Among the Debris (Son of Rain #2)

by Michelle Irwin

  The dates lined up in ways that no one had ever connected and the last one was three days before baby Emily’s arrival at a hospital in Kent. I had no doubt I was holding details of the deaths of the last four generations of Evie’s family. It was invaluable, and I had no idea how long it had taken Toni to dig it up, but it was likely I’d never get a chance to thank her properly for it.

  I rested my head against the seat as I imagined what Toni would tell me: “Thank me by keeping her safe.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A LOW, REPETITIVE tone filled the air.

  The sound was strange considering my surroundings—the dingy basement of a public library in some backwater town in the middle of Nowhereville, USA.

  The noise was so unexpected that it took me a few moments to identify the source.

  As soon as I had, my heart stopped beating for what seemed an impossible length of time before thumping against my ribcage with an unassailable desperation. Perhaps it understood the implication of that sound faster than my mind did and was trying to desperately break free and find the source.

  Even though the vibration against my leg confirmed what my ears and heart had told me, I still couldn’t quite believe it. The cell phone that I kept in my left pocket was special because only one person had ever been given the number. Even that had been in such a roundabout way that I couldn’t be certain the message would ever be received.

  To avoid my note falling into the wrong hands, I’d had to be cryptic, like she had been in Salem when she was trying to get my attention.

  Back then, she’d left a trail of clues starting with a phone number and vague message left with a puritan girl.

  Now, I’d had to cast my net a little wider to try to get her attention. It wasn’t a few streets of possibility I was dealing with, it was a whole damned country. A fake company, a re-routed phone line, a hijacked street-view camera for an on-location photo, and a note in a plastic sleeve left in a precarious position. So many possible places for it to all go wrong, that if it had worked, it proved that I was right to not give up on love.

  Drawing the cell phone out, my heart started to both sprint and pound at the understanding that it wasn’t a sensory delusion. The cellphone was definitely ringing.

  In the six weeks since I had left the note on Evie’s father’s grave, I’d spent so long fantasizing about receiving a call from her that I had, on a number of occasions, felt phantom vibrations and had raced to answer a non-existent call. This time though, the cell wasn’t still and silent. Lights flashed, vibrations buzzed, and the simple repetitive tone sounded over and over.

  Not wanting to delay one more second, I pushed the answer button.

  “Hello?” My voice was strained and awkward as it squeezed out of vocal cords twisted into odd shapes by the steely grip of fear and anticipation.

  Could it really be a call from the girl with the fiery hair and heated touch?

  It had been so long since I’d seen her, since I’d held her and whispered to soothe her nightmares, that it was almost impossible to believe she could really be on the other end of the call.

  Silence greeted me.

  “Hello?” I grew concerned that it was a telemarketer or a misdial. I needed something to confirm my caller was Evie, the one I longed most to connect with. After everything that we’d been through—too much to recall without inflicting pain onto my already damaged and aching heart—I had finally come to understand a few undeniable facts since learning the truth from Zarita’s translations.

  One, I loved Evie more than I had ever thought it was possible to ever love another person.

  Two, she would always own my heart and my loyalty—partly due to a special type of magic I would never completely understand, but mostly because I offered it to her freely and unconditionally.

  And three, in a little over twelve months, her life would become inextricably more dangerous, and she would be unaware and unprotected if I couldn’t warn her of that fact.

  Despite arriving back in the States almost five months earlier, it had only been six weeks since I’d finally been able to leave my note in the one place special enough to warrant a visit from her—her father’s grave. In the time before that, I’d been busy arranging all the right puzzle pieces that I hoped would lead to a call.

  During my visit to the cemetery where I’d arranged for her father to be buried years earlier, I had left a note hoping against all odds that she would follow the trail I’d left—the one that might eventually lead her back to me. Despite the certainty that she hated and feared me for the dangers I’d introduced into her life, I wanted to warn her of the upcoming loss of her abilities. I owed the love we’d shared that much, even though she’d been willing to leave it behind when she’d run from me in Detroit and again in Missouri.

  The continued silence on the other end of the call gave me hope.

  A telemarketer would have spoken or ended the call by now. A misdial would have answered my hello. Only Evie would hang silently onto the line—hating me too much to talk but held as captive by the sunbird’s spell as I was.

  “Evie, is that you?” My heart pounded somewhere near my throat. The continued quiet was an answer in the affirmative, but I needed more. I needed to hear her voice again. “Please, tell me that it’s you.”

  Nothing.

  “Please, give me something. Anything.” I worked as hard as I could to keep my tone quiet and non-threatening, but I could hear the hysteria working its way into my voice.

  A second passed, then another, and then the soft click of a disconnecting call shattered my heart. I dropped the cell phone onto the desk, and my head followed seconds later. So much hope, only to have it shattered by silence and apathy.

  My lip quivered and my eyes stung, but I couldn’t let the blow be the end of it. I would just have to rethink a way to get the information to her without it being intercepted.

  The sound of the ringtone piercing the air a second time had me instantly grabbing for the handset, almost fumbling it onto the floor with my urgent need to speak to her again.

