by Jill Shalvis
“And the whole pretend-you’re-not-a-couple thing? What’s that about?” Kellan asked.
“Oh, that part was real.” Axel’s eyes locked on Marilee’s. He brought their joined hands up to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “Until today.”
“While this is touching,” Kellan said. “We—”
“Have to go,” Axel answered for him. He glanced at Marilee’s watch. “Gotcha. Let’s get to the woods for the Sunday return.”
The thought of what lay ahead made me quiver. “We need the—”
Marilee held up the laptop. “Found it.”
“What about Serena and William?” Kel asked. “Don’t they have to be there to get their abilities back?”
Marilee and Axel looked at each other.
“Goddamnit,” Kel gritted out. “No more secrets.”
“Once the swap occurs, the pirates will leave you alone,” Axel said. “You’ll be safe.”
“We’ll be safe,” I said. “But Serena and William—won’t they be as good as dead?”
“Are they still in the house?” Kel asked me.
I looked through the floor beneath us. Blinked. “No.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Marilee said. “Please.”
We raced quietly down the stairs, toward the front door, and as we did, I looked behind us. Focused. “Found Serena and William. Curly has them outside Gert’s house.”
Kel looked at me, and I knew what he was going to say. I felt the same way, so I put the words out there. “We can’t leave them.”
Axel and Marilee stopped, and stared at me in shock. “But it’s you two they want. The abilities.”
It was one thing to be armchair brave—that is, while watching a horror movie and willing the stupid people to get out of the stupid haunted house before they got killed.
It was another entirely to be brave for real. To have to consciously make the decision not to walk away from someone you knew, someone whose eyes you’d looked into and whom you’d had conversations with…because if you left, they would die.
I couldn’t walk away.
And looking back at Kellan, looking into his eyes, I was grateful to see the same decision in his, that I wasn’t alone, that he couldn’t walk away either.
“We aren’t leaving them,” he said.
Axel sighed, and also stopped. “No. We’re not.”
“Let’s just get outside,” Marilee begged. “We’ll figure it out from there.” She reached for the front door, just as a bullet slammed into it, splintering the wood right over my head.
Moe.
Damn, almost forgot about him.
With my ears still ringing, Kellan shoved me out of the way, slamming me into the wall, covering my body with his own.
Given the cry I heard from Marilee, she’d gotten the same rough treatment from Axel. Axel, who knew Marilee loved him, and who, if things went bad today, would die knowing it.
I gripped Kel’s shirt in my fists. He had his back pressed to me, and was holding the gun in a terrifyingly fierce way, willing to protect me to the death. God.
With Moe coming down the stairs, covering the front door with his big gun, Kel grabbed me, yanking me under the stairs, then into the large reception room, toward the sliding glass door. Axel and Marilee were right on our heels. We ran out into the dark without meeting any pirates or guns, stopping at the far corner of the inn for protection, looking back at the building.
If I’d learned anything, it was that life had a habit of going the unexpected route. Today was no exception, and I had no guarantee on the outcome, no control, except over myself and my own feelings.
Which meant it was now or never. I looked at Kel’s profile, proud and tense. He was determined to see me safe, and all that I felt for him burst inside of me. No way could my feelings be attributed just to what had happened to us here this weekend. The feelings and emotions were far too deep for that. I had to make him understand before it was too late, before even this last chance was gone. “Kel.”
“Hang on,” he said, staring at the inn, at the open front door, braced for a fight.
“Kel.”
His jaw bunched. “Please, Rach.”
“About that whole me-falling-for-you thing.”
He never took his eyes off the door, but he whispered my name again, just my name, in a low, soft voice filled with regret. “No good-byes, goddamnit. We’re going to live to argue about this another day.”
“I know you think it’s crazy, me just realizing all these feelings for you. I know you think it’s because of the abilities, and your new muscles—”
Marilee let out a sigh of agreement, and I glanced at her. “Sorry,” she said. “Just agreeing with ya. He’s got muscles.”
