“What is this place?” Santi asked, turning to face him.
“Home.” He shrugged. “Or something like it, I guess.”
“Show me?” She smiled, taking his hand and pulling him away from the precipice.
As they turned, the landscape changed and Quinn stumbled at the sight of his house. They were no longer on the hillside. Now they walked hand in hand across the wide lawn to a ghostly replica of his childhood home. The two-story California Craftsman was his father’s pride and joy. He’d done much of the restoration work himself. All dark wood, natural stone and exposed joists with a subtle hint of Asian influence in the low rooflines and surrounding gardens. With the warm light glowing from within, it was all too much for Quinn. The surge of homesickness brought him to his knees. He could hear the faint sound of Graham’s laughter and their father yelling for them to come inside.
“You grew up here?” Santi asked, kneeling beside him. “It’s beautiful.”
“I spent my whole life here.” He nodded, staring at the vision before him. “It’s just a house, I know, but it’s been so long … I miss it so much. The thought of never returning….” He shook his head.
“I know how much our childhood homes mean to us,” she whispered. “It’s why I volunteered—back when I thought I was applying for a job as a Soma agent.” She laughed bitterly. “I wanted to save my family home from foreclosure. I can’t even remember the last time I saw it. It’s been so long. But I saved the house. It seems silly now. A pile of bricks and mortar isn’t a home.”
“It’s the people inside that matter.” Quinn stood, draping his arm around her waist as they crossed the front porch to the swing where his mother and father spent so much time together in the evenings. They never got into the bad habit of watching television or pursuing solitary endeavors. No, his parents still sat on the front porch swing in the summers, laughing and talking until the evenings grew late. He and Graham used to tease them about it, but Quinn would give anything to sit on this swing with his dad and have one of their philosophical discussions. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get to go home again. If I’ll ever escape the clutches of Soma. I’m not even sure I could go back to the way it was before.”
“You’re not a kid anymore, Quinn.” Santi slid closer to his side as they rocked the swing into a slow rhythm. “Michael … and Soma took that from us. But we’ll get out and we’ll move on with our lives, and someday we’ll find a place to call home again. Do not lose hope. Not yet.”
He didn’t know where the feeling came from, but Quinn had an overwhelming urge to kiss her. But even in his dream, he couldn’t do that to Sasha. Not with the way they’d left things. The guilt would crush him. But in the short time they’d known each other, with their shared circumstances what they were, Santi had become the best part of his world. He liked where they were heading, but at the same time he didn’t know how to move on from Sasha. Or if it was even fair for him to consider loving someone else. In the chaos of his mind, his time with Sasha felt like the ancient history of first love.
Santi seemed to respond to his reservations, leaning her head against his shoulder, content just to sit quietly with his arm around her. She saw him so clearly, it was often disarming. All his life, his friends and family only saw what Quinn wanted them to see—the façade he wore to hide the severity of his addiction. But Santi saw through him, right down to his soul, and she still liked what she saw.
“You are thinking big thoughts,” she whispered, reaching to stroke the crease of his brow. The clean scent of her like lavender and citrus. In Quinn’s dream, Santi was relaxed and free of the chains that bound her to Livia’s home. In his dream she was happy.
“Santi? What’s your real name?” Quinn frowned down at her. He’d never asked and it felt wrong not knowing her real name.
“Santi,” she said, her chin lifting stubbornly.
“What’s it short for?”
“Santi is short for my father’s surname, Santiago.”
He could tell by the way she fidgeted with her hair that she wasn’t about to tell him her full name because it was something completely dreadful.
“Come on, spill it. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Of course you won’t tell anyone, because there is nothing to tell.”
“So you’re trying to tell me that your mother named you Santiago and didn’t bother to give her beautiful daughter a real name?” He pulled her closer, but still she refused to budge. “Fine, I’ll just call you Mark.” He laughed at the look of horror on her face.
“You will call me Santi, like everyone else.”
“I’m not everyone else. Please? Let me know your name?”