  “Evie?” I whispered in a desperate voice.

  The smallest sound, an awkward clearing of a throat, caused me to grip the cell tighter.

  It was her. I was beyond certain of it, and I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my mouth at the confirmation.

  Relief, elation, and desperation all battled for dominance in my heart.

  “Oh, thank God. You’re alive.” Those last two words were probably the sweetest I’d ever uttered. “Listen, I don’t have a lot of time, and I can’t say much right now, but I need to see you again. I get why you ran, but I have something important that you have to know.”

  I was met once more with silence.

  “Can you meet me at the place on the card?” I hoped she would understand where I meant, but I didn’t dare give her more information over a line that I couldn’t be certain was secure.

  Silence.

  “Do you know where I mean?” I had to know. I couldn’t end the call without arranging a meeting. If it wasn’t for the security risk of the unsecured line, I could have just told her everything that I’d learned.

  Will she believe me?

  Does it matter?

  The fact was even if I’d been on a secure line and could guarantee no one was listening in, I would have tried to arrange a meeting. Partly because I wanted to deliver the news in person, but mostly because I needed to see her to prove to myself that she was alive and well.

  “Yes.” The word was tiny, the voice even smaller, but it echoed in my mind like the loudest of screams. There wasn’t a more beautiful sound in the world.

  “When can you get there?”

  “A week.” Her voice was so guarded, so broken, and yet there seemed to be a hint of promise underlying the tension.

  I hope I’m not misreading the signs.

  “Thank you.” I was genuinely relieved that she’d agreed to meet me. After the last time I’d seen her, I was a
ctually more surprised that she’d called and not just run from the note and the chance of having to see me again. “I’ll be there Tuesday at four. I promise.”

  This time when the click of the disconnected call sounded in my ear, it wasn’t ominous. Rather it was the glorious sound that Romeo never heard—the sound of being called home from banishment.

  Despite how torturous the months I’d spent apart from her had been, I was more confident for them. I’d lost everything, had been broken down to the smallest pieces, and then I’d built myself back up out of stronger material. It was what the Rain had tried to do when they put me through retraining. Only they’d used fear, guilt, and hatred instead of love and understanding.

  Regardless, I couldn’t think about how different my life would be if my family had never destroyed what Evie and I had set up in Detroit. I was almost thankful to them because if it wasn’t for that time away, I would be just as blind about the upcoming danger as she was.

  I rested the cell on the desk in front of me, watching it closely and hoping it would ring once more. The history I shared with Evie came flooding back to me, and I had to take a deep breath.

  It was strange to feel and interact with the world again.

  My life had become a routine of sorts, at least aside from the brief detour past David’s grave. When I was there, I’d paused and said a silent apology to the man whose daughter I loved beyond anything but had destroyed more than I’d thought could be possible.

  Each day, I would find a new public library or cheap Internet café. I’d hide on the computer farthest from the door and check my email for any new information from Zarita. Then I would hack into the Rain database, add the information into encrypted folders under the relevant creature’s lore before backtracking to ensure I didn’t leave any digital footprints of my presence in that particular file.

  I had a rule to not spend more than an hour at any place. I might’ve been able to hack around some elements of the Rain security, but that didn’t stop my access to the system from sending up red flags and causing a ripple down the ranks to activate the nearest available team to hunt me down.

  My afternoons involved racing onward to another new town as many miles away as I could go. I felt an affinity for Evie as I made these moves, knowing that she was likely doing the same thing—unless she’d settled back into the fae court with her past lover. That was a possibility, but one I couldn’t dwell on without stressing myself beyond belief.

  In the time since I’d arrived back in the States, I had only spoken with Eth twice. Each time, he tried to convince me to return to his and Dad’s side. He said there was still so much we needed to resolve, but as far as I was concerned, there was nothing more that needed to be said until I shared the knowledge I’d gained.

  One day in the future, after my next meeting with Evie, there might be a chance I would return, but if I did it would be on my terms. I wouldn’t destroy those creatures that weren’t evil, especially now that I had seen the evidence firsthand that some were created to protect.

  Until I knew how many people were willing to turn away from the accepted notion that every other deserved to die, I had to remain outside the ranks. If I couldn’t have my family’s support, I would lead a war on the established methods without them.

  The alarm on my other cellphone chimed. My self-allotted time at the library was fast ticking away, but it didn’t matter. There was no reason for me to stay anyway. I was certain I wouldn’t get anything more done while thoughts of seeing Evie for the first time in eighteen months danced through my mind.

  I grabbed my notes and paperwork that was scattered over the desk and packed it all back neatly into my bag. In the time since Zarita had first passed me the notes, I had read and reread everything. I’d added, reinterpreted, and notated all the extra information I’d discovered. Now the papers looked less like a printout from a textbook and more like a crazed madman’s scrawl, but each new read offered me new insights and made me feel closer to the one I missed the most.

