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Page 29
By the time she’s finished, the man is pinging a careful frown between his daughter and me. At last he murmurs, slowly but steadily, “So, you’re thinking that the twins’ freedom from Faline’s control also means the bitch’s ‘big spell’ is starting to wane?”
“That her hold over all those minds is slipping,” Emma summarizes. Her nod is vigorous, full of excited energy. “Yes, Dad. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m thinking.” She snaps her sparkling gaze my way, and I’m ready with another cocky smile. “Exactly what we’re thinking.”
Securing his hands on the sofa’s arm, Todd leans forward. His jaw is jutted, but his stare is filled with commitment. “It makes sense,” he finally concedes. “Or as much sense as any of this shit does.” A full breath in, followed by his significant exhalation. “So…what now?”
It’s as good a cue as any to reinsert myself into the exchange. “I think we all wait and observe.”
“Closely,” Emma adds.
“And carefully.” I jog my chin toward my father-in-law. “Theoretically, you’re even closer to the fray than we are at this point. Don’t put yourself in any danger.”
He dips an efficient nod. “Noted.”
“Any danger over what?”
The interruption, as breezy as an entrance from Scarlett O’Hara, has the three of us visibly hiding spooked-cat jumps to the ceiling. I’m pleased but a little perplexed to observe that Todd’s the most accomplished at the feat, as he glides to his feet with the roguish grace of her Rhett Butler.
“I was just telling them about the new chandelier we were looking at for the formal dining room, dear.”
And lies to his wife with polished panache to match.
But the panache might not be enough, proved by Laurel’s answering scowl.
A moment that takes my brain into a new skirmish of dread versus joy.
Her suspicions could lead to trouble for Todd. But her suspicions could also mark trouble for Faline.
Well, shit.
“We’ve got bigger things to worry about than the chandelier.” It’s more of the old Laurel—a lot more—as she concludes with a huff and impales her husband with a glare. “Did you know that some plants are actually trying to kill us, Todd? Anya gave me a list. I’ll need to go through the cupboards and toss some things out. And we need an Instant Pot. Immediately.”
Todd blinks. Then again before trading another knowing glance with Emma and me. Through the last year, she and I have coped with Faline’s mind control by coming up with ridiculous nicknames for it—everything from “Faline’s magic mind shell” to “Fa-Fa’s psychedelic submarine” to “the bitch’s loony rave.” Well, now the shell is cracking, the submarine is sinking, and the rave has lost its DJs. They’ve been given their lives back. The party’s over.
Only now, we just have to worry if Faline’s going to be the drunk girl who slinks home to sleep it off or comes at the cops with a couple of knives in hand.
I don’t want to think about the option to which my mind naturally gravitates.
Fortunately, there’s a real party wrap-up to keep me distracted for the next few minutes.
“Well.” Laurel adjusts her light sweater and strokes a hand across her Fendi purse. The bag is obviously brand-new, since I don’t recognize the line right away. I’m not as current about that shit now that there’s not a woman in my life begging me for it. “Maybe next time, we’ll be fortunate enough to catch our grandson when he’s home.”
I admire Emma for maintaining her sweet smile in the face of her mother’s sly denunciation. On the other hand, it’s an authentic dose of Laurel-style nastiness. Old times have never felt more awesome to embrace. “Well”—her heartfelt smash of a hug to Laurel communicates as much—“maybe next time you can give us a few hours’ notice so we can really roll out the welcome wagon.”
By the time they’re done with the clinch, Laurel’s back to wearing a dreamy Fa-Fa grin. She even fingers the bottom of Emma’s messy ponytail and tinkles out a playful laugh. “Next time, my lovely girl, we’ll do just that. Perhaps make a weekend out of it. I do hope Lukie still loves the beach?”
“More than ever. And yeah…that would be nice.” Emma’s reverted back to the full clench of her forced smile—though no superpower on earth can make her stow the conflict in her eyes. The vacillation continues as we walk Todd and Laurel out to the front drive, waving until their Lexus disappears around the curve of the road.