“Hey,” Axel said.
“Oh, you do too, baby,” she assured him.
I let out a sound of frustration, and looked at Kel. “It’s not about how…how hot you are,” I insisted. “It’s about your insides.”
“Yeah?” He didn’t take his eyes or his gun off the inn’s door. “Then why didn’t you see it before?”
“Fair question,” Axel said, and at my long look, he lifted a shoulder. “Just saying,” he muttered. He went back to watching the inn with Kel.
“I didn’t see it before because I was stupid and selfish, okay?” I said to all of them. Sheesh! “Because I was scared. Kel—”
“You can’t even say the word, Rach. You can’t even say ‘I love you,’ so—”
“I love you.” Oh God. My throat closed up a little, but I didn’t choke. My eyes burned though, and I felt like both laughing and crying as I beamed. “See? I said it. And I meant it.”
“It’s the healing powers of the mountain,” Marilee whispered. “Don’t ever doubt it.”
Kel, stiff and still watching the inn, gave nothing away of his thoughts, the stingy bastard. “Yeah, let’s see if you still feel this way in five minutes, after the swap.”
He still didn’t believe me. Hurt, I fell quiet.
“Kind of harsh, dude,” Axel said to Kel.
“Jesus.” Kellan risked a quick glance at me. “We are not doing this now. Not with lives in danger. Not with an audience.” He shot a meaningful glance back at Axel and Marilee. “I mean it.”
He meant it. Kellan McInty putting his foot down. It gave me a thrill, which told me Moe must have hit me harder than I’d thought.
“Now can you all please shut up?” Kel said.
Whoa. He’d said to shut up. I had to be real hurt, because that got me, too.
“Hey!” shouted Curly from just inside the front door. “We know you’re out there! The two of ya with the abilities, drop any weapons and walk slowly toward the front door!”
“Burn in hell!” Marilee yelled.
“Way to keep quiet,” Kel said on a sigh, sighting the gun in his hands like he knew what he was doing.
“Now,” Curly yelled, and let off a shot that ricocheted far too close for comfort. I heard Kel let out a grunt of surprise, and Axel swore loudly and viciously as he got into a better position.
“Come on out!” Curly called, with what sounded like insane glee.
“Okay, change of plans,” Kel said to us, sounding like he was talking with his teeth gnashed together.
I glanced at him, but he was still giving nothing away. Damn him.
“Hey, listen up!” he said loudly enough for everyone to hear, including the pirates. “You’re going to send out your two hostages. Nice and easy. No more shooting.”
“And why would we agree to that, mate?” Moe called.
“Because then you get to keep your pretty teeth.”
I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around the fact that this tough-talker was Kellan—sweet, kind, gentle, talk-to-dolphins Kellan. Riveted, I stood there and watched him take over, falling even harder for the guy, if that was humanly possible.
“I’ll give you some time to think it over,” he called out.
“How much time?”
“U
ntil the count of three. One!” He lifted his gun and sighted on the front door.
My God. He was serious.
“Two!”
“Wait!” Moe called. “Jesus! Don’t go off half-cocked now. We just want the abilities. Tell us where the laptop is, and we’ll swap, and then you’ll go free. Everyone will go free.”
Sounded good to me.
“Deal?” Curly yelled.
I could feel everyone holding their breath.
“No,” Kellan responded. “No deal.” And he aimed for one of the windows closest to the front door.
“Uh, Kel?”
“Not now, Rach.”
And then he pulled the trigger.
Chapter 24
In that split second that the bullet shot out the window and glass sprayed, time seemed to stop.
Kellan stood there, feet wide, holding the gun, looking fierce and determined and outrageously tough. But even with his new strength, he’d remained true to himself. The old Kel wouldn’t have done anything differently than this Kel.
And now, because of me, we stood here in a no-win situation. Chances were, someone was going to get hurt.
Or killed.
