Hell or High Water (Gemini Book 3)

by Hailey Edwards

  I checked the paper for the hundredth time since discovering it, then matched the address to the mailbox. “This is the address Vause gave me.”

  We stepped onto the sidewalk and approached the door side by side.

  “The gate leading into the backyard is open.” He jerked his chin. “That gives us privacy from the humans.”

  Nodding, I crossed the stepping-stone path that curved around the side of the house. Theo joined me, and I shut the gate and latched it to prevent any well-meaning neighbors from interfering. A set of French doors led out onto a tidy patio outfitted with a grill, patio furniture, the whole nine yards.

  I checked the doors and the two rear windows. All were locked. There were no handy spare keys left under rocks or under mats, either. The conclave didn’t skimp when it came to cleaning up messes in human-populated areas. I didn’t know what to expect once we got inside, except I could guarantee all the surfaces would be sanitized and anything fae would have been removed.

  The easiest way in was to break the panel of glass near the handle so we could reach inside and open the door. I reared back my elbow, ready to do the honors, but Theo caught my forearm.

  “Let’s keep this quiet, okay?” He glanced left to right. “We don’t know how nosy the neighbors are here.” He gripped the handle and held on tight, the metal heating until it glowed. Theo pulled out a warped chunk of locking mechanism and dropped it on the dirt. “There. Wasn’t that better?”

  His recalls weren’t as impressive as Isaac’s, but he did okay. Better than me. I almost asked what superheated creature he had used as a donor but decided it wasn’t my business who had been warming his bed lately.

  “After you.” He swung one half of the patio doors open and stepped aside. “Be careful until we figure out if they set any spells after they left. We don’t want to walk into something nasty.”

  Crossing that threshold left me shaken, but in a good way. As alien as the brick box acting as a home base for Gemini struck me, the interior reminded me of stepping inside my parents’ Airstream. The walls were covered with metallic paper. I ran my hand along the nearest panel, and my fingers bumped where someone had taken the time to hammer silver upholstery nails into the wall. The same pictures once screwed into the curved walls of the trailer hung from drywall in frames. The furniture was the same or similar, larger without a size restriction.

  Theo turned a slow circle. “Have we entered The Twilight Zone?”

  “It sure looks that way.” The living room flowed into an open-concept kitchen. Touches of the familiar adorned every surface in the most bizarre mix of past and present I could have ever imagined. “The bedrooms must be this way. I’m going to clear them.”

  I examined a tidy half bath in the hall then entered the master bedroom. I touched the quilt at the foot of the bed, the one my maternal grandmother had handstitched as a wedding gift shortly before she and her twin passed. The en suite bathroom held no mysteries, and I left the oddly sterile rooms to explore the rest of the home.

  The second bedroom had been converted into a storage room with metal shelves holding all sorts of medical supplies. Incontinence pads, tubing, syringes and alcohol wipes, clean sheets, bedding protection and plastic-looking underwear.

  “Theo,” I called, my voice wavering. “Come look at this.”

  What I really meant was Don’t make me face this alone.

  The sharp ache shredding my chest intensified, and I wished so hard for Graeson that my wolf pushed a whine up the back of my throat. More than his sound advice, I missed him. His strength. His warmth. I didn’t want to face this by myself. Theo was family, but he and I had never bared our souls the way Graeson and I had despite knowing each other our whole lives. My jagged heart wanted its matching half, the one guaranteed to fit and make whatever we uncovered bearable.

  “It will be okay.” Theo’s hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed. “Whatever this means, it’s going to be all right.”

  Throat tight, I nodded and entered the hall to face down the last room. Quick as I could, before I lost my nerve, I shoved open the door. Ice incased my feet, anchoring me to the threshold. My knees locked, and I had to grip the doorframe to keep myself upright.

  Rose walls, blush carpet. Stuffed animals and prissy dolls. Tattered books and bins full of toys that had been hand-me-downs from my parents. The entire room was a shrine to Lori and her favorite color.

