Flux Flame (A Flame Moon Novel

by K. J. Jackson

  None of them saw Evan in the shadows, hidden between cars.

  In the shadows with a smile on his face.

  At the car, Aiden threw Shiv into the back seat. Short spurts of giggles were still escaping her.

  Aiden walked around to the driver’s side as Skye got in the passenger seat.

  His door slammed shut.

  “Keys.” Aiden demanded.

  Skye dug them out of her jeans and dropped them into his outstretched hand.

  “Aiden—”

  “Not now. Not yet.”

  Deflated, Skye sank back into the seat.

  In the silence he demanded, Aiden had no idea if Skye still enjoyed the aftershocks of her kill, or not. In the back seat, Shiv definitely was.

  They drove for two hours. Aiden called the funeral home along the way, and told them he and Skye had to return home for an emergency, but that they still expected news of Shiv’s found body. Shiv found that overly hilarious, and Aiden had to cut the conversation when her squeals of delight took over the car.

  Beyond that, the ride was in silence. A silence that grew more ominous once Shiv passed out in the back seat.

  Satisfied they had cleared enough distance from Cloquet, Aiden pulled into a single story back woods motel. After getting a room, they parked, and Aiden went to the back of the car to heave Shiv over his shoulder. He followed Skye into the room and tossed Shiv onto one of the double beds. Shiv didn’t shift from the odd angles her limbs settled in.

  Skye stood in the corner of the room. Petrified.

  Aiden turned to her, and could barely lift his eyes to her face. “Go wash the blood off your hands.” He turned from her as she slipped into the bathroom, quietly closing the thin door.

  He closed his eyes and crossed his livid arm muscles across his chest. He had to get a hold of himself. He couldn’t screw this up.

  He went to the only window in the room, pulling aside the flimsy curtain and looking out at the field in front of him. The wide expanse of night blackness stretched out above it. Any crop that had been growing on the field had long-since been harvested, and the land stood empty, just awaiting winter dormancy.

  The water stopped in the bathroom, but Skye didn’t come out. Aiden waited five minutes, then went to the door. He tapped as lightly as he could on the wood, but it still sounded like banging, exasperated by the hollowness of the door.

  “Skye.”

  No response.

  He leaned his head on the wood. “Skye. Please. Talk to me.”

  The door cracked open. Skye stepped in front of him, not looking at anything but the worn carpeting. She put her hands behind her. Aiden could see them shaking before she hid them. Tears stained her cheeks, but her green eyes were dry.

  Aiden slid his arm around her shoulders, steering her to the open bed. He grabbed a chair and sat down in front of her. She still hadn’t looked at him. Just moved and sat numbly.

  “We need to start at the beginning, Skye. What happened? Why did you disappear on me?” He grabbed both of her knees. “Skye, that moment I stepped out of the shower and you were gone…Hell—you can’t do that to me. My life stopped. I need to know why you would do that.”

  Hangs wringing, Skye shrugged. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to worry you—I had to. There was a call, and he said he had Shiv’s body. Her body, Aiden. I had to go.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “He said come alone.”

  “Of all the times to tell me, Skye, when someone asks you to come alone, you god-damn have to tell me.”

  She finally looked up at him. “I didn’t have time to think. It was Shiv. I’m sorry, but it was Shiv.”

  “Fine.” Aiden swallowed an angry sigh. “You got there. Then what?”

  “It was Evan.”

  Aiden’s heart stopped. His grip on her legs began to crush. Her hands slid over his wrists, gently telling him he was hurting her. Aiden forced his hands loose, but kept them on her knees. He shook his head. “I should have guessed. He’s Shiv’s father too, isn’t he?”

  Skye nodded.

  “What did he say to you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Why did you shift time?”

  “It was nothing. I wasn’t in harm’s way.”

  “It does matter, Skye. You don’t shift time unless you need to. Tell me what happened.”

  “Evan wanted to know why I didn’t save Shiv. He hit me at my weakest spot, Aiden—and I wanted—no, needed—to know why I couldn’t save her. It was a test.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t go back past time I already shifted.”

