“Don’t call me your friend after drugging my girl. You obviously don’t have many friends if that’s how you treat yours. I thought we were cool, but then you go and do something like this?” He slapped the steering wheel again.
Tucker shifted beneath me. “So overly emotional. This one really did get her hooks in you. Never thought I’d see the day you’d follow a piece of tail around for the long haul.”
“Hello!” I complained. “What did the drugs do to me?”
“Nothing terrible. Just a little sanning basilika mixed with my charm and persuasion, plus some old magic no one really cares much about these days. No one bothers to learn the nuances anymore. Alrik taught me how to brew it, actually, so you can thank him.” When I was not satisfied with his answer, he continued. “You’ve got a block in your mind. The tea makes the truth pour out of people more gently than your Huldra who tried to crack your head open to get information. You told me things you hide, and a few things hidden from you. Your mother put a lock on your mind. When I tried to force my way past it, she spoke to me, warning me away.”
“My mom? My mom spoke to you?” I deflated. “My mom’s dead, Tucker. And I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Not a ghost. She recorded a message or a bit of herself somehow, and placed it in your mind in case someone like me ever tried to do something like what I did.”
I shook my head and sat up. “What am I supposed to say to that? You sound crazy.”
Jens shot me a look of warning. “Get down, babe. I’m serious. Whatever your mom put in you blasted a hole clean through Tuck’s roof. There’s gold dust everywhere, and hunters’ll track it now. They know Tucker’s the one who’s said to have killed you and collected the bounty. They can find out whose house that is and see the gold dust everywhere. You’re supposed to be six feet under. They’ll know you’re not dead, so we have to hide you again.” He sucked in his upper lip. “Both of you, actually.”
“That makes no sense,” I said as I lay back down atop Tucker. I peeked at Jamie and wished I could be the unconscious one large enough to take up the whole backseat. Then Jamie could sit on Tucker’s lap. That was a fun visual. “Why would they be after Tucker? Far as I can tell, they’re just after me, right? I mean, the gold dust could be from Tucker. Why would anyone assume it’s from me?”
It was then I noticed that Jens was sweating. He massaged the steering wheel too roughly. “That’s the thing. The amount of dust. Loos, I mean, it billowed out from the house like chimney smoke. It’s all over the neighbor’s lawn, too! Gold and silver. It wasn’t Tuck’s magic. It’s obvious to anyone who was around before the sirens were killed off that it’s siren magic. Elves give off gold dust, but sirens give off silver when they use their power. Tuck and I did our best to sweep up or burn up any trace of the silver dust, but it was a close call. We’re hiding out now.” He loosened his shirt collar. “We faked Tucker’s death so the hunters wouldn’t be after him, since he’d have been the last one to see you alive.”
Reality dawned on me like a punch to the gut. I remembered the silver dust puffing from Pesta’s mouth when she used her powers to control Uncle Rick and me. “So it looks like Tucker tried to carry out a hit on me, and thought he killed me but didn’t. Then, violent siren that I am, sought out revenge on him? I’m supposed to have killed him and blown up his house?”
Jens swallowed and then nodded, refusing to glance over at me. “Hopefully it just looks like Tucker used too much of his power on one of his many enemies. Hopefully we got all the silver dust, and no one will know your secret.” He gripped the steering wheel. “It was all I could do to get you out of the house. Your whole body was burning hot for like twenty minutes after the explosion. We packed up everything we could, grabbed all Tucker’s cash and ran.” He exhaled his nerves. “I withdrew the maximum daily amount from your card, so we’ve got that plus the stash I grabbed when we left our house, but it’s not enough to start over again somewhere. It’s bad, Loos. My funds’ll be tracked since I’m your Tom, so we can’t use my money, either.”
My thought process came to a halt as I tried to make sense of the fugitive I now was. Tucker held me in a way that was probably meant to be comforting, but I felt cold from the inside out. Maybe I was being dramatic, but it seemed like all my efforts to be normal were a wash. My whole life was pretty much scrapped, and there would be no getting it back. I’d supposedly killed an ages-old playboy elf with tons of connections. I wasn’t even supposed to be alive. There would be no end to the hunters looking for me, and my white picket fence would never be resurrected.
