The corners of his lips pulled up, and his eyes brightened to a clear sky blue. Pandora ignored the road long enough to watch his face light up, to watch it transform with the scene playing across his thoughts. And then he turned and held her gaze.
“You were the person who changed my mind—always defiant, always stubborn, one of the few who ever spoke out. From the edges of the group, I watched you throw down your sword at our leader’s feet, and I knew in that moment that I could love you, that I would love you. So the next day, I brushed my fingers against your hand during practice. You flinched and swatted me away.” He laughed softly, attention falling to her hand for a moment. “But I tried again and again, subtle soft touches, until you eventually came to anticipate them, to wait for them and savor those brief connections just as much as I did. A touch here. A caress there. Always secret, always far too short. But there was nowhere to go where we wouldn’t be watched, nowhere to hide. So I found the courage to show you what I’d shown no one else before—my shadows, my darkness. And it became our sanctuary, the only place we could go to be free, to be together. I showed you the world, and ever so slowly, we dreamed that we could be a part of it, that we could escape. And the more we dreamed, the stronger we became, as though our swords had become the only protection against our secret. We rose in command, we became the two most trusted soldiers, and—”
Sam stopped abruptly.
“And what?” she asked, hanging on to his every word, lost within his story—their story.
He closed his eyes, head falling as his skin dimmed, as the shadows swirled thicker around his frame. “And then we got caught.”
His body dimmed further, shadows wrapping and tightening, pulling him deeper and deeper. He didn’t fight the darkness. Instead, he looked resigned when he opened his eyes and watched her through the ebony veil growing more and more opaque with each passing second.
Where did he go when the shadows dragged him away?
Because that’s what was happening, she realized. Sam wasn’t leaving. He was being tugged back to wherever he came from, being forced out of the shadows and into his own corner of the world, as though a timer had run out. But Pandora didn’t want to lose him, didn’t want the conversation to end, not when he was being honest and raw for once.
So she fought with the shadows.
She yanked on them, trying to hold Sam close, trying to keep him with her.
“Will I ever remember?” she asked.
“Do you have to?” he said, voice starting to fade along with his body. “Or is it enough to know that soon we’ll no longer have to live in my memories? That soon we’ll leave the past behind, because for the first time in so long, we’ll finally have a future?”
And then the last grain of sand slipped right through her fingers.
He vanished.
Gone.
But something remained.
His words.
They lingered in her thoughts for a long time, long after the sun had crossed the sky and disappeared beneath a blanket of stars. Did she have to remember? Remember. Remember. The word haunted her with its familiarity. Would her entire life be spent chasing buried memories? Would she ever find answers? Or would she lose herself by always looking to the past instead of the future?
She could forget this whole quest to speak to her mother. She could pull over while Naya was asleep and slip out of the car, then disappear into the darkness. The titans would never find her. And if they did, she’d slip away, just as she’d done before. They had no power over her anymore. Sam had been right about that.
The only thing keeping her there was her curiosity.
Her need to know why.
But did she have to?
Could she live the rest of her life knowing her father wanted to kill her, knowing Jax wanted to kill her, knowing they thought she could mean the end of the world, and not find out why?
The very idea was absurd.
Ridiculous.
Yet alluring.
Dangerously alluring.
To say screw it and disappear.
To reject them the way they’d been prepared to reject her.
To forget answers and just live.
Naya stirred in the back seat, purring softly as she stretched her paws and lifted her back, lengthening her spine and waking sleepy muscles. A second later, she slinked into the passenger seat, slapping Pandora with her tail before turning back into a woman.
“Ow,” Pandora commented, rubbing her cheek as she pulled the medium back into the shadows.
“Was someone here?” Naya asked, ignoring Pandora. Her brows were drawn into a tight knot as she rubbed the back of her neck, gaze inquisitive.
“No,” Pandora said quickly—too quickly. The reaction to protect Sam was instinctual, something that happened before she even realized, but it felt right to keep his secrets, felt natural.
Naya didn’t notice. “I had a dream, a weird dream. Sometimes I get them when a spirit visits in my sleep. They show me memories to try to communicate, but I don’t always see them clearly.”
“Huh,” Pandora mumbled, swallowing, trying to play it cool as her heart jumped inside her chest. “That’s interesting. What was the dream about?”
“Fire.”
Pandora’s throat ran dry. “Fire?”
“I was burning,” Naya said slowly, mind fighting to remember. “My back was burning, especially, but the air was so hot I couldn’t breathe. And the pain, it was like nothing I’d ever felt before, pure agony. I was screaming and falling and burning, like a comet crashing down to earth.” The medium shook her head, straining for a moment, and then shrugged. “Like I said, weird.”
“Weird?” Pandora repeated, voice high pitched and nearly unrecognizable. She’d burned before, in conduit fire. She understood that pain. Was it her memory Naya had lived?
Or was it Sam’s?
“Yeah, weird,” Naya replied, unfazed. “Lots of the souls I come across have died in pretty insane ways, so that’s not the worst I’ve experienced, trust me. I just wish he or she had stuck around. I might have been able to help.”
“How?”
