“I could have been different.” Her grip loosened, her voice a whisper now. “But we are what we’ve become, aren’t we, Marley? Too bad.”
She released Marley and straightened. The wind died as murmurs around them grew louder. Barely able to draw breath, she forced open her eyes, squinting through the haze and still-fluttering forms she knew didn’t truly exist. A crowd had gathered. Why hadn’t anyone tried to interfere? But then someone muttered something about cameras and parabolic mics, and Marley remembered that they were in LA.
“Thank you, everyone, for helping make that scene perfect in one great take!” Cressida’s voice rang out around them. Applause followed, though Marley saw a few people frown at each other, a couple pointing at her.
Get up. Let them believe it. Don’t be a victim. The last bit rang false even in Marley’s own head. She already was a victim. But she pushed to her feet, using a tipped-over chair for support as she struggled.
“You’ll all be receiving releases to sign so you can be shown on film, but in the meantime, thank you again!” Cressida whirled and strode away, the crowd parting for her.
By the time Marley had gathered enough strength to follow, she was gone.
Chapter Fourteen
The compounded income streams will ensure stability and sustainable growth as targeted assets increase.
—AS Services business plan
T
he spectators had dispersed pretty quickly. Marley heard someone arguing that no one had taken contact information for the releases. Someone else babbled about the special effects. She could feel eyes on her, people avidly watching, maybe trying to figure out if they’d seen her in anything before. Her head throbbed, her vision was blurry, and she thought she might throw up any second. She had to get out of there.
She staggered around a corner into an alley. The stench hit her flat in the face—sun-cooked garbage in an overflowing Dumpster, combined with the sharp ammonia of cat urine. She lurched a few steps, heaved, and her breakfast splattered the cinderblock wall behind the trash bin.
Gasping, she dragged herself back to the street and weaved down the sidewalk. She had no idea where she was going. Just away. Away from the onlookers and any police a smart one might call. Away from the Fiametta, where Sam and Riley and Gage were. They couldn’t see her like this.
The world was still green, the color a combination of Cressida’s natural power and what it became when it was flux inside someone else. No amount of shaking her head and blinking improved it, but at least it wasn’t foggy anymore. The muscles in her arms, her torso, and her legs protested sharply with every step, and after a few blocks, she couldn’t keep going. She found a small park with a bench facing a children’s climber that was mercifully empty and sank down onto it, folding over until her head rested on her knees. But her heaving breath smelled horrible when it bounced back off her jeans into her face. She opened her knees and braced her forearms on them, her hands pressed against her forehead.
God, oh, God, this sucks.
How had it come to this? She’d never gotten sick before, even in New York after Anson was killed. Her stomach lurched, and she dry heaved. It was because it was Cressida’s pure power—that had to be why. She needed equilibrium. Flux could do that. Yes. She’d just find one of the Deimons or even one of the receptacles and nullify him. Then she’d be okay. It wouldn’t hurt, it would just feel good. Those full-body orgasms…
Jesus. This wasn’t her. This was addiction. What the hell was she going to do?
She rocked, watching the ground at her feet waver and blur out of proportion with the motion. She forced her mind to go blank, not to think about how she felt or what had happened, just to concentrate on improving. Getting better. She would get better. She had to.
And slowly, way too slowly, she did. The ground no longer moved, even after she stopped rocking. The grass was green because it was supposed to be, the shredded tires under the climber were black and white, her jeans were blue, the bench was brown. She sat up, and the air was clear, no wispy bats to be found.
Bats, for god’s sake.
Where the hell was she? She looked around. The neighborhood was quiet, residential, but there was still steady traffic. She pulled out her phone. A couple of hours had passed since Gage had texted her that he was at the condo in the Fiametta. He’d texted her again more than half an hour ago, saying he was done and heading back to the rental. She had one from Riley, too.
They’d all be back at the apartment already, wondering where she was.
Even as she thought it, her phone buzzed. Gage was calling. She couldn’t answer it. He’d know something was wrong. She wasn’t even sure she could talk. Her throat was so dry, and fatigue dragged at her. But she had to get back, to tell them what happened. Everyone had to be warned. Marley had screwed everything up completely, and now “everyone could be at risk” had become “everyone is in immediate danger.” Starting with the people closest to her. And from the extent of Cressida’s threat, not ending until the goddess was dead.
She pushed to her feet with a moan and called up the GPS app on her phone to key in the apartment address. Once it identified her position, an arrow popped up on the map, and she started walking.
…
Ten minutes after he left the Fiametta, Gage arrived at the crappy rental unit alone, laboring under a weight that had grown on the walk back. He’d bolted past Sam and Riley, not ready to talk about what had happened. They’d obviously been able to tell, though, because they hadn’t caught up with him. He dropped his keys on the counter and opened the refrigerator. Why didn’t they have any beer?
The front door opened. He twisted to see if it was Marley, but only Sam and Riley came in. The heaviness intensified.
“I texted Marley,” Riley said. “No answer yet.”
“Same here.” Gage straightened and shut the fridge. “Did you guys hear anything from her while I was inside?”
They shook their heads. All three of them took out their phones to double-check, but that only led to more head shaking. Gage cursed.