  “I don’t understand.” Again and again, my gaze was drawn away from the tiny details on the fringes of the room to where a full-sized hospital bed dominated the center of the space. “What does this mean?”

  A few machines sat on built-in shelves to either side of the bed. There were nooks where more units must have been prior to Ayer’s massacre.

  Theo examined the machines, the setup, and anchored his hands on his hips. “There are units missing, but what’s left is…” He raked his hands through his hair. “This wasn’t about convalescence. This room was setup for long-term care.” His lips pinched. “We’re talking life support here for a person with little or no cognitive awareness.”

  “How do you know?” I croaked.

  “I’ve seen these before.” He tapped small gems set into the silver railings near the head of the bed. A few had been pried out with claws or a tool, but most had shattered in the process. “There’s a clan of lesser dryads in Orlando who use them. When a tree is old and dying, or infected with pests, they’ll carve out notches in the trunk and embed bespelled gemstones to put the spirit in stasis so they don’t suffer the pain of a slow death.”

  I made a circuit around the room, fingers brushing over old friends and familiar belongings. I stopped at the closet, half-expecting more supplies but discovering a treasure-trove of frilly nightgowns. The size was small, but adult. The colors were vibrant, the patterns varied but full of childish whimsy.

  “This doesn’t mean anything,” I said as much to myself as Theo.

  Prying myself from the cheerful clothes, I shut the door and leaned against it. If only shutting out the scramble of my thoughts was so simple. Across from me, Theo sat in a rocker I hadn’t noticed tucked on the far side of the bed. He held a yellowed, dog-eared copy of Bunnicula in his hands.

  “There must be an explanation.” He stared ahead, voice empty. “Lori is dead.”

  His voice rose at the end, making it a question, asking me to back him up on what we accepted as truth and fact.

  “She’s gone.” The bedrock shoring up my life wobbled perilously. “I don’t know what this means yet, but it can’t mean that.”

  Mom and Dad had abandoned me. I got that. I had moved on. Mostly. They cut me out of their lives, and I understood. I was a near-exact replica of what they had lost. They would look at me and see what might have been. I could forgive them that weakness thanks to Aunt Dot’s unconditional love.

  But this…

  This made my gut pitch with the possibilities. Lori was dead. Dead. Right? She was my twin. My sister. I would know if she was alive. Deep down, I would have known she wasn’t really gone. That’s how twin bonds worked, wasn’t it? That connection was the reason no twin outlived their sibling for long. I was a freak. All my life I had been the oddity, the outsider, the lone Gemini in a culture of pairs. Except… What if I wasn’t?

  My parents wouldn’t keep something this huge from me. From us all. Would they? Did I know my parents well enough to make that call? Was any eight-year-old’s perception of their mother and father close to the reality of them? And what about Aunt Dot? She was an adult—my mother’s twin. She would have known. If this was what it looked like, then she must have been aware of their charade. My parents would have needed help that night, and after. No. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. That would mean Aunt Dot had lied to me every day by not telling me for years. Every breakfast, a lie. Every good-night kiss, a lie. Every time she told me she loved me, the worst kind of lie.

  Head shaking, I backed out into the hall. “I can’t do this.”

/>   I ran through the house, the ghosts of my past breathing down my neck, without a backward glance.

  * * *

  The drive back to the hotel was heavy with things left unsaid. Escaping into the parking lot gave me room to breathe, but the reprieve was short-lived. I strode inside and made a beeline for the elevator.

  “Ms. Ellis?”

  I glanced over my shoulder to find the desk clerk trailing me. “Yes?”

  “You received a message while you were out.” He shoved a piece of notebook paper at me. “The caller requested I place this in your hand myself.”

  After taking another look at his neat-as-a-pin attire, I noticed the badge affixed to his shirt that identified him as a manager. “I appreciate it.”

  “Here at the Comforting Inn, we take great pride in our guests’ satisfaction. Our goal is to ensure that every stay is as perfect as we can make it.” He pointed at the web address running along the bottom of the page. “If you don’t mind, could you visit our website and take a brief survey? It helps spread the word about our excellent customer service and allows us to continue to excel at—”

  “Yes.” I spun on my heel. “I’ll do that.”

