Phoenix Freed

by Elise Faber

  When no scary ass monsters had appeared out of thin air, her heart finally began to slow. “I’m okay,” she murmured. “I’m okay.”

  Her fear was still a palpable force in the room, strong enough to make her feel slightly light-headed. Anxiety in small dark places had escalated to full-blown claustrophobia when her idiot ex-fiancé had decided to “cure” her fear by locking her in the trunk of a car.

  That had been much worse—the lack of space combined with no light had made panic swarm over her. This room might be dark, but she had the feeling it was large. That sensation was enough to steady her breathing, ensure her nails were no longer biting into her palms.

  Surely all she had to do was call Cody along the bond—

  Warm hands settled on her shoulders.

  She screamed.

  “. . . It’s me!” Cody said then grunted when her flailing caused her elbow to connect with his face. Or at least something hard enough to make her funny bone zing all down her arm. “It’s all right.”

  The panic that an ax murderer had attempted to make her his next victim faded, and she realized that Cody being inside the room with her meant—

  “Don’t come all the way through!”

  “What?” he asked, confusion radiating through his body, along the bond.

  Two hands settled on her waist. She sighed. “It’s too late for that, isn’t it?”

  “If you’re asking if I’m in the same room with you, then the answer is yes.” His fingers squeezed slightly. “I’m here.” Another squeeze. “I felt your panic. It’s really dark, are you okay?”

  “I was until you decided to play horror movie villain on me,” she grumbled, even as she leaned into the comfort of his chest. Because his mere presence made her calmer. He was steady, unruffled. “You’re supposed to like chick flicks, not Freddy vs. Jason the Fiftieth.”

  Daughtry had seen his stash of quote-unquote girl movies, knew he longed for a happily ever after of his own.

  Hopefully that was something they could find together.

  “Should I go back out and try again?” His amusement slid across the bond, his face still unreadable in the darkness. “Knock first? Maybe send in someone with a bugle?”

  “A bugle?” she asked, incredulous as the last slice of fear slid away.

  “What can I say? I’m old-fashioned.”

  “Try old.”

  “Only a hundred.”

  “Ninety-four,” she corrected. “Those six years are important, they make me feel less like a gold digger.” The age gap between them was odd, though theirs wasn’t as large as some of the Rengalla.

  “I’m only sixty years older than you.”

  “Seventy. It’s a lot.” Different lifetimes, different societal rules—and yet, their life experiences were essentially the same.

  Abandonment. Disappointment. Loneliness.

  "And now we have each other," he thought, then aloud. “So the entrance? Should I give it another try?”

  “I’d say sure except we’re not getting back through that wall. At least not the same way we came in.”

  “What?” His hands slid off her hips and he bumped into her as he turned. She heard his hands trailing over the surface of the barrier, felt his concentration along the bond as he searched the flat expanse carefully.

  On the way in, the wall had given way as easily as smoke. But now it had hardened, somehow become impassible in the space of a second. The blip of frustration across the bond was enough for Daughtry to know Cody’s conclusion as to the permeability of the barrier.

  “We’re stuck,” she said, her tone flat.

  A muttered curse was his only response.

  She sighed. Yep. They were stuck.

  Eleven

  “Do you have your phone?” Daughtry asked, having run off without hers.

  The phone was slapped into her palm and Cody pressed the home button, illuminating a small radius around the device with bright light before letting go.

  “I thought it wasn’t running,” Cody said, eavesdropping on her thoughts.

  Allowing her brows to draw together, she scowled in Cody’s direction. He wasn’t supposed to poach her thoughts, especially when she’d been trying to pretend that she hadn’t actually bolted when finding out the truth of her mother. “Quiet, you.”

  He chuckled as the screen went black and they were once again swallowed by darkness. “Give me the phone.” He took it and turned on the flashlight, before handing it back to her.

  It was a moment before her eyes adjusted, but when they did, what she saw wasn’t what she’d been expecting.

  Her instincts about the space being quite large were accurate. But what filled the space confused her. It looked like a storage room with rows and rows of wooden shelving.

  Cody whistled under his breath as he crossed the room. He reached between two of the cases and a series of overhead lights flickered on.

  “What is this place?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” His boots clicked across the floor—bare stone she realized—as he disappeared behind one of the ceiling-high racks. “This box is labeled 1752. This one 1760.”

  Daughtry stepped forward and touched one of the wooden crates. The slats of the wood were a light blond, nailed together and filled with strings of paper — like a scene from one of those treasure-hunting movies.

  “This one says 1546,” she said. The numbers were painted on in a messy scrawl. “What do you think is inside?”

  Cody’s voice puffed across her nape and made her shiver. “Let’s find out,” he said, taking the phone from her, turning it off, and tucking it into his pocket. He grabbed her hand. “But how we don’t experiment on one so old?”

  They walked through the rows of shelves, reading the dates painted across the crates. Nearer the wall through which they’d entered, the years became more recent. “Here’s one,” she said. “1945.”

  “No.” The denial whipped down the bond, so sharp it almost took her breath away.

