“Smith did this?” My words were a pained whisper.
“Yep.”
“I’m so sorry, Ryder. I didn’t ask him to. I swear I didn’t. I just… I just wanted you to get her back. And I guess that’s something else I have to apologize for. I’m sorry I stole your car. I’m sorry-”
“Ivy, I’m not mad you stole my car. If you need my car, no matter where we are or what has come between us, the car is yours. It’s not the point. I’m not interested in material possessions. I want you to be safe. That’s all. If my car has to be a casualty to make it that way, then so be it.”
I pressed my lips together, unsure what to think about that. Eventually my mind spun as fast as my heart and the question just fell out, “So why do you seem so upset about the car?”
“Because he didn’t even ask me! He did everything without asking me and then he handed it over like it was my reward for helping you. Like I wanted some kind of monetary repayment for falling in love with you! I told him I didn’t want it. I didn’t want the damn car or anything to do with you running away. I didn’t want the reminder and I sure as hell didn’t want to be bought off while I couldn’t even recover from losing you… while my world ended.”
“Ryder,” I whispered, but it was the only word I could force out.
“Ivy, I’m going to say this one more time… I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.”
He gave me a sideways look that I couldn’t read and the rest of the drive was spent in silence. The gate to Smith’s house had been left open, so we drove up the long drive and parked in front of his sprawling estate.
By the time Ryder turned the car off, I had a thousand questions to ask him, but in the end only one made it beyond my lips. “If you didn’t want anything to do with it, why did you keep it?”
He stared straight ahead, without moving, without even breathing and said, “It turned out that I did want the reminder. That I couldn’t live without it.” He shoved his door open and jumped down before I could respond.
Not that I could have responded if I wanted to. His words had depleted any coherent thoughts in my head and erased the words I wanted to speak. Mixed signals much? Geez.
“Let’s go, Red!” he called from outside. His voice was muffled through the windshield, but it still had an effect on me. I still felt the gravelly tenor of the nickname he gave me skitter down my spine to my very bones.
I had to close my eyes and remind myself to breath before I found the courage to meet him outside.
He hadn’t been exactly kind to me since I’d come back into his life, but then at the same time, he had. He had shown up first thing this morning when he heard I was in trouble. He had offered to drive me around and keep me safe while I was here.
He had revived my soul… my heart. I had lived for so long by just coasting. It was something I was used to. Shutting off all of my emotions and focusing on goals was one of my strongest survival techniques and yet it never worked around Ryder. He forced the feeling back into my body. He demanded that I wake up and pay attention. And he always got what he wanted with me.
Or most of the time.
I finally jumped down from the cab and joined him on the porch. We stood there ringing Smith’s doorbell for a solid ten minutes, but nobody answered.
I let out a sigh and let my forehead fall to the hot door. I had wanted some easy answers, but it was clear I wasn’t going to get them.
“Let’s try your apartment,” Ryder suggested. “Maybe there’s something there.”
“Okay.”
When we turned to walk down the porch steps his hand landed on my back for a brief moment before he snatched it back. My skin burned where his fingers had brushed and I immediately missed his touch, even though it had been brief.
It was the first time he had touched me since the night I left him.
He was wound tightly by the time we were in his Bronco again. He didn’t say a word as he started the car and drove out of the neighborhood.
It was a twenty-ish minute drive from Smith’s West Omaha estate to the midtown condo I lived in with my mom. The geography of the city transformed drastically in those minutes. Sprawling neighborhoods and strip malls gave way to clustered buildings and old architecture mingled with new. My building was a new construction project nestled between lower income neighborhoods and the Mutual of Omaha skyscraper.
“Is it always going to be this awkward between us?” I asked when we were close to my old apartment.
“How much time are we going to spend together before you head back?” he returned.
He pulled into the huge circle drive that was mainly for people coming to shop the high-end Midtown boutiques or grab some food. He found a spot close to the stairs that led to the walkway around the shops beneath the condos and parked.
Neither of us hesitated to scramble out of the car and away from the tension that seemed to follow us everywhere today. We walked up to the shops that were quiet this early in the morning. Only a few of the stores had opened up and the heat kept everyone inside.
My heart stuttered when a punch of nostalgia hit me. I hadn’t expected to miss this place. I hated my mother and because of that, I hated my apartment. So many terrible memories were wrapped up in this place. Yet, my heart still recognized it as home. I loved this area of town and I loved this town especially.
Good memories lived and breathed here, too. Ryder giving me rides home when we were just starting our fragile friendship. Hanging out at Delice with Phoenix, Ryder, Exie and Sloane. Ryder rescuing me from my birthday party last summer. Ryder texting me or calling me late at night to check up on me.
Okay, so maybe my good memories had more to do with Ryder than this physical place. Maybe that was the reason that I felt safe here now. I had Ryder with me and he had always protected me in the past.
He had always done whatever he could to keep me safe.
“Do you still work at Delice?” I asked as we walked into the lobby of the condo building.
He led the way to the elevator and pushed the up button. “No.”