“This is stupid,” I whispered, making sure no emotion sprang from my eyes or caught in my voice. “Jens, stop the car. I know what to do.”
Jens shook his head. “Tell me first, and I’ll decide if it’s worth the risk of stopping. Otherwise you can wait until we cross the state lines. We’ll have to dump this car in case they get creative and involve the cops.”
Though I didn’t want to feel comfort from Tucker, he gave it to me anyway, rubbing circles into my back as I summoned my courage. “Jens, this won’t work. We hide for now until… what? We have to find a new hiding spot? Pesta’s in my blood now. I don’t want this for you.” I bit my lip to hold back the quiver in my voice, lest they know how upset I was about the whole mess. “I don’t want this for me. You know what you have to do; you’re just afraid to say it out loud.”
Jens’s eyes darted around to race to a new solution, confused that he’d met a wall that I’d apparently already hurtled over. “Um, if you’ve got something better than hiding, I’m all for it. Let’s hear it.”
“No,” Jamie mumbled from the back. His hand reached up and rubbed his chest like he had an ache there that needed salve. “Not an option.”
“You know it’s the only option,” I argued, miffed that he’d gotten into my head. “You know it, but you’re not willing to look at it. It’s selfish. Jens deserves better than this.”
“I’ll not argue with that,” Jamie said as he sat up, “oof”ing like an old man. “But that won’t be better for him.”
“People can survive all sorts of things. If I can get on with my life after losing my family, so can he.”
Tucker raised his hand like a boy in grade school. “Your psychic bond’s confusing me. What are we talking about?”
I extracted myself from Tucker and climbed into the backseat next to Jamie. “Get down!” Jens scolded, head turning left and right to ensure no passing cars got a good look at me.
Jamie sat up and scooted over so I could lie down, my head on his lap. It wasn’t ideal, but it lowered Jens’s blood pressure, so it sufficed. Tucker threw my blanket back, and Jamie made quick work of covering me up to my chin.
Jamie cupped his hand over my mouth when I tried to explain my idea, and why it was better than running for all of eternity. “She doesn’t have an idea. It was foolish to begin with.” Then to me, Jamie said, You have no idea how badly you’ll hurt Jens by even suggesting killing yourself to end the hunt. His parents left him for Be because fighting was too hard. Now you’ll do the same? You’ll abandon him because it’s hard? He shook his head. You’d murder me?
I breathed through my nose while his hand held my mouth shut. This is the only way! Do you really think Undraland will leave me alone? Do you want this life for Jens? Don’t you love him enough to let him have a life that isn’t always on the run?
Of course I do! But this isn’t the way, syster. He ran his thick fingers through my curls when he caught onto my internal struggle of trying not to cry. It was a valiant effort, but no. We’ll get through this.
Through to what? What’s on the other side of this? People just accept that I’m part siren? They’re totally cool with it and let me live after I just killed the evil siren they thought was the last one? Really? That’s how you think this’ll end? I’d rather die how I choose than go out Undraland-style.
Come here. Jamie pulled me to sit across his lap, wrapping me in his strong
arms and oatmeal cookie scent. I breathed, feeling almost as if the rest of the world was held at bay by my strong big brother. For all the mistrust between us, in that moment I needed him, and he was there for me.
“Cover her head!” Jens barked. “Honestly, guys. Do I have to do everything? Get on the ball, Jamie.”
You’d really abandon that charm? Jamie teased, pulling the afghan up to shield my face from anyone’s view but his.
“Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” Jens asked, frustrated at the bond. “If there’s a better way, I’m all ears.”
“No,” Jamie answered forcefully. “Your way is fine. Where are we staying tonight?”
Tucker responded for Jens. “I have a house another couple hours from here. I’m sure my death will be reported, but I’ve willed everything to a friend who won’t be this far south to check on all my properties for a few weeks. We can stay there while we figure things out.”
