You may never completely regain that trust, but you need to give yourself time to heal. You went through hell and back in that forest. It's not fair to expect yourself to recover so quickly."
"Did I do the right thing?" she whispered. "Sending him away?"
"I don't know, my flower. What does your heart tell you?"
"My heart's the one that got me in trouble to begin with."
Sahana chuckled. "Of course you would say that. You're more like your father than you realize."
Kamala shot her a skeptical look. "How so?"
"That's precisely what he said the night I told him I wouldn't convert. He could have broken up with me, but he didn't. He stood by me and took the verbal flagellation his family gave him as well as the disgrace. I know you see him as an ogre most of the time, but Daeshim means well. He knows what it is like to struggle and he doesn't want to see you go through that. He doesn't want history to repeat itself, although it appears it was fate."
Kamala sighed. "Will he disown me?"
Sahana frowned. "If he does, he'll be a single man again."
Kamala gave a start. "You'd leave him for disowning me?"
"You are my daughter," Sahana said fiercely. "My blood, my life, my heart. The man I married had better understand that above all or he'll find himself alone. My daughter is in love. I don't care the color of his skin or the nature of his faith. He is now a part of our family. Families support each other."
Something in Kamala relaxed at the finality in her mother's words. "Thank you."
Sahana nodded. "Now then, what of your project? You said you have a few days off to recover from the trip. What is next for you?"
"We're taking care of a batch of diamondback dragons now and we have plans to clone another clutch of eggs next month. We've purchased the land and the facility for the dragon sanctuary. I'd like to personally see to its construction and then once the dragons are no longer in need of daily checkups, I'd like to start sending them there to be cared for on a permanent basis. A lab at MIT is no place for such creatures. They deserve the freedom to be what they are."
"And what of Baba Yaga?" Sahana asked. "If they stabilize the dragon's behavior, would you try to parlay to have her sent here?"
"I'm not sure," Kamala admitted. "That is a lot to undertake a dragon of that size. Her needs would be excessive, but it depends on what it takes to care for her."
A faint smile touched her lips. "But I'd like to hear her sing someday. Maybe I will if I'm lucky."
"I'd like to hear a dragon's song," Sahana smiled. "I've heard they're quite beautiful."
"Ladies," Dr. Daeshim Anjali called from the terrace. "Lunch is ready. Come along."
Kamala clutched her stomach as a pang of anxiety went through it. Sahana turned her head. "We'll be there in a moment, dear."
She sighed. "It's time."
"I'm gonna go throw up first."
Sahana lifted Kamala to her feet by the hand and kissed her daughter's forehead. "It's alright, my flower. I'll be with you every step of the way."
Kamala smiled weakly. "Through hell or high water."
Sahana's brown eyes gleamed affectionately. "Exactly."
They walked up the winding staircase up to the balcony and stepped inside. Kamala headed to the nearest restroom. Just as she stepped back out, one of the maids stopped her.
"This just arrived for you," the young woman said, handing Kamala a small unmarked 6x9 envelope. Confused, she ripped it open and flipped it over to see what would fall out.
She stopped breathing.
It was an empty syringe and a note written in crooked, ominous lettering.
"Promises to keep."
***
Faye stood in Jack's kitchen, flipping the grilled cheese over in the pan, when her cell phone rang. Absently, she reached over and answered it, her mind too cluttered to even bother looking at the number.
"Hello?"
"Never been Tasered before."
Winston's calm, deep voice spread over her eardrums.
Faye went deathly still as he continued. "Hurts like a bitch. Now I know what I've been doing to people, and I have to say I feel kind of guilty. How's it going, blondie?"
She licked her lips, trying in vain to control her breathing. She glanced around the den and out the back window, terrified that he'd be standing there, but he wasn't. "Been better."
"Yeah. I take it you're at the beanpole's place. Didn't see you or the little lady doc at the apartment on my way out of town. How's that going?"
Faye shut her eyes and gritted her teeth. "Did you really call to check up on me after you kidnapped me, you son of a bitch?"
"What?" Winston said, offended. "Is that not allowed?"
"You are psychotic, you know that?"
"Yeah. I know." He sighed. "Really wish you hadn't taken my briefcase. That was a nice little nest egg that I'm hurtin' for right now. I hate being on the run. So tedious."
"Then why risk contacting me? You know I'll go to the cops with this number."
"Dunno," he confessed. "It's a long drive and I'm bored."
"Bullshit," she spat.
