by BTKT
over it. He’d collect his backpack, go to the hospital, and never remember how close he had come to death.
Jax threw the lock on the door and turned to look at her. In her red dress and black boots, she stood straight and tall, blue eyes flashing with righteous fury, breasts rising and falling rapidly. She had never looked more beautiful. “You almost killed him. You can’t do that. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “Tell me why you almost killed him.” In a low voice, she did. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more—that she wasn’t crying, or that she wasn’t trying to get out the door and go after Brett to finish what she’d started.
“With Chris on the other side now, there’s no reason for you to go back to the Shrivers’. We’ll get your things and move you to the house, to an extra bedroom.”
“No. I’m staying there. I’m going to figure out Bruno’s plans from Melanie. If Tim’s gone, she’ll be with Bruno even more. She may even go with him on his trip.”
“I can’t let you do that, Sasha. If they find out you’re Anabo, it’s all over.”
“They won’t find out because they won’t be suspicious. I’m not afraid of Mr. Bruno. I’d like to kill him.”
“He’ll sense that as much as fear, and wonder why.”
“I’m going to find out where that meeting is, because once you know, you won’t need to keep Bruno around.”
“Then what? Are you still hell-bent to lose what you have of Mephisto and go back to how you were before?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think real well right now because it’s taking every bit of concentration not to shove you out of the way and go after Brett.”
He’d spent decades learning how to control the instinct to take the lost souls out. He realized he had a new problem with Sasha. “Go back to class, get your backpack, and leave. If he speaks to you, answer without looking at him and force yourself to think about anything but how much you hate him. Can you do that?”
“I think so.” “I’ll be waiting just outside the door.” He grabbed her hand and walked her back down the hall,
then waited while she went inside, hoping she could get out of there without attacking Bruno. She was incredibly strong, but no match for a Skia. As soon as she came out, he glanced around, saw no one, and hauled her into his arms. Five seconds later, they were in the war room.
“Why are we here?” “Everything’s changed, Sasha.” “By everything, you mean me, right?” “Yeah, pretty much.” He hit the intercom, and within a minute, his brothers were all there, looking from him to Sasha. Key must have been in the greenhouse. He had soil on his hands and was brushing them together while he gave Jax a serious stare. “Talk now.” Jax explained what just happened, aware that Phoenix was freaking more than anyone else. As soon as he finished, his closest brother said to Sasha, “No way are you going back to that house. It’d be like leaving a lamb in a lion’s den.”
“A lamb with teeth,” Key said with a funny smile, his eyes on Sasha. “So you tried to kill a lost soul. How do you feel right now? Still wishing you could finish him off? Or are you having some regret about wanting to kill someone?”
“No regret.” She looked toward Phoenix. “If I go back, it’s a possible way to find out where the Skia meeting will be.”
“We’re watching every move Bruno makes, and we can do the same to Melanie. Your going back is pointless, and isn’t gonna happen.”
“Don’t I get any say in this? What about free will?”
Phoenix came toward her, walking like he had to hold himself back. “If free will means you die, then to hell with free will. I’ll lock you up and sit on you if you try to go back.”
Without knowing she was stomping on the eggshells they’d tiptoed across for over a hundred years, she asked curiously, “Did Jane change like I’m changing? Did she try to kill somebody?”
He stopped in his tracks and swayed like she’d slapped him. Nobody said a word, waiting to hear what he would say. His face was chalky white. “Jane was . . .” He swallowed. “She couldn’t walk. I lied about her sister. She wasn’t sick. She was perfect in every way, until she pledged her soul because she was told it would heal Jane.”
Jax stared at Phoenix, incredulous. His brother had never told him Jane couldn’t walk. He glanced at his brothers and could see they were just as dumbfounded.
“When I found her, that night of the ball, she was in another room, with all the old ladies, sitting alone. I thought it was weird, but was so elated to find an Anabo, I didn’t think so much about it. Until I told her to stand up. Everyone was frozen but her and the Skia.”