But even after they leave, Emmalina makes no moves to return to the house. Neither does she turn to head for the “power generator” that’s actually the door to the bunker. She’s quiet and still, lifting her shimmering gaze from the road until she’s staring out into the sage and sienna layers of the canyon. I give her the moment, relating to how her spirit needs a second for a reset, using her beauty for the purposes of my own.
Yeah…she’s my perfect meditation.
The maitri of her graceful profile, from the top of her strong forehead to the gentle curve of her gorgeous chin.
The shamatha of the air she takes in, her parted lips like rose petals, her rising chest like hills of heaven.
The chakras she aligns through every inch of me, just by being near…being here.
Namaste. Nirvana. Perfection.
She’s all of that and more…
Which makes it so damn hard when I can’t make the same happen for her. Not wholly. Not right now.
I can only try my best right now, hoping to make a little of it more bearable by drawing her close to me as the twilight descends around us. As the cicadas start to sing and the canyon breezes blend with the ocean winds, I lean in until my lips meet her ear and rasp just one syllable to her.
“Hey.”
She snuggles in, fitting her head beneath my jaw, before whispering, “Hey.”
“You okay?”
“I will be,” she supplies. “Eventually.” A cheerless sigh. “Once Fa-Fa’s submarine hits bottom, what’ll come back up is the grouchy sea witch known as my mother.”
I chuckle only because she does. “Funny how life’s a trade-off that way.”
“Whaaaat?” she rebuts, softly teasing. “You mean I can’t have calorie-free cake?”
“Or fire-engine-red leathers.”
An open glower—mostly because she really asked for, and was denied, the impractical outfit. “You’re a killjoy.” She pouts.
“And you’re stunning in this sunset.”
“And now you’re just being impossibly perfect.”
Cocky snort time. “Yeah, well. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s—”
“Hey!”
Foley’s bellow not only intercepts the kiss I’m getting ready to lay on my wife, it grabs and twists at the center of my gut like one of those medieval pole weapons with the blades that spring out once the lance is thrust forward. And goddamnit, has Foley stabbed in.
Because he doesn’t sound right. At all.
He’s…scared.
No. Beyond that.
As he rushes up to us, his face verifies the theory. His face—which would be as pale as his own ass if it wasn’t covered in rivers of blood due to a nasty blow across his left temple.
“Sawyer?” Emma rakes a horrified gape over him. “Holy shit. What happened?”
Perturbingly, he returns her scrutiny. Drives a glare at her that seems full of accusation before surrendering to clear confusion. “Fuck,” he growls.
“Sawyer?” Her echo is twice as acute as before.
“You really don’t know, do you?” he counters.
“Know what?” she retorts. “Sawyer, what the hell?”
“Crap. Emma.” He staggers back, stabbing a hand into his hair. “But—but she looked like you. She talked like you. Absolutely everything about her…was you.”
“Wh-What?” Emma gasps. “Her who?”
“Shit,” Foley spews. “Oh, holy fucking—”
Emma shoves him to the side and stumbles toward the bunker. “What’s going on?” she deman
ds. “Is Lydia all right? Are the kids?”
“The kids.” Foley’s repetition is the softest grate I’ve ever heard from him before—unleashing a thousand decibels of sensation through every cell I possess. And none of them are good. “The…kids.”
He says nothing else before jerking his stare up at me. His face is claimed by such an intense twist of agony, I already know what he’s going to say. And am already tempted to vomit.
“The kids…are gone.”
No time for hurling. Sheer instinct takes over, and I rush to seize Emma by the elbow. I catch her right before she races down the entrance, my senses validating Foley’s horrific truth. The energy I always feel when getting near my children…is gone. Chasing her down the steps is only going to torture us deeper with that truth.
Nothing.
There’s nothing here. Not even a lingering warmth of their happiness.
I have a feeling we’re about to hear the explanation behind that too.
I wheel back on Foley, knowing my eyes alone are about to erupt with real lightning spears. “What. The. Fuck?”
