That set her hot fury on ice. He’d thought she was still single when he’d tried to kiss her. She’d always assumed it was some flicker of jealousy or rivalry with Kristoff. Last time, in Vegas, he’d only spoken to her after discovering her coffee date with Ezra Fox.
Licking her dry lips, she backed up. “Never mind then.”
Lucas didn’t say anything for a long moment. A deathly stillness came over him. Amber flickered in his gray irises. “It’s Novak, isn’t it?”
She nodded, stomach sinking at how his expression crumpled.
“You are so clever…” he said, eyes slipping closed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “That I forget how stupidly naïve you can be.”
The whispered words hit Red like a slap, reigniting her rage. “You should be grateful for that trait. It’s what made me chase after you like a puppy while you jerked me around on a leash, telling me we had something special.” She did a bad imitation of him, “You’re my soul mate, but should we be together? Let’s snog on the beach while I make up my mind. I was stupidly naïve to put up with that!”
“So, that’s what this is. Payback. Did you just come to stab me with the shards of a love triangle? See if it hurt? Twist the knife on the way out of town?”
“It was never a love triangle for me, Lucas! Goddamn it, you were my first love!”
His gaze softened. “I didn’t—”
“I chose you from the beginning. I kept choosing you. Then you walked away and kept walking. Your rivalry with him was never really about me. It wasn’t really about Juniper either.” She turned away, ready to make that her parting shot.
“Maybe you’ve got us pegged. You’re not the first to say it,” he said, loosely grabbing her wrist to stop her. “Kitten, use that logic and put two and two together. You’re simply another status symbol like his hipster nightclubs and private planes to be shown off to impress minions. A trophy he can brag about.”
Gnashing her teeth, she shrugged him off. “At least he can commit. He cares for me. Doesn’t even want me in Portland, let alone parade me around.”
“It’s easier for him to keep up a good front in the country. They know him too well in the city. You might hear the rumors about your boyfriend.”
“I’ve already heard them.”
“Did you communicate and process it together?” Lucas mocked. “Kristoff would say anything to get into your pants. He’ll tell you what you want to hear and then do whatever the hell he wants. I lived it!”
“So, I should be worried that when we finally do sleep together, he’ll ghost?” Red sneered. “I wonder where he learned that move?”
“I’m not saying you haven’t earned your revenge, but playing with Novak to make me jealous is a dangerous game.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not a factor in my decision-making.”
“Is it a bloody head injury then?” he snapped. “Or daddy issues?”
Her angry pulse rang in her ears. “You are the last person to talk about that.”
“Don’t be a fool!” He paced, gesticulating as he stomped. “For Novak, this is about sticking it to me. I’m not close enough to save you when he grows bored.”
“Bored?” She smiled coldly. If he thought that would hurt her…She laughed. “We both know that if I wanted it, he’d give me forever. And I’m not talking about a wedding ring.”
Lucas gawked, arms dropping to his side. “You can’t mean—”
“You missed your chance. I’m not waiting for you anymore.” Flipping him off with both hands, Red spun on her heel and walked out.
She strutted to the van where Vic waited and hopped into the passenger side. “Motor. I’m done here.”
Vic grumbled, turning on the vehicle and pulling out of the parking lot. “He’s not going to want to speak to me ever again either, is he?”
“So long, City of Angels.”
Time Loop #88 – July 2, Sunset, California Arms Apartments, in Los Angeles, California
Red woke up too pissed off at Lucas to think about how she’d died. She jumped out of bed and marched out the front door, grabbing the van keys.
Vic called after her, “Where are you going?”
She ignored him to drive out of the parking lot, swerving to miss a black cat on her way out. Her heart raced as the argument with Lucas replayed in her mind. Stomping into Quinn Investigations, she found the vampire sitting at the desk.
Grinning, he stood to greet her. “You’re early, Red. It’s good to see you.”
She kicked him in the balls. That was on her bucket list too.
