Awakened

by Inger Iversen

  Darke quirked a brow before answering.

  “I’m sure you know the answer to that question.” He snorted. “But still, is that the only reason why you are so calm, or are you configuring an escape plan—one which, I can assure you, will not end in your favor?”

  Darke crossed the room and planted himself in the corner where he had been when I woke up. His black long trench coat, tight-fitting tee, jeans, and boots all suited his black mood.

  He looked warm, whereas I was getting cold. I climbed back on the bed and pulled my feet under me as a shiver wracked my body. It was getting colder, with the fire gone, and I wondered where Ana was.

  Darke glanced at the fireplace and then at me. His gaze dared me not to ask, so I didn’t. There was no escape plan as of yet. I didn’t even know where I was, but I would use the fact that Laurent needed me alive—for now—to my advantage.

  Darke crossed his arms over his broad chest. “You aren’t even afraid, are you?”

  I didn’t want to admit that I was terrified and banking on Jace or Kale—heck, even Alex—to find me. I, myself, didn’t understand why I was handling the situation so well. Maybe I had just resigned myself to accepting the fact that, as long as I was with Laurent, Mia, Alex, and his family were safe.

  Kale was probably worried out of his mind, but he knew that Laurent wouldn’t hurt me yet. I shivered as a draft crept up my skin, a sign that there was a window somewhere close. I hadn’t seen one, but I also hadn’t been out of this room in the few hours that I had been there.

  I figured honesty was best. Darke wasn’t stupid and I didn’t want him thinking that I was planning some escape which would in turn have him watching me even closer.

  “I am afraid—who wouldn’t be?—but screaming and begging to be released isn’t going to help me.” I eyed him for a response before I continued honestly, “If anything, it’s going to piss you off, and you seem like the type of guy who hates being pissed off.”

  Darke’s lips twitched, and it looked as if he was going to smile. Instead, he grunted. “Damn straight. I am not gonna put up with you yelling and screaming for the next three days. Babysitting is bad enough, but—”

  “What?” I gaped at him, confused. “What do you mean babysitting me for the next three days?” I felt relieved and confused. I didn’t want to see Laurent, and as calm as I had tricked myself into being, my brain still knew what I was here for —to be used and controlled— and wouldn’t let me forget it. The last Arc, Hélène, was used to cripple the Council and hunt Laurent’s enemies. I reasonably assumed that he’d use me to finish the job with the Council.

  Darke stared at me for a moment and then continued as if I hadn’t even spoken. “Having to keep you comatose would take a great deal of my energy that I don’t want to waste.” He pushed off the wall and sauntered over to the fireplace. His loose jet black hair layered down his back in silky waves.

  He found some matches, grabbed a few logs, set the kindling below them ablaze, and then turned back to me. He kept that black inquisitive stare that unnerved and annoyed me. He started to speak and then thought better of it.

  I wanted to ask him what he’d been going to say, but he seemed the stubborn type. If I asked, he’d never tell me.

  The fire quickly caught, sending a wave of warm and welcomed heat in my direction. I wiggled my feet free and placeed them in direct line of the fire and watched as Darke poked it. How could he side with Laurent and yet be so gentle and caring with Ana? It made no sense.

  In my book, good and evil were the same as black and white. I didn’t believe in a grey area. What excuse would Laurent, Darke, and Ana have for the crimes that they had committed?

  I remembered how Kale once said that he had done bad things in order to survive. Was that the grey area that I was all too ready to say didn’t exist? Kale didn’t elaborate on any of the bad things, but I couldn’t believe that he’d killed anyone or even taken them hostage. That didn’t seem like the guy Hélène had loved or like the guy that I was falling for, so no, there was no grey area.

  “What did you remember in your sleep just now?” The question pulled my gaze from the fire that I was very thankful for and to Darke. What memory was he talking about? I hadn’t—

  “Oh, while I was sleeping.” I understood where he was going with the question, but I was still thinking of good versus bad. “I don’t know. Some little girl named Agnes and her father.” I said absently as my stomach growled.

