Jens nodded, his voice even as he looked up at Jamie. “You won’t leave Britta now, which I totally understand. You want to wait until after the baby’s born, right?”
Jamie’s arms flew out as he spoke. “Yes! She’s being unreasonable! It might not even be real, what she thinks Hilda told her. I didn’t hear a word of it!”
“That’s because you were dying while I was being electrocuted!” I screamed, lunging at Jamie.
Of all people, Tucker intercepted my ill-intentioned advance, his hands up in defense as he positioned himself between Jamie and me. “Not that you could actually do any damage, being the pixie you are, but I’m his vakt. Best not attack while I’m in the room.”
“I’m not crazy! I’m not! My mom told me where to find Linus, and I’m going! You can’t stop me! You all were impressed with the farlig fisk and the Circhos? Wait till you see the depths I’d stoop to for Linus! Don’t you dare try to keep me away from him!”
Jens remained levelheaded, and I couldn’t decide if I was impressed by that or annoyed that he wasn’t as furious with Jamie as I was. “Okay, Jamie. You won’t leave your pregnant wife. When will you leave the newborn baby to go get Linus with us? When the baby’s a week old? A month?”
Jamie shrank. “I can’t leave a newborn. Give me a few months, at least.”
Foss scoffed at this. “You’re soft. You wouldn’t be able to leave your child, no matter how old.”
“How many months?” Jens asked his best friend. “Every month you’re asking Lucy to wait is a month you’re letting Linus die. You can only ask Lucy to be patient for so long.” He addressed the room as if I wasn’t there. “You all don’t know. You haven’t seen them like I have. They’re the same person sometimes. The lengths they go to for each other?” He pressed his mouth to the flat of his hand and spoke into the flesh. “Lucy got pushed around by some girl at a school in Detroit when she was a teenager. Linus didn’t even need to hear what happened. He saw her with a bruise on her arm, felt their freaky twin bond and beat in the girl’s car windows with a baseball bat. Poured sugar in the gas tank, too.”
Jamie didn’t soften. “All that tells me is I don’t need to hurry to get him out and about.”
Jens wasn’t finished, though I wished he was. “One of the soccer teams Linus played on in high school had a tradition of some mild hazing. Just defacing the newbies’ jerseys. I can’t remember what Linus’s said.”
“Skeleton boy,” I choked out. “He’d lost a lot of weight and didn’t want to tell them he had leukemia. We were new to that school, and wanted a fresh start. He was afraid they’d kick him off the team, or worse, keep him on out of pity.” I closed my eyes, taking a step back from Tucker. “Don’t tell this story, Jens. It’s not relevant. I didn’t hurt anybody. It was just payback for their prank.”
Jens ignored my plea. “Lucy went into the locker room during practice, broke into every upperclassman’s locker, stole their backpacks and game jerseys and set them on fire in the coach’s office on his desk.”
Foss, Tucker, Jamie and Britta stared at me with that opened-mouth wary look you’d give Charles Manson if he showed up in your church group asking for communion. Tucker took a step back, reevaluating me with a hint of that icky flirtation that made me want to give him a solid Scarlet O’Hara slap across the face. “Not such a pixie after all. Who knew you had that much fire in you?” He had the gall to wink at me.
My reply came through gritted teeth. “Keep. Your. Herpes. Away. From. Me.”
“Stellar find, Jens,” Tucker complimented his friend. “Fight and a fair face mixed with a little fire play. My favorite flavor.”
“Control your man!” I glared at my boyfriend, who was building his own doghouse. “Thanks for that, Jens. Really. Thanks. That was a private story I didn’t even know you knew about. You’re not helping my case. I’m not going to set anything on fire here. That’s Tucker’s job. I only need you and Jamie to come with me.”
Jens remained unshaken. “I said all that to tell you guys that you have no idea how far Lucy and Linus’ll go for each other. The smallest offense gets capital punishment. Trying to keep her away from her brother? It’s cruel, Jamie. You’re being cruel, and I won’t stand for it.”