Falling back into his chair with a groan, he cupped himself. “Are you bleeding mental, woman?”
“Screw you, Lucas Crawford. I don’t do jack shit because of you. My life is my own. I don’t have Daddy issues either. I know my dad loved me, and I know exactly what you think of me. I’m not yours. You aren’t my master.”
His pained grimace faded into shamed fear. “What did you remember? Something as Juniper?”
“It’s not a past-life regression. I just want you out of this one.”
Time Loop #90 – July 2, Sunset, California Arms Apartments, in Los Angeles, California
Waking on her stripped mattress, Red wished she hadn’t packed away the sheets long before her catnap. She wanted to duck under a blanket and stay there. That argument with Lucas had stuck in her head more than the car accident that had reset her. Cathartic as it had been to scream some long-buried grievances at him, she wasn’t proud of herself.
It had been an ugly fight. A couple of them, really.
It was her ninetieth loop, and she was farther behind than ever, stuck in a saga that felt older than Chronos.
She kept being reset before she even left LA, blood still boiling from whatever Lucas’s parting shot was, until the last one when they reached the Mojave. The few hours on the road gave her time to think. She had honestly thought he knew about Kristoff.
Delilah had called her out in Charm about it. Why hadn’t she said anything here?
Red rubbed her face as she realized it was to avoid hurting Lucas. From the hurt in his eyes, the vampiress had guessed right. He had reacted less to a stabbing. Maybe she was stupidly naïve. Or just stupid. She’d assumed it’d be the first thing out of Delilah’s mouth when she touched down at LAX.
Getting up with a sigh, she ordered dinner from Old Shanghai, choosing their usual order saved in the takeout app.
“Are you ready?” Vic asked, popping his head into her room later.
Red nodded, finishing a text message to Kristoff, the same one she had sent again and again. “I ordered Chinese. It should be here soon.”
“Awesome. We can take it on the road. Let’s get the last boxes in the van and tie everything down,” he said. “Should we do one last spit polish on the place?”
“I’m so over getting the deposit.”
With the van mostly packed, the apartment felt empty even with the pre-fabricated furniture and boxes for donations they left behind. She still didn’t understand why it had felt so important before to haul so much back up to Charm.
It was stuff. It didn’t make a home. People did.
This was when she should tell Vic what was going on. She helped him ready the Millennium Falcon instead, then enjoyed the simple pleasure of watching Bill the delivery guy get a happy ending to tell the folks back at the Old Shanghai restaurant. She wanted Vic to have it, too, before she dropped her burden on him.
Time marched on with his children, Inevitability and Chaos, ushering Red forward.
The empty streets of Los Angeles made reality surreal. She closed her eyes to the familiar route, more isolating by the lack of traffic. This was a uniquely private hell. Orange streetlights bled through her lids, reminding her that the world was still there. She couldn’t put her fingers in her ears and hope it would go away.
She’d had over eighty Vegas mornings. How many LA nights would she have?
“Miss the Ci
ty of Angels now that we’re leaving?” Vic chuckled. “Judging by that face, I’m guessing the answer is no.”
She leaned her head back on the seat. “I’d say the trip was bittersweet, but I’d be repeating myself.”
“Did we already talk about this? Man, I was flying high last night. Too bad Lucas didn’t stick around. He missed the shuffleboard match in the courtyard with Chuck. Old timer thought he could hustle me.”
“I get the feeling you’re on a winning streak, Vic.”
“I was thinking I should get in a blackjack game tonight.”
“I know.” She turned the radio up to distract from the confession on her tongue.
Parking in front of Quinn Investigations, they followed a fated route to where a vampire waited. Red had run from Lucas in the original timeline and had given him a piece of her mind in her first rewind of the night. How many other reactions would she have until she got off this carousel of misery?
“Peckish?” Lucas asked by the microwave. Nervous excitement crinkled at the corners of his gray eyes. His smile was almost shy. She hadn’t noticed before.
