by eden Hudson
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Harper was still sitting there, staring down at the dead grass. I stepped into the yard and held the case out to her. She didn’t move. I tried to force it into her hands. She shoved it away.
I wanted her to take it, take the last little bit of me out of the case and smash it to pieces and then tell me everything was okay now. I wished I still had my voice so I could scream at her, beg her to hurt me and get revenge for Jax and then forgive me and be my friend again.
But Harper wouldn’t even look at me.
I snapped open the latches, flipped the lid up, and got the guitar out.
Mom’s guitar. Shannon Colter’s tattooed acoustic—worth thousands of bucks to a Lost Derringer fan. To me… When I was little and Mom let me practice with it, I thought I was the hottest shit in town, the king of rock. I thought I was her favorite. That me and her were just alike.
My heart squeezed like it was trying to beat again. If I had ever needed the vamp speed to get something over with before I could think about it, it was right then. But the speed didn’t kick on. If anything, it felt like I was watching in slow motion. I grabbed Mom’s guitar by the neck, felt the strings against parts of my fingers they’d never touched. I lifted it over my head and swung it like a splitting maul.
There hadn’t been any rain in Halo for months. The ground was hard as concrete. I knew the guitar had about as much chance of surviving as a guy swan-diving from a plane with no parachute, but the out of tune scream it made when it hit the dirt made my stomach bottom out.
“Ouch,” Mom used to say when I would play a chord wrong. “Fix that, baby.”
The tattooed face of the guitar was smashed in at the bottom and there was a crack running all the way up to the sound hole. I swung again. The pick guard snapped. The wood around the bridge broke and the strings came loose. They whipped along a hair behind the rest of the guitar when I swung it the last time. The neck broke away from the body.
I threw it down in the grass. As often as we cleaned up the yard, the broken bits and pieces were as good as a grave marker.
Harper was crying again, harder than before. I was, too, I guess.
There wasn’t anything I could do. I couldn’t talk to her, I couldn’t glare at Jax until he made her feel better, I couldn’t do shit.
I got back in the truck and hauled ass out of there.
Desty
“Let me get this straight,” Kathan paced the sitting room of his suite like a panther circling its next meal. “You’ve decided that you want to become joint-familiar with your sister.”
“Yes,” I said.
He gestured at the floor like it was a point in time. “Just now you decided this?”
I started to say that it had actually been in the shower, but that was the old Desty talking. The spineless freak who never understood anything and always made everything awkward.
“Yes.”
“Modesty, I don’t believe you’re thinking clearly. It’s the middle of the night. You’ve been through a very traumatic few days. Have you even had a chance to research this thoroughly like we discussed?”
I glared at him. “I know what you’re doing. I’m not stupid.”
Kathan stopped prowling the room and cocked his head at me.
“Pretending to be interested in my welfare, pretending like you want what’s best for me,” I said. “Saying no when I expect you to jump all over my offer.”
“How dare you—” Tempie lunged at me.
I braced myself, ready to get knocked on my butt, but Kathan grabbed her by the arm before she could touch me.
Ever the chivalrous gentleman. Always protecting me from my twin’s violent mood swings. My twin who had never hit me before she’d gotten enthralled.
“You know I talked to Colt, right?” I said. “I’m probably the first person who’s ever had a conversation with a lucid castoff.”
“That you probably are,” Kathan said. “There are APIM scholars who would kill for that opportunity.”
“Colt said that most of the time he couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. He had no idea what was going on outside his head.” I nodded at Tempie. “Does she even know I’m here?”
Kathan smiled. “Modesty, I’m impressed. A week ago, I would never have guessed you could show half the backbone you are right now.”
“In other words, you’re not going to answer the question.”
“I apologize if I led you to believe I was changing the subject,” he said. “Seeing you try on nerves of steel is thrilling. It’s proof of what you were meant to become. But I prefer my familiars fully aware and cognizant of their actions. I’m not controlling or coercing Temperance. She decides what she does and when. I only reward her good behavior.”
My spinal fluid turned to ice. And punish her bad behavior.
“Will it be like that for me?” I swallowed. “Will you…reward…me?”
“Your deepest desires, hopes, and dreams,” he said. “The moment you and Temperance are bound as one to me, joint familiars, anything you’ve ever wanted is at your disposal.”
And if he was punishing Tempie, then I could help protect her.
Kathan was still talking. “I’ve told Temperance this before, but I believe the two of you are powerful enough to become not just a Destroyer of Worlds, but the Godkiller. If you’re certain this is what you want—”
“I have conditions,” I said.
He waved an open palm at me as if he was saying But of course.
“Leave them alone. Colt and Tough.” I shifted my weight to my other foot and tried to explain what I’d been thinking about. “It’s not their fault. They didn’t get to decide to be who they are, who their dad was. Colt’s not bad, not on purpose. He just needs help.”
Kathan canted his head back and looked down his nose at me. “And Tough?”
“What about him?”
“What do you want for Tough? Ask and I’ll give it to you.”
