“Mind if I join you?” Kayden sank down to her side before she could object, studying the vacant way she gazed off down the hall. She wasn’t comfortable around him, he knew. That was no big surprise. Most people had an innate wariness of him; they knew better than to stand too close or to touch him in most cases. But some people were hypersensitive to what he was, and that made them outright rude occasionally, as they did their level best to avoid him like the plague. Tess was one of those people.
“What happened to your face?”
“It was an accident.” Her voice came out sounding practiced, like she was having a hard time making herself believe the line.
“Tell the truth,” he said sharply. Tess’ head whipped around on him. She narrowed her eyes as though realizing for the first time they were actually having a conversation.
“Why should I tell you anything? I don’t know anything about you.”
“What do you need to know?”
She clenched down on her jaw, looking him up and down. “Nothing.”
He nodded, picking at the raven-colored paint on his fingernails that he’d used to make Farley’s hair. “You know what I am, don’t you? She told you?”
Tess looked away. “I think I already knew.”
“And you’re afraid of me?”
“No.”
She was lying, but that was okay. Kayden rubbed his jaw. “Tess, did Oliver do this to you?”
She didn’t say anything, just tucked her hands into the crook at the back of her bent knees. Eventually, her shoulders sagged. “No, he didn’t.”
“Tess.”
“He didn’t hit me. This has nothing to do with him.”
“Well, then, what happened? Was it an accident?” Kayden gestured to the bruise on her face, careful not to touch her. She flinched away from him anyway.
“Yes.”
“Have you noticed anything different about him recently?”
“I told you, this has nothing to do with Oliver,” she hissed. She looked panicked. Terrified. Something was definitely going on.
“Okay, I believe you,” Kayden told her. If she could lie to him, he could do the same in return. “Answer the question, though. Have you noticed anything different about Oliver?”
She shot him a sideways glance and shrugged. “He just doesn’t sleep much. He has bad dreams.”
The shadows under Oliver’s eyes were hard to miss. But was this anything more than bad dreams? “When did he start having trouble sleeping?”
“The day we arrived here.”
Something in Kayden relaxed. For a moment he thought this had something to do with Daniel’s conversation with the guy the other morning. But this had been going on longer. It really wasn’t that surprising. Oliver was full to bursting with a power he’d never experienced before, and that kind of power always wanted a way out. Without knowing how to handle it- with kid gloves- it would blow up right in his face. Or Tess’.
“I can make your face better,” he breathed, crossing his hands over one another his lap. The Quorum had told him his sole responsibility was to take care of Farley; he was specifically not to interfere with people from the Quarters. If that hadn’t been the case, he would have healed Cassie’s gunshot wound the second she’d staggered, bleeding, in through the front door. It barely hurt at all anymore that Cassie wasn’t interested in him, but it was still cruel having the power to heal her and not being able to use it. That aside, Tess was human. Healing her would be nothing more than a tiny flex in the rules. She looked at him with wide eyes.
“You can’t tell anyone,” she whispered.
“I won’t.” He reached out slowly, the way he’d done a thousand times before with as many different people, and let his finger rest against her forehead. Her face fell slack, and he felt the heat passing from his body, down his arm and into her. She shivered, her arms falling loosely to the floor so that her knuckles knocked against the wood. When he took his hand away, there were tears in Tess’ eyes.
“I’ll never feel that again, will I?”
Kayden knew her sorrow. It was a raw, flayed thing that lived inside him. He shook his head. “Hopefully you won’t have to in this lifetime. One day, though.”
She stifled back a sob and rolled into his arms. They were usually like this. Comforting them was part of his punishment. When she’d finished crying, Kayden scooped her up from the floor, noting with satisfaction that her bruise was gone, and carried her into her room. He set her down on the bed. She was drained and half asleep, staring at him with the glassy eyes of someone who has just experienced a deeper sense of peace than they could possibly comprehend. Kayden turned away, leaving the room with the distinct taste of jealousy on his tongue. He swallowed it down and closed his eyes, trying to sense Oliver’s presence in the house. The guy needed watching like a hawk.