Unless…unless I could face my fears once and for all, and commit, with my whole heart and soul. Commit to getting us out of here, commit to loving Kel for the rest of my life. I’d do both, I decided, and pushing past Kel, I ran out into the spot in front of the porch where everyone could see me.
“Jesus, Rach!” Kel started to run after me, but I whirled back and held up my hand.
“No, wait!” Craning my neck, I looked at the front door, knowing Curly and Moe were hanging on my every action. “This has to stop,” I called out. “We’re all armed. Someone’s going to die.”
Curly’s face appeared in the shattered window, his gun trained right on me. “Hey, hot stuff. We just want the abilities.”
“Then let’s swap,” I said. “Right now. We have the Blackberry. We can do the swap with that.” Or so I hoped.
Moe’s face appeared, and then Serena’s, with Moe’s gun in her face. “No funny stuff!”
“No funny stuff,” I promised, hoping I would be able to keep that promise, because I knew I couldn’t control the variables—meaning Kel, Axel and Marilee. I could only hope. I turned back to them, Moe’s and Curly’s guns making my shoulder blades itch. Axel held a gun in one hand and Marilee’s hand in the other. They were both looking at me as if I were crazy.
And I probably was.
But it was Kellan I wanted to reach.
At the moment, he was further from the San Diego dolphin trainer I’d ever seen, without an ounce of the easygoing, laid-back, slightly self-conscious guy I knew so well visible. He stood there, his dark shirt ripped, the cut on his face bleeding again, his eye swollen, his jaw bruised, every part of him streaked with sweat and dirt from the attic and from the climb down the side of the house. He held that huge, scary-looking gun as if he might use it at any second, his eyes dark and focused, his body tensed and ready for battle.
And I loved him.
The knowledge and epiphany were no longer so shocking. I loved him. I knew it with every fiber of my being.
It wasn’t this place or the “abilities,” as he thought, but the situation that had led us here, the experiences we’d shared. It was watching him be the man he was in shocking and extreme circumstances, all of which had taught me more about myself than I’d learned in my entire lifetime.
He was everything to me, and though he didn’t believe it yet, I knew now how to prove it to him. “Put down your guns. Everyone!”
“No,” Kellan said.
“No,” Curly and Moe said together.
“Fuck no,” Axel said.
“If you don’t,” I said as calmly as I could with panic shrinking my voice, “we’re going to stand here all night at an impasse.”
“What does ‘impasse’ mean?” I heard Moe ask Curly.
“How the fuck should I know?” Curly answered.
“I mean,” I called out, “that we’ll get nowhere. We’ll stand around looking stupidly at each other, and no swap will get made.”
“Well, that’s not exactly true,” Marilee said.
Ah hell. More stuff I didn’t know. I debated with myself, because how much worse could this get? Answer: a lot worse. I glanced at Marilee, and lifted a brow.
“Never mind.” She lifted her hands, waved me on. “It probably won’t matter. You just go ahead.”
Ah hell. “Tell me.”
“Well, when the abilities are taken without permission, it’s dangerous for the person they’re taken from. They can get really sick, even die.”
I stared at her. “Did that happen to you?”
“No.” She looked…guilty? “It didn’t happen to me.”
“Why not?”
“Because at the time,” she said very quietly, “I, um…” She sighed. “I wanted my ability stolen.”
“What?”
“I sold out, okay? I was in debt and having some trouble. When the pirates came, I made a deal. I took cold hard cash. I’d give anything to be able to take it back, but I can’t. It’s done. But the truth is, my ability wasn’t stolen; I sold it.”
I stared at Axel, who was not looking shocked by this revelation. “And you?”
“I gave it willingly to stay here with Marilee.”
Marilee gasped. “You did? Oh, Axel, that’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
“And dangerous,” I said.
“So dangerous!” Marilee couldn’t take her eyes off Axel. “My cousin’s brother’s best friend’s fiancé went into a coma on her wedding day when their abilities were stolen! I can’t believe you did that for me.”