  While Evie’s true nature as a phoenix had been part of what ensnared me into something that had spell-like qualities, it wasn’t a conscious choice on her part. The sunbird that resided inside her had identified a partner within me and inspired in us both a love deeper than could be explained by rational words. Neither of us could be controled by it though. We’d be linked by the bond as long as the sunbird warmed Evie’s blood and heated her skin, but we weren’t bound to remain with each other. It was still a choice whether we stayed true to that bond or decided to part.

  So far, our lives had forced us to make the choice of separation, but I didn’t want that any longer. I wanted Evie, all of her—body and soul—and I was willing to battle any number of Rain operatives to have her safe and in my life.

  There was only one person I wouldn’t fight—her.

  If the very sight of me was still enough to terrify her, I would warn her of the risk she was facing—the moment the sunbird would rest and she’d be left without the defensive power of fire—and then I would leave.

  The thought was fucking depressing.

  As I left the library, I wondered briefly where I should go. She’d given me a week to get to North Carolina, which would be more than enough time to physically travel there. I wasn’t sure it would be long enough to come to terms with returning to Charlotte and facing my personal demons at a warehouse that had seen some of the best days of my life, as well as one of the worst.

  I debated taking a few days to travel there slowly, continuing my process of dissimilating Zarita’s notes into the Rain databases before sending links back to Toni, but I couldn’t.

  With the way my brain was already full of Evie—full of memories, and the way love and heartache twisted endlessly around my heart until all it offered were sluggish, pained beats to pump the blood around my body—any attempts at being valuable would be useless. I would probably trip over some simple booby-trap in the files and give away not only my location but the valuable information I was hiding.

  No, it was much better if I traveled straight to Charlotte and was there early. To find some place where I could wait and watch and get my first glimpse of heaven as early as possible.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SLEEPING ROUGH WOULD never rank among my favorite things—despite growing somewhat used to it in Europe—but I spent three days doing just that because I didn’t want to miss Evie’s arrival at our warehouse. If she decided to approach the place before our planned meeting, I wanted to be waiting. At least I had a thin travel blanket this time—the benefits of being back on home soil and knowing where to find one of the Rain’s stash of emergency supplies.

  Somehow Tuesday had already rolled around again, and I knew, for better or worse, I would soon be meeting with my destiny.

  It had occurred to me, during my drive back to Charlotte, that perhaps I should be cautious of my little phoenix. I intended to warn her about the impending loss of her ability, but she hadn’t lost it yet. Considering what happened the last time we’d seen each other, it would be easy for the wrong word, or a bad set of circumstances, to cause me to become a blackened husk on the floor of an abandoned warehouse. Just like my sister had worried I would the last time I was in Charlotte.

  As the thought of my twin ran though me, sorrow dug its claws deep into my body. There were days that passed when I was able to forget that she was gone and could almost convince myself that she was just hunting with Dad and Eth. Because of those good days, the bad ones hit so hard they’d bring me to my knees. Whenever I saw or thought of something that reminded me of her death, it took me back to the dark place I was in after it had happened.

  In order to stop the melancholy from settling on me, I thought instead about what was due to happen soon. I turned to the rundown warehouse and tried to ignore all of the reminders of the day Evie had fled from the place in fear for her life. I looked past the broken barbed wire fence and lawn that was overgrown in some places and dead in others.

/>   Instead, I focused on recalling each moment of the seven days Evie and I had spent together inside. Pulling up the memory of stripping away the costume she’d worn in those days, I smiled at the thought of how innocent we both were back then.

  After watching the place all morning without seeing anyone, I drove the car I’d stolen from the long-term parking near the airport to a nearby truck stop to shower, change, and just generally freshen up.

  Once I climbed from the shower, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I should’ve thought the visit through more. I hadn’t shaved in months and it showed. The extent of my grooming was to hack at the whiskers on my chin when they grew too long. The months I’d spent on the run in Europe while I waited for Zarita’s translations had taken their toll on my body, and while I’d been following much better diet and exercise regimes since arriving back home, my physique wasn’t what it had once been. The thick brown chocolate mop on my head was longer than I usually allowed it to grow. So long, in fact, that it appeared wild and unruly no matter what I did with it.

  What will Evie think of me?

  I used a splash of water to tame my hair and beard as best as I could, debating whether to find a barber shop and get myself ready to see Evie, but I didn’t have the money or the time. If I’d been thinking, I would’ve done it a few days earlier, but I wasn’t sure I’d done much thinking in a long time—not about my appearance anyway. Everything I’d done lately had been for the betterment of those others who didn’t pose a threat to humans.

  When I was as clean and presentable as I was going to get, I climbed back into the car and drove back to the warehouse to keep an eye out for Evie.

  It was almost three hours later when I finally saw her.

  She would’ve been easy to miss if I hadn’t been concentrating so hard for any sign of her. Despite the weather warming slowly over the last few months, she wore a hoodie over her clothes. The hood was drawn low so that I couldn’t see a single glimpse of her multifaceted hair. I wondered whether she still wore it like she had when I’d last seen her, or if she’d chopped off her gorgeous locks since then.