Twenty Three
Designs
Cooking was a life skill Farley had learned at a young age, but Tess was in charge tonight, and apparently cultivating culinary competency hadn’t been high on the Kennedy household agenda. She was trying to make butter chicken curry, but it smelled more like burned hair. Every single window on the ground floor of the cabin yawned open, begging for an exchange in uncontaminated oxygen. Daniel, unsurprisingly, managed to conceal his horror, probably because his experience in walling up emotion was extensive to say the least.
“How can you sit there and pretend like this isn’t stinging your nostrils?” Farley hissed.
“Well, there’s you first mistake. You’re breathing through your nose.” He kicked back in his chair, throwing his feet up onto a low rattan table that sat out on the deck. They’d escaped outside to watch the moon chase the burning embers of the sun across the vast expanse that was the Montanan sky. But mostly it had been to avoid the foul cooking smells, and Tess was acting really weird, besides.
“You’re suggesting I breathe through my mouth? Are you crazy? You can actually taste it. It’s like licking a wet dog.”
Daniel arched an eyebrow, saying it without words: How do you know what wet dog tastes like? She ignored his look and hooked her toe under one of the chair legs- one of the ones he wasn’t utilizing, as he balanced on the back two. She gave it a small jerk, threatening to tip him over. He shot her a treacherous smile that dared her to try it.
“You like flirting with danger, don’t you?” he said in a low voice.
“I like flirting with you.”
“Some people might consider that the same thing.”
“Ha! Only the ones who don’t know you. I’ve been impervious to that cold attitude of yours for some time now. I know it’s all faked.”
It looked like a smile was itching at the right side of his mouth. “Lies.”
Farley would have spoken again, but when she opened her mouth, a particularly potent waft of Tess’ kitchen experiment tripped over her taste buds, provoking a body-wide convulsion. She jumped to her feet and held out a hand. “I can’t stand this anymore. Let’s get out of here.”
Daniel looked up at her, solemn, considering the way she stood there, considering her face and the hand she held out to him. Slowly, he accepted it. “Where are you taking me?”
“Nowhere special. Maybe we could go make out in your car.”
His mouth fell open. “Nowhere special? I don’t know if I should let you sit in her after a comment like that.”
Farley rolled her eyes. There was no way she was going to get into it with him over how he thought his car was a her. They’d be stuck there for hours. “Please accept my fervent apologies,” she laughed. “Now, can we go?”
“Only because your apologies are fervent.” He avoided the steps and jumped off the deck, making the action look like a casual hop. Farley peered down at the meter-long drop and then swiftly chose the non-ankle-breaking route. Once they’d made their way around the front of the cabin, Daniel made a show of being gentlemanly, adding a low bow to the chivalrous flourish he gave as he opened the passenger door for her.
The leather seats were still hot from the sun blistering through the windshield all day, and she let out a pained yelp when the backs of her bare legs made contact. Daniel smirked mercilessly, pretending he hadn’t noticed. He fiddled around at the side of his seat for a moment, at which point his backrest began to emit an electric humming noise, reclining until he was almost laid flat. “Care to join me?”
Farley’s cheeks prickled, probably slightly red. It was a fifty/fifty: care to join me in adopting a position you’re likely to fall asleep in, or, care to join me over here, where you’ll have to straddle me to fit and you’ll probably find a gear stick digging into your ass. The first option sounded like the safest. She found the small lever at the side of her seat and held it until her eyes were level with his; they looked charcoal tonight, reflective and suddenly pensive.
“Can you tell me what Simeon said to you, Farley?” he whispered. “I really need to know.” Whatever she’d been expecting him to say, it hadn’t been that. Her skin broke out into gooseflesh, instantly cold. He shifted slightly so that he lay on his side, watching her. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I feel like we’re running out of time. He could have said something important.”