“I told you already,” Naya said, miffed. “I’m the night sun reborn.”
Pandora tossed her a wry expression. “Okay, night sun. Can you elaborate for me, your non-goddess, lowly partner in crime who doesn’t understand your lofty ways?”
Naya huffed and crossed her arms, settling back into her seat. “It’s hard to explain. I navigate their pain. I talk them through their memories and try to help them let go of what’s keeping them here. Sometimes, I can tug on the life force, absorbing it into my body so it can be reborn.”
Huh…that escalated quickly. Ghost therapy, she got. Swallowing souls was another story. Pandora shivered. “That’s a little creepy.”
“Yeah, well, so is this,” Naya replied, brushing her hands through the darkness pulsating around them like living, breathing smoke.
Touché.
“Leave my shadows alone,” Pandora joked.
Naya snorted and leaned her head back, shaking it. “So, do you have any idea where we are? How long was I asleep?”
“A few hours,” Pandora told her, eyes on the road. “We’re in the mountains now, which means we’ve only got a few more hours to go before we’re back on foot.”
“On foot to where exactly?”
She didn’t answer.
Sam wasn’t there—she couldn’t sense him at all, but somehow, she still didn’t think it would be a good move to tell Naya they had escaped one titan stronghold just to charge headfirst into another. Because in order to speak to her mother, she needed to get her mother’s brush. And in order to get her mother’s brush, she had to dig it out from where she’d buried it at the edge of her backyard. And in order to get to that backyard, she needed to break into the titan enclave she busted out of four years ago—the one a few more hours’ drive into the far northern stretches of the American Rockies and a few days’ hike from where she w
as planning to ditch the car on the side of the road.
Sure, Naya had given Pandora her word.
But promises only went so far.
“Do you know any good car games?” she asked instead.
“Subtle.” Naya rolled her eyes. “Well, if you won’t answer that, will you answer something else?”
“Depends.”
The medium licked her lips, swallowing. Her amber eyes darkened to muddy brown. “What was it like, being a vampire?”
Pandora’s shoulders dropped. New rule—Naya was not allowed to ask questions. Ever. But really, Pandora just felt bad, because she hadn’t forgotten whom Naya had been fighting to save—her brother. And she wasn’t sure if honesty was the best policy, not in this. “It was…” Pandora trailed off, unsure. “Lonely.”
Naya stared, silently begging for more.
“At first, it was liberating, for me at least. I’d run away from home and being a vampire made me feel free, like I’d escaped my titan past. But I was always running, always leaving places and finding new ones. I never set roots because I didn’t want to owe any head vamps any favors, and it can be lonely to have nowhere to call home, no one to trust. But there were parts I liked, even if I try to tell myself differently. The strength, for one. The skills, the speed. And the ability to turn it all off—all of your emotions, all your feelings, to be numb. Sometimes that made life so much easier, and other times it made life so much worse.”
“But you’re happy you were cured? Even with all of this? You wouldn’t choose differently, given the chance?”
Pandora stared into the headlights stretching in front of the car, seeing conduit flames. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Even with everything, I’m happy I was cured.” And then she blinked the image away, turning back to Naya. “Your brother will be too. Trust me, you’ll be doing him a favor. Not all vamps see it that way. They’ve come to view humanity as a curse because they’ve shut it off for so long. Depending on how the bite affected your brother, he might not believe it at first. But the cure is a blessing, even if it’s sometimes wearing a disguise.”
Naya nodded, jaw locked, expression determined before it turned wistful. Her voice was longing as she whispered, “He used to love the sun, you know.”
Pandora swallowed, remaining silent, sensing there was so much more to that sentence.
“My brother,” Naya murmured, shaking her head as a smile danced across her lips. “It drove me mad how he would waste the entire day lazing about in the backyard, licking mango juice from his fingers and sucking on guayabas, staring at the clouds for hours, daydreaming. I was envious of his freedom, his lack of responsibility. At his age, I was already being worshipped by my neighbors, already listening to their pleas to communicate with lost family members, already busy helping the souls who constantly visited me pass on. His life was easy, and I was jealous of him for it, jealous of a twelve-year-old boy for having the gall to be carefree.” She shook her head, expelling a heavy breath. “What I wouldn’t give to be home doing that now, to see his eyes be so innocent again, to have his greatest concern be what Mamá was making for dinner or whether he was allowed to play fútbol after school.”
“Your brother wasn’t a—” Pandora paused, not sure what term to use. Werejaguar? Night sun? God? Necromancer? Medium? Entitled kitty cat? The list could go on, really. Just give her time. So instead, Pandora held her hand up like a claw and growled, making a cat noise. “He wasn’t one too?”
Naya’s brows arched comically high as she was drawn completely out of her memories by Pandora’s lack of finesse.
“Damn, we were having such a moment.” Pandora smiled sheepishly.
Naya remained silent, sullen.
Pandora tried again. “Car game?”
The medium rolled her eyes and reached forward to click on the radio.
“That wasn’t a no,” Pandora teased.
Naya reached out again, this time cranking up the volume.
“Still not a no…” Pandora murmured.
