by W. J. May
“Outburst?!” she cried. “The man admitted to keeping us prisoner. I was simply asking why—”
“—in your customary, inflammatory way.”
Customary, inflammatory way? Okay, true. But it’s not like I’m ever going to admit to it.
“Seems like you’re going to have to get used to that,” Rae said softly. “If you’re going to be in the family and all…”
Carter looked like he’d swallowed a bug. “Beth told you,” he finally managed to choke, pulling her gently to a stop.
Rae’s eyebrows lifted in surprised. Seems that dear ol’ Mom had forgotten a thing or two before skipping off to Scotland.
“She didn’t tell you that she told me?”
“No…” Carter closed his eyes with a painful grimace. “Why would she do that?”
Why indeed.
Rae dug the toe of her boot nervously into the floor, unsure of what to do. Over the last few years, she and Carter had found themselves in almost every situation imaginable. But that didn’t mean—by any stretch of the imagination—that they were ready for something like this.
When she looked back up, he was watching her nervously.
A look of supreme uncertainty clouded his always-certain face. “I’d wanted to tell you with your mother. In fact, I’d wanted to ask you for permission long before that,” he confessed softly.
“Ask me for permission?” Rae was genuinely surprised.
“Of course!” Carter’s uncertainty grew. The man had never been particularly good at showing his feelings, and situations like this were obviously a nightmare. “Rae…you know that I care about you and your mother very much. But I would never want to do anything to come between—”
“I think it’s a great idea.”
“Rae, you’re not hearing me. I’m saying that my top priority is…I’m sorry.” He stopped suddenly and backtracked. “What did you say?”
Rae fought back a smile. “You love my mother, and she loves you. You make each other incredibly happy. I think…I think it’s a great idea.”
“You do?” Carter almost laughed in relief. His entire face was contorted in a smile so wide Rae didn’t think his mouth would ever recover. “Well, that’s…wonderful news.”
“As long as it means I get to know the launch codes and stuff. You know… family secrets.”
There was a huge pause.
“That was a joke, sir.”
“Right,” he laughed nervously, “of course. You know, we’ll probably have to do something about you calling me ‘sir’ as well.”
Rae’s eyes darted to the side as she tried to think what else in the world she would possibly call him. “Let’s…just take things one step at a time.”
“Agreed.” He nodded briskly. “Well, in that case, you’d better get some sleep. I’m sure you’re set to have more physical therapy in the morning.”
She grinned wickedly. “You mean more walking? Yeah, I think I’ve mastered that.”
He smiled as well. “Yes, well, at any rate…goodnight, Rae.”
“Goodnight…Carter.”
He looked like he was about to give her a hug, but in the end it was so awkward that the both of them ended up just shaking hands. It was hard to say who walked away faster, but even though neither one could see, they both walked away with huge, impossible smiles.
* * *
“You seriously have no idea how bad this timing is, Molls. Carter just told me that he doesn’t want any of us leaving. It’s going to look like—”
Molly braced her hands against her hips. “I don’t care what it looks like, someone has to go and sign our termination agreement. Otherwise the penthouse goes into foreclosure, or the bank seizes it, or something else happens where we end up losing the whole thing altogether.”
Rae chewed on her bottom lip, trapped between two people who most definitely knew how to hold a grudge. “Well, why can’t you go?” she finally asked, succumbing to childish misdirection.
Molly smirked. “Really? The entire Council is on our tale and you’re going to ask me to go to London by myself to sign the papers? Risk my life just for an apartment?”
“…you’re asking me to go.”
“You’ve risked your life for a lot less.” Molly sniffed self-importantly. “And we both know this is never going to come to that. This all boils down to the fact that you don’t want to disappoint dear ol’ Dad.”
Rae met her devilish grin with a cold stare. “That was entirely uncalled for.”
“You’d better get used to it. It’s only a matter of time before he moves into the house in Scotland, he and your mom adopt a puppy, one thing leads to another, and then—”
“Okay, fine—I’ll go! Just…never finish that sentence.” Rae conjured herself a purse and slung it across her shoulder with the expression of a martyr.
But in truth, she would have gone for a lot less. Anything to set Molly’s mind at ease.
To say that Molly hadn’t been herself since the fight at Guilder was an understatement of massive proportions. Not only had she deliberately stayed away from every meeting that had happened at the compound—not the least of which included the trip to Guilder—but she had refused to come to training as well. Something about…she didn’t think she was physically up to it yet after the fight. Something that everyone who knew her knew was an absolute lie.
Rae had tried to talk to Luke about it, but he seemed just as baffled as her. ‘People handle trauma in different ways,’ he’d said. Although completely unsatisfied with this answer, Rae had let it go. The poor guy was just as lost as the rest of them. But Rae knew firsthand how much ‘trauma’ Molly was capable of handling and this didn’t even scratch the surface. Something was just wrong, that’s all there was to it. In fact, since they’d gotten back, she’d yet to see Molly even use her tatù.
“If anyone asks where I am, just say I’m locked in my room. Meditating or something,” she continued as she pushed open the door. “With any luck, I’ll be back before anyone notices.”