A swell of sadness crashed through me. “Oh, really? Why not?”
The elevator doors opened and we stepped inside. Ryder pushed the button for my floor and turned to face me.
“My uncle Matt and my dad opened a music store actually. So I work there now.”
“Oh, wow!” I had expected another thing to feel guilty for. Maybe that was conceited, but I couldn’t imagine a reason why Ryder would give up his job at our favorite coffee shop. He loved it there. But this wasn’t just a reason for him to leave; it was a really great reason for him to leave. “That’s so cool, Ryder. What kind of store? Is your dad still teaching?”
The elevator doors opened up on the top floor of the building. The long hall to my apartment stretched before me. It took Ryder walking out of the elevator to convince my feet to move.
He glanced over his shoulder and kept our chat going. His words helped distract my increasingly anxious thoughts. “Yes,” he said. “Matty runs the store full-time and my dad is still teaching. It’s just a musician’s store. They sell sheet music and instruments and offer lessons. It’s in NoDo, over by the Slowdown.”
“That’s really… cool,” I finished lamely, realizing I had already said that.
“Yeah, Red, it’s pretty cool.”
“No free drinks though.”
He laughed. Really laughed. His shoulders shook and the sound came out naturally. I smiled cautiously and memorized the sound.
“That’s true,” he chuckled. “No free drinks, which is really a bummer since I used to get so much out of them.” He shot me a sly look over his shoulder and my stomach fluttered from delicious memories.
Kisses.
I used to trade coffee for kisses.
“Do you have your key?” he asked.
I shook my head. I didn’t have it. I didn’t even know why we’d come here. It just felt like I needed to. I didn’t know if it was instinct
or closure that brought me here, but I knew I needed to see it for myself.
I reached out and twisted the handle. It wasn’t locked. The door swung open and I felt my eyes go wide at the untouched apartment in front of me.
I stumbled inside with Ryder right on my heels. I didn’t make a sound, I didn’t even breathe as I crept through the entry way and toward the living room. I listened for any signs of life that would expose my mother or Nix or hell, squatters. The apartment had been left open and nothing had been taken.
Did that mean someone had been here recently?
They hadn’t forced their way inside. The door was perfectly intact. Nothing was amiss inside the apartment either. It looked exactly like it had the day I’d left except for the thick layer of dust that coated everything.
It was a mausoleum of my former life. A still life portrait. It was the ghost of my past that I wanted to forget.
I walked to my room and swung the door open. My jaw dropped and I gaped at the chaos inside.
While the rest of the apartment had been curiously left alone, my room had been ransacked. The closet had been completely destroyed. Clothes and hangers had been flung all over the room. My bedding had been stripped and the mattress had been ripped open, it hung cockeyed off my bed, half on the floor. My nightstand had been shoved over and the drawer had been torn out and dumped in a messy pile next to mattress springs and torn clothing.
Apparently, someone thought they would find answers about my whereabouts hidden somewhere in this room. They were wrong.
I had never kept anything that could incriminate me except for a small bottle of tattoo concealer and some old clothes my mother wouldn’t have approved of. Neither of those things would give anyone an idea of where I’d run off to. And they had ceased to be interesting the second Nix and my mother found my tattoos last year.
Ryder whistled behind me. “Did they think you were hiding in here?”
“I have no idea. What a mess.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t look like your mom was given any time to pick it up.”
I pressed my lips together. For the first time since Hermes had visited me, I felt a pang of worry for my mom. Had she been dragged from the apartment kicking and screaming? Had she put up any kind of fight?
What about the god-killer? Where was that?
I spun back around and surveyed the uncluttered living room. Not one piece of furniture showed signs of a struggle. The kitchen and dining room were also neatly tidied, except for the dust.
I walked across the apartment and opened my mother’s bedroom door. This was a room I had rarely spent time in. She had always demanded privacy and I had been more than willing to give it to her. I wanted nothing to do with whatever went on in her bedroom.
The door swung open to reveal more organized perfection. I walked inside and swatted at the dust particles floating through the air, illuminated by the open window looking out on the park below. I glanced over her king-sized bed made up with a rich ivory comforter and the desk with stationary and a fancy pen sitting on top that sat against the wall. I glanced in the master bathroom, not sure what I was looking for, but certain I wasn’t going to find it in there.
“Red!” Ryder called from the living room.
I walked back to meet him. He stood in front of the floor to ceiling windows holding a shoe box I knew well. “Why do you have that?”
“It was sitting on the floor on a pile of clothes. I thought it looked out of place.” He opened it slowly.
I walked over to look inside the box that he had started to open. “That just has my old tattoo concealer-”
My concealer was not inside the box, which didn’t surprise me. If Nix or my mom had been looking for something, I imagined they would have looked through that box already. Nix had probably burned the small flesh-toned tube.
He, however, did not burn the box. And inside of it sat an envelope with my name scrawled across the front in my mother’s neat handwriting. I stared at the letter for long minutes before finding the courage to pick it up.
