by Lisa M Basso
“What if we don’t make it that far?” The concern in her voice made me look at her again. Her eyes held so much. Pain, despair, struggle. And maybe even secrets of her own. Things she hadn’t told me. Things she was dealing with alone.
“I can’t. I just can’t.” It was better this way.
Her face fell. Her hand gripped the sheet by her side.
I knelt in front of her and kissed her forehead. When some of the tension left her body, I scooped her into a hug, waiting until her head dropped onto my shoulder. “I just want to be close to you. It doesn’t have to go any farther than that.” And it couldn’t if I intended to keep my hunger under wraps.
Ray looked up at me, defeated and exhausted. She nodded.
“Let’s get some sleep.” I pulled the sheet up for her and waited for her lay down.
She curled up in a ball at the far edge of the bed with her back to me. I yanked my shirt over my head, discarding it on the floor, opting to leave my jeans on. After her attempt at seduction, the more fabric between us, the better. I crawled into bed and pulled her toward me, flipping her around to face me.
I whispered to her, much like we had during those short nights in Hell. They were never long enough. “Just promise me you’ll be careful. I couldn’t stand if anything ever happened to you.”
She lifted her head off my shoulder, the beginnings of an argument firing behind her eyes.
Something between a chuckle and full-blown begging made my voice shake. “Even if it’s empty, just promise me. It’ll make me feel better.”
Ray kissed my cheek. “I promise I’ll try.” She snuggled back into me.
Her fingers grazed my bare stomach. I twined my fingers with hers, trying not to think about how she just threw herself at me, or how she looked doing it.
“Should I be afraid?” she asked.
I stiffened, afraid she could sense my hunger. “Of what?” I asked eventually, desperate to know what she saw in me, resigned to hear the kind of monster she saw on the outside.
“Sleeping. With Azriel back on Earth.”
The last time that combination came together, Az had coaxed her dreams. She ended up smashing my car’s window and slicing her arm open under his influence the day after I broke her out of the mental hospital.
I stroked her hair, hoping it would soothe her. “Most of our power comes from our wings. Without them we’re practically powerless. Except for our influence; that comes straight from the heart.”
Powerless. If only I could have left the desire to feed with my wings back in Hell. “He won’t be invading your dreams. You’re safe.”
She hummed an acknowledgment and within minutes her breath was slow and even. She was out, sleeping the sleep of the dead.
I released her hand and reached over, switching on the TV, keeping the volume low. I watched for an update, but it was still the same old crap. I turned it back off and closed my eyes, listening to her breathe, doing my best to keep the black out of my eyes and the hunger off my mind.
***
Ray folded up what was left of the ruined map and slid it into her back pocket while I slid the car keys off the table.
“So,” she said, “you’re not going to talk to me at all today?”
I stood there, stone faced.
“This is going to be a really long drive if you refuse—”
Last night I’d done everything I could to be a gentleman—which, to be honest, who knew I had it in me?—and this morning I doubled my efforts when I woke up next to her smelling of soap and some sweet scent I couldn’t put my finger on. With her legs tangled up with mine, and her wearing so damn little.
Now, I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked up to her and kissed her the way she deserved to be kissed. Thoroughly, passionately. When I pulled away, her fingers were threaded in my hair.
She gave me the kind of smile that could stop a cursed heart. Her cheeks flushed an adorable pink. “I guess I can handle the silent treatment if it goes down like this.”
I might have cracked a smile at that, too. Then I made myself move toward the door. If I hadn’t, we might not have left the motel room today. At all. In fact, all I could think about as I turned the doorknob was that kiss, and what I really wanted to do about it, which was drag her into bed and never let her leave.
That would lead to my hunger raging out of control. In my mind I could already see Ray collapsed on the floor, whether unconscious or dead I couldn’t tell. Keeping my distance from here on out would be better for the both of us.
“We need Cam,” Ray said behind me.