  Aiden nodded, mind firing. “Which means he also just effectively cut you off from going back to a different point in time—the night of the fire.”

  Skye nodded, solemn.

  “Bastard.”

  Skye tilted her head, wry look twitching her eye. “We already knew that about him.”

  “So Shiv was there the whole time, watching?”

  “No, she wasn’t in the bar. Evan sent me out back. I didn’t know she was alive until I stepped into the parking lot and saw her…saw her getting attacked.”

  Skye rubbed her forehead, hand shaking again. “I know it reeks of set-up, Aiden, I know that. But when I saw that dirtbag holding her down, attacking her—it was the same image from when we were teenagers. And I went at him without thinking. Except this time, no one bothered to beg me to stop.”

  Aiden brought a hand up, slipping it along Skye’s neck. “You killed him?”

  Tears welled in Skye’s eyes. She shook her head, and silently tilted her head toward Shiv, still passed out on the other bed.

  “Shiv did it?”

  “I stabbed him in the neck. But it didn’t kill him. She pulled out my knife, and…” She stopped, drawing a shuddered breath. “She stabbed him. Right in the heart.”

  Her eyes went to the ceiling. “What if they come after us?”

  “No one is going to care about some asshole in the back of that dirtbag bar.”

  Aiden watched her intently as a tear slipped down her cheek. She was holding something back. He silently wiped the tear away. And waited.

  Her voice was a soft whisper when she let words flow again. “Aiden. It was cold. It was callous.”

  “Shiv?”

  “She didn’t blink. She just decided he should die, and then she did it. And then…”

  His other hand went to her neck, encapsulating her. “Then, what?”

  Her head bowed. “Aiden, I know why they do it now.”

  “Who?” He tilted his own head toward her, their foreheads touching.

  “The Malefics. I know why they kill. Why they hate.”

  “Why?”

  “It feels so good.”

  A shudder ran through Aiden. A shudder he prayed Skye couldn’t feel through his touch.

  She pulled back to look at him. The fear in her face was bone-crushing. “Am I going to be okay?”

  He locked eyes with her. “You will. I swear it. You will.”

  Aiden pulled her into him, clutching her with all his might. God help him, he hoped he hadn’t hesitated. At least not discernibly. Because he knew damn well he was lying.

  { Chapter 2 }

  His gut a rock, Aiden tried to stretch his muscles without moving. He failed, and his ligaments screamed in pain from the awkward position he had wedged himself into next to Skye.

  The small bed left him little room, but he refused to move from Skye’s side. It had taken a while for the atrocity in her veins to ebb away enough for sleep. But when she crashed, she crashed just as hard as Shiv had.

  Hours later, still in the blackness of night, he wasn’t surprised when he heard Shiv rustle, and then try to silently slip out the door of the motel room. Delicately, so as to not disturb Skye, he moved off the bed to follow her.

  Outside, Shiv was in the driver’s side of the rented car, searching for the keys with little success. Aiden checked to make sure they were sti
ll in his pocket. They were.

  He walked to the passenger door, ignoring the glare Shiv shot his way through the windshield. With a deep breath to stifle the pummeling he wanted to hand out, he got in.

  Door closed, he wasted no time. His eyes narrowed at her, assessing. “What are you, Shiv?”

  Trapped, Shiv leaned back in the driver’s seat, elbow casually going to the arm rest between them. “This all would have been a whole lot easier had the lot of you told me right away who you all were, you know.”

  “Skye told me Evan is your father. Do you know who your mother is?”

  “You want to know if I’m a half-Malefic, half-Panthenite like Skye?”

  Aiden stared at her, not bothering to answer.

  She shrugged. “Don’t know. Evan has not bothered to fill me in on a lot. I don’t think it matters, quite honestly, who my mother is.”

  “It does matter.” Aiden rubbed his forehead. “Do you know what powers you have?”

  “No. But I am strong. Strong like I’ve never felt.”

  Aiden couldn’t hide the slow shake of his head. “I never liked you, Shiv.”

  “I know.” She smiled. A smile that relinquished no power to his dislike of her. “And I know full well you would rather kill me right here. But I also know you won’t do that to Skye. I’m her sister. Right or wrong, she’s my get-out-of-jail-free card. And I’ll use it anytime I like.”

