Xavier gasped. Tears leaked from his silver eyes, but this time they came from unmistakable joy.
“The ship…it’s moving…it’s lifting. Ah!”
Minutes swept by. The tint of his skin started to fade as he channeled all the stored power of his people. Though she wished there had been another way, Xavier was the rightful wielder of this magic. For anyone to touch it other than a Tedran, it would have been nothing short of sacrilege.
Gwen turned her eyes to the open water. She yearned to see Genesai’s love in motion, hear her sounds. The only thing Gwen heard, however, was the boat knocking against the dock and the early autumn wind tangling in tree branches. The only movement came from the far side of the lake, where a single car’s headlights made a slow turn on the road.
Yet she felt something. An absence.
When she’d feared Reed was dead, his absence had filled her with awful hate and deep despair. There, standing on the quiet dock watching absolutely nothing, this new absence brought her a sincere happiness she’d never be able to quantify.
She stood there forever, watching. She could have stood through ten more forevers.
Xavier’s hand flailed on the ladder. The top of his head appeared. Shaking arms tried to pull his body onto the dock. Gwen dove and grabbed one side of him, Griffin the other. Xavier’s skin had returned to its regular pale color, and it was ice cold to touch. Reed whipped off his fleece and draped it over Xavier’s convulsing body.
All the Mendacia in the world as assistance, and it still wiped him out. She wondered how many years he’d shaved off his life.
“It’s done.” Xavier’s teeth chattered so hard she could barely understand him. He struggled to keep his eyelids open. “The ship’s gone. Away. You saved my people.”
She took his hand in one of hers, and touched his face with the other. His eyes rolled up to hers, briefly flashing pure white. “And then you saved mine,” she told him. “Thank you.”
Unconsciousness was winning the battle. He tried to speak but no sound came out.
No, he mouthed. Thank you.
FORTY-TWO
For the second time that night, Reed stepped away from the scene. Primaries definitely weren’t meant to be here, to witness this.
But he was strangely glad he had.
Xavier shuddered and passed out. Griffin hauled the taller man over his shoulder in a skillful fireman’s lift and started for the SUV littered with empty Mendacia boxes and vials.
Gwen still stared out at the water, arms around her waist. When she finally turned, she looked strangely shocked to see Reed still standing on the dock. The hesitation in her body, the fear in her eyes, made his stomach churn. Did she honestly think he’d leave because of what she was, or because of what he’d seen? Maybe he’d thought of leaving that night in the lake house when she’d started it all, but not now. Never again.
“Say something.” The wind nearly stole her voice.
Ear to shoulder, hands on hips, he said, “Come here.”
She lurched forward as though he’d pulled on her leash. But she stopped two feet away, looked up at him with those giant, reflective brown eyes. With her gold hair swirling around her face and courage shining through her skin like what had just happened with Xavier, she had never, ever looked more stunning.
He reached out, slid a hand around her neck, and pulled her mouth to his. Her kiss…if there was ever a drug as powerful as it, he’d never want out of addiction. Wrapping an arm around her hips, he heaved her against him, forcing her arms around his head and neck.
They kissed hard. Greedy. The first meal after famine. Different, now that they were away from Nora and that house. Better.
She tasted of cool, crisp, sweet water. Water…hell, she was water. He’d seen it with his own eyes.
When he finally forced himself away, her eyes had gone all dreamy, like he’d once told her. If he wasn’t holding her up, she’d melt again into a puddle. And wasn’t that the best compliment you could give a man? To see how you affected a woman like her?
“Oh, I’m sorry.” He grinned, loving the way her gaze traveled to his cheek with the dimple. “You wanted me to say something, didn’t you?”
She laughed. He framed her face in his hands, his fingers sinking into the softest part of her hair. “Holy shit, that was you? You…melted.”
She blew out a shaky breath. “Yeah. I did.”
“How come you didn’t tell me about that before?”
“Figured I’d reached my quota of weird shit to throw at you.”