My mouth fell open as I began to draw a superhero emblem on Jens’s chest and envisioned him with a cape flying out behind the collar of his black t-shirt. My heart swelled at the sight of a man who knew my brand of crazy so well, and still had the stones to defend me without blinking.
Jamie’s jaw clenched, and I listened to him sift through different acerbic responses before he landed on something more congenial. “Be that as it may, taking me from my wife, whom you kept me from while she’s pregnant, is also cruel. I’ve missed almost the entire first half of her pregnancy.”
Foss had been silent for too long; I should’ve guessed something was brewing. “I’ll be staying behind here. I’ll help you prep for the journey and do whatever you need, but I’m staying on this side.”
My head whipped around to stare at his closed-off expression. “What?”
“You can’t really be that surprised. I’m dead in Undraland. If I come back, Olaf will have his men gunning for me. I’ll be actually dead, and I’ve grown to like your world, stupid as it is.”
I wanted to talk to him, to plead for him to come with me. His strength was invaluable, but I couldn’t give him reasons to follow me to the ends of the earth or Undraland anymore. That would be my true cruelty shining through. I would stoop to whatever needed to be done to secure Linus by my side, but I couldn’t string Foss along for the cause. “That’s fair. Do you need any money for the ranch while I’ll be gone?”
Foss didn’t like me mentioning the loan I’d given him to start his business, but I didn’t much care. I needed to be sure he was taken care of before I left. “I’ll be fine. Ryan’s been running things without me for a while, and we’re still turning a profit, so I can start paying you back soon.”
I waved my hand to brush away his comment. “I’m not fussed about that. Just look after yourself while we’re gone.”
Foss nodded once, looking like a cowboy. “Will do.”
Jamie huffed. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I won’t leave my wife for anything. I’ve already missed too much.”
Britta, beautiful Britta stood next to her husband, rubbing the small swell of her midsection. “Then I’ll go with you. I won’t go through the mountains, but I’ll go through Elvage and wait there for you all to return. I won’t have to hike through the mountains or go through Nøkken. It’ll be a shorter separation. Does that work for everyone?”
Jamie closed his eyes, angry at me for Britta finding a way around his stalwart position. “What about my father?”
Britta flipped her braid over her shoulder. “When we pass through the gate to Undraland, we’ll be in Elvage, not Tonttu. You and I should stay invisible as long as we can.” She looked over at me with nothing but kindness in her eyes, despite the long trek I was putting her through. “Lucy wouldn’t need to be invisible, though. Not really. Elvage doesn’t communicate much with Tonttu, so by the time word reaches that Jamie’s in Undraland, we’ll be back at the Other Side, hopefully with Linus, whom I very much look forward to meeting.”
I shoved past Tucker and wrapped my arms around my best girlfriend. “Thank you. I love you so much, Britt. I needed that. Thank you. Thank you. I owe you so much.”
Britta smiled into my hair. “You owe me nothing. If I were in the same boat, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my brother.”
Jens met his sister’s eyes with a gaze full of years of love and meaning. They’d lost their parents, and then Britta had been given no choice when her brother left for the Other Side. It was a deep and lasting bond they shared. Britta loved Jens, plain and simple.
With everything in me, I resolved in my heart that Linus would come back to me. That though I’d changed, and the world changed, we would get our same-old back. I would joke, and Linus would laugh
. He would pick up his baseball bat when needed, and I would make use of my lighter and a little gasoline if anything ever came between us again.
Thirty-One.
Walking Away
“I’ve already been through the checklist five times. I’ve got everything I need. Could we just go already?” I had burned through the last of my patience when Foss had asked me again if I had enough food for the journey. It was like the moment we stepped over the threshold to his expansive ranch, he felt the need to harp on me about every little thing. Jens had already stashed enough food in his red bag for ten of us, when only five were going.
“Jens is loading up the car. Maybe you could calm down a little. I mean, I don’t really care, because you’ll only be annoying me for a few more hours until I drop you at the gate, but for the sake of the others, you know, shut up. You’re likely to find yourself gagged and thrown in the trunk if you don’t give us all some peace from your mouth.”