“It’s Carmina María Sofía Delgado Santiago,” she said in a rush.
“Wow, that’s a mouthful. But it’s beautiful.”
“It’s ridiculous.”
“I like it. I’m going to call you Mina.”
“I can live with that.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “It’s better than Mark.”
“All those names have to mean something special.” He rested his head against hers. “Tell me about them.”
“My great-grandmother, Carmina, who I never met, was a Tikal queen in fifth-century Guatemala. She died right before I was born. My mother’s name is María Lucia Delgado and her mother’s name is Sofía Rose. I’m the only natural born child in a family of ancients so they named me after all the important women of our line.”
“But you call yourself Santi? Why?”
“It’s my father’s name. I’ve always been so much like him, they used to call me little Santi and it stuck.”
They fell silent in the gentle breeze, enjoying the peaceful moment together. For the first time in ages, Quinn was truly at rest.
There was something eerie about this dream. It called to the power deep within his core—the power he couldn’t touch without Livia’s permission. But his chest burned with the icy stirring of his gift. He needed to wake up, but he was reluctant to let go of this time with Santi.
“We need to leave.” Santi’s eyes grew wide in alarm. “We can’t be here. We need to wake up. Now, Quinnton.”
His eyes flew open in the darkness and his body pulsed with the stirring of his power—a sensation he hadn’t felt this strongly in ages. A new gift? That couldn’t be. Quinn already possessed a multitude of gifts and never anticipated having another. But what is it? What could have emerged, pulling him out of a dead sleep?
He stared down at Santi, her head pillowed on his chest and her arm around his waist. In his sleep, he’d held her close. They always went to sleep in their respective beds, but throughout the night, they would inevitably drift toward each other and woke up in each other’s arms more often than not.
She gasped and her eyes snapped open. “Quinn?” Her head came up as she searched his face. “What is this? You have to get a grip on it. If she senses….” But Livia’s heavy footfall pounded down the hallway from her office.
“She already knows.” Quinn sat up, taking a deep breath to release the power he should not be wielding. Not without Livia’s permission. But if it’s a new gift, will she have the same kind of control?
“Santi, I suggest you get back to sleep,” Livia said as she stepped into the bedroom. “Ryan will be here soon to wake you up.”
Santi scrambled back to her pallet.
Quinn slammed against the floor as Livia’s controlling gift swept through him. She had a piece of him already, but he wasn’t about to give her another. He would cling to his remaining gifts until his last breath.
The white-hot heat of her gift stole the air from his lungs. She wrestled for control, proving her dominance once again as she searched his mind and his body for the source of this new gift.
“Do not think to fight me now.” The look on her face said it all. Out of nowhere, Quinn had developed a new gift and she had no more clue what it was than he did.
“Hide it.” Livia stood to her full height over him, shoving h
im back against his bed, her face now a calm mask obscuring her emotions.
“What?” Quinn couldn’t quite process what she was saying. It was a warning. Not a threat.
“Keep this to yourself and do not make a spectacle of it.” Her voice was low but her meaning was clear. She didn’t want the knowledge of his new gift to leave this room. “I won’t interfere with this. Whatever it is, it needs to evolve naturally… but make no mistake—I’m watching you.”
Quinn gaped up at her.
“Don’t look so surprised.” She smiled and handed his pillow back to him. “I’m not a monster of my own making, Quinn. Even I rebel in my own way … when it suits me. And it suits me to keep you close and protected from the prying eyes of Soma … and my father. Why do you think I keep Santi locked in this house?” With that cryptic warning, Livia turned and left Quinn in a turmoil of confusion.
He was pretty sure he’d just gotten a glimpse of the good Livia. The Livia who didn’t like what she did. And like the others said, she wasn’t all bad.
“I do not understand that woman.”
“What was that place, Quinn?” Santi asked with a yawn.
“What place?” He crawled back into his bed and curled up next to her, eager for a chance to rest peacefully beside her for a little longer.
“Your home. Kelleys Island. The swing. Where were we?” she asked.