“So we don’t know if she ran into someone or got hit by a car or what. Aiden was expecting me. He said Cressida knows everything.”
“Everything?” Sam repeated.
“Something like that. Knows more than we think.” He squeezed the phone. “She might have found Marley. I’m calling her.” But she didn’t answer her phone.
Nearly an hour later, there was still no word. Gage and Sam had searched the area around the Fiametta, checking in every few minutes with Riley, who’d stayed at the apartment in case Marley returned. There wasn’t a trace of her anywhere, except that a waiter at a bistro said he served green-tea smoothies to a redhead and another woman. He couldn’t confirm by her picture, though, and said he thought some low-budget indie filmmaker was shooting a scene on the sly. If he was right, the redhead wouldn’t have been Marley.
“Anything?” Gage stood behind Sam, who sat on the couch checking hospital intake lists and police reports.
“Not yet. It’s not instantaneous, and stuff doesn’t always get entered right away.” He looked over his shoulder, spotting Gage’s fist. “Dude, you have to calm down. You’re not going to find her by punching holes in the wall.”
“It might make me feel better, though.” He shook out his hand. The knuckles cracked. “What about—”
A thud at the door. The knob rattled, then snapped when the door opened under pressure. Marley staggered through, almost falling over when she pushed it shut. “Here I am.” Her chest heaved and her T-shirt clung to her sweaty body. She glanced around at everyone, her eyes the color of aging newspapers. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“What happened?” Gage pushed past Sam and Riley to guide Marley to the couch. She collapsed onto it, her head creasing the cushion into a deep V. Gage sat on the coffee table in front of her but didn’t touch her. Her whole body shook, and she moved like she’d been trudging through the desert for days.
&nb
sp; “Long story.” She lifted a hand, the motion limp.
“We’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Phone died.” She licked dry lips and winced. “And I got a little lost.”
“Can you get her some water, please?” Gage asked Riley. He didn’t want to move away from Marley. He watched as her breathing slowed and her face grew less pale. But the yellowed color in her eyes didn’t change.
She accepted the glass from Riley and guzzled the water. Once it was drained, she looked around at all of them again. “I hope you learned something helpful.”
“I’m not saying a word until you tell us what happened. You ran into Cressida, didn’t you?”
“I did.” But her eyes pleaded silently not to push her, and Gage caved.
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t find out anything good.” He told them the little bit he’d learned from his meeting with his brother, about their business plans and the clients Cressida already had. And then he admitted how badly he’d botched things by telling his brother about the addicts.
“The receptacles,” Marley murmured. “Phase three.”
“What?”
She shook her head, still pressed deep into the couch cushion. “Sorry. I’ll explain in a minute. Go ahead.”
“He wants to take their place. He said he’ll take whatever Cressida needs to give.” He drew in a breath, the responsibility settling heavy on his shoulders. “I’m afraid of what it will do to him. Our mother committed suicide when he was a baby,” he said for Sam and Riley’s benefit. “We’ve always worried he might have the genetic predisposition. There’s never been an indication that he does, but the flux—”
“Could trigger it if it’s there.” Marley dragged herself upright. “Okay, that’s priority one, then. Get her before she gets Aiden, or if we can’t get there fast enough, I’ll get Aiden.” She squeezed Gage’s forearm and met his gaze with eyes still bearing a lemony tint. “I’ll take it from him before it does too much damage.”
Gage covered her hand in his. She no longer seemed jacked up, but a fear lurked in her eyes that he’d never seen there before.
“What happened to you?” he asked. “What did she do?”
She pulled herself to her feet and paced across the room, a little wobbly but becoming steadier with each step. Gage swiveled to take her place on the couch.
“Cressida and I had a nice chat.” She described the rogue goddess pulling her into a bizarre conversation. “One minute she was as lucid as you or—you.” She pointed at Sam and Riley. “The next she was raving. Back and forth for a while, but by the end, it was all forth. The sun has driven her insane.” She told them everything the goddess had told Marley, including phase three.
“Those men were simply waste barrels,” she said with disgust. “A place for her excess energy to go so she could ease the pressure and find some relief.”
“Why was she telling you all this?” Riley asked.
“She acted like it was for my well-being.” Marley paced away from them when she said this, and Gage wondered what she was leaving out. “But really, she wanted to appeal to my compassion. She wants me to stop nullifying and taking away her outlets. When I wouldn’t play by her rules, she turned on me. And…God, guys, I screwed it up. So badly.” She sank to her knees in the middle of the room. “She’s coming after everyone. She hates goddesses anyway, for casting her out, not helping her, and now she’s going to push her followers to become leeches. She’s coming after all of you, and Quinn and Nick. Even the Numina.” She raised tormented, still-awful-colored eyes to Gage’s. “It all backfired. I’m so sorry.”
He joined her on the floor, taking her hands. “Don’t. It’s not your fault. Blame could be liberally spread around but the bottom line hasn’t changed.”
“Except the threat is more concrete than it was before and that pushes our timeline.” Sam sat back at his computer. “Aiden said there’s a meeting tonight, right? He say where?”