“He didn’t,” she murmured. Simeon had barely said more than five words to her. None of their incredibly short conversation was going to give them any clues as to how to fight him. Daniel fixed an intense expression on her.
“Please?”
“He called me Soul Child. I told him I was going to go, and he said, not for long.”
“Anything else?”
“I told him to leave me alone, and he said he couldn’t- that he and I were one.” Repeating his words was frightening. It gave her the same jelly-legged feeling she’d got as a child when people dared her to say candy man three times in the dark. She’d always known with her rational mind that saying something like that didn’t make homicidal specters appear out of thin air, but there was something about Simeon…
He hadn’t felt like a human being. His presence had felt carnal and animal-like. Now, her rational mind balked, convinced that because she’d repeated the words he’d said, he would somehow know it and be able to find her. Daniel stared at her, his ubiquitous blank look firmly screwed into place.
“The men at Beatty’s weren’t regular Immundus,” he sighed. “They were different. When they left, one of them, this Clay guy, said to tell you that your husband was waiting for you.”
His whispered words sounded too loud inside the confinement of the car. A ripple of alarm flooded her head, and Farley subconsciously reached out to hit the lock button on her side of the door. Like that would keep a Reaver out. Why the hell hadn’t he told her this before? He’d had three days to tell her. She fumbled with the seat control, suddenly needing to sit up.
“Hey… Hey…” Daniel rested his hand on her shoulder, propping himself up on his elbow. “It doesn’t mean anything. They’re just words.”
“Easy for you to say. There isn’t a deranged mad man out there attempting to hunt you down so he can delete your personality and install the soul of his dead wife onto your hard drive.”
Daniel gave her a flat look. “Have you been talking to Grayson?”
“That obvious?” Grayson had been the natural person to go to when she’d wanted answers. The guy knew everything. It seemed reasonable to assume that if there were any indication as to why Simeon thought he needed to capture her specifically, and how he thought he was going to accomplish the end goal of bringing someone back from the dead, Grayson would know of it. The answers he’d given her were beyond the realms of science fiction…and he’d almost made them sound possible. They’d gone something like this: Simeon forces her to turn into a Reaver; Simeon kills the Reaver who ended his wife’s life as a whyte (Reaver currently unknown); Simeon takes all of said Reaver’s power, and in turn all of the souls he has stolen throughout his lifetime, wife included; Simeon singles out his wife’s soul and forces it into Farley; Aided by a round or two of gentle ‘persuasion’, Farley is convinced to hand over reigns to his wife. The whole thing sounded skeevy and so terrifying that the concept had made her hyperventilate.
“You shouldn’t listen to Grayson,” Daniel admonished. He reached out and found her hand. “He’s an unhinged genius with no sensitivity switch. He probably gave you a logical explanation to some hideous possibility and made it sound like an ironclad reality. He could do that with just about anything.”
Ironclad reality was an appropriate term to use. He’d drawn diagrams. “What am I supposed to do, then?” she sighed. “I can’t just bury my head and pretend none of this is happening. Believe me- if I thought I could, I would.”
“No one’s asking that of you. Just … don’t panic, okay? I’m not going to let you end up with some freakishly old, insane Reaver as your husband.”
Farley laughed but only because, when he said it, the whole thing sounded so ridiculously unfeasible. “Oh, yeah? And why’s that? Because you don’t think I’d like having a freakishly old, insane Reaver as a husband?”
Daniel shook his head, something solid and determined forming on his face. “No,” he whispered. “Because I kind of have designs on that position, myself.”
A loud rap on the window behind her head made Farley jolt so hard she smashed her knee into the console between their seats. A tidal wave of pain coursed through her body, leaving behind it a sick, twisted feeling. For a second it was tough to work out whether the emotion was owing to the virtual dislocation of her kneecap, or because of what Daniel had said. There was a brutal look in his eye when Farley’s own stopped watering enough to see him again. That meant only one thing: Kayden.