“Thanks, Rae,” Molly said quietly.
Rae turned around to see her friend staring down at the floor, lost in a sea of undetermined emotions, trying so hard to hold it all in. “Anytime,” she promised. Her hand tightened on the frame as she paused. “And Molls?”
Molly looked up. “Yeah?”
“Everything…” Rae hesitated, not sure herself but wanted to make the anxiety on her friends face disappear. “This is all going to be okay. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, sure.” Molly forced a smile. “Now go sign the deed so we can be officially homeless.”
“That’s the spirit.”
* * *
In an act of most uncharacteristic charity, Gabriel actually allowed Rae to drive his car into the city. At first, he had flat-out refused, but then she’d said it was a favor to Molly. Like the rest of them, he was feeling inexplicably protective of Molly, and he’d handed over the keys without another word. The gate swung open automatically to let her out, and as she sailed past one of the guards in the watchtower gave her a solemn nod.
The entire ride there, she worked hard to compartmentalize what she was about to do. She didn’t want to give up the penthouse. She happened to love the penthouse. And in the whirlwind of everything that had happened since graduation, she felt as though she hadn’t really been able to give the place a real shot.
But everything that Molly was saying made sense, and especially since Molly was the one who was saying it, she parked in a loading zone and marched into the lobby with steely nerves and fresh determination. She’d just sign the papers and be done with it. In and out. Simple as that.
…there was just one little thing she’d failed to take into account.
“Oh, Miss Kerrigan!”
She looked up just in time to see Raphael, their faithful lobby attendant, barrel into her. She sucked in a tight breath as he squeezed the life out of her, sobbing openly into her shoulder.
“I cried for hours
when I heard the news,” he finally gasped, pulling away, “I just can’t believe it. Both you and Molly—gone forever?! What am I going to do? How am I going to pass the time? Your place was like a soap-opera. It gave the whole building a little sparkle.”
Rae’s face broke into an unexpected smile as she gave the man another hug. In a way, it was nice to know that someone else was going to miss them here as much as she was. It gave it a certain kind of closure. “You know we’ll come back and visit all the time,” she promised. “Julian and Devon still live right down the street. And I don’t think you’ve even officially met Angel yet.”
“The girl with the white-blond hair?” he asked, looking started. “Honey, I don’t want to. I think we both know that I’m not one to judge, but that girl seems a bit too high-strung.”
Rae looked from the deep bruises beneath his eyes to the tears streaming down his cheeks.
Angel was a bit high-strung? The two of them could form a club.
“Well, anyway, I’m just here to sign the termination papers…”
“Oh, right.”
He pulled them down from a shelf and watched sadly as she scribbled her name. When she was finished, he gave her another tight hug before walking swiftly away, overcome with the grief of it all. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?” he called over his shoulder, probably heading to his locker to grab some sort of sedative. “I still want to hear all the latest news—”
The door swung shut behind him, cutting off his pleas and leaving Rae standing alone in the lobby; homeless, and suddenly feeling a little lost. A chapter in their lives was closing and it had barely started.
She wandered aimlessly outside, not quite ready to drive back to the compound yet. Although the paperwork now said otherwise, she still felt as though this place was her home, and there was a certain security just in being close. She half-considered wandering over to Devon and Julian’s place—even though she knew it was locked—but walked across the street and took a seat on a park bench instead, gazing up at her old balcony. The place where she used to live.
The place where she still wanted to live.
How could it be that, suddenly, it was just gone? Was anything ever going to start to feel like home?
She sat there for a long while, gazing up at the building as a gentle autumn breeze played with her hair. The bench was on the park side of the street, and pleasantly shaded. There were dozens of people coming and going at this time of day, so when a middle-aged man came and sat down on the other side, she hardly took notice.
“Moving in?” he asked pleasantly.
She smiled politely still staring up at the lonely balcony up top. She sighed. “Moving out, actually.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. This is a lovely spot.”
She nodded sadly and they lapsed back into silence, each one taking in the afternoon with quiet thought.
After a few minutes, the man finally broke it. “I knew a girl once, she was about your age, and she would have given anything to have lived in a place like that.”
“Oh, yeah?” Rae answered, barely listening. She glanced down and stared at the man’s hands, his nails perfectly manicured.
The man chuckled. “As extravagant as it seems, she thought it would make her life seem more normal. Something she desired above all things.”
A faint shiver ran across Rae’s skin and she realized she’d stopped breathing. Her eyes fixed on the building as the rest of her turned to perfect stone. Listening. And waiting.
“Why did she want so badly to be normal?” the man continued, seemingly oblivious to the change. “I’ve asked myself that question again and again. What’s so great about being normal? Why was it something that this extraordinary girl prized so highly? And then, like a bolt of lightning, the answer hit me. All at once. Do you want to know what it was?”
It felt as if a cold hand was holding Rae in place. Keeping her from moving. Stopping her from running. In her periphery, she saw the man turning slowly towards her, fixing her in his sights. “What was it?” she whispered, suddenly terrified to know the answer.
“Time,” he said simply. “The answer was she needed time.”