  “Skye will not choose this, if that’s what you’re planning. She will not choose a path with you that ends lives. That brings terror to innocents.”

  “You sure about that?”

  Aiden’s jaw set hard. He was going to make sure she heard this. “Yes.”

  “Trying to convince me, or yourself?” She waved her hand. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t plan on taking her with me. I’m just here for two things.”

  “You will harm her no more, Shiv. You think I won’t kill you. But you try to harm her again, and I won’t hesitate.”

  “You’re forgetting she did that to herself, that scene in the parking lot. I didn’t pull that knife out. I didn’t hold her hand when she sunk it into him. That was all her doing. I just finished the job.”

  Aiden’s fist clenched. Shiv was way too smug, way to disengaged from the killing she had just done. “What are the two things, Shiv?”

  “Evan asked me to do two tasks. The first I already took care of, at the bar.”

  “Trapping Skye into attacking that man?”

  “Yes. If you choose to look at it that way. I prefer to think I was just helping her to let her true nature show itself.”

  “And the second?”

  Shiv looked out the windshield at the door to the motel room. “I need Skye to come back to Cloquet with me.”

  “No. Absolutely not. I don’t know where we’re going. But back there is not an option.”

  “It’s what I was asked to do.”

  “Evan? You’re so quickly under his thumb? So quick to be his slave?”

  Shiv looked momentarily flustered, then shook it away. “Evan—no. He has no hold over me. I don’t care the slightest about him.”

  Aiden’s head tilted. “Then he has something you want. What is Evan giving you?

  “Answers.” Shiv shrugged. “Training. In exchange for these two tasks. The second task Skye also has to do with me.”

  “Which is?”

  “Visit my ex-lover.”

  “No.” He didn’t think it possible, but his gut tightened even more. Skye had told Aiden a shortened version of what Shiv’s ex-lover had done to her. Beat her. Killed her unborn baby. Revenge would be the only thing in store.

  “Yes,” Shiv said. “And most importantly, you need to turn a blind eye.”

  Aiden shook his head emphatically. “I won’t let Skye out of my sight.”

  “So I’ve been told.” Sarcasm etched her face. “Well then, you can come. But here’s the deal. You cannot interfere. No matter what. Don’t give me that look, she won’t be harmed. But you do this, stay out of our business, and after, I leave the two of you alone.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “You shouldn’t, but I haven’t been a Malefic long enough to manipulate like the others. Nor to hate the Panthenites like the others. So you’ll just have to take a chance with it.”

  Shiv leaned toward Aiden over the center console, eyes hard. “But if you interfere in any way, Skye is mine. Don’t think I can’t make that happen.”

  Aiden fought for control, hand almost reaching up to grab Shiv’s throat. At the moment his fingers twitched, ready to pounce, the motel door in front of them flew open and Skye ran out.

  She searched the darkness, frantic and terrorized.

  “Look at her, Aiden,” Shiv said. “You know what she’s thinking.”

  “That I killed you.” Aiden’s voice was flat.

  “Yep. And do you really want to do that to her, Aiden? Do you really want me in your lives? Do you really want to kill me?”

  Skye had finally spotted them in the dark car, and she tore to the passenger door. She flung it open.

  “Aiden. What are you doing with Shiv?” Her words were breathless, and not hiding the panic.

  “Yes, Aiden. What are you doing with me?” The challenge was evident in Shiv’s tone.

  Aiden looked from his wife back to Shiv. Never had he been this trapped. There was no easy way out. No way out, period. He closed his eyes, stilling the hand that still ached to attack Shiv.