I glared at my former husband. “If I haven’t said so before, your attempt at humor is your least sexy quality.”
“I wasn’t joking.” Foss picked up Britta’s backpack and Jamie’s, slinging them over his shoulder as he walked to the door. “Do you have enough water in your canteen?”
“Sheesh! Yes, I remembered water, Foss.” As soon as he exited to help Jens finish loading the car, I tiptoed to the sink and filled the canteen I actually had forgotten to fill.
Jamie and Britta came out of the backroom of Foss’s giant brick and wood ranch holding hands. “Are you ready to introduce me to Linus?” Britta asked with a delighted smile on her freshly-washed face.
“More than ready. He’ll love you guys.” I touched the vial on the necklace I wore like a talisman of hope long forgotten and only recently rekindled. “Two weeks to get to Nøkken, and I’ll have my brother back.” It was worse than waiting for Christmas. It was worse than being dressed up for Halloween, only to have our parents tell us that we couldn’t go trick-or-treating until dusk. It was waiting for my other half to return to me. A promise of winning the lottery if only I could hold out on a smile and a prayer for another couple weeks.
“What’s Halloween?” Jamie asked, picking a mental image of me dressed as Harry Potter and Linus dressed as the grim reaper (Linus had a bleak sense of humor). Jamie hadn’t exactly been ignoring me since it was decided we would go back to Undraland to find Linus, but he hadn’t gone out of his way to engage in conversation. Something told me Britta had a hand in bringing him out of his funk and forgiving me partially for making his pregnant wife return to the land that had been so cruel to us.
I produced a grin for my laplanded buddy. “Halloween is October 31. It’s a night when kids all over dress up in fun or scary costumes and go from house to house for candy. We say ‘trick-or-treat’, and the neighbors give you a piece of candy. You go through the whole neighborhood and end up with a sack of awesome to last you till Christmas.”
Jamie and Britta looked at me with skeptical expressions, and then at each other as they burst out in laughter. “That’s the strangest thing I ever heard!” Jamie exclaimed.
Britta’s laugh since she’d gotten pregnant was loud and had a deep cackle to it that made me giggle every time. “You almost had us there, syster. Kids dressing in costumes to beg for candy like street urchins. Can you imagine?”
I opened my mouth to defend children everywhere, but Jens beat me to it when he reentered the kitchen after finishing up with the car. “It’s true. Strange, but true. Lucy and Linus had the market on the holiday, though. When they got old enough to go out without Rolf, they stashed a spare costume in their candy sacks. When they finished their first round of the neighborhood, they changed their costumes and did a whole other round.”
I nodded. “Two Halloweens in one go.”
Jens let out an amused chuckle as he bumped his hip to mine. “Linus told me about the year you guys did the double Halloween, and then told your parents you were spending the night at a friend’s so you could go down the road to the rich neighborhood and double-Halloween them, too.”
I bumped his hip in response, unable to hold back my smile of pride. “That’s right. I didn’t know you knew about that. That was well before you came to work with us. Never underestimate what a girl won’t do for a candy bar. Those country club houses gave out the good stuff. King-sized grand prize all the way.”
He raised an eyebrow to go with his sexy smile, and I knew he was thinking about kissing me. “You’re a conniving little vixen.”
“Best thing I’ve been called all day.” I nipped his lower lip.
Tucker breezed through the kitchen, grabbing an apple from the fridge and munching on it, his suspenders hanging at the sides of his pressed navy fitted pants. His tailored shirt fit his lean and muscular body like a glove, making him look almost handsome, if his sleazy personality weren’t factored in. Despite the fact that we’d let him live when there really wasn’t all that much a reason to, Tucker remained ever himself – the guy you warn all your girlfriends to stay away from, but they somehow never listen. “Morning, all. What a great day to go to a magical world and resurrect the dead.”
I excused myself from the kitchen and waited out the others getting ready in the living room. Two days. It had taken two whole days of driving back to the ranch, discussing too many things that didn’t seem all that important when compared with the fact that my brother was waiting for me.