  Darke paused. I squinted at him. I was getting better at deciphering hidden reactions, thanks to Kale. “What? Do you know them?”

  Darke added some wood to the fire. “What would you rather know about: Why I am to babysit you for three days, or who Agnes and the man in your memory are?” He smirked. “I will only answer one question before I retrieve Anastaise with your dinner.”

  I chose to ask him about Agnes. “Who is she, and why did I remember her?”

  “Agnes, Hélène, and you are the only Arcs that Laurent has had the pleasure of controlling.” Darke sat in the chair across from the bed.

  “The girl in my memory was an Arc?”

  “Yes, she was Laurent’s biological daughter. People believe that Hélène was his daughter, but that is not so. She was his great grandniece, and you, I believe, are his great great grandniece.”

  “Oh, okay. I know that every Arc is a blood relative of Laurent.” It was disappointing to be related to someone like him, but that was something that I couldn’t change. “So, there have only been three Arcs?”

  “That we have found.”

  “What I don’t understand is, if I only see the past, what good am I to Laurent?”

  Darke rolled his eyes. “You were with a Council member and that Chorý, and you don’t know the answer to that? Agnes was given to the original immortals and given power, Hélène was the reason the Counsel was discovered and nearly wiped out, and you are the wild card in this.”

  “Wild card? What could he want, if he accomplished so much with Hélène? Money? It seems like he has more than enough of that.” I eyed all the expensive items in the room.

  “You can’t be that clueless, Ella.” Darke shook his head, and I felt my face warm with embarrassment. “Knowledge is power, and in that head of yours is knowledge from the past and the future.”

  “Why does everyone think that?” I asked, exasperated. “I can’t see the future. I only see Hélène’s past, and this is the first time I’ve seen this Agnes.”

  “You can.”

  “I can’t, and I never have been able to.”

  “He’ll teach you.”

  “That’s a responsibly I don’t want.”

  “It won’t be an option, Ella. You’ll learn, or he will kill you.”

  Chapter 8

  Alex

  Mia and I sat on the soft cream-colored couch in Kale’s “home”—more like a swank cottage in the hills—waiting for a phone call from Jace. Mia and I had been spending a lot of time together, and Kale seemed okay with it, despite his original annoyance. Maybe he and Jace were used to this kind of crap, but she and I were different, and those differences were becoming more and more noticeable each day.

  Kale stalked the room like a caged animal as he waited for the phone to ring. Mia sat close to me on the couch and eyed Kale nervously. He seemed on edge—understandably so—but there was more to it. His eyes had darkened on a few occasions, and the way he looked at us left me wondering if we’d survive the day with him. There was no one to talk to about it, because though Jace claimed he wanted to help rescue Ella, he’d been nowhere in sight for the past two days.

  It was getting harder and harder to stand Kale’s erratic attitude. I had asked him to keep an eye on Mia—who’d been spending most of her time with me, which meant I was spending most of my time with him—so his attitude change didn’t go unnoticed. I didn’t leave Mia alone if I could help it, and when I couldn’t get away to be with her, Kale was there. That was all good, but his strange behavior concern
ed me and Mia.

  Ella was gone, and we were waiting for Jace to convince the Council or whomever to allow him to continue to search for Ella. I wanted to yell, punch the wall, or even tell the truth to my dad and Sheriff Making. I felt as though my back was to the wall. On one hand, Ella was missing, and anything could be happening to her. On the other hand, she had trusted Kale and Jace to keep her safe, and though they had failed, I still believed that she had faith in them to get her back.

  They had to get her back, because being without her was getting damn close to impossible.

  “I’m hungry,” Mia whispered.

  “I don’t have any food here,” Kale’s voice sounded rough. He ground his teeth, still pacing. I was starving; he had called me at four that morning, telling me the address to his home and to meet him at noon. After the call, not only could I not sleep, but when my mom cooked the morning bacon, eggs, and pancakes, I was too nervous to eat; so I sat with a growling stomach, a complaining Mia, and a brooding Kale.