“I just want…” I tried to think how to explain. “Just don’t hurt him. Leave him alone. Let him be free or…or whatever he wants. I don’t care, just don’t hurt him or Colt anymore.”
Kathan clasped his hands behind his back. His wings folded like they were mimicking the gesture.
“I can’t ignore what Colt did,” he said. “You must realize that. But I can put an end to his suffering.”
“Kill him?” I asked.
“It may sound extreme, but if you knew what it was like inside the insane mind, you would understand that death is a mercy.”
“And you do know?”
Kathan smiled. “How many healthy, well-adjusted humans do you think come knocking at my door, begging to be enthralled?”
I glanced at Tempie. She didn’t seem to mind the insinuation. She just kept staring up at Kathan like he was her knight in shining armor.
“I understand that it’s hard for humans to believe that death could be a release,” Kathan said. “You’re conditioned from infancy to believe that there’s nothing worse than dying. If you’d like, though, I can show you.”
Kathan stepped closer. I took a step back.
“Just for a few seconds,” he said. “I’ll show you what it was like in Temperance’s head before I stepped in. If you saw what your sister was going through, what she was wrestling with every day—”
A knock at the sitting room door cut him off.
Kathan scowled, but the door swung open. Possible Fatigues stepped inside.
“An anonymous tip just came in. Colt Whitney’s at the bakery in town.”
“Have you radioed Rian?” Kathan asked.
Possible Fatigues nodded. “They’re going in.”
Colt
Tiffani scooted her spatula under a lobster tail pastry and held it up. “Want another one?”
“If you’re not going to run short,” I said.
She slid it onto my plate. “Bakery’s closed today. Tomorrow, too. If you don’t eat them, they’ll
just get thrown out.”
“Pretty big weekend to shut down,” I said.
She shrugged.
“And you definitely don’t have any cinnamon rolls?” I asked.
That got her smiling. “I didn’t hear you complaining while you were eating the scones. Or that first lobster tail pastry.”
“Yeah, right. Like I’m going to start crap when the food’s this good.” I also couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. Right then I could’ve probably put the bakery out of business. I tried to slow down on the pastry. Take some time, actually taste it.
Tiff put the spatula down and came to lean against the counter next to me.
“You should let me clean those scratches,” she said. She was looking sidelong at the scrapes down my back.
“Nah. I can barely feel them.” And I didn’t want her to have to stare at the verses that made up my back piece, even if they were a little torn up now. Crawling around in some messed-up psycho’s head was probably enough physical and emotional pain for one night.
She pulled my shoulder down and licked some blood from the bite marks. I looked at her.
“What?” she said. “I’m hungry, too.”
“You want to take this back upstairs?” I picked up my plate and pushed away from the counter like I was ready to go.
She frowned. “Absolutely not. No crumbs in my bed.”
I took another bite and looked around the kitchen at all the filled sheet pans.
“Be honest,” I said. “You made everything but cinnamon rolls, didn’t you?”
“Smartass,” she said.
I snorted. I knew this wasn’t normal by a long stretch, but it felt so good. With Mikal, things had been awful, but the moments of what my brain had decided were love seemed lit up with electricity. She had hurt me and turned me on and left me feeling ashamed and disgusting and needing more all at the same time.
Tiffani was the polar opposite. I had this sort of half-memory from when I was a kid of coming home from school every day and feeling my guard drop as soon as I walked in the farmhouse door. Being with Tiff was like that, like I could finally relax. Maybe that was what it felt like to be in real love, the kind that didn’t come from Fairhaven Syndrome and torture and brainwashing.
“Yep, and it definitely has nothing to do with her being the first female to put her mouth all over you,” Ryder said.
I glared at him.
“Fine.” Ryder held up his hand and spit bottle. “The first female to put her mouth all over your wrist. All’s I’m saying is it doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to see how a lonely, sexually frustrated nineteen-year-old could transfer the feelings from a vamp sucking off his arm to sucking off his dick. The transferring man’s beej. Hell, for all you know, that’s the reason you’re so fucked up. That first—”
I tuned him out. Tiffani had saved me. I’d been trapped and she set me free. She’d been torn up and blown apart and burned alive. What was more, she knew everything and she still wanted me, no matter how screwed up I was.
When I looked up, Tiff was staring at me.
“What?” I asked.
“What’re you thinking about?” she asked.
That image of her with the rocket launcher flashed through my head. I felt myself smile.
“You’re such a badass,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t remind me how young you are.”
I thought about it for a minute.
“Not that much younger than you, right?” I said. “Physically.”
“Hell.” She massaged her temples. “You were still jailbait when I bought that new mixer. Makes me feel prehistoric.”
“Less of an age gap than my last relationship.”
Tiffani’s fake exasperation disappeared. She dug her cigarettes out and lit one.
“Good one,” Ryder said, clapping sarcastically. “Gold fucking star.”
I looked down at the floor, then pushed away from the counter and grabbed the coffee pot to pour myself a refill. Tiff wasn’t ready to make jokes about Mikal yet. Maybe that wasn’t something sane people did.
“You got to deal with that shit somehow,” Ryder said. “What’re you supposed to do, cry all the time?”