A coma. God. “Your cousin. Did she ever wake up?”
“Four years later, to find out that her best friend had married her fiancé. So you want to be real careful here, because believe me—” She squeezed Axel’s hand. “A good fiancé is damn hard to find.”
“I’m not paying anyone cold hard cash, even if your ability comes wrapped in pure gold,” Curly yelled, lifting his gun again. “So don’t even think about it. I don’t care who ends up in a coma, as long as I walk away with the strength ability.”
“Yeah, you’re going to need that brawn,” Kellan muttered, “to combat the lack of brains.”
“Hey!” Curly leveled his gun at Kellan. “That wasn’t nice!”
I leaped forward in my haste to get between the two. “No shooting, remember?”
“Too late,” Curly sneered.
“What do you mean?” My heart kicked, but everyone was here and accounted for…
“Nothing,” Kel said grimly.
“Let’s do this,” Curly said.
“You’re going to take the ability and go, right?” I pressed him. “You’ll leave all of us alone?”
“The moment the swap is made,” he said, and showed those disgusting teeth. “Scout’s honor.”
Uh-huh. And his honor meant so much. “No shooting, right?”
“Tell him,” Curly said, and gestured at Kellan.
I looked at Kellan, who shook his head. “Bad idea, Rach.”
“It’s the only idea we’ve got.” I looked at Serena and Axel. “You willing?”
They nodded. I had no idea what would happen to them without their abilities, but being alive seemed far more important at the moment.
The faintest purple light tinged the edges of the night sky now.
Dawn.
I turned to Axel. “What exactly happens at dawn?”
He glanced at the pirates, then whispered, “Well, you might have noticed their increased desperation and violence.”
“What happens at dawn, Axel?”
“They have to leave or risk getting stuck here.”
“Then why aren’t we stalling instead of bargaining?”
“Because they have guns,” he reminded me. “Big ones.”
Oh yeah.
; “Lead the way!” Curly yelled. “To the clearing right now!”
Axel looked at Marilee, who as the new expedition leader lifted her chin regally and took the front.
We all followed, tromping through the woods in eerie silence. Even the birds were quiet today, and when I looked up, I had to execute a double take.
The crystal-clear night had shifted. The massive black, swirling cloud was back, building steam that made me gulp.
The wind had picked up, too, just like the last time, and as we finally stepped into the clearing, the first few drops of rain began to fall.
My heart kicked into gear.
With every fiber of my being, I felt…terrified. No other word described the feeling gripping me. There were so many variables and what-ifs that my brain couldn’t even take it all in. It didn’t help that the first lightning bolt was still far too fresh in my mind. It hadn’t been a piece of cake. It had hurt like hell, and all that confusion afterward, the mind-numbing fear…I didn’t want to go through it again.
Knowing how dangerous it all was didn’t help, nor did the knowledge that doing this again could send me spiraling into a coma—
I looked over at Kel, who looked bleak, his expression closed, and my heart lurched even more.
Then he staggered in a rare misstep, and I reached for him.
“I’m fine,” he said, shaking me off, not looking fine at all, but deathly pale.
Curly gestured for us to go ahead of him into the clearing, and when we both hesitated, he lifted his gun at me. “I’ll shoot her this time.”
“This time?” I looked at Kel, and I just knew. I searched him with my eyes—His dark shirt. God. I ran my hands over him and found the stickiness at his shoulder, down his side. “Oh my God! You were shot!”
“Just in the shoulder,” he said, jaw clenched so tightly he had to fit the words through his teeth.
I thought I’d been terrified before, but now it raced like ice up my spine. “Kel—”
“Later.” He moved into the clearing, but just as he did, a harsh gust of wind blew through, knocking us all into each other and down to our knees.
The clouds seemed to swell, then they lowered, surrounding us in an inky blackness that blocked out the growing dawn.
Someone gasped, and the rain began to fall in earnest, soaking into my clothing in a blink. It was going to happen any second now, I knew it.