When we all piled into the SUV, Jens relinquished his driver’s seat to Foss, who was bent on being argumentative to mask his sadness at us leaving him behind. I actually got to sit with my boyfriend in the backseat of the car, his arm around my shoulders and me snuggled into his side. He turned us invisible so we could indulge in a tame makeout without making the other people in the car uncomfortable. My curls hung loose at my shoulders, and Jens tangled his fingers in them as my lips parted for his. He was torn between being gentle and ravishing my mouth with his, so he vacillated back and forth enough to drive me wild. I was still on the mend, but I had my fire back with the renewed purpose I now held in my heart like a torch. Jens loved me best when I was the most me, and I hadn’t been me in a long time. Every step I took toward sanity, he cherished, and I knew with each kiss that I’d been a fool to look anywhere but to him when I wanted a mess of butterflies swarming around in my stomach.
The seven-hour drive felt like half an hour, but somehow also like a week. No matter how close we got to our goal, I wouldn’t exhale until I saw Linus mocking me for worrying so much. We’d had to make a pit stop at the Huldras, so Elsa could give the modification on my eyes a boost, in case Mace’s magic had worn off and I couldn’t handle the Undraland sun.
Foss parked the car in the lot of the creepy abandoned carnival I told myself I’d never have to see again. The mood turned from anticipation to somber at having to split up our group that had grown to be our own family. Our family was filled with dysfunction and just enough love to justify a face-to-face goodbye from each member.
Foss avoided me, shaking hands with the others and wishing them a successful journey. Though I could tell Jens didn’t want to grant me the privacy I needed to say goodbye to Foss, he did so anyway, waving the others toward the gate.
My gloved hands were shoved in my pockets, and when I spoke to him, I addressed his chest, not his eyes. We were far enough back from the ticket booth that his features couldn’t be seen. “So, we’ll be back in a month, month and a half.”
Foss nodded. “You and whatever passes for your family can stay at the ranch until you get back on your feet. Your house isn’t exactly livable.” He paused, and then the wall between us began to show signs of cracks in the spackle. “I know you’re mad at me for not going, but I actually have a business to run. I’ve been gone long enough.”
I shrugged. “I’m not mad. You don’t owe me anything. I was surprised, sure, but it’s fine. I understand. I’ll be back before you know it.”
His tone was so sad, it made me look up into his
dark eyes. “No, you won’t. Whatever the sirens did to you changed you. The part of you that belonged to me is the one they killed. I see the way you look at Jens now. You’ll come back here, but the you I wanted is gone for good. It’s why I can’t go with you. I have to move on.”
I swallowed, knowing that he was right. I felt different now. I’d grown, not giving myself over to temptation when it presented itself in the form of a tall, dark and handsome man with a smoldering gaze hot enough to set a woman’s panties on fire. “That’s fair. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I let it all get so convoluted.”
He rolled his eyes, as if I’d said something immature just to jab at his composure. “Of all the things I want, for you to be sorry is not one of them. I don’t need you to regret me. I don’t regret having you.”
I despised all his mentions of various types of holding ownership over me, but I let that one slide for the sake of the adult moment we were sharing. “Then what do you want?”
“I want to be able to walk away. I want to walk away, and I want you to let me.”
I nodded twice, mulling this over. “Are we still friends?”
He rubbed the nape of his neck. “Sure. Of course. Hey, we were married. If you need anything, I’m here. But I have to… you know, let you be happy with Jens. I won’t try to pull you in two so much anymore.”
There weren’t words, so I bobbed my head, hoping I didn’t fall apart in the parking lot, of all places. “Okay.”
He pulled off his ruby ring and retrieved a leather lace from his pocket. “Over there you were my wife. This will help you, should you need anything. Use my accounts for whatever. Buy yourself something pretty and pretend I was thoughtful enough to get it for you.” His fingers brushed my neck as I lifted my hair for him to have better access to fasten the knot.
I offered up a light chuckle, eyeing the ring he secured around my neck. “Thanks. I’ll be sure to buy myself that pink unicorn I always wanted.”
Lucy at War Page 15