  Finally the phone rang, and Kale dashed to pick it up. “Vesco.” He set it down and pressed the intercom button. Mia and I scooted the edge of the sofa and waited.

  “Everyone is here; let’s start this,” Kale demanded, voice hard.

  A bit of static played over the phone. When Jace did speak, it was hard to hear him “There is a problem. It’s been requested—or, you could say, demanded—that I fly to Rome and handle an issue there.”

  “Vesco, you are wasting my time! I am here, calling in favors that could cost me my neck, and you are on a plane to Rome to deal with Council politics?” Kale all but spat the words into the phone.

  I agreed with Kale. We needed Jace to supply us information from the Council, but I had to wonder… Why help us? Why would he need us at all, if he and the Council had everything they needed? I met Kale’s aggravated stare, and he seemed to know what I was thinking.

  Before Kale could accuse Jace of anything, a knock came at the front door.

  “Let me in,” Jace said.

  ***

  An hour later, Jace sat across from Mia and me at the bar in the middle of Kale’s kitchen. I’d ordered some Italian food for everyone, and we all sat at the bar and ate. Mia sat beside me to my right, while Jace had taken his seat in front of us. Even with the stressful situation, we all dug in and ate—expect for Kale, who leaned against the sink on Jace’s side of the counter, eyeing us warily. The news that Jace had brought was bad, but at least he came. I wondered what ditching the Council’s orders and helping us find Ella was going to cost him.

  “The problem is that without the full support of the Council, we are severely limited in what information that we will have versus what they will have.” Jace had told us that he’d been reassigned to Rome to deal with “other issues” and exchanged a look with Kale. “I still have connections within the Council, and it’s believed that I’m on sabbatical for the next few weeks.”

  Kale scoffed and turned to meet Jace’s stare. “And you are telling me that the Council—” Kale shook his head. “That Tamsin believes that you will sit back and allow two other Council members do the job you couldn’t?” Disbelief colored his voice.

  “Who is Tamsin?” Mia asked, echoing the question in my head. Would this person get in the way of bringing Ella home, or was this person just a personal obstacle for Jace?

  Jace waved a hand at Kale’s worries. “I am out of the search for Ella, in their book, but—”

  Mia didn’t give Jace a chance to explain. She hopped up and around the bar to stand beside him. “So what you are saying is that we are on our own in finding Ella, and you have defected from our only means of help?” Mia placed a hand on her hip, and I wished that I was close enough to nudge her since I couldn’t I toss her an annoyed glance, silently warning for her to watch her mouth.

  “He is not the only one with resources,” Kale objected.

  “So far, yes, he is,” Mia retorted. “I haven’t seen anything other than you pace, Alex eat, and me— Well, I have the least to offer, really, but I’m here, so…”

  We were all here, and none of us had much to offer.

  “I have plenty to offer, and I have not defected from the Council!” Jace placed his fork down and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “Not all of the Council think that I am incompetent for losing Ella. Zed, our tech guy, has promised to keep in touch, and Servitto has also decided that helping us could work in the Council’s favor, once Ella is retrieved.” Jace lay the list in front of us. I peeked at the list of names and a few numbers, but I had no clue what they were, so I leaned back and waited for Jace to continue.

  Mia squinted as she thought. “Why would the Council need us?”

  She was reading my mind. Kale didn’t think he needed us, and he was only one person. Why would a group created to protect Ella—as Jace had explained the Council to be—need us once they found her? Stuff wasn’t adding up, like why did Ella really need protection? What was up with her visions, and why did Jace really leave the Council?

  Kale tilted his head, eyeing Jace suspiciously. “There is more than you are telling us, isn’t there?”

  Mia crossed her arms over her pink “Blow Me” Blow Pop shirt and huffed. “Vesco, if you can’t be up front with us about what’s going on, then why did you come back?” The use of his last name—the name Kale often used when angry with him—made Jace raise an eyebrow. He looked annoyed at being in the spotlight.

  Kale added, “What do you need from us that the Council can’t provide?”

  All eyes were on Jace. I waited for the truth but half expected a lie.