“No.” Gage was done talking. He pressed the back of his hand to Marley’s forehead. It blazed with heat. “What did she do to you?”
Marley shrugged. “We fought a little. I lost. She sent a few pulses of energy into me. It was… Let’s just say it was a little more than I’m used to handling at once.”
“We can see it,” Riley murmured.
Marley raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean we?”
“Your eyes.” Gage touched her temple. “They’re yellow. Or they were. They look almost normal again. But it’s been hours since she hit you.” He stood and bent to scoop Marley into his arms. “You need to rest, babe.”
Marley scooted away and got to her feet, putting Sam and Riley between them. “There’s no time to rest. We need to stop her now.”
“As far as I can tell,” Sam said, “there are only two ways to do that.”
Riley looked at each of them with sad eyes. “One way. Because I don’t want to hear it if any of you are capable of killing her in cold blood.”
No one responded. Gage knew he was capable of killing if it meant saving the life of someone he loved, but that wasn’t what they were talking about here. “And the other way?”
“Leeching her,” Sam said.
The silence this time was twice as dense. “No.” Marley stepped forward. “That’s an unacceptable thing to ask of anyone. We don’t even know if it’s possible. She told Anson he couldn’t take enough. She’s always connected to the sun. It could kill anyone who tries, even if we could get close enough to do it.”
“What do you suggest, then?” Gage demanded, frustrated. “I can’t let Aiden—”
“I know. But if she gives him some, and I nullify him, he’ll be safe. We need to make a list of everyone we know who has flux. Take them away from her. We’ll have to contact Pettle and Vanrose and follow the connections until we get that dozen. Sam, you’re good at that kind of thing.” She spun back to Gage. “Can you get back into the condo? Because I think we have to take that list he found. If he can’t get to them, he can’t use them. Then we won’t have to worry about always chasing, always being behind. If we take away her receptacles, her outlets—”
“It will just make her more desperate and dangerous.” Riley stepped between them all and looked from Gage to Sam. “Are you guys seriously considering going along with this? Even setting aside the fact that if we take away what she has now, she’ll just go further, target higher, and care less about the fallout, have you even thought about what nullification is doing to Marley?”
“Riley…” Marley’s tone rang with annoyance and warning.
“No.” She spun on Marley. “I’m telling them. I care too much about you, and they do, too, and that has to trump the big picture. It’s always about the people we care about.” She positioned herself in front of Marley, taking on the role of protector. “The flux doesn’t just die when she nullifies it. It’s building up in her system like the drugs we keep comparing it to. It’s changing her, just like it was changing the Deimons. And I think what Cressida attacked her with today is worse than even that nullified flux.”
“Changing you how?” Gage moved closer, watching Marley tremble. Her chin lifted, but then her eyes rose to the ceiling and despair filled them. Her shoulders slumped.
“It’s making me as insane as Cressida is.”
The words echoed in Gage’s skull and had only one meaning. A familiar image flashed into his head: a woman in a bathtub, drowned. He’d never seen his mother that way, but that hadn’t stopped him from imagining it. Only now it wasn’t his mother floating, bloated, gray-faced, but Marley. His stomach twisted, and his heart bled.
She would not be that woman. He wouldn’t let it happen.
“Then that’s it.” Sam slapped the laptop closed. “We’re done.”
“We can’t be done.” Gage couldn’t move. He wanted to go to Marley, to hold her, to keep her safe. But his brother filled his head—not the man he’d displayed today, the man he’d chosen to be, but the helpless baby, the laught
er-filled child, the heart of his family. He couldn’t abandon him, either.
Sam twisted and leaned forward, jaw tense. “What do you suggest?”
Gage stepped toward Riley. “If I understand leeching correctly, you could bestow some power to me, and then I could leech Marley. Would that halt the progression of her mental instability?”
“I don’t know. It’s not energy once Marley takes it. I don’t know if it can be removed from her.”
“Okay.” Gage swallowed hard, making a decision he knew he couldn’t go back on once he said it out loud. “Then I’ll leech Cressida.”
“No!” Marley shouted.
Sam and Riley didn’t look thrilled with that idea, either.
“We know that’s the only option. Even if Marley nullifies everyone Cressida has now, she’ll find others. The more outlets we take away, the more desperate she’ll be. Aiden’s already prepared to accept it all for her.” He knew this would work. It would put an end to everything. “I’ll drain her completely, and—what did you call it?” he asked Sam. “Crack her vessel? Then she can’t channel any more in, and she’ll be cured.”
“No way.” Marley wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. “You saw what it did to Anson. He couldn’t take a fraction of what she had.”
“Totally different. He was a mess, and she was sending it into him. If I just take what she has, without her channeling more, I can drain her.”
“And then what?” Sam asked. “We can’t leave you like that. Marley would have to nullify you, and from the sound of it, that would destroy her.”
“No. Look. The guys use flux. And then it’s gone, right? Anson leeched goddesses, and then he had their abilities. He could use it. So why can’t I leech her, and then blow the energy out of my body?”
“That amount of energy would be like a bomb.” Marley remained huddled behind Riley, all tucked into herself. “You might not be able to control the discharge.”
Sunroper (Goddesses Rising) Page 25