Winston laughed. "Alright, fine. Might as well be honest here. This is the first job I've ever blown, blondie. Period. Twenty years I've been at this gig and it went sideways because of you."
An icy thread of fear wound its way around her spine. "So what does that mean? You want revenge? You gonna try to kill me?"
"Kill you?" Winston said, indignant. "I'd rather take a shit on the Mona Lisa. You're a work of art, blondie. Why would I kill you?"
"Then what do you want?" she hissed. "To fuck with me for the rest of my life?"
"Eh, maybe not the rest of your life. Maybe just for a year or so until I've gotten the proper payback."
Faye gritted her teeth. "The feds have your information now. They'll catch you if you keep playing this cat-and-mouse game with me."
"Not worried about the feds," Winston said boredly. "I can throw enough stuff around so they're
chasing their tails. Been at this a long time."
"Yeah," she said lowly. "But not with me on your ass. Maybe I'm not an officer of the law or a federal agent, but you tried to kill me and my friend. You think I'm just going to let that slide? You think I'm just going to roll over for you because you've got experience on me? Dream on, asshole."
Silence. She almost thought he'd hung up, but then he chuckled again. "Goddamn, blondie. Now that's what I wanted to hear. So here's the deal: I'm gonna lay low until the heat's off in your neck of the woods. It won't be anytime soon, maybe some months, maybe a year. I want you to get ready. I want you to become the biggest, baddest thing they've ever seen in Cambridge. Once you are, I'll be back. I want a rematch. I want to see just exactly what you're capable of. You're tiptoeing, Faye. You could become something incredible if you wanted to. Something no one's ever seen before. I want to see you evolve into what I think you were always meant to be. Until that time...be a good girl and take care of the beanpole and the little lady doc, will ya?"
"Fine," Faye whispered. "Just be ready for when I hand you your balls on a silver platter, asshole."
"I'm looking forward to it, blondie. Oh, and you're burning the grilled cheese sandwich, by the way."
Click. Faye whirled around, panicked, her blue eyes darting around the room. She nearly screamed as she spotted Jack loping around the corner, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He immediately noticed her distressed state. "Faye? What's wrong? Are you okay?"
"It w-was him," she stammered. "On the phone. The hitman. He said...God, I think he's watching me. Watching us. What if there are hidden cameras in here?"
"Hey, hey," he said softly, drawing her into his arms. "Calm down. Breathe."
He folded her into his chest, stroking her hair, murmuring that she'd be alright. Slowly, she stopped trembling after a minute or so. He drew back enough to cup her face in his hands.
"We'll take the phone to the detectives and see if they can get anything out of it," he said. "You told me he'd tampered with it before. Maybe he's rigged the camera inside it or something. We can have them sweep my place for bugs too. But for right now, you're here and you're safe and we're going to figure this out, okay? He's not going to win."
She nodded. He kissed her temple and gestured towards his room. "Grab your shoes and your jacket. I'll clean up and we'll go over to the precinct together."
Faye stumbled into his bedroom and pulled on her sneakers, replaying Winston's words in her head. "I want to see you evolve into what I think you were always meant to be."
Faye clenched her jaw and pulled her shoelaces tight. In spite of all the chaos, in spite of the terrifying threat he presented in her life, she knew one thing.
Next time, she'd be ready for him.
To be continued in Of Dawn and Embers
Available now
Acknowledgments
To my mother, who is my port in the hellish tsunami that is my life. I couldn't have done this without you. Thank you for your kindness, your love, your support, and your confidence in me and the crazy little world I write about.
To my father, who is my lighthouse and an example of what happens when you're too stubborn to accept the lot life tries to hand to you. Thank you for your guidance and your patience.
To my brother, who is steadfast in his belief in my writing skills and where they might lead me someday. Thank you for tirelessly trolling through these pages to help me find the best story possible.
To Sharon, who is the Devil's Advocate for many a conflict in this insane little story. Thank you for providing perspectives I never thought possible for my lovely cast of characters.
To my family, who is the reason I still have anything resembling a heart. Thank you for stepping up to the plate and helping me stay sane as things continue to spiral wildly out of control. I am here because of you. Thank you so much for understanding and providing comfort in my darkest hours.
To my friends, who are the balm for my every mortal wound. Thank you for listening. Thank you for caring. Thank you for sticking around.
To Andy Rattinger, who is easily the man who helped the third act of the book flourish instead of being dead on arrival. Your advice is invaluable and I couldn't have rounded out the story without your help.
To the KBoards authors, who offered help for minor research elements as well as marketing questions that I had. Stay golden, my fellow guys and gals.