“Your signature dish.” She yielded to fate, letting the scene unfold as it had the first time. The lights went out in the office, and Vic trotted to the fuse box downstairs. Red couldn’t stop looking at Lucas and barely heard his words as he drew closer.
“I have the time to wait.” He cupped her cheek and kissed her softly, fate supercharging the electricity in his touch.
She surrendered to the kiss. They were only going to reset anyway. Running her hands through his black hair, her fingers knew the terrain by heart.
Holding her tight, Lucas murmured, “I’ve missed you, Red. So much.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before? Text me or something.”
“Stupidity, mostly. I saw it like a relapse, as if I could just cut you out cold turkey. I don’t know if you would be better off, kitten. I try to do right by you, but I don’t always know what that is.” He brought their lips together again, raising long-dead feelings as skillfully as a necromancer.
It always felt like a roller coaster. A realization made her shiver. That’s what it always was with him.
She broke away and leaned her forehead against his. “I have to tell you something.”
He looked so hopeful that it broke her heart.
“I chose you first,” she said. “Until you broke up with me, I couldn’t think about anyone else. My head was so full of you. I could sense you before you walked into a room. I’d never felt a connection like that before. I didn’t know it, but I was a goner the second you pulled up on your motorcycle in Rancho Cucamonga and took off your helmet.”
He stroked her hair, wonder softening his face. “Your soul crossed oceans of time to find me again.”
The “T” word brought it all back to Red. “Remember that freaky statue from New Years? Quinn shredded all the notes on it. I saw it again. I’ve done this night before, Lucas.”
“Quinn was scared this might happen. Didn’t say it, but I could tell. I’ll call in a favor with Cora.” He wrapped her in his arms like he could shield her from the world. There was a time when she believed he could. “We’ll break the cycle.”
She stepped back, a tear streaking down her cheek. “We’ll just do this again and again.”
“No, I’ll free you from this spell.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” She kissed his cheek softly and walked away.
Stone-faced, Vic jogged out of the side room through the office, catching up with Red at the door. He slipped past her into the hallway.
She paused on the threshold. “Goodbye, Lucas.”
He appeared at her side, vampire fast. “Why can’t you stay? It can be like it was.”
“I need to move forward.” She left before she could change her mind.
Vic glowered behind the wheel of the van. He barely waited for her to slide into her seat, and peeled out.
“Dating an unsouled vampire was a bad idea,” he said once on the road. “Going behind his back with his fucking sire is next level.”
“He kissed me first!”
“Then you kissed back. I saw it! What were you thinking?”
“That you’re about to run a red light.”
Vic hit the brakes as a bus zoomed through the intersection. He panted from sudden adrenaline. “Shit, that was close.”
Red drooped against the dashboard. “Is the universe fucking with me? Don’t tell me the only timeline where I kiss my ex is the one that sticks.”
Chapter 9
Time Loop #90 – July 3, After Midnight, Circe Casino, Las Vegas
Reaching Las Vegas alive felt like a sign.
Red told herself that she would say something to Hannah and Basil once they got into the hotel suite. Vic kept elbowing her about it.
Fuck it.
She’d played around with enough crazy what-ifs, and now she might have to live with her last one in LA. If this was the final timeline, she wanted to make it count and give Basil the attention he deserved at dinner. On cue, Hannah’s phone rang, leading the teen out on the balcony and Vic off for a beer.
“You’ve had me talking all night, Red,” Basil said, lounging on floor pillows in the Moroccan-themed dining area. “We’ve barely talked about you. Something is different, isn’t it? What happened in Charm? Or was it in LA?”
“Lucas kissed me, and I kissed him back.” She winced, a guilty flush rising on her neck. “It was a goodbye but had a lot of tongue.”
“Repeating yourself? I have a firm policy about tomcats scratching at my door again.”