  “Why—?” His thoughts collided with her mind and she realized the significance of the date. “Do you”—a shake of her head—“Do you think these are from . . . the war?”

  He closed his hand over where hers rested on top of the box. “That’s exactly what I think. So . . . let’s just try another year, okay?”

  A nod as she moved down the row. “How about 1987?”

  “Leg warmers and neon might be easier to deal with.”

  “Says who?” she asked, but started to pull down the crate.

  “Here.” Cody touched her shoulder. “I’ve got it.” He grabbed it then set it carefully on the floor.

  Daughtry knelt by his side, watching as he gripped both sides of the lid and gave a sharp tug. There was a hiss of air and—

  The amount of neon was almost blinding.

  “Holy shit,” he said, squinting.

  “Told you it’d be bad. Here.” She gently removed the clothes, cut T-shirts, bright scrunchies, and socks. Clearly this bin had belonged to a female.

  “I didn’t even like the decade the first time I lived through it,” he muttered.

  Below the shirts was a stack of VHS tapes, eighties movies with bright cardboard covers, and a few cassettes with handwritten labels. One said Lacey’s Mix, another Steven’s. A Walkman was tucked beneath them.

  They sifted through the rest of the contents and, finding nothing of importance, set the lid back on top.

  “How about that one?”

  Cody lifted down the crate she’d indicated.

  This top was harder to pull off, the burst of air from the opened container stronger.

  1965 was written on the side and the objects inside were what she would have expected. A pair of glasses that could have belonged to John Lennon, lots of denim, a boot with a plastic heel.

  There was a single piece of jewelry—a silver peace sign on a woven leather string. A name—Matthew—was carved into the blackened braided threads.

  A ping of awareness trav
eled down the bond.

  Daughtry started to turn to Cody, to ask him what he was feeling, but she was distracted by a burst of color just above her head. This crate was older, the paint faded. “1902,” she murmured, running her fingers along the wood, drawn this box much more strongly than any of the rest.

  She’d merely been curious before, wondering what a people like the Rengalla might want to hold on to—what keepsakes a group whose existence was measured in centuries, not years or even decades would treasure. Now, that simple interest had morphed and the need to know gnawed at her, impossible to ignore.

  What was important to them? What belongings did they cling to? What memories?

  The box was heavy as she pulled it from the shelf and set it on the floor, but the hiss when the lid came off was not unexpected.

  A dress—a beautiful silk dress, lay on top. It was a brilliant emerald, mimicking Cody’s eye color closely, and made up of more layers of fabric than she’d ever seen in her life. She set it carefully to the side to reach deeper and her fingers grazed several worn books with yellowed paper.

  The top volume creaked as she opened it.

  “Damn,” she whispered.

  Because the book wasn’t just a book. It was a journal.

  Her mother’s.

  The crisp scrawl was familiar from the Journal she already had in her possession—Elisabeth crossed her lowercase Ts the same way Daughtry wrote them herself. Her vision blurred and she quickly set aside the leather-bound book. Not really looking, she dug deeper, beyond the other journals.

  “Ouch.” Something had stabbed her. Carefully wrapping her fingers around the object, she pulled it out from the crate.

  A pendant. Her mind stretched, reaching for the memory, knowing there was something familiar about it.

  The charm was bird, a falcon clutching something in its talons.

  And then she remembered.

  It was the same bird from the seal on the door of Cody’s quarters. Identical to the one on John’s. Morgan’s. Tyler’s. It was the symbol of the LexTals.

  But that wasn’t what made her turn and scrabble through the crate.

  No. Her mad dive into the depths of the box, into the memories of people who’d come before her wasn’t because the symbol was the same.

  It was because she remembered whom she’d seen wearing it.

  She’d watched it glitter in the sunlight as he’d hugged her in the only memory of him that she still possessed.

  The container wasn’t just filled with objects that had been Elisabeth’s.

  Now that Daughtry understood, her mind began to process the rest of the items. A short steel sword in a leather scabbard, so similar to John’s. A brightly gleaming pistol. A handful of brass buttons.

  These weren’t just Elisabeth’s mementos.

  The necklace belonged to her father.

  A soft hand settled on her shoulder.

  “Are you okay?” Cody whispered.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Here.”

  Daughtry looked at him blankly for a moment before understanding what his open hand meant.

  He took the necklace and studied it for a moment. “It’s beautiful.”

  The pendant was gorgeous. A burnished gold, it captured the three-dimensional aspects of the LexTals’s crest with startling accuracy.

  “I’ve only seen this once before,” he said, the figurine looking very small in his large palm. “Dante has one.”

  Her eyes flew up, met Cody’s. “Yeah?”

  Cody’s voice was soft, comforting. “Yes, cowgirl, I imagine that means that he knew your father. Did you ever ask Dante about him?”

  A shake of her head. She hadn’t asked about either parent because . . . well, a part of her hadn’t wanted to know. If they hadn’t been what she’d hoped—

  God, look how her mother had turned out.

  She traced her fingers across the floor, feeling the roughness of the grout, the unevenness of the stones. If only she could get lost in the colors of the slate, the reds, the browns, the blues, the greens. It would be so easy to allow the surface beauty to wash over her, to focus on something besides all the fantasies she’d held close to her heart for so long.