  “Look,” Jace said. “This is very sensitive information, but the Council and I do not see eye-to-eye in the proper use for Ella.”

  Kale’s eyes darkened, and his nostrils flared. Not good.

  He pushed past Mia gently enough that she didn’t fall, but forcefully enough that she bit out a curse in his wake.

  “‘The proper use.’” Kale growled in disgust. “What do you mean, ‘the proper use’? She is not a damned napkin that can be thrown away once Aleixandre has cleaned his conscience by killing his former master!” Kale all but roared.

  Mia and I stood in the middle of the floor. When I glanced over at her, she looked as confused as I felt.

  Who the heck was Aleixandre, who was the master, and who was planning to use Ella, other than Laurent?

  Mia looked at me and shrugged. She and I had come for information like this. We stood quietly as Kale and Jace stood toe-to-toe, talking about the “proper use” of my childhood friend, a girl they hadn’t known for as long as I had. An empty feeling settled in the depths of my belly, and I wondered if I should’ve been between Kale and Jace, saying my piece, demanding that we bring Ella home on my terms—or at least having a say in how we’d initiate the process of bringing her home.

  “I said that the Council and I are at a disagreement. They want to hide her away, and I want her to tell us how to kill Laurent, meaning I am on your side.”

  “For now!” Kale growled—literally, growled—and knocked the bottle of Pepsi from the bar onto the ground. Mia jumped and squealed, while Jace let out a frustrated breath.

  Jace fetched the soda bottle and put the half-empty bottle back on the bar. I didn’t glance around for the top—which I couldn’t find—as Mia grabbed a few napkins from the takeout bag that was left on the bar and rushed over to clean up the spill. She tried to wipe all the spilled soda off the tile floor, but the few napkins she had weren’t enough. Jace retrieved a towel from the edge of the sink. He returned and waved Mia away, then knelt down to clean the spilled soda. Mia placed the wet napkins in the trash and then sat down at the bar.

  I worried that Kale wouldn’t be able to hear Jace out. His eyes were completely black, and his face contorted with rage. I went to Mia to pull her away from what I knew was about to be a war zone.

  “Wha—” Mia gasped as I grabbed her and pulled her up. I hadn’t grabbed her wounded arm, but I made her
knock over the soda bottle again, spilling more of it—a small price to pay, to keep her out of the collision that was about to happen.

  Jace had to see it coming. He sighed and finished cleaning before he stood. “I know that you don’t believe in the Council and their work, but—”

  “Ha!” Kale barked, his voice sounding rough and used. “Three old men searching for what they did not deserve. I don’t believe that Aleixandre truly understands all these deaths and lies are on his head.” Kale moved past Jace and grabbed the barstool. He threw it—it slammed into the floor, sending splinters of wood throughout the air.

  Mia and I both jumped back. I bit back the urge to try to calm him down. More information was coming from the argument than Kale and Jace had told us. Not that most of it made sense, but still it was more information that Mia and I could piece together later when we were alone.

  Kale, still fuming, started to pace. “Stefano and Nicosi are lucky, death being a freedom not many can have!”

  “Who considers death a freedom?” Mia squealed. I all but put my hand over her mouth to shut her up, but too late. Kale turned to us, his black irises bleeding into the white eyeball. Mia got out of her seat and stepped behind me, and I was glad for it. Kale looked fierce, and neither Jace nor I could’ve probably stopped him if he were to get any more out of hand.

  I held my hands up, throwing a white flag being in a battle I hadn’t even entered. The division could prove to be fatal, and as much as we all wanted to go our separate ways and find Ella, that wasn’t going to work. “Kale, I want Ella back. So do you, Mia, and Jace. So we have to work together.”

  I didn’t know what else to say or what more I could add. Kale was still seething and pacing. He glared at me with an intensity that I’d never before seen in him. Could I take him? I wasn’t some macho guy, but if necessary, I would defend myself and Mia.

  Something changed in Kale’s eyes, as if he sensed my thoughts. A silent challenge exuded from him and quivered between us, murky and dense. Kale held my stare, a devilish smile resting on his lips.