  Slowly, he opened his eyes to his wife. “We need to go back to Cloquet.”

  ~~~

  They waited until daylight. After an initial barrage of questions from Skye about going back to Cloquet, with only evasiveness, non-answers, and frustrations piling high, the three had settled back into the motel room. Each of them feigned sleep the remaining night hours.

  Silence followed Skye, Aiden and Shiv through a little-eaten breakfast. Through the drive back to Cloquet. Through Aiden exchanging the rental car for a long-term suv. Through a stop at their Cloquet hotel room to gather their things. Through a picked-apart lunch at a diner in the outskirts of town.

  Halfway through the meal, Shiv disappeared in the back of the restaurant, and Aiden seriously considered dragging Skye out of the diner and taking off.

  He looked at his wife across the table. She intently watched snowflakes trickle down from the sky. Her fingers twirled a French fry, the mangled potato never reaching her mouth. She was obvious in her avoidance of meeting his eyes. How much would she hate him if they just left? If he forced her to abandon Shiv?

  Skye had no clue why they were back in Cloquet, and frankly, Aiden didn’t either. And he despised being at the mercy of Shiv’s whims. Whatever she had planned, she was keeping it a secret. The only thing Aiden knew for sure, was that there was damage in whatever she had planned. But how much damage? All he could do was plan as best he could for the aftermath of Shiv’s production.

  “Where are we going, Aiden?” Skye asked the question softly, her green eyes riveted on the white flakes landing and melting on the window next to their booth. They were the first real words she spoke since laying back down at the motel.

  Aiden had smoothed Skye’s initial panic last night by telling her Shiv needed to go back to Cloquet, and that they were talking in the car so Skye could sleep. After minutes of distrust and peppering questions at him, Skye accepted what little he said, clearly not having the mental energy to continue the inquisition.

  Aiden sighed, trying to cover his frustration with Shiv. “Honestly, Skye, I don’t know where we are headed. Shiv just told me she had to take care of some things back here, so here we are.”

  “But is it safe for us to be here, after what I…what happened last night?”

  “Safe enough.” He shrugged. “I plan on us leaving this place for good once Shiv finishes her business.” The two of us, Aiden added in his mind. Him and Skye. No Shiv. Leave her to Evan and whatever atrocity he was concocting. Aiden was more than sick of that g
uy showing up in their lives.

  Skye nodded. She had reverted back to the pensive silence she’d been holding tight onto.

  Shiv showed back up at the table, but didn’t sit, instead, stood at the end of the booth, tapping her fingers impatiently on the melamine table. “I have a location. It’s time to go.”

  ~~~

  Pulling up to the Ranchero Motel, Skye was flummoxed. All she wanted was to be home in bed. Curled into a ball after what she had experienced—felt—last night. Something she never wanted to feel again.

  Never.

  She knew the Malefic in her was out. It was clear in how Aiden looked at her. How disgusted he was with her.

  In all they had been through together, she had never seen him so disappointed in her.

  And Shiv was alive. Alive—it was a miracle. A miracle that, in her heart, she knew shouldn’t be. But honestly, she didn’t care. Aiden may think it an abomination, but Shiv was alive, and Skye didn’t care how it happened, she was just thankful it had. She couldn’t think of Shiv as Malefic—she couldn’t even think of herself that way—all she could do was be grateful for a living, breathing Shiv, no matter how it happened.

  Skye looked out the car window at the one-level motel. Half a wagon wheel buried in the ground marked the entrance to the office. Antlers hung proudly above not just the office door, but above each of the doors to the motel rooms. Skye vaguely remembered this place from when she was younger. A foster family they stayed with for a few months lived about five blocks away. The motel was on the outer edge of the oldest, run-down part of town.

  “Okay. Now what, Shiv?” Aiden’s voice was hard, demanding. He glared in the rear-view mirror at her.

  Shiv scanned the few cars in the parking lot.

  “Go around to the back.”

  They drove around the long building, to the row of rooms behind the street-side. Shiv pointed to a red BMW. “There. He’s here. Park by that car.”

  Skye turned back to Shiv. “Who’s here, Shiv? What are we doing here?”

  “You’ll see.” Shiv was already opening her door and stepping out of the suv. “You coming, Skye?”

  “Shiv, if Evan is in there,” Skye said, “I am not going in. And neither are you. We need to get out of Cloquet for good. Whatever is going on—hell, I don’t have the slightest notion where to begin with that statement—we’re not figuring out anything in some scummy motel. We need to go back to the mountain. Go somewhere safe where we can figure all this out. I haven’t even talked to you. To figure out how all this happened. What’s to happen next.”