“Is it like the Translator thing? Or can all of you do it?”
She searched his eyes. “It’s us. It’s what makes us special. Ofarians.”
Suddenly everything calmed between them. The swirl of storms made up of questions and secrets, hidden layers and deception, just blew apart. The atoms of doubt scattered in the wind, flying up to the atmosphere like the spaceship he never saw but completely and totally believed in.
It was just them now. Gwen and Reed. Not the Retriever and the Translator. Not captor and captive. Not user and used.
The realization drew his mouth to hers, and he slanted across her lips with unquenchable fervor. They kissed as if they were alone. They kissed like they didn’t care they weren’t. She fed him her drug through her lips. Three or four days ago it might have gone solely to his dick. Now it swelled his heart.
In the next two seconds, he remembered every word they’d ever said to each other. Every heated glance of longing across the DMZ. Every stroke of his hand across her bare back. Every thrust inside her. Every withheld sound as she came…It all slammed together, transforming his body into a tempest of need and want.
He pulled back for breath, his lungs sawing. If he didn’t stop now, there’d be no stopping until he was inside her.
Their foreheads came together. No, every part of their bodies came together, ankles to chests.
“You did it,” he whispered.
“Not without you.” She inhaled and slid her hands up his arms. Even without his fleece he didn’t feel a single degree of cold.
She blinked long, shook her head, and turned serious. “What Griffin did…he said he took you to avoid suspicion. He was thinking about what would be best for me.”
Reed kept his smirk to himself. “And maybe he didn’t like what I told him about us.”
One corner of her full mouth ticked up. She turned her head, smooth skin sliding under his hands, and kissed the center of his palm. “He didn’t like it. Can you blame him?”
Not at all. Look who was at stake.
He scrolled back to the scene in the Plant, when he’d tried to get the Ofarian guard to let him out by dropping Gwen’s name. His face must have changed—man, he really was slipping around her—because she asked, “What?”
“Did you know where I was? After they jumped me?”
Her throat moved. “Yes. What happened in there?”
“I tried to drop your name, tell them they’d made a mistake. They said they called you and that you told them I was where I needed to be. Was that true?”
“Yes.” Her warm hands went flat on his chest. “And I’m sorry. It was for the same reasons Griffin had you captured in the first place, to protect your involvement from the Board. It killed me to lie.”
“Doesn’t matter anymore anyway.”
She smiled. “Oh, thank God.”
Over her shoulder, Reed noticed Griffin approaching.
Reed smoothed Gwen’s hair away from her face. Kissed her once again. Yeah, Griffin, she’s mine. Childish? Absolutely. He really didn’t care.
Griffin stopped halfway between them and the SUV. Even decked out in his soldier gear, he was one of those pretty men. He looked from Gwen to Reed, his injured stare hardening.
Gwen jumped in front of Reed. “No, Griffin.”
No what? Oh. That. What Xavier had told him about Ofarians taking out Primaries who found out about them. Griffin looked like a model, but it also looked like he cou
ld hold his own. It would be a good fight, but Griffin would still lose.
Griffin held up his hands. “I hated killing for the Board. I won’t do it on my own. Not ever again, even if you order it, Gwen.”
Gwen exhaled forcefully. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“It’s a new world.” Griffin’s voice sounded drowsy and loose. “New players. New rules.”
“Everything will be different now.” Her voice, in contrast, sounded hopeful.
“Everything,” he echoed.
“Better,” she asserted.
Griffin cleared his throat and came forward, extending a hand toward Reed. “Sorry for what happened. The ambush…”
Reed gently moved Gwen aside and stretched for Griffin’s hand. Shook it. Griffin squeezed a bit too hard, but Reed got it. It was all good.
“Thank you,” Griffin said, looking Reed squarely in the eye. Then he glanced at Gwen. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to thank you enough. For our people. For her.”
Why was Griffin thanking him? Reed had made a phone call to get Gwen out of a dangerous situation. He’d aimed a gun at the asshole who’d put a knife to her throat. It was a no-brainer.