“Is there a reason you’re still here?” I snapped.
Ryder straightened up.
“Son of a bitch. I never thought I’d see the day my little Sunshine would want to hang out with a girl instead of his big brother.” He pretended to wipe away a tear. “I am the proudest motherfucker on this planet.”
“Colt?” Tiffani was watching me, her body slightly forward and weight on the balls of her feet like she was ready to run or fight, whichever it came to.
Oh, right. Because Ryder wasn’t really there.
I set my coffee on the counter and scrubbed both hands across my face like that would stop the blush. “Is there any sane way to say that I wasn’t talking to you?”
“Ryder?” she asked.
I nodded.
“But no Mikal?”
“No. I think you got rid of her for good.”
“Then I don’t care,” Tiff said. She leaned into my side.
I put my arm around her and pulled her into a hug so I could smell her hair. Coffee, cigarettes, cinnamon, hot peppers. I wished I could smell nothing but her for the rest of time.
Someone knocked on the bakery’s glass front door.
Tiff straightened up and checked the clock. Four-thirty.
“Probably a regular wondering why I’m closed today.” She sighed. “I’ll go get rid of them. You stay out of sight.”
I gestured at my lack of shirt and the rip in my jeans’ fly. Even if I wasn’t hiding out for my life, I wouldn’t be real eager to greet somebody from around town.
More knocking.
“We’re closed,” Tiff hollered.
Whoever it was didn’t stop banging on the door.
“Dammit.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “Do I look respectable?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you wear your hair down more often?” I asked. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever seen it down before tonight.
She shrugged. “It’d be in the way.”
The knocking got louder.
Tiffani headed out to the front. The kitchen doors swung shut behind her.
The knocking stopped.
The hair on my arms and the back of my neck prickled.
The day Mom died, Dad and I were down in the barn fixing a tire on the John Deere G. Tough had gone into town with Mom to pick Ryder up from detention, and Sissy was in her room throwing together an end of quarter project she was supposed to have started weeks before. Dad and I had just gotten the tire off the axle. We were about to break away the seal so we could get the inner tube out. Then up at the house, the kitchen door banged open.
Dad couldn’t have known what happened. Sissy hadn’t even yelled for him yet, but as soon as he heard the door open, Dad dropped the wedge and the mallet, and he ran.
I thought about that all the time afterward—Dad couldn’t have known. But he had. How had he known?
Right then, when the knocking stopped, I knew. Before the gunshots, before the glass broke, before I even heard Tiffani cuss, I knew. I dropped my coffee, reached into Hell for the Sword of Judgment, and I ran.
Tiffani
It took me a second to realize that I was looking at Rian’s local sheriff getup through the glass. By then, the vamp instincts had already registered the threat and thrown me into motion.
I sprinted across the bakery floor. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve been running away from this fight. But I had to protect Colt. I couldn’t let them take him back.
Rian raised his shotgun and blasted the glass out of the door. Slivers and birdshot peppered my face, chest, and arms. I hissed, but didn’t slow down.
Rian stepped in through the door’s empty frame. I swiped at his throat.
The vamp speed made me fast, but fallen angels were hundreds of times faster. My hand sli
ced through the air where Rian had been. He appeared at my side and grabbed a handful of my hair. I clawed at his face. Scraped ribbons of skin from his jaw.
He slammed me into a table. I grabbed a chair and swung it at him. The metal legs bent across his wings. I raised it for another swing, but he jammed the shotgun into the crook of my elbow and pulled the trigger. I screamed. The chair bounced across the floor. My arm fell limp at my side, hanging by shredded muscle and ligaments.
Wood and metal splintered in another room. The deliveries door. They were coming in through the kitchen, too. I sucked in a breath to warn Colt.
But the vamp healing kicked in, reconnecting veins and flesh, pulling my arm back together and turning my warning shout into a growl of pain.
Metal ratcheted shut around my useless wrist. A handcuff.
I yowled like a mountain lion. Tried to twist around and rip Rian’s arm off. Swept my free hand at his face, his throat, his groin, anything.
Rian jerked my free arm behind me, dislocated my shoulder, and slapped on the other cuff. He pulled up on the cuffs until I had to bend forward. The vamp healing tried to snap my shoulder back into place, but it couldn’t because of the angle Rian was holding them at.
“Tiffani Cranston,” Rian said. “You are under arrest for aiding and abetting—”
He went dead still.
With my hair in my face, I couldn’t see Colt, but I felt him there. The vamp senses searched out every smell, sound, and movement in the bakery. Fury radiated from him. His heart thundered in his chest. The scent of hellfire mingled with his usual smells, and the tension of tightly coiled muscle swirled around him like a gathering storm.
Beyond that, rotting flesh, so warm and rancid that it almost overpowered the smell of feathers, tar, gun powder, loamy ground, and scorching hot skin. Boots scuffed the floor. Wings rustled. At least eleven foot soldiers, accompanied by the Tracker.
It didn’t make sense. I had scrubbed down Colt’s trail until even I wouldn’t have been able to pick up the scent. How had they found him?