I closed my eyes and buried my face in the warmth radiating from Jamie’s chest. His shirt felt like it had been in the dryer, so I snuggled into the heat while I shut out the world.
Twenty-Eight.
The Things We Shouldn’t
Tucker’s next house was not as rose-filled as Gladys’s, but it had similar portraits of this new woman he’d seduced up on the walls. Pearl Romanov hid her smile well. In fact, one might guess she never had one to begin with – her wrinkled mouth was always drawn tight, and her stare severe. I inched back from her image whenever it found me, framed on the wall.
“Don’t be fooled,” Tucker said of her portrait over the fireplace. She looked like an old schoolmarm whose greatest ambition was to ban dancing in Footloose. “She was an utter minx.”
I didn’t feel like talking, so I nodded with disinterest and did as Jens asked – holed up in a windowless room until the guys secured the house. Tucker joined me when Jens shooed him into hiding, since we were both supposed to be dead.
I sat on the shag rug of the peach-colored bathroom. It was decorated in a seashell theme with little peach shell-shaped soaps on the sink. She didn’t seem the type to dream of the ocean. I guessed Tucker wasn’t wrong about his earlier minx comment.
Tucker tried fruitlessly to drag me into conversation with him. When he finally realized I wasn’t into small or big talk, he stood and moved to the toilet. “Unless you want to faint from lust, I’d avert your eyes, love. Gotta drain the snake.”
I blanched and shut my eyes as Tucker relieved himself. My brother had never done that in front of me beyond the age of five, and Tucker was just about the last person I wanted to be stuck in a room with in that moment.
He zipped his trousers back up and sat on the ledge of the peach bathtub my back was leaning against. The whole room smelled of hyper-sweet peach jam. He touched his shined square-toed shoe to my knee. “The last siren, and you can’t even access your powers. It’s a real shame everyone’s going to try to kill you before you come into your own.”
I offered up a noncommittal grunt, wishing I could go lie down somewhere and forget the world for a bit.
“You don’t like me, do you?” Tucker asked, mildly amused at the game only he was playing. He seemed almost perplexed that he held no real appeal for me.
“Why do you care if I like you? You drugged me, peed in front of me, and made gross jokes about having a banana in your pocket just to make me squirm. If that’s you trying to be charming, you may want to head back to obedience school.”
“I don’t try to be charming, I just am.” He flashed his crooked grin at me, so I turned my back to him. “Wow. That usually works.”
I scoffed. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty.” I sighed, not liking the snottiness I was exuding. “Look, I’m grateful you let us crash at your house, and I really am sorry I broke Gladys’s roof. I didn’t mean to. And I’m also sorry Jens had to fake your death. Been through it before, and it sucks.” I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin atop them. “But it’s been a rough day on top of a stupid couple days on top of a mostly awful year. I’ll Suzy Sunshine you some other time and we’ll be besties. Aside from hitting on anything with boobs, you seem a medium amount of nice once you get past all the crap. But you’ve got a lot of crap, Tucker, and I don’t have a shovel to wade through it right now.”
Tucker paused to mull over my reply. “I guess I’ve been a bit bored as of late. You coming along gave me a new adventure, so I’m not terribly worried about my fake death. Though, I appreciate the condolences.”
“Do me a solid? Next time you want information, just ask. Don’t drug me, or apparently I’ll blow a hole in your roof.”
“Lesson learned. Though you don’t seem terribly forthcoming with personal information.”
“That’s the thing about personal information,” I replied with a forced impression of a smile. “This place have a liquor cabinet?”
“It wouldn’t be a house of mine if it didn’t. Fancy a nightcap?”
“Several,” I groused, rubbing my forehead. I’d worked out the beginnings of a plan to off myself, but tried not to think it through all the way to its inevitable conclusion, so as not to tip off Jamie. I shoved images of Foss’s nude body to the forefront of my mind so Jamie would want nothing to do with reading my thoughts.
“You’re not curious about what you told me? You haven’t said much about it.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “I more feel bad for you. You thought you were getting insider information, but you got to hear the details of my crappy life. Have fun with that.”