I closed the door the inch I had opened it and turned. “What?”
“Well that got you talking. Yeah, Cam.” The amount of attitude she injected almost distracted me enough not to retort. Almost.
“No. No way.”
“We have to at least talk to him now that I remember more. He was with the angels—with Elyon. He has to know more than we do.”
“You’re asking a lot.” I tried to keep my voice even. Not sure it worked.
A defiant glint ignited in her eyes. “Of him or of you?”
“Both,” I spat.
She was with him for almost two months. Him, not me. What else could she possibly want with the golden boy? I pressed my hand against the door, searching for control. Finding none, I approached her anyway. “Mostly of him,” I lied. We both knew I cared more about myself.
The smile on her face was so far gone I couldn’t remember what it looked like. “Then Cam can tell me that himself.”
I might have been proud of her, if she wasn’t wasting her newfound spunk by fighting with me.
She pivoted around me, opened the door, and walked out into the open sky with zero concerns of being recognized as the girl on the news. Good to know she wasn’t letting her anger get in the way of her safety. I followed her out, closing the door behind me.
Ray stopped at the passenger side of my borrowed SUV, still the only car in the lot. There was a good chance she hadn’t been spotted by the man working the front desk yet.
Gold blasted off the wings on her back, throwing light everywhere. Even the dust-laden car gleamed. Those wings of hers were gray through and through, until the sun got a hold of them. She stretched her arms wide and threw her head back, enjoying the feel of the sun and fresh air. Damn it if she didn’t look like an angel. If angels had ever been made female. Though if they were, and they looked anything like she did now, there would be way more Fallen roaming the Earth.
I yanked the passenger door open for her, throwing her from her reverie. “You’re lucky you’re beautiful, Ray.”
And apparently I’d do any damn thing she said because we drove straight for Cam’s.
***
After Ray almost got taken out by a civilian militia—which I’d been seeing a lot of in my travels the last few weeks—I wasn’t taking any chances. We drove through the back roads until we got to Cam’s little shack of solitude. That meant lots of long, hard miles at slow speeds with rough roads and the goddamn sweet scent of Ray mere inches away. All that, and she wanted to go see her equivalent of an ex-boyfriend.
Heat built beneath my collar. Cam had put his hands on her too many times. If he did it again, while I was watching, it would be his last touch. Ever.
Using the SUV’s 4x4 feature, we soldiered right on up to the cabin’s clearing. I had expected Ray to hop out of the car, excited to go see Cam after being separated for an entire seventy-two hours. She licked her lips, pushed her hair back from her face, and slid out, taking her time. I heard her sigh from the other side of the car.
“Having second thoughts?” I asked as I slammed my door closed.
I couldn’t help it. I had every right to feel smug.
“Not even close.” She glared at me, then stomped off toward the cabin.
Earth sure had shifted the dynamic we’d created in Hell. Now it was time for me to sigh as I followed her.
In the time it took for me to walk around a tree i
n the center of the clearing, she and Cam were already staring at each other. “It’s good to see you, too,” I deadpanned.
He broke their eye contact to glance at me and dropped the can of beer in his hand.
I smirked and added a little dig. “Developed a little drinking problem since the last time I saw you?”
Ray shot another glare at me.
“What?” I shrugged, innocently. “It’s not even ten in the morning.”
If I was a better person, I might have had to call AA.
“I’m sorry,” Ray told Cam, ignoring me. “For leaving.” They exchanged more than a look, something unspoken. “I had to.”
He didn’t say anything back; instead he stepped closer to her. Dried grass crunched under his feet, and he lifted a sad set of puppy dog eyes. I just about ripped my hair out watching the two of them, knowing they’d shared a history Ray and I didn’t, but I stayed put. This exchange didn’t concern me. After all, Ray wasn’t mine.
Ray wasn’t mine.
Damned if that didn’t make my fist clench.
But that didn’t make it any less true.