Griffin withdrew his hand first.
Reed nodded. “You would have done the same.”
“Yes, I would have.”
Gwen went to Griffin then, pulled him into a big hug that tugged a bit at Reed’s jealousy. He heard her murmur something to Griffin about the Board. He nodded into her shoulder and patted her back.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Right away, sir.”
She stepped back. “Oh, so you’re going to listen to me now?”
“Hey,” Griffin said, “if I hadn’t’ve saved your ass at the fountain, none of this would’ve happened in the first place.”
Reed had no idea what that meant, but he watched Gwen’s eyes cloud over and a deep crease etch itself between her eyebrows.
“You know?” she said. “You’re absolutely right.”
“I’ll call for someone to come get that pickup.” Griffin turned to Reed. “Can you drive the semi to the city?” Reed nodded. “We have a secure location. Follow me.”
Gwen’s fingers pressed against her lips in surprise. Not only did Reed know about Ofarians now, but apparently they were letting him into their secret lair. He wondered if there was a magic handshake or something.
Gwen slid her hand into Reed’s, their fingers intertwining. “I’m going with him in the semi,” she told Griffin. And this time, she wouldn’t ride in back.
Griffin nodded, climbed behind the SUV’s wheel, and started the engine. He sat with his hands at ten and two, staring at the dashboard.
She was looking at Griffin when she said to Reed, “He thinks you’re in love with me.”
Reed paled; he actually physically felt the blood drain from his face and land heavily in his boots. Vertigo swooped in, almost knocked him on his ass.
Her face reddened as she slowly turned to Reed. “Oh, God, that was out loud, wasn’t it?” She waved a dramatic hand and barreled through her next words. “Don’t respond to that. Really.”
Reed glared at Griffin’s profile. The Ofarian man now sat with his elbow against the window, head in his hand. Not looking at the woman he was supposed to marry and the guy who was supposedly in love with her.
Jesus. Was he? Was that even possible in a week? And during all the whacked-out crap that happened to them during that time?
“Come on.” She tugged him toward the semi, unsuccessfully trying to keep her blushing cheeks averted. “Show me how you drive that big rig.”
FORTY-THREE
“The Board.” Griffin snapped his cell phone shut. “We got ’em all. Just found Elaine Montag in Cabo.”
Gwen sat across from Griffin, Reed to her left, at the breakfast bar in Griffin’s Telegraph Hill apartment. She’d forgotten how nice his place was—how nice all their places were. Since returning from the land of the dead, she couldn’t even cross the threshold to her own apartment. The whole thing smelled of death and deceit. She and Reed had taken a room at the Four Seasons. Seemed appropriate to come full circle.
The manhunt for the Board and anyone who’d ever worked at the Plant had taken three days. Anyone who knew about the slaves and said nothing was in the crosshairs. Many Ofarians volunteered to help, and Gwen wasn’t remotely surprised at the majority of her people’s resolve to right what had been done wrong. She’d clung to that belief in captivity and it had been proven true.
Against all odds, they’d succeeded in keeping the strange happenings in bumfuck Nevada and in the middle of Lake Tahoe under wraps. Xavier had used the last of the Tedrans’ magic well. And now he was the last.
None of the Mendacia clients could raise a stink about the dissolution of the Company. The contracts still bound them to keep quiet, and no one wanted to admit to using the product either.
It truly was over, and one end opened up into another beginning.
“Where are you keeping them?” she asked Griffin.
“At the old Plant. Seemed appropriate.” His hand slid over hers. “Do you want to see him?”
“No.” That came out much stronger than she’d intended. “Not yet.”
There were about a Dickens novel’s worth of issues for her to page through before she could face her father in person.
“Whatever you want, Gwen,” Griffin said. “He’ll be there whenever you’re ready.”
She traced a jagged black line in the marble countertop with a finger. “Any lead on Delia?”