Like pushing together opposing magnets, Rae dragged her eyes away from her old home, twisting on the bench so she could see the man straight on.
He met her eyes with a smile.
“Time’s up, Rae.”
Chapter 10
Jonathon Cromfield.
Rae had time for a single scream. One sound before her world came crashing down. A single cry that was drowned out in the pleasant hum of London traffic.
The scream never made it out of the park.
The syringe was in and out of her before she realized what was happening—deadening her muscles with a dull ache that seemed to radiate out from the center of her body, consuming everything in its path. She felt the same paralyzing numbness she’d come to associate with Angel’s freezing ability. In fact, the feeling was so familiar that she was suddenly sure of what was coursing through her veins. Use your tatù, Rae! Do something. Don’t just sit here frozen. Fight it!
The same paralyzing agent that Cromfield gave to all the hybrids before he took what he needed from them and left them in the dust. She couldn’t move. From fear and the needle.
“Don’t fight it, my dear.” He stroked back her hair—appearing, for all the world to see, as a doting father, just having a pleasant talk with his daughter on a balmy London afternoon. Doting, perhaps, but cautious. No matter what happened, he was careful not to touch her skin. “I’ve believe it’s even more unpleasant when you fight it.”
She fought it anyway, but the harder she tried resist the more the freeze tightened its grasp. A dose of Angel’s blood was far more powerful than the tatù itself. She tried to break free like she had the first time they’d gone after Angel. Except there was something new in this concoction. It was like working against a vacuum. One after another, her limbs went completely numb, starting with her feet and working its way up. Before she knew it, Cromfield was leaning her gently back against the bench, propping her head up so she wouldn’t fall over.
Come on, Rae. Get it together! You know it can’t freeze everything! It can’t freeze your mind! Or your heart.
With a strength that surprised even her, she centered all her focus on a single tatù, drawing strength from her mother. There was what felt like an actual tearing inside her, but the next second, a wave of blue flames shot over the bench, engulfing Cromfield before her very eyes.
Now run, she thought in a wave of panic, eyes darting around the street to make sure no one had seen. Screw the sedative and run, before he has a chance to heal himself. This might be your only chance—
A slow chuckle ripped her away from the fantasy.
As if brushing off a pesky layer of dust, Cromfield slowly patted down his arms and legs, extinguishing the lethal fire. Rae looked on in horror. She knew the man couldn’t die any more than she could. But her mother’s ink was one of the most powerful in her collection. If that couldn’t even slow him down, then…
“You forget, sweet one; I wielded Bethany Kerrigan’s flames long before you did. As such, I’m equally immune to their fire.”
An image of her mother, passed out in the roaring flames that extinguished Rae’s childhood, flashed through her mind and a deep hatred swelled in her chest. “Don’t call me that,” she growled, fighting the paralysis with everything she had. “And don’t you dare talk about my mother.”
“Look at you!” Cromfield seemed genuinely impressed. “Rae, this is exactly what I was talking about when I said you were extraordinary. What other person in the world could manage to talk with our little Angel’s blood running through their veins? It’s truly a sight to behold.”
A searing pain shot through Rae’s jaw as she tried to speak again. “Let’s see if you can manage it yourself,” she hissed. “Make it an even playing field.”
He laughed again, a deep, booming laugh that in any other circumstanc
e would have been considered something close to jovial. The kind of laugh that belonged to a kindly uncle, or a favorite teacher at school. The kind of laugh that had no place in this park.
“No, sweetheart, I don’t think I will. You see, I came here today with the intention only to speak to you, not to harm you in any way. I would never harm you, Rae. You have to know that. However, judging by the look on your face, I’m guessing you’d like nothing better than to see me dead.” He chuckled again, as if the thought amused him greatly. “Clearly, that’s not something I can allow, and I also don’t want you getting hurt in the process of trying to hurt me—hence the sedative.”
Rae’s body was shaking now, shutting down from all the strain. “How very thoughtful of you,” she managed before her voice cut out entirely.
“There, there.” He caught one of her dark curls and twirled it absentmindedly between his fingers. “Just rest now. You’re going to need your strength.”
A pair of tears slipped down her cheeks and his face tightened with concern as he wiped them away, using his woolen sleeve to prevent any sort of contact.
“Rae,” he said gently. How could a man so vicious be so gentle? “Please don’t cry. There’s nothing to cry about, I promise you. I know you’re worried about your friends. You’re worried about what will happen to them in the days to come. Just know this: I’ll not harm anyone—not a single person you love—as long as they don’t stand in our way. You have my word.”
A horrific chill slid down her back, but she was unable to shiver. She was unable to even breathe as the monster sat there and touched her.
“That pardon applies to everyone. Molly, Carter, your mother, Julian…”
Her throat tightened a little more with every name that he said, choking off her sobs as his voice caressed them all in a way that said he knew far too much about them.
“Even my wayward children—Gabriel, Angel. Even they will be spared, if it pleases you.”
The image of it flashed through Rae’s mind. A final attack. Gabriel and Angel racing towards her, struck down by the very man who’d stolen away their very lives.