The guy looks ready to tear open his shirt and beg me to impale him with ten thousand volts. “You—I mean she—Emma—” He chokes to a stop, meeting Emma’s horror-stricken stare. “It was you, Emma,” he pushes on. “I swear to God, it was you.”
Emma is back in front of him in three seconds. She grabs the front of his blood-spattered T-shirt. “Stop stammering and start talking.”
Foley frantically nods. It’s not in fear; I can tell that. The guy is drawing strength from my woman’s anger. Battling to use it, to gun his own. “Jesus Christ.” But even the formidable Foley is struck low by his mortified anguish. “I should’ve trusted him,” he grates.
“Trusted who?” Emma’s voice pitches high from controlling her exasperation.
“He—he knew,” the guy blurts instead. “Fuck…he knew.”
“Goddamnit, Sawyer!” Emma twists his shirt so tightly, smoke starts curling from the wet cotton. “Who knew what?”
“Lux,” he finally stammers. “He ran from you—I mean her—or it. Lux.” He forces harsh breaths up and down his throat, clearly ordering himself to remember as much as possible. “He ran. He said it wasn’t you, and I didn’t believe him—and then you—she—clipped me, and I was out. She took us both out. ’Dia and I. But it wasn’t you. Fuck. It wasn’t you.”
“As we already know,” she spits back.
“Then who—”
“Holy fuck.” As it spews out of me, so does the strength in my legs. They crumple beneath me, and I’m down in two seconds, my hands trembling against my thighs, my stomach sending up a new ocean of bile. The shit burns as I choke it back down. I’m not so lucky with the despair claiming my senses. It spins me ruthlessly, subjecting me to every disgusting detail of one specific flashback.
A recall of the day that was supposed to be everything—and ended up changing everything.
The uninvited wedding reception guest. A stranger at first until her regal rise gave her away—even before she peeled back her morphed façade, exposing us to her true identity.
Her morphed façade.
“Holy fuck,” I repeat.
“R-R-Reece?” Emma rasps, hurling Foley away and grabbing me by the forearms. “What is it?”
“She morphed,” I finally grit out. “It…it was her, Emma. Her. And she—Christ.”
“Oh God.” Her sob is shaky and mournful. “Oh God.”
“Huh?” Foley’s fallen to his knees, his head wound spattering blood into the dirt. “She—who morphed? Whoa.” His brain finally catches up with mine. He facepalms in spite of the agony it causes. “Shit on a goddamned stick. Are you saying that Faline turned into Emma and then—”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” I snarl it from a burning throat and lips gone dry with rage. The dread that fills me is so immense, I silently beg God to reverse time by four days. This time, when we find the Source, I’ll gladly give myself up again into captivity—if only to save my soul from having to endure this moment. If only to spare Emma from having to live through this agony.
And agony is exactly what it is.
Her long, heartbroken moan is drenched in nothing less.
Her skin, flaming beyond solar heat, vows to express it even more.
And I don’t stop her. I don’t even want to. My mind is a raging firestorm as well, clouding the edges of my vision with brilliant cobalt while the center of my focus turns pure crimson. My breathtaking solar flare has grieved herself into the hue—and heat—of Mars itself. I’ve never longed to hold her more. I’ve never known, down to every last cell in my being, that it’s the last damn thing she wants.
And as a door across the driveway opens, I’ve never been more certain a sap could have crappier timing than Atticus fucking Scorpio.
Not that it changes one neuron in my mind about keeping the hell out of my wife’s way. Especially when all of those synapses now light up with a thousand watts of epiphany—the same message Emma proclaims with seething clarity as she clears the twenty feet to the bastard in three and a half seconds. The same meal she force-feeds him like the demoness she now resembles—the avenging angel I’ve never been more proud to call mine.
“You.” She roars it using every open orifice in her face, snarling it from her nose as well her lips, burning it from the bloodred flares in her eyes as well as the blinding brilliance of her bared teeth. “You!”
“The fuuuu…” But the man’s spiraling bellow is his self-interruption, hitting its peak as Emma hoists him off the ground—burning a hole into the crotch she’s using as a leverage point. “What the—holy Christ!”