The sky had darkened dramatically since they’d gotten in the car, and the flint-like chip of burnished silver overhead shone down onto pale blond hair at Farley’s side of the Viper. There was something reassuring about seeing Kayden with paint on his clothes. She sat up and rubbed furiously at her knee, unsure how to greet the crouched figure of him. Right then, it felt equally appropriate to thank him effusely and start spitting curse words at him, rapid fire- the worst, most horrible kind. He smiled when she buzzed down the window.
“Hey.” His voice far too bright.
She stared at him, dumbfounded. “What?”
“I need to talk to you. Both.”
“Not a good time, Kay,” Daniel exhaled, but he buzzed the chair back into an upright position all the same. Farley repositioned her chair too, and Kayden took this as an invitation to clamber into the back seat. Daniel slumped forward so his head came to rest heavily on the steering wheel.
“What. Do. You. Want?”
Kayden ignored him and studied the interior of the car, sniffing. “I think I preferred the Charger, y’know. This car smells weird.”
“It does not smell weird. And, funnily enough, I never asked for your opinion. Now, what the hell do you want?”
Kayden leaned forward, propping his arms on the backs of their seats. “Well, I came to tell you that the Quorum have been in contact again. They had some interesting requests, but if you’re busy…”
Daniel shot him a hateful look and blew out a long breath. “Don’t play games. What did they say?”
Kayden looked directly at Farley when he spoke next. “They want to see you. Agatha wants to see you.”
“What?!” The word burst forth from her lips before she could analyze the rush of hot and cold, fear and joy that erupted through her veins. Agatha wanted to see her. Agatha wanted to see her. But, in the back of her mind, lurking, was the knowledge that the dynamic in their relationship had changed somewhat. Agatha wasn’t the same woman who had help save her at the fairground, or used to cook her chicken soup and force orange juice down her neck. Agatha was the Quorum’s head now- the Emissary. She had a role to play, and knowing Agatha she would play it down to the bottom line.
“That’s wonderful,” Fa
rley said carefully, trying to force herself into believing it. Into believing that she wasn’t just a tiny bit scared.
“When?” Daniel asked. Kayden cut him a frustrated look that said, when do you think?
Now. Of course he meant now. Farley touched her fingertips lightly to the base of her throat, trying to remember how to breathe. “Okay.”
Daniel ducked down in his seat, searching for her eyes. She gave him a small smile, which he returned. “Okay,” he said.
Kayden clapped them both on the shoulders, earning him another vile look from Daniel. “Great. I thought for a moment there we were going to have to stick around and eat that fluorescent slop in the kitchen. Let’s go.”
Twenty Four
The Quorum
“And I swear, if you paint another picture of my girlfriend, I’m going to kill you.” Daniel had been less than thrilled when they’d arrived to meet the Quorum. Farley had found herself upright, ankle deep in snow, wrapped snugly inside a fleecy Parka that matched Kayden’s. Daniel had been sprawled out in the snow on his back, wearing nothing but the t-shirt and jeans he’d worn in the car. After a brief bout of swearing and muttering, he’d stalked off towards a thicket of silver birch, apparently familiar with his surroundings. Kayden watched him go and then gave her a reprehensible smirk. “Welcome to Alaska.”
The words formed thick on his breath.
Farley rolled her eyes skywards, where a trillion stars throbbed like beacons in the midnight blue. “Would it kill you to try a little harder?”
His expression brightened. “Probably wouldn’t kill me. Would definitely hurt, though.”
She scowled and set off after Daniel, his dark silhouette fading to merge into the shadows of the eerie white forest. Something felt vaguely familiar about this place. It took a few minutes to trudge through the snow and reach the clearing- the one Farley had suspected would be materializing at some point. A faint kind of memory tickled at her senses, trying to consolidate before elusively disintegrating into smoke. Maybe not a memory, after all. Maybe a dream. No. A nightmare.
Eternal Hope (The Hope Series) Page 14