Cam studied his feet. “Did you get the answers you were looking for?”
“Some.” Why did she have keep her voice so soft when she talked to him? “But I need more.”
“That’s why you’re here.”
“Disappointed?” I asked, raising my voice loud enough for them to hear.
Cam shook his head. “He’s insufferable when it comes to you.”
Ray glanced back in surprise, then she shook her head. “Look, Cam, I saw the news. I know what’s going on. Can I ask you some questions without worrying you’ll take my memory away again?”
“You can ask.”
I’d give Cam some credit for that one. It was pretty good.
Ray rolled her eyes. “Why aren’t you with them? The angels. Shouldn’t you be with them?”
“You remember that much.” He sunk down in his canvas chair. “No. After I lost you the first time … there were consequences for me.”
Ray sat in the lawn chair beside him, angling it toward him. “What kind of consequences? I hope it wasn’t bad.”
“I was given a short trial, where thankfully not everything came out. Afterward I was publicly lashed and exiled.”
If she said his punishment was all her fault I was going to stomp over there and shove that discarded beer can down his throat.
“That’s awful.”
That was it. All I could take.
“I’ll head inside and pack up some of your clothes.” I stalked into the cabin, shoved everything that looked small enough to fit her in a bag, and waited. I couldn’t watch them together. The looks he gave her she’d never notice. That was the kind of girl Ray was. Funny that she’d pick up every other subtlety.
Not too much later, Ray stood in the doorway. “You ready?”
“Are you?”
She nodded.
“Did you get what you needed?”
“Well … ” She tapped her foot, then spun around. “Close enough.”
I lugged the bag over my shoulder and followed her out, like a damn dog.
Cam was on his feet with a bag of his own beside him; something he must have kept buried in the woods the way dirt sheeted off it.
“Oh shit, what now?” I asked Miss Ringleader.
Ray kept walking toward the car. She looked over her sunburned shoulder with those damn doe-like eyes that looked more green than hazel in the sun. After that look, it wouldn’t matter one bit what she said. “By the way, Cam’s coming with us.”
I changed my mind. I was wrong. That mattered. “What?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rayna
Listening to Kade bitch for a few hours was worth it to have Cam with us. Eventually he would shut up. The hard part was watching his eyes flicker black in the rear view mirror, the way the edges of his lips and knuckles went white. How long it sometimes took him to find his own happy place and pull himself out of the dredges. It seemed not all of him had left Hell either.
Since I was the one being hunted, I had to stay in the back and catch up on my sleep. Not that I got much sleep.
Kade kept to the back roads. Not all of them were as bumpy as the road we took out of Cam’s. Some of them were better. Some were worse.
Cam and Kade didn’t say much to each other. Shocking. Kade stuck to driving and Cam stuck to navigating.
It took twice as long as it would have had we used major highways, for a total of almost two days of constant driving, but eventually the heat of summer faded as we neared the Bay Area. The cool ocean air made my stomach flip-flop.
The SUV slowed for the first time without me whining about needing to use the bathroom.
“We have a problem,” Kade said.
I poked my head up. “I was afraid of that.” A barricade of cement roadblocks were stacked up along the highway, with two men behind it. Two men with black wings.
We stopped only a few hundred feet away. Kade turned the car around, tires squealing. That wasn’t obvious or anything. I watched through the rear window to see if either would take off after us. They stayed put until we rounded a corner where I lost sight of them. Then they could have been anywhere.
“We’ll have to find another way in,” Kade said, taking the third exit back on the highway.
“You guys have any ideas?” I asked.
Kade stopped at the first parking structure we found and killed the engine. Just like most of the roads we traveled, it, too was eerily empty. “The ground is too well-guarded. That leaves the sky, or the water, and since I can’t do sky—”
Cam looked up from his map. “Why not the sky? It’s the perfect solution if we get up high enough early in the morning when the fog is low—”
“He lost his wings,” I told Cam as gently as I could, though there was no telling how Kade and his attitude would handle Cam knowing about anything that happened in Hell.