  From the moment John had found her, from the second he’d told her that the people who’d raised her weren’t her reals parents but were, in fact, the people who’d kidnapped her, she’d been hoping there would be someone out there to love her unconditionally.

  The dream hadn’t been a bubble she’d wanted to burst.

  So when she’d found out her parents had been killed by the Dalshie it had been simpler to leave it at that. Easier to assume that they’d fought to save her, better to use that knowledge to pretend they’d loved her.

  In the end, the dream had been shattered anyway. Because her mother was—

  “Your father wasn’t like Elisabeth.”

  “How do you know?” Her voice was soft, sad.

  “Because he was a LexTal,” Cody said. “And he left you this.”

  He slipped a piece of paper into her hand.

  Twelve

  Daughtry looked down at the note. Her name was written on the front, in precise capital letters.

  “What does it say?” she asked, touching the downward swoop of the D in her name, the crease on one end.

  “Read it.”

  The paper was white with blue lines, little tufts of white still attached to one edge as if it had been torn from a spiral bound notebook in a hurry.

  What the note didn’t look like was that it belonged with items from 1902. 1992, maybe, but the beginning of the twentieth century? Not so much.

  "Read it."

  The words along the bond surprised her and she realized that she’d been staring at the folded slip of paper for a while. Her fingers shook, filling the storage room with a crinkling sound. Cody’s hands settled over hers, steadying her, stopping the trembles.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Whatever it says, we’ll deal with it together.”

  The sight of him so near her, the compassion in his emerald eyes, the affection—no, the love—radiating down the bond, overwhelmed her. She had been holding on to a whole slew of hopes and dreams—the desire for normal powers, a perfect family, parents who loved her—

  What she was only now realizing was that none of that mattered.

  Biology didn’t decide goodness or love. DNA might determine her magic, but that didn’t mean it had to define her.

  Because she had someone who loved her.

  Leaning over, she pressed her lips to Cody’s. “I love you.”

  “I love you.” He cupped her cheek and rubbed her bottom lip with his thumb. “Before you, I merely existed. You’ve painted my life with more vibrant colors than I could have ever imagined.” His fingers were slightly rough as they traced across her jaw, wove through the hair at her nape. She couldn’t think of anything to say. Her body was paralyzed by his touch, his words, the warmth swarming her along the bond. “I may not be a poet or the most romantic guy on earth.” He smiled and it hit her straight in the spot below her belly button. “But from the moment I met you, I felt every cell—hell, every fucking atom and electron—realign. You became the most important, the most wonderful thing in my universe.”

  “Cody—” she began.

  “No, let me say this,” he said. “I’ve screwed up so many times. But I promise you I won’t again.” His forehead dropped to hers, eyes sliding closed. “This,” he whispered. Fingers touched her chest, where her heart beat rapidly at his words. His emotions were a tidal wave that threatened to wash her away. “My heart beats for you. You’re laced so tightly into my soul that it would be torture to remove you.”

  Her cheeks were wet and though part of her cursed herself for her sappiness, the remainder of her knew that Cody’s words were sincere. They weren’t the most original, the most romantic sentiments she’d ever heard or read, but they were the truth.

  And that meant more than anything.
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  Her arms came up around his neck and she dropped her head to his shoulder. He squeezed her tight around her waist, a vice grip of relentless affection that almost dared her to disagree. She didn’t because with the heartfelt words came honesty—and that made them a hell of a lot more effective than any old poem or sonnet.

  “I’m better than Shakespeare?” Cody asked, a twinkle of amusement moving across the bond.

  She lifted her gaze to his. His eyes were bright with laughter but there was an underlying note of seriousness in his expression and in their connection that made her think he’d been avoiding their mental link, avoiding overhearing something that might wound him.

  How could the ridiculous man not understand how important he was to her in return?

  "Feel my mind," she thought. "I’m done with the past, done with allowing old hurts to have control over my heart. The organ might be stitched together, but it’s whole. It functions." She smiled at him. "I want my future to be with you."

  “Thank God.” He slanted his mouth against hers.

  This kiss was nothing like her brushing caress just a few minutes prior. It was hot and hard, demanding. His tongue touched her bottom lip then slipped inside before she had the chance to fully open. She moaned and leaned close, the sensations heady. Across the bond, she could feel Cody’s arousal—how good her body felt pressed up against his own, how he loved the sounds she made.

  On her end, his mere presence was overwhelming. Her body was aware of how hard his chest was against hers, how tight he gripped her waist—

  How close he was to losing control.

  He broke away, gasping for air, hands trembling on her hips and when his eyes locked with hers, the desire within them took her breath away.

  “Open it,” he rasped.

  She blinked. “What?” If his order had been raspy, her question was gravel.

  “Read the note.”

  It took a few swallows before her throat began to work again. “Okay.” She unfolded the paper and read.

  Dearest Daughtry,

  I write this note in secret, under the hope that I’ll be able to retrieve it before you ever have the chance to read it.