“That was my dream.” He looked at her with a sense of growing dread.
“I was there with you, Quinn. That wasn’t just a dream.” She turned in his arms, nuzzling into his chest. She was so exhausted, her eyes were already drooping. “Whatever it was, it was nice.”
“Rest while you can, Mina,” he whispered. He would let her sleep as long as she could. But Quinn wasn’t sure he ever wanted to sleep again.
It can’t be that. The gift was rare. A relic of a dead world. The gift of dreamwalking hadn’t manifested in centuries. He needed to get out of Soma more than ever now. He would need his family to get through this. To be a dreamwalker without a mentor could be a disaster for him and anyone he touched in the dreamworld.
~~~
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Sasha: Summer
The Chola Valley Temple
It turned out Jayesh wasn’t quite as Zen as Sasha. Weeks later and he was still a closed-off prick, but they had at least reached a place where they could work together, despite the tension between them.
He’s still blaming me, Sasha thought as she moved through the kalaripayattu forms beside him. She matched her movements to his, bending her body and flexing her muscles as he guided her through the poses. The exercise felt good. With each passing day she was becoming more limber and her joints more flexible. She knew it would benefit her later to get these movements perfected now. Once she began active sparring with Jayesh she would be glad she had.
They worked well together during these moments. During these silent moments. It was only when they had to communicate with words that things started to fall apart.
“Time to go.” Jay clapped her on the shoulder just as she moved into the last position, causing her to stumble.
“Where’re we going?” She crossed the pavilion to gather her sunglasses and slippers, adding an indigo silk headscarf to protect her from the sun. But Jay was already halfway up the path to the northern gates and she had to jog to catch up with him.
“Higher ground.” He pointed across the grassy valley up to the wilder terrain toward the Ghat Mountains in the distance.
“How far do the temple grounds reach? I mean, the mother’s influence?” Sasha asked.
“Many, many miles in each direction,” Jayesh said. “All the way to the Arabian Sea to the west and to the far reaches of the valley to the east. North over the high mountain peaks and south to the foothills where we entered the valley.”
“And mortals can’t wander into this region?”
“They can. But they see only the temple ruins when they come. The mother’s influence makes them wary of this place, though. Whenever they do venture close, they never stay long.”
They hiked in silence. Sasha struggled to keep up with him in her inappropriate-for-hiking slippers. She had often thought about continuing her bratty behavior over the last weeks, but she’d decided to take the first steps toward cutting the bullshit. They might not like each other, but if they were going to get anywhere, they had to put their mutual dislike aside. Still, Jayesh seemed to be finding it difficult to remember how to not be an asshole.
“Seriously, where are we going?” Sasha finally asked after they crested yet another hill.
“We’re here,” Jayesh said, pointing at the sheer cliff below and the rough terrain of the mountains in the distance.
Sasha crossed to the cliff edge to scan the view. Rocky mountains rose in the distance and trees grew in patches of jungle-like forests, interspersed with grassy plains. As she turned, she saw that the temple monks had traveled ahead of them and set up a clearing for target practice. There were various weapons spread out on a makeshift table, but Sasha only had eyes for the beautiful piece of machinery calling her name.
“Can I, please?” She brushed her fingertips over the cool metal surface of the sniper rifle. “This is a Barrett M107A1?” She leaned down to get a good look at it. “This thing is badass. I can’t wait to shoot it. Look at this!” She picked up the shell ammunition. “This a .50 Cal, long-range armor piercing round!” She held up the five-inch bullet that looked more like a tiny missile.
“Uh, yeah. I think so.” Jayesh tried to hide his surprise at her enthusiasm.
“Can-I-Can-I-Can-I?” Sasha danced in place; she couldn’t wait to try it.
“Not yet.” He turned her away from the pretty gun. “Lunch first, and then we start small.”
Refreshments waited for them in the shade of a canopy where the temple monks relaxed. Jayesh offered her a cool drink.