“Shut. Up,” Emma snarls. “Just shut up and stop pretending you don’t know exactly what you’ve just done!”
“For the love of—”
“And don’t you dare use that word in my presence, either.” Her shoulders clench and she contorts her lips, as if realizing she’s actually got a cockroach by the bug balls. With a grimacing sob, she hurls Atticus away. He flies back, taking down his three musketeers with him. They’ve wisely stayed quiet and look determined to hang back. “Are you really talking to me about love? About love, when you’ve betrayed us like this? About love, when you’ve let that bitch with her coal-black heart come waltzing in here and—”
“Whoa.” Atticus has the balls—or maybe just the stupidity—to fumble back to his feet and pin Emma with a wider gawk than an owl in a Spider-Man mask. “I let who in?”
“Stop!” she screams back at him. “Just fucking stop it with trying to talk me into your innocence, asshole.” She emphasizes the last word by tossing Atticus back onto his, with the edges of his designer duds sizzling from the force of her wrath. “You told us you were done with Faline Garand. We trusted you were shooting straight!”
“Wh-What?” the guy sputters out. “For the love of—I, uhhh, mean—for fuck’s bloody sake, we were. And we are. What in all of Lucifer’s hell is going on?” He ditches the big-eyed mask for a pair of figurative magnifying glasses. His gape is so wide, I’m sure I can see to the back of his skull. “Holy shit. Was Faline here?”
“As if you didn’t know?” The indictment spews from Foley, looking ax-murderer lethal with his blood-streaked face and beard.
“We did not,” Atticus retorts. “I swear to God, we—oh, fuck me.” His glare has speared past us, to the mini luxury hotel on wheels they brought up the hill with them. “The motor home. It— It must have a tracking device attached!”
“That you didn’t sweep for?” This time, Alex barks the words. He, Wade, and Fershan have exited the lab after Atticus and his crew—whom our guys regard like boys with slingshots in the middle of a big-guns battlefield.
“Oh my God,” Emma spits.
“Fucking amateurs,” Foley fumes.
“Blow it up.”
And there’s the line I wasn’t predicting—especially from the individual it fires out of in a no-bullshit command.
“What the fuck else?” Atticus bellows. “Mr. Foley is right. That bitch planted a tracker on our vehicle, and we were the idiots who let it get up here undetected. Blow the damn thing to shreds.”
Foley jabs his hands up, ready to plunge forward, but he’s beaten to the punch by a grimacing Fershan, with Kain all but yipping at his heels. If I wasn’t so fucking terrified right now, I’d be indulging some satisfaction about the instant camaraderie between those two.
Still, Foley pounds back up and approaches Atticus with a no-bullshit stride. “So even though she’s found the compound already, you want to attract extra attention to our coordinates, plus possibly start a raging brush fire, because…why?”
“It. Doesn’t. Matter.” The new words from my wife are separated by brutal stabs on the t’s, which also spike her coloring from dark gold to raging red. But just as fast, she’s whirling from them all and lunging back against me. “Doesn’t anyone understand?” she blurts into my chest, her form stiffening beneath my hold. “It doesn’t matter! They’re gone! Th-They’re…gone. She took them. She took them…disguised as me.” With that, the grief takes over. Her shoulders start to shake. “I hate that bitch. I’m going to kill her, Reece. I’m going to kill her!”
I clutch her tighter. Lower my head until I can feel her desperate breaths against my neck. Squeeze my eyes against their own encroaching sting but am unsuccessful. I don’t care. There’s only one goal I do care about now, and I rasp it into my wife’s waiting ear.
“And I’m going to help you.”
I know it won’t allay her agony. If anything, her tears intensify. But it’s a promise that emanates from the fiery center of my soul, the very core of my fucking being. It’s an oath I plan on keeping, no matter what filthy tricks Faline has waiting for us now. The bitch took my freedom, my hope, my body, my blood—and in a lot of ways, even my innocence. She’s not getting my family. My children. I’ll escort her to hell myself on a lightning bolt right through her beating heart if I have to.