“You can’t freeze Skia?”
He shook his head. “Or Anabo. Later, when I went to see her, I told her I could fix her legs, but she wouldn’t let me touch her, not for a long time. She was the daughter of an aristocrat, very proper, even with a guy alone in her room.”
“So you didn’t kiss her two hours after meeting her, like Jax did.”
“No, it was a long time later, several weeks. Not only was she freaked about the Mephisto, about Eryx and all the rest, she was terribly upset that I’d taken her twin to Hell on Earth. When she finally allowed me to heal her, it was bittersweet, because she saw her handicap as the reason she’d lost her sister. I wanted her to understand that yes, her sister had done it for her, but it was so she wouldn’t be something less than perfect, because they were so beautiful, made such a lovely pair. It was vanity that made her sister pledge, but Jane couldn’t see it. I wanted her to. I wanted her to change, to be like me, so she’d understand. M told me I should kiss her, so I did, but like I said, it was a different time.”
“Not much spit?”
He shook his head. “She hardly changed at all. Then I hit on the brilliant idea that marking her would speed everything up, and she’d get it and stop being so ambivalent about me.”
“So she wouldn’t let you do more than give her a Honey-I’mhome peck on the lips, but she let you sleep with her?”
“There’s some of the story I’m leaving out. The point is, once that happened, she died, so the answer is no, she didn’t change like you, and she didn’t try to kill anyone. She didn’t live long enough to have a chance, to do what she was born to do. I’m not going to let that happen to you.”
Sasha looked around the room, then said to Jax, “You and your brothers didn’t know any of this, did you?”
Speechless, he shook his head.
She huffed out an impatient breath. “Guys. Sheesh.” She looked at Phoenix. “That was really hard, wasn’t it?”
“If it makes you understand why I won’t let you go back, it was worth it.”
“I understand.” She leaned against the wall and conceded defeat. “You’re right that it isn’t worth the risk, not to mention that it’d be miserable. And once they’re gone, I’d have to come here anyway. I have nowhere else to go.”
“We could take you to Russia, to be with your mother,” Key said. “You have papers now, and it might be hard to explain that to her, but you could think of something. You always have a choice. We obviously want you to stay with us, but not as a last resort.”
Ty’s cell rang, and he answered it quickly, nodding before he said, “Got it,” and hung up. He looked around the room at all of them. “Tim’s doppelganger is ready.”
Key said, “Everybody up on the plan, or do we need to review?”
They all said no. “Then let’s do it.” “What about Sasha?” Jax asked. His oldest brother gave her a look. “Until she’s all in, she can’t
be at a takedown.” “Then I’m taking her to the Shriver’ to get her stuff.” “We all go, or no one goes. You know that, Jax.” Yeah, he knew that. It bugged him to leave her right now, but
he didn’t have a choice. “I’ll meet you in the front hall,” he told Key, already reaching for Sasha with one hand and her backpack with the other. Two seconds later, they were in his room, but he didn’t let her go. Tossing her backpack aside, he pulled her into his
arms and kissed her. With lots of spit.
When he stopped, she gazed up at him with bedroom eyes, until they widened, like she was surprised. “Jax, I just figured out Phoenix’s problem.”
“You were thinking about Phoenix while I was kissing you?” “I was thinking that you’re different, and I suddenly realized why he’s so miserable. It’s because he changed as much as Jane did, but when she died, he stopped. He couldn’t go back to how he was before, but he couldn’t move forward, either. He sees things differently, which is why he doesn’t go looking for anonymous sex, because it can’t be all about him anymore.” She studied his face, then said softly, “Last night, you asked me that question because you’re becoming like me as fast as I’m becoming like you.”
He knew she was right. What he didn’t know was if it was permanent. If she left and returned to how she was before, would he? Had Phoenix kept the changes because Jane died?
He thought about it and realized it made no difference. Even if his changes were forever, if he had to spend the rest of time more miserable than the past thousand years, he’d have no regrets. She was here now, and he would enjoy every minute until she wasn’t.