“You’ve been busy.” She accepted the drink, wondering when he’d arranged this. “What am I shooting?” She scanned the horizon, expecting to see long-range targets in the distance.
“Over here,” Jay said. “Like I said, we’re starting small.”
An array of clay birds sat in a basket beside the table along with a simple bow and a quiver of arrows.
“No.” She shook her head. “No, no, no. Jayesh, you cannot dangle a Barrett M107A1 with armor-piercing rounds in my face and then put a bow in my hand. It’s not cool, man. Not cool.”
“Show me you can hit a moving target first and then we’ll move up to the big guns.”
“You were informed what I can do with my gift, right?”
“I’m not interested in seeing anything flashy, angel. I just want to see if you can hit the broad side of a barn, and then we’ll talk.”
“Ugh! Enough with the ‘angel’ crap. It’s insulting. And what makes you think I can’t hit the broad side of a barn?”
“You wouldn’t be the first young Immortal to disappoint. Your generation is all talk. Special snowflakes with ‘unique and astounding abilities’ and your parents have stoked your egos into thinking you are more capable than you actually are. I’d rather see for myself if you can really do what I’ve been told you can.”
“I’m shooting that gun before we leave today. That’s like giving my brother a Stradivarius and telling him he can’t play it.”
“I don’t know what that means, but show me you can follow directions and we’ll see about having a demonstration later.”
“I don’t need a demo. Me and guns, we’re friends.”
“Lunch, Sasha. Eat something and then we’ll get to the fun stuff. I promise.”
“Fine.” She took a seat under the shade of the canopy and helped herself to the buffet the monks had spread out for them. “What do you need to see from me?”
She couldn’t show him how good she really was, but she needed to show him enough to put an end to his doubt.
“Arrows.” Jay slid the bow over to her side. Exc
ept it wasn’t the kind of bow Sasha was used to training with. It was a rudimentary sapling bow. The most un-gun-like thing Jayesh could possibly find. But Sasha could shoot anything, and as long as her gift connected with the target, her aim was infallible.
Don’t get cocky. That was what he expected. She selected an arrow from the quiver and strung the bow. Her gift never missed, but she could. If her head wasn’t in it and her gift failed to connect, she could miss the easiest shot. She had to walk a dangerous line today. She had to be good. But she couldn’t be too good. She had to fail at the right moments. She had to have her head on straight and her gift under her firm control. And that required a level of focus and calm she did not currently have. And Jayesh knew it. He was testing her.
“Just need a minute to get my focus on.” She stepped into the sunlight.
Sasha walked up to the edge of the cliff, taking a moment to really see the world stirring to life all around her. She smiled, closing her eyes as her conscious mind sought the wildlife lurking just out of sight. The Senate might demand the use of her target ability. That was all they could see when they looked at her. But they didn’t need to know all the cards she carried. Sasha drew strength from nature. She was in her element here in the wilds of ancient India. As she focused on the untouched world around her, she’d never felt more alive. For a moment, she put herself in their place. She soared with the birds, experiencing the joy of their flight. She ran with the predators deep in the forest, thrilling at the exhilaration of the hunt.
When she opened her eyes, returning to herself, she’d found her center. The animal kingdom never failed to set her at ease. With a deep breath, Sasha notched an arrow along the bowstring and took aim at the sky. When she was ready, Brother Raj would launch the clay target over the cliffside and she would have mere seconds to connect with the target and take aim.
Jay was giving her an easy first shot and she needed to make it.
“Ready,” she said.
The monk flung the clay bird into a high arc, giving her plenty of time to call the target with her gift. She felt it, stirring low in her chest, the icy burn of her power as familiar as her next breath. Her eyes followed the clay bird’s flight. The breeze stilled as she searched for the break in the air, the tiniest indication that told her when to release the arrow. She took a breath. Counted down slowly in her mind, keeping her focus on the target. As it began to fall, arcing back toward the ground, Sasha’s breath caught in her throat and the world went silent when she released the arrow.
Emerge: The Captive: (Book 3) Page 13