If he was right, then I could grieve. Except he wasn’t, which meant I couldn’t let it out, not yet, and maybe not for a long time.
Zee’s fingers drummed a terrible staccato on the steering wheel with one hand and a matching beat on the stick shift with the other. “Justin died with a broken neck.”
“That’s it? No gunshot wound to the head?” I sat up, my eyes narrowing.
“Nothing in the reports,” he said, his words as careful as if he were treading glass shards. “The official autopsy report won’t be out for a few weeks at least.”
“They can be faked. You know that.”
He shook his head. “What happened was a terrible, shitty accident that never should have happened, but it did. You’ve picked up after you lost everything once before, you can do it again.” He slowed for what was one of the only intersections in town, took a left, and we were heading out toward the place I’d called home for ten years. Ten years of peace.
Ten years of no blood or death, or magic or monster slaying that wasn’t putting food on the table. Flashes of my past tried to reach for me, to remind me of what I’d walked away from, of what I’d tried to protect my small family from.
And they’d been killed anyway.
I worked to practice the breathing that was supposed to help with flashbacks, only it wasn’t a flashback I was trying to calm, but an intense and fast-growing rage.
Rage that built at an alarming speed within my body, going to spill over my lips. “You don’t know that it was an accident, Zee. You weren’t there, I was. There were gunshots, there was an explosion under the goddamned truck and we were lifted with some sort—”
“Yeah, and you hit your head hard enough to be out cold when the paramedics and first responders showed up, your face in the water. You almost drowned!” He threw the words at me as his face bloomed a dark red and the veins in his throat pulsed.
“There was death magic, Zee. Green and dark and vibrating. I saw it at the party, just a glimmer and I thought I was seeing things. I . . . I should have checked.” Oh my God, if I’d only checked, maybe my boys would be alive now. My stomach heaved.
Everything Zee was saying was a lie. I knew it in the depths of my gut.
I’d been awake in the truck, I’d been reaching for Bear. I’d seen the green swirling aura around us, and I’d heard the gun click as a bullet slid into the chamber.
I’d been hit in the head, but not because of the accident.
“Fuck you!” I slammed my good hand onto the dash of the truck. “There were gunshots and death myst, Zee. I think I know a goddamn gunshot when I hear one.”
Finally, I had his attention. He slowed the truck and looked at me.
“Death myst and gunshots. Are you absolutely sure?”
I clenched my hands in my lap. “Three tires, Zee. Which means at least two shooters, likely one of them was an abnormal. The brakes went out, and we both know that is no simple thing. Not for them to fully fail like they did without interference. I was there. Justin was pumping the brakes and getting nothing. You think I don’t know what destructive magic looks like anymore? That I’ve forgotten? After the crash, Justin was shot in the head, I watched it happen. Why are you fighting me on this?”
Zee’s eyes flicked over me. “Because . . . our past, your past would make you believe this a murder no matter if it was an accident or not, because you know how ugly the world can be. There is no way your family found us, Nix. There is no way they got past my wards around you and the house. Those wards extended to Bear, you know that.”
I let out a breath. “But not Justin.”
“I had to pick two people.” He looked to me and then away, shame coloring his face. I shook my head.
“Zee, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
His ability to hide things was stronger than most others in his genre of magic and I’d trusted my life to it. But I’d known the risks. I’d known Justin would be left in the open. I’d thought he’d be safe, though, because I’d met him long after I’d left my family.
I struggled to swallow, seeing Justin’s head explode once more inside my own mind. “If it was my family that did this, I would be dead, too.”
He nodded. “Then there is no reason for this to be anything but an accident. An accident you want to believe is something more so you have someone to hate for it. Magic happens, Nix. It does. Maybe Justin pissed off the wrong person on the circuit.” His words were incredibly soft. More than he’d ever been with me. He was using caution.
My jaw was so tight, my teeth ached. What if he was right? I blew out a slow breath, thinking.