It was heavier and thicker than I expected it to be. I could tell she had used her expensive stationary I’d seen sitting out on her desk. I couldn’t even imagine what she’d written me. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted her to say to me. I also found it slightly unnerving that she’d hidden the letter in this particular shoe box and set it where I could stumble upon it if I ever came back here.
Had she known I would come back?
I flipped the letter over and squinted at more of her writing. On the back of the envelope it looked like she’d hastily scrawled something last minute. The handwriting was rushed and sloppy, which was so unlike my mom.
I squinted at it and brought it closer to my face. It was almost too messy to read.
“We have to go,” I whispered to Ryder once I figured it out.
“What?”
I turned the envelope so he could see it and shoved it in his face.
They’re watching the apartment. Get out now!
“Let’s go!” Ryder suggested on a growl.
I shoved the letter in my purse and ran for the door. Ryder wrenched it open and I rushed through, racing for the elevator. I jammed my finger on the down button, but it had just arrived on this floor and the doors opened automatically.
My breathing stopped and my flight instinct kicked in hardcore. One of Nix’s goons stood on the inside of the elevator grinning maliciously at us.
“Caught you,” he grinned.
Chapter Eight
“Run!” Ryder shouted behind me.
I glanced around frantically, while the gigante lunged at me. I jumped back just as Ryder grabbed a handful of my tight tank top and yanked me with him. His hand slid to my back and he shoved me toward the stairwell.
It was going to be a long way down, but right now it was our only option.
I slammed my hands down on the press-to-open bar and threw myself into the dingy stairwell. I used the railings to jump down the first flight of stairs. I felt Ryder right at my back, pushing me to go faster.
The gigante was seconds behind us. I felt the negative presence fill the stairwell as soon as my feet hit the first landing. I sprinted down the next set of stairs as fast as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough.
“Go, Ivy!” Ryder growled in my ear. “Faster!”
I jumped down what I could, barely catching myself on the landing before I was flying down the next set of stairs. Ryder’s body pushed into mine. His arms stayed wide as if to block me completely from the goon chasing us.
It wasn’t enough. He was supersized and dangerous. His legs were disgustingly long beneath a hunched over torso. His gangly arms swiped at the air behind us and I heard the swoosh of air beneath his meaty hands.
We had such a long way to go and he was gaining on us with every step. We weren’t going to make it.
I wondered if Ryder and I could take him out. But how? He was undoubtedly stronger than us. I chanced a glance back at Ryder, wondering if he had access to that weird set of powers he had used with Nix before.
His eyes were narrowed with determination. I used his strength to fuel my own.
I pushed my body harder, forcing my feet to move faster. I jumped down to the next landing, but that was where things went bad. There was a wide puddle on the landing and I hadn’t taken it into account.
My feet lost their tenuous hold on balance and I slipped backwards, knocking Ryder back. My arms flailed trying to catch myself. My palm slapped against the concrete wall, sending a stinging sensation all the way up to my elbow. Ryder braced himself against the wall too. Neither of us fell, although my flip-flop covered feet were now soaked in the mystery liquid covering the landing.
We were delayed just enough that the gigante caught up with us. I whirled around in time to see him sneer at me before he shoved Ryder out of the way and grabbed my shoulders.
“Got you,” he snarled and his awful breath wafted over me, curling my toes and churning my stomach.
“Get on the steps,” I told Ryder.
“No!” Ryder lunged for the ugly ogre-like-thing, wrapping his arms around the ugly beast’s waist and trying to dislodge his hold on me. He landed a solid punch in his stomach, but the goon barely flinched.
“Ryder, now!” I shouted. The thin layer of water at my feet started to bubble and foam. Ryder jumped back just in time. He scrambled up the steps and I let instinct take over.
I stood in the middle of the puddle. It wasn’t a lot of water, but I could work with it. The gigante’s toes were just barely touching the standing liquid; his arms were long enough that he could hold onto me without having to step all the way inside.
I had felt a growing connection between the water and me over the last year. I thought it had been my proximity to the ocean. I was born of the water, in a metaphorical way, and so at first I’d expected a natural affinity to the waves and salt.
However, over the last year, I had begun to feel something deeper than a casual connection to the sea. It had been building in me for months and months, this force that felt uncontrollable and consuming. I felt tiny in the shadow of its power.
It frightened me honestly.
But I couldn’t think about that now.
It was time to test it out.
I looked up into the dull eyes of the man intending to ruin my life and take away my freedom. Depravity and something worse stared back at me. This man had no soul that I could see. He was a product of the Pantheon, bred for evil and in service to the god of the sea.
I set my hands on his wrists where he held me in place and let the energy I’d been ignoring for a year crescendo inside of me. The water around my feet continued to boil and expand until it licked at my calves and soaked my skirt. Slowly, but in the most satisfying way, it spread around the gigante.
I watched his surprised wince as the supernatural power hit him. I held him in place, keeping him next to me so the water could do its work.
Power gurgled through me. I felt like a fresh spring or an erupting geyser. My blood felt alive with the ancient power, bursting with the intensity of something I still didn’t understand.
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