To my fans (all twelve of you), thank you so much for reading the nonsense I keyboard-smash into existence, for I am terrified of ever disappointing you. I hope that this novel either warmed the cockles of your heart or made you want to call up a real life Winston to take me out for working your nerves. I hope you're still willing to ride along with my dysfunctional little family for their future adventures. If not...exit, stage left!
To Marginean Anca, who is the best graphic designer a crazy author like me could ever ask for. I positively adore the new covers for the series. I stare at them secretly when no one's looking because they just make me so blasted happy. Thank you for your incredible art.
To Roxana Coumans, who saved my life by proofreading this nightmare of a manuscript for an author too exhausted and crosseyed to do it after finishing the book way too quickly: you are amazing.
Author's Note
Life sucks, and then you die.
Or, worse, you live and become a self-published author.
Alright, fine, that sounds melodramatic, but this gig ain't easy, y'all. I'm pretty sure the entire time I wrote this novel, I was muttering, "I should have gone to vet school." Bloody hell, this one was a beast. And I'm not just talking about Baba Yaga.
Writing the second book in a new series has all kinds of pitfalls in it. A lot of readers are familiar with the Mushy Middle Book Syndrome, where there's a lot of wheel-spinning that doesn't end up being relevant in the end. I hope to God that didn't happen here and that I was able to write a story that was captivating and interesting. I'm also hoping those of you who wanted more dragon this time around were able to enjoy the deadly Baba Yaga in all her glory. I truly had a blast crafting each of her scenes. She allowed me to shoot for the fences this time and not be held back by many limitations. She also let me dive a little deeper into one of the reasons I decided to write this series--the discussion of man vs. nature vs. God that Jurassic Park was so amazingly able to explore. I could never hope to come that close to writing something that good, but I certainly hope this novel was a conversation worth having.
I also took some risks this time around that I pray paid off in satisfying ways for my readers. Easily the biggest surprise to me was when I was finishing up another Suicide Forest sequence and Faye tapped me on the shoulder (metaphorically speaking) and told me she was ready to step up to the plate. I had a delightful time writing the dynamic between Faye and Winston the Hitman (and please, do yourself a favor and rent The Mexican; it's not a perfect movie, but damn, is it entertaining as hell). I've always liked the idea that hitmen (and I use that term for both male and female assassins, mind you) aren't these big, grand, over-the-top characters all the time. If this really is a covert career, then they'd be about as plain and as normal looking as the rest of us so that they could fit in and get away with literal murder all the time. I also had a lot of fun playing their personalities against each other and seeing what could pop out of this bizarre interaction. Certain characters truly surprised me, like Detectives Carmichael and Houston stealing my heart in their brief scenes together. My sister told me they reminded her of Detectives Ryan and Esposito from ABC's crime dramedy 'Castle' and I almost fell out of my chair when she told me because I hadn't even consciously thought about their dynamic, but it kind of fits. Who knew?
Jack and Kamala have one hell of a hard road ahead for them. It broke my heart to write that scene at the end with Kamala walking away to let him figure things out. I really hate to see my poor darlings in pain, but like life, nothing's as ne
at and clean as it should be in relationships. The only fair thing about life is that it's unfair. Good people get the short end of the stick and bad people triumph. We've already seen that in recent history and it looks like it's not going to change any time soon, sadly.
If you're able to take anything away from this novel, it's simply this: we can't control everything, but we can make a better future, a more hopeful future, if we're willing to pay the price. Sometimes the price is steep. Sometimes we lose the fight. But we can't give up or give in. We can make a better world if we're willing to endure. I don't want to believe all the magic in the world is gone because of the selfish, cruel actions of the vocal minority. If it is, then maybe I will spend the rest of my life nestled between the pages of fiction. After all, there are worse ways to live.
Lastly, I want to touch briefly on the issue of mental health. In this novel, we got to dive a little deeper into the many hang ups that both Jack and Kamala came up against in their personal lives. There is no doubt in my mind that they love each other, but it's not a simple as that with mental health. Sometimes you have to address things that scare you. Sometimes the bravest person you know feels alone and scared and inadequate. Asking for help is terrifying when you suffer from depression, anxiety, and other kinds of psychological issues. To that end, should it ever happen in your life, please always be willing to offer help to others or to ask for help if you're struggling. You never know how important small gestures can be to those who are hurting. I speak from personal experience when I say that my friends and family has unknowingly saved me a few times by just calling out of the blue to say hi and to check up on me.