Two seconds later, the jaguar was back, fangs bared and snarling.
Close enough, Pandora thought silently, pursing her lips to hold in a smile. Then she reached forward and changed the station to some old school rock and roll, despite the softly growled protest of the diva cat in the front seat. But everyone knew the first rule of road-tripping—whoever controlled the wheel, controlled the music. End of story. Good night.
The goddess would just have to deal.
Chapter Eleven
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” Pandora quipped and reached across the seat to shake the slumbering cat.
Naya curled her jowl back, annoyed, but she rolled over soon enough, then stretched her paws out before sitting up, alert.
Pandora jerked her head to the side, toward the forest outside Naya’s window. “You, discreetly hop out, and I’ll meet you fifty feet into the trees in ten minutes. I’m going to ditch the car here and head into that gas station down the road to grab some supplies.”
Naya paused, eyes calculating as she read between Pandora’s words. Because obviously, coming from the mouth of an ex-vampire thief and current prisoner-on-the-run, grab meant steal. But there was nothing the medium could say. First, well, because she was a cat at the moment. And second, more importantly, because they had no money and both of their stomachs were growling. So Pandora reached across to open the passenger side door, and Naya slid smoothly out, the definition of lethal grace as her liquid black body slipped into the shadows of the forest floor and disappeared.
Left on her own, Pandora disappeared the old-fashioned way—well, old-fashioned for her, anyway—and hurried across the street. She paused outside the glass door. There was one clerk inside, restocking a shelf at the moment, but that wasn’t what concerned her. A security camera was focused on the entrance, and the last thing she needed was to make a big splash, alerting the titans to her exact location if the news picked up on the strange footage of a door opening on its own and various items literally vanishing from the shelves. And on this empty mountain road, waiting for another car to come by wasn’t exactly an option. So even though she felt a little guilty, she had no choice.
After hopping the guardrail, Pandora punched a nearby tree in the trunk. Kicked it. Punched it. And kept going until she heard the wood start to give way. Pushing with all of her titan might, she shoved the pine with her shoulder, digging her feet into the dirt and ignoring the sap sticking to her fingers, the rough bark scratching at her skin, and the strain of her already tired muscles.
A snap echoed across the entire forest.
Two seconds later, the tree plummeted.
Crash.
Bang.
Boom.
Metal crumpled as the trunk smashed into the weak, rusted awning over the gas pumps and fell through. The entire parking lot was covered by bristled pine needles as the limbs fanned out, hiding gray concrete and practically burying the place within its folds. The damage was a little more extensive than Pandora had intended, but the store itself was unharmed. The pumps would hopefully be fixed with little effort, and well, that awning had practically been falling over anyway. Still, when a shocked old man came rushing out of the untouched glass door, staring at the fallen tree in horror, her insides twisted uncomfortably. But while he was otherwise occupied, Pandora scurried inside before the door fully closed, determined to get what she came for.
Moving as quickly as possible, she grabbed some plastic bags from behind the counter and wrapped them in the shadows with her. Racing down the aisles, she snatched whatever looked tasty—which, after spending four years drinking blood, applied to nearly everything. String cheese. Soda. Still-warm hot dogs. A slightly stale soft pretzel. Potato chips—salty and barbeque. Chocolate. Gummy worms. The last pack of pizza Lunchables. Trail mix, because, well, they would be hiking. And water…to be healthy.
By the time the owner walked inside to dial for help, Pandora was ready and waiting to sneak back through the door. She dashed across
the street, and two minutes later, she found Naya curled by the base of a tree.
“I’m back.” She huffed, wrapping the medium in the shadows as she dumped her prizes across the leaf-covered ground. “Dig in.”
Naya transformed back into a girl as she rose to a seated position and surveyed the goods. One brow raised, she poked at the family-size bag of chips. “This is all you got?”
Pandora pursed her lips. “You’ve been in prison for six months, eating goopy oatmeal and plain chicken every day. Did you really want me to come back with an apple?”
“Good point.” Naya grinned and snatched half of the soft pretzel. She sighed as she took a huge bite.
The next ten minutes passed in a haze of embarrassing moans and groans of pleasure as every last bit of junk food was cleanly wiped out. Halfway through, Pandora and Naya had locked gazes—one elbow-deep in chocolate, the other licking barbeque seasoning from her fingers—and shared a silent vow of sisterhood that neither of them would ever speak of this moment again. And then they promptly swapped bags and kept going until everything was gone.
“I’m dead,” Pandora grumbled as she fell back to the forest floor, eyelids heavy and belly uncomfortably full. “I think I’m entering a stage-five food coma.”
“I told you to forget that last bag of gummy worms,” Naya commented, leaning back on her elbows with a slightly pained grunt of her own.
“But they were so good,” Pandora whimpered.
“And not to down a full liter of Coke.”
“But I was so thirsty.”
“Or guzzle the last half of the trail mix.”
“Nuts are healthy.”
“Or—”
“Okay, okay.” Pandora cut her off, clutching her stomach and wincing. “But until you’ve spent four years on a diet of O negative, you can’t comment.”
Freeze (Midnight Ice Book Two) Page 11