Zee stayed silent, letting me work through things on my own. I couldn’t take my mind away from the gunshots, from the death myst, or the man who’d shot Justin through the window.
I didn’t look at him. I didn’t want to see pity in his eyes. Pity for me. For the girl who’d been beaten and abused as a child, whose father had turned her into a killer, and who’d finally found peace in the arms of an everyday man, and hope and a love she never thought possible in the heart of a boy who’d been her world. A groan slid from me, shaking my teeth, shaking my entire body.
“Goddamn it, Zee. I don’t even know if I want to be wrong.” The thing was, I knew what I’d seen. It was burned into my mind like a brand.
“I know, doll face,” he whispered. “I know.”
The balance of the truck shifted as we started on a short slope downward, one that would quickly rise and then we would be on the hill. I sat straighter and stared out the side window. The snowy white scenery flickered by as we crested the hill, the hill that had been dark and too slick for a truck that held my most precious cargo.
I closed my eyes. I was not resilient enough to see the skid marks if they were still there, to see the impression at the edge of the water and know that my boy had bled out, breathed his last breath, and I’d been helpless to save him.
No . . . I had to be strong, now more than ever. I had to find out why Bear and Justin had died. They deserved that much from me.
Carefully, I let out the darkness I’d kept caged for so long. I let Phoenix Romano out, and allowed myself to truly see through her eyes. Who I’d been before. She was strong enough to do this, because she didn’t love anyone.
The sensation was strange, but in seconds, I felt the truth slide under my skin. Phoenix was a predator and it would take that kind of mentality to track down the truth of this.
There were clues here on the hill, clues to what had truly happened. “Pull over, Zee.”
“You sure?”
“Do it.” Nausea rolled upward in my guts and I pushed it down with a simple image. A raging fire rolling through a forest, roaring at the edges, wiping out everything in its path. Emotionless, and driven by nothing but nature and the desire to consume.
My heart rate slowed, and the gut-wrenching grief and nausea bled away drop by drop.
Zee pulled over and put the emergency brake on. He got out and came around to my side. I grabbed his hand and let him help me out as I took stock once more of my injuries. My pelvic bone was the worst, aching with every step. I focused on that, on the peripheral as I let my eyes sweep the area.
We walked to the side of the road and looked over the embankment. The trees that were shattered by the weight of the truck, the drag marks where the Ford had been towed out of the water and back up the bank. A tremor slid through my armor, but I made myself look at the scene with an analytical eye. If this had been a job of mine, there would be no clues left, but there were very few people as good as me, even when it came to the abnormals. That was where I had always come in.
Abnormals were cocky, thinking they could never be caught because of their abilities with magic. I was good enough to know everyone could be caught—magic or not.
Even me.
I needed to find something that backed up my memories to prove to Zee I was right. Maybe even to prove to myself I was right, that it was not some paranoia-induced memory
that clung to me. If not, I would be forced into believing the accident was a lie, when I knew in every fiber of my being it wasn’t.
Jaw tight, I searched the area, looking for tracks. Anything would have worked for me: another vehicle’s tire treads, footprints that didn’t fit, the tripod marks from a long-distance rifle of some variety. It had been several days since the accident and traffic through the area had not been light so I wasn’t hopeful.
No doubt the local police force had screwed over the crime scene with their ineptness.
“You said there was an explosion? Then there should be some evidence, either on the truck or in the bush, of some residual magic.” Zee let my hand go and started to scrape at the packed snow in a few spots on the side of the hill. “They could have buried the leftovers, but then there should be scorch marks still, even if they tried to hide it.” He didn’t dispute me again, for which I was grateful. The last thing I wanted was to fight with him. I’d tell him if he were right, if we found nothing. I would swallow my pride.
I nodded, thinking. “We were halfway down the hill when it happened.” I made myself walk slowly, taking each step with care back up the hill.