His brothers were waiting for him, but he bent his head to kiss her one more time.
---
Two hours later, Sasha was working on calculus when Jax called and said he was out front, in the car. “Let’s go get your stuff while the Shrivers are at the funeral home.”
“I’ll be right down.” After she slid into her coat, she left his room in search of the stairs, took a wrong turn, and wound up in a dead-end hallway.
He called again. “Where are you?”
“Lost.” “Close your eyes and imagine you’re out here, beside the car.” She stopped walking and did what he said. Damn, what a rush! When she opened her eyes, she was outside, but instead of being next to the old Mercedes, she was standing on the hood.
Hopping down to the snow-covered ground, she opened the passenger door to the sound of his laughter. She’d never heard him laugh like this, and it made her happy, made her smile, which totally killed any attempt to fake like she was mad at him for laughing at her. “I didn’t know I could do that. How did I do that?”
He only laughed harder. “Not very well. I said . . . beside the car.”
By the time he was halfway down the aspen-lined drive, he’d stopped laughing, but he was still grinning. “Until you become immortal, you can’t do it when you’re not on the mountain, or go anywhere off the mountain, but that’s not a bad thing.” He almost laughed again. “No telling what you might land on.”
“That was way cool. I’m going to practice when we get back.”
He looked across at her, his eyes still laughing. “You liked that, did you?”
“Totally loved it.”
When they reached Telluride, he drove straight to the Shrivers,’ and she let them in with the key hidden at the back of the house.
“While you’re packing, I’m going to nose around and see if I can find anything about Bruno’s meeting.” It took her less than a quarter hour to pack, and when she was done, she went to look for Jax. She found him in Melanie and Tim’s bedroom, poking through drawers. “Any luck?”
“Not a thing.” She looked in the closet. “She has some new stuff.” He came up behind her. “As you keep reminding me, I’m a guy. Her clothes are about as interesting to me as stale bread.” “It’s not the clothes, but that they’re new, still with tags, and none of it is stuff she’d wear in Telluride in December. It’s all for warm weather.” “Maybe she’s planning to take a cruise. Or a trip to the
Bahamas. Doesn’t mean she’s going with Bruno.” “She can’t afford to take a cruise. She and Tim argued a lot about money. That’s one of the reasons she was so pissed about me being here, that it would cost them money.” He looked at the clothes again and shook his head. “It’s a clue, you’re right, but warm weather could be anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere.”
Moving farther into the closet, she toed some bags, shoes, and dirty laundry out of the way and looked beneath the hanging clothes, thinking about all the times she stuck things under hanging clothes to hide them from Mom, who could be way too nosy. There was a new tote bag, the tag still attached, and she picked it up to look inside. “Dramamine. Sunscreen. Paperback novel.” She raised her gaze to his. “And a restaurant guide for Key West.”
“Well, now, aren’t you a clever girl?” He looked very pleased. “I’ll get Zee and Brody to start looking through Key West reservations for next week.”
“Maybe they should also look at charter boats.” “What makes you think he’d charter a boat?” “The Dramamine.” “What’s that?”
“Motion-sickness pills, for people who get seasick.”
His eyes widened. “Then yeah, I’ll have them look at charter boats.” He glanced over his shoulder. “We should get out of here before someone comes home.”
“I’m ready.”
Just as they got back in her room to get her suitcases the doorbell rang. Jax said, “Wait here,” and disappeared. A nanosecond later, he was back. “It’s a FedEx guy, bringing boxes up to the porch.”
“It might be my stuff from Oakland.”
Downstairs, she opened the door, saw her name on the first box, and took it as a sign that her things had come just as she was leaving. While Jax loaded everything in the car, she wrote a note and left it on the kitchen table. Short, vague, and simple, she said she was going to stay somewhere else until she could join her mother in Russia.
Then Jax drove her to the Mephisto Mountain, and when he passed through the mists, she wondered how long she’d be here. Less than a week? Or eternity?