“I’ll tell you more in a bit, but you have no idea how much I want to break patterns right now.”
Basil hovered his hand over her arm. “It’s not just that. Your soul feels—”
Vic stalked out of the kitchen. “Can we not talk about relationships? Especially hers.”
“Excuse me, Basil.” Red stood, readying herself to catch a sprinting teenager.
Crying, Hannah bolted inside the living room from the balcony. “Jeremy broke up with me. I gotta go.”
Red put her arm around the girl’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t be alone. Let’s go to my room.” She didn’t have much advice, considering her track record, so she listened instead. It was a relief to not just console Hannah and be there for her but to vent a bit herself. A crying and ranting session about men later, she reemerged with the now calm teen.
Watching TV with Basil, Vic called out, “Are you going to tell them already?” He launched into it without waiting for Red.
“I’m coming with you guys,” Hannah declared once he finished.
“You’re needed here,” Red said. “I mean it. I’ve done this day over so many times. The Synod might have guessed Gary’s gambit, but they need more than Gendarme in the tunnels. I’ve tried to tell them before, and they never believe me. You know how closed off they are. I couldn’t protect him, and I have this terrible feeling that Basil only survives it if you’re here, Hannah. In the original timeline, he texted that you saved his life.”
“How?” Hannah asked, uncertainty gripping her soft features.
“A good question that I can’t answer,” Red said, shrugging. Maybe this was the girl’s mysterious destiny. Maybe it was luck. The kid had kept her head last spring when their plans had gone awry at Battle Forge. Better than others, that was for sure. Now it was time for her solo act. “I don’t know, but you make the difference. This academy will need a Hero tomorrow. You can’t leave your post.”
“I need to help you somehow. You’ve saved me how many times?”
“Pass it on. Save Basil.” Red joked, “Mail me the Skull of St. Benedict if you can manage it. Might come in handy.”
“I will,” the teen witch promised solemnly.
“Well, we’re all facing death tomorrow,” Basil said, “I think that calls for sleep…or at least a sleeping pill.”
Red smiled, patting Hannah on the back. “Don’t wo
rry, you have a Hero with you.”
---
Red curled up underneath the covers in her giant hotel bed. Yawning, she held her phone, trying to think of what to text Kristoff. After three restless months, a dreamless sleep claimed her in minutes.
She nearly cried to see the morning without resetting.
Refreshed from the first solid REM cycles she’d had in weeks, she skipped down to the academy for breakfast with her friends. She had an omelet and filled her bag with apples and wrapped muffins for the road, deciding to be an optimist and bet they would get home this time.
Hours later in the Millennium Falcon, she was the most surprised when she woke up from a nap to see that they had arrived. The drive through Charm to Vic’s little brick house was more beautiful than she’d ever seen it. Her short trip away had turned into an odyssey. She’d finally returned.
To stretch her legs after the long ride, she showed Vic the footprints by the shed. “A Sasquatch, I swear. He’ll show up after sunset.”
“And we name him Antonio?” he asked. “I gotta tell you, this story is getting weirder and weirder.”
“It happens around ten; set your watch to it.”
“I believe you. Everything has happened like you said. How do we break it to Zach?”
“That’s what I forgot to do this morning.” Shaking her head, she chuckled. “Depends on how much help you want with these boxes. Once I drop that bomb, you lose your free labor.”
“Good point.”
Zach Sanchez drove up in his dented SUV and stepped out with a wave. She guessed in a certain light that he did look like Valentino—if the silent movie actor had dressed like a goth bouncer and had a side-fade haircut.
“Hey, buddy,” Vic said too casually. “Thanks for helping me move. Wanna see something cool?”
Red went through the motions, unpacking the boxes from the van and putting away dishes in the kitchen. The mindless tasks were soothing as she sifted through her night’s plan. Olivia was gathering supplies while Callaway closed off the road to the sea caves. They’d lay siege to the statue by morning at the latest.
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