Zee let me move on my own for a bit, then returned to my side. We were near the top when we turned and looked down the slope.
“I’m not seeing it, Nix. There is nothing here.” He drew a breath and I shook my head.
Hands clenched, I scanned the slope over and over. He was right, there were no obvious scorch marks, no huge pot holes, no residue. But I would have never left something so obvious either. I would have covered my tracks.
The breath in my lungs hitched as my eyes landed on something subtly out of place on the slick slope.
“Then what is that?” I pointed at a slightly humped section right in the middle of the hill. Snow had been packed hard, almost like a speedbump, then half-heartedly covered with a few bare branches to help it blend in.
“Snow pack, that’s what it is,” Zee said, but he was sliding down ahead of me, hurrying. I followed slowly. The truth now was at hand, and this was either his belief or mine that would be proven.
Mine. I was right about this, as horrible as it was to be right, I knew I was.
He dug into the snow pack with the heel of his boot until blackened scorch marks appeared through the pristine white. He went to one knee and slid his fingers through the soil that flickered with tiny green crystals, then lifted his hand to his nose.
“Fuck.” He whispered, “I wanted you to be wrong. Death myst, you were right.”
I stopped next to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“You believe me now?”
“Yeah.” He stood and put a hand under my elbow. “All the more reason to get out of sight.”
“They could be waiting at the farm,” I pointed out.
“Not with my wards in place. If they try to get through, they will be fried.”
They. Until we knew who had done this, it would be the nameless ‘They’ we would focus on.
“They’ll get a shock and a half if they do.” He growled the words. “Who do they think they’re messing with? They can’t possibly know who you are, or I am, for that matter. If they did, they never would have left you alive in the truck.”
Those were my thoughts exactly. Pieces of this didn’t match up. If people from my past, or Zee’s, had shown up and caused this, why had they left me alive? Why hadn’t I been the one who’d been shot in the head? Why was I the one that the death myst had ghosted over?
It didn’t make sense.
And I didn’t like when things didn’t add up, especially in a world where death and magic could hide in plain sight.
Minutes later, we were back in the truck, and Zee had us moving fast, no longer drawing out the drive.
A flash of yellow ‘do not cross’ tape fluttered at the bottom of the hill, and I twisted my head to look at Zee so I didn’t have to see the reminder.
His face was tight, his lips drawn, and his eyes narrowed. Anger radiated off him in waves, like I’d only seen once before. When we’d received news my mother had died.
He’d loved her. I knew that. But she’d been my father’s second wife, and she and Zee could never have a relationship. My father didn’t like his things taken from him.
Bear had been Zee’s nephew in all but blood, the only family either of them would ever know outside of me and Justin. A part of me wanted to reach across and take Zee’s hand.
That was who I’d learned to become over the last twelve years: a person who could give comfort and love. A woman who was soft and kind, and full of social anxiety. That was who Justin knew. He’d never known I was a killer under all that, I’d let him believe I was my older sister. Seeing as she was dead, it was a convenient ruse.
Almost as if he were reading my mind, Zee cleared his throat and asked a question I wished he hadn’t. “You aren’t crying. Why not, doll face?”
Why wasn’t I crying when I was facing the worst thing anyone could? I fought to find the words that would make sense. Maybe more for myself than for Zee.
I looked away from him. “I was always worried they would be taken from me. That . . . I would be found by my father and punished for everything I’d done, for the money I took from him. I thought he’d send the Stick Man after me, and that my boys would bear the brunt of my past.” I shrugged and let the woman I truly was take hold of the reins once more. “Justin and Bear are gone. I have nothing to worry about anymore.”
Even I heard the flat tone in my voice, the monotone that belonged a lifetime away.
“Don’t go back to being her, Nix. You didn’t just run from them, you ran from what they turned you into.”
I looked at him, letting my eyes harden. “Then they shouldn’t have woken the monster slayer that lay silent for so many years.”