He looked across the seat at her with a brooding expression, and she knew he wondered the same thing.
---
Jax couldn’t sleep, which was weird for him. He usually got into bed, rolled over, and was asleep in seconds. Tonight, he stared at the ceiling and couldn’t get his brain to shut up.
Dinner had gone way better than breakfast. Sasha asked a lot of questions about how it went with Tim, and after that, his brothers relaxed. Before long, they were like always, joking around, talking about the upcoming takedown, arguing football, ignoring Deacon’s lectures, and praising Hans when he came in to see if the food was good.
After dinner, he and Sasha had gone upstairs and hung out in his room for a while—he couldn’t stop kissing her—until Mathilda made her go unpack, swishing after her, declaring she would help, and wouldn’t that room on the third floor with the pink and brown be lovely for her?
Thirty minutes later, they were back, Deacon and another Purg named Alfred toting Sasha’s things. Mathilda claimed it was just too quiet up there, and the “puir girl” wouldn’t get a wink. Before he knew it, the small bedroom that was just past his sitting room—the one where he never sat—was filled with the furniture from the pink-and-brown bedroom, and Mathilda was unpacking, firing off instructions to Deacon, who looked like he always did: disapproving.
He came to Jax’s room at one point and said in his usual stiff manner, “It’s unseemly for a female not your wife to sleep in the same house with men who are not her brothers. I will take her to live with the Lumina woman who works in the computer.”
“No.”
“She should not stay on this floor of the house. I will take her back upstairs.”
“No.” “This is your final answer?” “She has a lot to deal with, Deacon. No point making her lose sleep because she’s afraid. If she feels better being closer to me, so be it.”
Lying in his bed, with her lying in hers, less than fifty feet and two thin walls away from him, he understood why Deacon was so insistent. He saw it as improper, but he also knew it’d kill Jax to have Sasha this close all night and stay apart. Deacon worried he wouldn’t be a gentleman.
If it wasn’t for the mark he’d leave on her, he was pretty sure Deacon was right.
But he wouldn’t do that to her, not unless
she decided to stay.
After another hour, he got up, put on a pair of sweatpants, and went to her room. He knocked, she said, “Come in,” and he opened the door. She was lying in the dark, wide awake.
“Are you okay?” “I can’t sleep.” “Are you afraid?” “No. I just can’t stop thinking.”
“About what?” “You.” Surrounded by her scent, he walked close to the bed and watched her pull the covers back. He lay down, she curled into him, and five minutes later, she was asleep. Less than a minute later, so was he.
fourteen
brett and chris weren’t at school the next day. Erin asked Sasha why she was at school, and she answered honestly, “I don’t like my aunt, and I’m obviously not real fond of Brett. I’d rather be here than there.”
Just like she knew it would, the story went around and no one asked her again, until Amanda came up to her before calculus and asked how Brett was doing. “Okay, I guess. I haven’t really talked to him since his dad died.”
“Why?”
Sasha was less and less patient with Amanda’s bizarre fixation on a murderer with no soul, so she was a little snippy when she said, “Because I hate his guts.”
“But don’t you feel bad for him that his dad died?”
“Yeah, I feel bad for him,” she said with a sigh. “I feel bad for all the Shrivers.”
Amanda went back to her desk.
It was Friday, and that afternoon, when they were in the car on the way to the Mephisto Mountain, Jax said, “Let’s not think about school, or the Shrivers, or anything but having a nice weekend.”
“Works for me,” she said. “How about you, Brody?”
From the backseat, he mumbled something that sounded like Star Trek.
“Good Lord,” Jax said. “What?” she asked. “Brody’s got it for Jenny Brown, which is against the Lumina rule. They’re not supposed to hang out with humans for just this reason. If they get attached, it’s hard for them to get past it. He’ll be mooning over her for ten years, and he won’t look at any of the girls on the mountain because he’ll be obsessed with Jenny.”