Kade glowered at me, a hateful, piercing stare.
“Lost?” Cam looked from Kade to me.
“He sacrificed them in Hell, to open the gate so we could escape.”
Kade dropped his head back against the headrest with a growl. I didn’t need to see them to know his eyes would be black again.
Cam studied Kade from the passenger seat. He must have been dying to ask, but lucky for us he had the wisdom to keep his questions to himself. “Okay,” he said. “Sea it is.”
“Sea?” I tumbled out of the cargo area and over the back seat. “No way. Not sea. Never. Not happening, boys.”
Cam and Kade exchanged a look and nodded. Kade’s eyes softened to brown. “Sea,” they said in unison.
***
The next morning, before the sun rose, our tiny three-person boat bobbed in the sheltered side of the bay. Cam and Kade paddled while I peeked out from under a tarp.
“This is getting a little old,” I whispered.
Cam and Kade both shushed me.
“I bet if I said I was feeling seasick you’d let me out,” I grumbled. I threw the tarp back over my head so I could breathe and spied the rundown warehouses.
“How’s your memory, Ray?” Cam asked.
“Pieces are still coming back. It might help if I could get some things straight. The last time we talked, before … Hell … I called you about Laylah because I thought she was in trouble. We set up a meeting place, and Lucien showed up as you.”
Cam shook his head. “My phone went missing not long after I called to update you on your father waking up in the hospital. And to tell you I overheard Elyon meeting with the Governing Fifteen about your … future.”
Kade glanced back at me.
“I … forgot about that.” Guilt swarmed me like a biblical plague of locusts. I’d forgotten about Dad. He’d lingered in a coma after Lucien caused an accident at a construction site he’d visited for work. The question of whether he was okay stalled on my tongue. I needed something easier first. “Does Elyon
still want me dead?”
“I’ll never know what his original orders were. Once you went missing, everything changed rapidly. For weeks they scoured the city, state, and country. I looked for half a day. Then I figured if you weren’t getting in contact with me it was because you didn’t want to be found. I spoke with Laylah about getting your family somewhere safe. They transferred your father to UCLA, and Laylah stayed with your aunt.”
My chest tightened. A thousand questions rattled off in my head. Because I was scared of his answers, I only asked one. “How are they?”
“They’ve been moved a few times. They’re under protection.”
“I guess that means Elyon doesn’t want her dead,” Kade said.
I scrambled to try and keep up.
“The day after the Fallen halted air travel, Elyon had another meeting with the Governing Fifteen. They had heard about Rayna’s power from a hostage Fallen. Rumors say she can kill angel and Fallen alike.” Cam looked back at me again, as if waiting for an answer.
This time I glanced at Kade.
“Why not?” he said. “You wanted him in this.”
“That’s what I’ve been told,” I replied. “So far I’ve only ever needed to use it on Fallen.”
Cam looked stunned. “You’ve used it then. You’ve actually killed Fallen?”
“Only once. I turned them to ash.”
Cam focused ahead. “They said it was true, we believed, but the way the Fallen were moving in during the time you disappeared—”
“How long?” I asked. “How long were we gone?”
“Before the Fallen took action, nearly eight months.”
I studied the rippling water. “It felt like years down there.” I looked to Kade for comfort.
He turned away. There was something stranger than usual about the way he’d been acting since we left the hotel. Come to think of it, even at the hotel he wasn’t fully himself, not the Kade I got to know in Hell. It was more than his waning control over his hunger. After all we’d been through in Hell, I knew no matter what I never had to fear that from him. Something else had changed. Could it have been my suggestion that we needed Cam? I didn’t think he’d be insecure or jealous; he sure didn’t act it. He had to know there was nothing between Cam and I beyond a close friendship. Didn’t he?