His pause twisted in her stomach. “Still looking. The Board seems to have lost her trail a few years ago. But it doesn’t mean she’s not out there. There’s no proof of death.”
She nodded, but more because it was expected, not because she believed they’d find her sister.
Griffin spun his phone on the counter, using the hand that wasn’t in a sling. “There’s generations of info to sift through. Thousands of things the Board was hiding from us.”
“Get Casey, Dad’s secretary, to head up the task force to go through all the files. She practically owns that office anyway.” As Griffin nodded, she remembered something else. “And have her keep an eye out for anything labeled ‘Others.’”
He raised an eyebrow. “‘Others? That’s all we have to go on?”
She told him what she’d glimpsed in the boardroom the morning after Yoshi’s attack—the weird map, the strange labels and color codes, paired with the Board’s argument.
“Yeah, okay.” He laughed humorlessly. “I’ll add that to the list.”
“You took Adine’s computer, right?” Reed chimed in.
Griffin nodded. “About a thousand levels of security in that thing, but we’re working on it.”
“Let me know if I can help,” Reed said. “I have contacts.”
The men shared a look that translated as an awkward sort of truce. It was a start.
Griffin said, “All right. Thanks.”
Griffin’s phone went off again. She’d gotten used to the persistent sound over the past few days. Right now he was acting as her go-between, but that couldn’t go on forever. Her people wanted to hear from her, and she needed to lead. At least until they could establish a new ruling party.
As Griffin spun away from the kitchen and disappeared into the bedroom, phone plastered to his ear, she meandered over to the bar. She dug out a bottle of the good stuff, poured herself a glass of Napa Cabernet, and ventured out onto the terrace. Coit Tower rose above the roofs only a few blocks away, warm exterior lights lifting the round, ivory structure high into the sky. Surrounded by the white noise of traffic, she leaned on the terrace wall and breathed in the salty air. She’d grown up here, but everything felt different. She no longer belonged.
Glass clinked on stone as Reed set down the wine bottle. He poured his own glass and stared into the ruby red. “Tell me what you want to do.”
She inhaled through her nose, lifted her face to the breeze. “I don’t
want to stay here. In San Francisco.”
He nodded, staring up at the tower. “You don’t think you should?”
“I need to stick around for a bit to see some things through, but I can’t live here.” She shook her head. “My old life…it isn’t mine anymore. Maybe someday I’ll find my way back.”
“But your people.”
She closed her eyes, smelling the water to the east. “I was thinking that what could possibly be a better way to convince them to get out into the Primary world than to see me doing it myself? I can still be involved with the Ofarians from anywhere in the world. The magic of the Internet, and all that.”
“Griffin needs you.” It killed Reed to say that, she knew, and she loved him for it.
Stars, she did. She loved him.
They’d both managed to ignore her little outburst on the dock a few nights back. When her mouth had opened before her mind could catch up, Reed had looked like she’d run over him in that giant semi he’d looked so sexy driving. It was okay; she didn’t blame him. She was in no hurry. For once in her life, no hurry whatsoever.
Silence draped itself over their shoulders, but it wasn’t awkward. Nothing about the two of them felt forced or uncomfortable.
“Griffin does need me,” she acquiesced. “And we work well together.”
Reed swirled and sipped his wine. “Remember what I told you back at the lake house? That I wanted to show you where I lived?”
“Of course I remember.”
He scrubbed a hand over his head, and the fact he was nervous made her belly flutter in the best possible way. “If I asked you to come home with me now, would you?”
“What about Tracker?”
They’d talked about him a bit as they got tangled in the ridiculously soft hotel sheets. Reed was worried but not scared. Nora had never contacted Tracker.
“I can always move us to Alaska. Change my name again.”
“Again?”
“Well, I could still be Reed Scott to you.”
“Damn.” She snapped her fingers. “Was hoping to get two for the price of one.”
He smiled brightly. She would never, ever get tired of the dimple. “So what do you say?”
Liquid Lies Page 36