  I jabbed the button for the elevator and studied the message. The area code was familiar, but I had contacts all over the country. When glaring at the ten digits failed to jog my memory, I scanned the bottom of the page and the hotel’s information. I tripped over their phone number, compared it to the handwritten message and sure enough, the area codes matched.

  Who would be calling me from a local number? Only one way to find out. I retrieved my phone and dialed.

  “Hello?” a soft voice answered on a rush of breath. “Cammie?”

  A thousand childhood memories blasted to the forefront of my mind. “Mom?”

  “Yes, baby, it’s me.”

  “I—” I stumbled into the hall when the doors opened, and sat on a bench underneath a mural. “I thought you were taken. Your guard was killed. Vause told me. Where did you—? Why are you calling now?” I slumped against the wallpaper. “What’s going on?”

  “Our neighbor, a rock troll by the name of Seamus, spotted someone at our house.” Her tone gentled. “We asked him to call if that ever happened. We had to know if we were being hunted, and it made sense the first place a tracker would start was at home.”

  “So you haven’t been kidnapped?” A man shot me a strange look as he passed. “You’re okay?”

  “We’re all fine.” She hesitated. “You went inside the house.”

  My fingernails pierced my leg through the fabric of my jeans. “Theo and I did, yes.”

  “Then you know.”

  “I don’t know anything anymore,” I admitted.

  “I didn’t want you to find out about your sister that way.”

  A filament of anger snapped free of the ball of guilt roiling in my gut, and I growled, “It seems to me I was never supposed to find out about her at all.”

  She didn’t contradict me.

  “I’m glad you called,” I gritted out. “I was worried.”

  “We need to talk,” she said in her best mom voice. “In person.”

  The possibility Charybdis was yanking my mother’s strings occurred to me, but I wanted to see for myself, with my own eyes, that she was safe and undamaged. Then I could call the conclave and arrange protection for them. Even with my job in jeopardy, they would do that much for me. I hoped.

  I met her demand with one of my own. “I want to see her.”

  I would never believe this was real if I didn’t. My parents had run before, and they might run again. This might be the only chance I got to figure out exactly how massive their betrayal was before they vanished from my life again, possibly for good this time.

  “I expected you would.” She made her peace with my requirement. “Here’s the address. Make sure you aren’t followed.”

  I wrote it down and ended the call. I was still sitting there, staring at my phone like it might sprout fangs and bite me, when Theo swaggered into the hall with a young woman on his arm.

  “Are you serious?” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “This is how you handle what we just saw?”

  “Who are you?” Baring rows of needlelike teeth, the woman snapped her jaws at me. “He’s mine. I saw him first.”

  “I doubt that.” I snorted, amazed to find an ounce of humor left in me. “I’ve known him all my life, so I’m pretty sure that means I saw him first.” I flicked my wrist and rose. “By all means, Theo, do what you’ve got to do. Whatever that is you’re doing.” I jabbed the elevator’s down button. “I’ll catch you later.”

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” He peeled the woman away from his side and grabbed my upper arm. “You’re in no shape to be out there alone.”

  “I’m going to meet Mom.” I broke his grip and stepped into the empty booth. “You coming or not?”

  Casting a final glance at his date, who pouted prettily despite the dental nightmare in her mouth, he gusted out a sigh and adjusted his crotch. “I guess not.”

  After blowing her a kiss, he stepped into the elevator with me. The door closed in her face, and her frustrated roar shook my eardrums. I scrunched up my nose and glanced at my cousin. “Really?”

  “She’s a rarity.” He shrugged. “I was curious.”

  And hurting as much as I was.

  We all had our coping mechanisms. I wasn’t about to shame his when mine was often equally as self-destructive. What a pair we made. He and I were more alike than I had ever imagined.