Chapter Three
I realized Zee had drugged me after I woke. One of the Percocet likely slipped in my food, given the aftertaste in my mouth. The pain in my pelvis and arm were barely registering, a three on the pain scale. Easy to work through for now.
The only good thing I could see was we were home, in the ranch house filled with memories.
When we’d gotten home from the hospital the day before, we’d checked the perimeter of the house. Zee had taken the two farm dogs with him. The Belgian Malinois were trained not only to help with the herding of the horses, but in protection as well. A leaner version of a German shepherd, they were highly intelligent and loyal to the death.
They also had a serious aversion to magic. It had taken a long time for them to be comfortable around Zee.
Abe, the younger of the two dogs, watched me from the foot of my bed. His whole head was black, as were his legs up to where they joined with his fawn-colored body. Even the tips of the lighter color were black, giving him a two-toned look. He was big for a Mal—as the breed was known—sitting right at eighty pounds of solid muscle. His dark eyes were locked on me. He whined softly and his bushy tail thumped once.
“Abe, kriech.” I snapped my fingers and he army-crawled up the bed until his body was stretched out along mine and his long muzzle rested on my shoulder. Both dogs were trained using German commands for guard dogs. Kriech meant to crawl.
Another whine slid from him.
He’d been Bear’s dog, sleeping with my boy every night from the time we’d brought him home as a puppy. Abe was too smart for his own good.
I bit the inside of my cheek, the sharp pain holding the grief at bay.
The sheets were tangled around my limbs, and damp with sweat like I’d been thrashing. I sat up slowly, groaning as my body protested. Abe sat up and sniffed my hair, his big nose ruffling the mess of boxed dye blonde. I pushed him away gently with my good hand, then ran a hand over my ribs, touching carefully where the light swelling indicated the breaks. Sun streamed in through the big sliding glass doors that led out onto the back deck. Even in the dead of winter, the brilliant blue sky could be seen from any window in the
house. One of the reasons I’d chosen Wyoming to run to and hide when I’d left my father’s employ.
That and, as far as I knew at the time, my family had no ties to the place I was hiding. It didn’t hurt that most abnormals liked the two coastlines. I didn’t know the reason, and I didn’t care. It worked in my favor and that was good enough for me.
Sure, there was a healthy dose of religion between the Mormons and the Catholics, but overall, it was tolerable. They were good people when they weren’t too busy trying to save my soul. Something I was quite sure wasn’t possible anyway.
My heart tried to take me back to grieving, showing me a memory of Bear slinging open the sliding glass door with a cringing bang, yelling at me to get up and play in the snow with him.
“Come on, Mama. Get up. We’ve got stuff to do!”
I swallowed, or tried to, past the lump in my throat. “Bear,” I whispered his name, the view out of the sliding glass blurring for a moment as I struggled to hold back the tears. Abe whined again, as he leapt from the bed and ran to the bedroom door. He sniffed at the floor and then sat down and looked over his shoulder at me. His eyes accusing. Bear wasn’t there.
“I have to let you go for a bit, baby. I . . . I’ll be with you soon enough, but I have to let you go for a little while. To do what I must. Will you let me, my boy?” The words were not much, a prayer to my child in a way. An angel taken far too soon, yet I felt as though he were beside me still. I had to do what I had to do, and that meant no tears, at least for a little while.
Of course, there was no answer. I wasn’t that far gone as to expect one, or be disappointed when none came.
Still, something eased in my chest, a relief of the pressure on me. That I was expected to grieve until I melted away. Of all the people in my life, Bear had understood me the best. One day I would have told him about who I’d been. I would have told him about the hidden world, when he’d been old enough. The truth of it, all of it. More than I’d ever told Justin. Because being of my blood, he needed to know his history. I’m not sure Justin would have still loved me if he’d known I’d been Phoenix Romano. He’d talked about me once.
Fury of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 1) Page 4