“I was sorry to hear about your family dying.” He cleared his throat and placed a hand on my shoulder that I shrugged off. Nice as he was trying to be, I didn’t want comfort from him. Liquor. It was the only thing I would accept from Tucker. But he was persistent on starting up a conversation. “Your mother wanted your magic hidden from you. Though, I can’t imagine she’d be very happy with how it all turned out. Laplanded to a Tonttu prince. What would the neighbors say?”
I wasn’t sure what to do with that information myself. It made sense, sort of. Undraland kicked her out and tore apart her family. Undraland killed her and my father. I understood why they’d want to keep that from me. I didn’t like it, but I understood. If I was entitled to keep a few secrets, I guess I had to accept that my parents were allowed, too. So long as those were the only secrets, I could deal.
I could tell Tucker was choosing his words carefully. “The bond seems problematic, since you and Jamie are bent on loving other people.”
I nodded. “Problematic’s the right word. Jamie’s happily married. I’m good with Jens. It’s rough, but we’re figuring it out.”
“I’ve always wondered if there was a solution to undoing a lapland.”
“Well, if you come across it in a drugstore one day, pick up a bottle or two for me.”
“You’d like it undone, then?”
I crossed my ankles and held up all five fingers to show him. “That’s on the top five things I’d wish for most. I want it more than a pony, if you can believe it.”
“I’ll do some poking around. See what that turns up.” Tucker allowed for a few beats of silence to fall between us. “It sounds like your mother hid her Huldra magic from you, and your father’s wind elf abilities.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees to speak more quietly to me. “I’m wondering if I taught you a few basics of Alrik’s magic, if that would stick.”
I jerked my head around to stare up at him, engaging in conversation against my previous unsuccessful plan to freeze him out. “Do you think I can really learn something like that? I mean, I have no aptitude for that kind of thing.”
“That you know of. Your mother hid two kinds of magics from you. She couldn’t have known to hide Alrik’s or Pesta’s. I could teach you a little bit of Alrik’s. And I know the theories of siren magic, though, I admit, I’ve never actually done it. I have no idea how useful I’d be to you. But we could try.”
My spangled fingers
itched to be put to use. “Okay. Yes, that’d be great. What do I do first?”
Tucker smiled at me, patting the space on the bathtub ledge next to him. Despite my disdain for him, I complied, willing to be friends with a snake if it would make me less useless. Tucker sat straight, crossing one leg over the other as he started out his first lesson. “Your magic is tied to your life force, which most people assume comes from your heart. It actually is more of a gut thing, which is why if you rely on your gut to tell you how to use it, it’s more effective than those who tie magic to their heart, and therefore use it as their emotions sway. The best elves act on their gut instinct.”
I sat up straighter and touched my stomach, trying to connect with whatever gumption I had in there.
“In school when we’re young and first learning to use our abilities, we use incantations for everything. After the first couple years, those become unnecessary, as you can will your magic to the surface. But we’ll start with the basics, yeah?”
“Okay. Sure. Can you teach me how to manipulate water? I mean, you’re a fire elf.”
“I can teach you the theory, at least. Since I’m a fire elf, my grasp on water is only the most basic. Surely you saw Alrik conjure light in his fingertips? That’s rudimentary elf magic. It’s applicable across all three gifts. There’s wind, water and fire. Fire elves are rare. For some reason, we’re a genetic anomaly, about as common as twins.” He winked at me. “So you’ll meet a fire elf from time to time, but the most common are water and wind.”
“Don’t wink at me,” I ordered. “We don’t know each other well enough for you to do that.”
He squinted one eye, examining me like I was a strange bug. “A married woman with a boyfriend. You should be easy to hook, but I guess I’ll have to take my time with the slow seduction.”
“You don’t want me, so stop pretending you do just to make me uncomfortable. I know your game, attention whore. Knock it off.”
He shook his head. “Never have I had such resistance from a woman over the simplest things.”
Lucy at Peace Page 18