  Chapter 13

  The address Mom gave me took all of thirty minutes to reach. Part of me expected her to return to her Gemini roots now that the going had gotten tough, but no. She had chosen what I assumed was a rental home in yet another cookie-cutter subdivision. The gleaming pickup in the yard was the same as the one the pixie had described, a throwback to the lifestyle they had abandoned, and that one detail hammered home this surreal moment.

  “Are you ready?”

  I started at the sound of Theo’s voice and whipped my head toward him. “Yes?”

  “It’s going to be okay.” He patted my thigh. “Whatever’s in there…” his throat worked, “…you’ll be okay.”

  Pasting on a smile, I nodded. “Yeah.”

  Not buying it for a minute, he pressed me. “It’s better to know, right?”

  “Yes.” It came out stronger that time. “I want the truth.”

  Or the lies would haunt me as surely as Lori’s ghost had all these years.

  We exited the vehicle and took the tidy path up to the front door. Fingers trembling, I kept missing the doorbell. I ended up smacking it with the heel of my palm, which caused Theo’s lips to tic upward.

  The door swung open on a breath of air smelling of herbs and growing things. The woman who stood in the doorway was a tad shorter than me, a little blonder than me, and more beautiful than I remembered. Her blue eyes—clear of Charybdis’s soulless influence—filled with moisture that leaked over her cheeks, and she blinked to clear her vision.

  “Step lively, now. Get in here.” She peered over our shoulders down the empty street, her gaze lingering on the windows of her neighbors’ homes. Her paranoia reassured me that she was in control of herself, at least for now. “We don’t have much time.”

  We hustled inside, and she shut the door and sealed it with a charm so powerful I sneezed as the magic activated.

  “We can’t be too careful,” she said with an apologetic smile. “Please, follow me into the kitchen.” She opened cabinets and pulled out four glasses. “Can I get you something? Tea? Lemonade? Water?”

  “Where did you get the magic?” I kept to the tiled entryway. “I doubt Aunt Dot could manage the spell you just activated.”

  “Your aunt hasn’t lived through what we have.” A line puckered her brow. “My sister isn’t the only Cahill with witch friends and enough power to ignite a multitiered ward.”

  “Maybe if you’d st
uck around,” Theo drawled, “we would know what you were capable of.”

  I don’t think I had ever loved my least-favorite cousin as much as I did in that moment.

  “I heard voices,” a masculine baritone rumbled. “Is she here?”

  Dad rounded the corner and joined us in the hall outside the kitchen. “Cammie,” he whispered, throwing his arms wide and not waiting for me to decide to step into them. He scooped me up and crushed me to his chest, his arms just as strong as I remembered from all the great big bear hugs of my childhood. “I’m so glad to see you.” He set me down and wiped his cheeks dry. “You’re so beautiful—and tall. The pictures Dot sent didn’t do you justice.” He laughed. “You’re as lovely as your mother and as tall as me. Gods be praised, what a blessed sight.”

  “And you brought Theo?” He stuck out his arm, fingers splayed. “I would have expected Isaac. It’s good to see you kids put the past behind you.”

  “The past never stays in the past, does it?” Theo made no move to accept the forearm clasp Dad offered. “I’m sure Isaac would be here if he hadn’t been taken by the same fae who attacked you.” He placed a hand over his heart in mock sympathy when Mom gasped. “I’m sorry. You didn’t know? Maybe if you had reached out to tell us what had happened to you, we could have avoided meeting here like this.”

  “Theo.” I touched his forearm, grateful his lashing out meant I got to play good cop to his bad cop. “We’ve come this far. We might as well hear them out.”

  Dad shoved his hands in his pockets and ducked into the kitchen. Mom was right behind him, so we let them guide us to the table and took our seats while she poured sweet tea into familiar glasses neither of us wanted to lift.

  Mom sat across from me and fidgeted with the tassels on the edge of her placemat. “You have questions, I’m sure.”

  Ice water flowed through my veins. “You told me Lori died.”

  My parents exchanged a glance saturated with dread and an emotion perilously close to…relief.