Infinity Chronicles Book Four: A Paranormal Reverse Harem Series

by Albany Walker

  A pang of something sits just over my stomach. “We did okay,” I offer in a small voice.

  Mom’s lips curve into a tight, makeshift smile. “No, you did okay, better than okay, Laura.”

  I’m the one who looks down this time. I feel her chilled finger brush across the top of my hand. I jerk my head up at her touch and see her pulling her hand back to her lap. That little touch is the first time she has reached out to me in a long time. A frisson of hope fills my chest. I know we have a lot to talk about, but for the first time I let the relief I feel for having found her—or for her finding me—fill me.

  “I’m going to call down and let our parents know that everything is okay.” Ares pulls his phone from his pocket and makes his way to the double doors across the room.

  “Have them bring up some food and stuff.” Ollie looks at my mom. She’s way too thin. I stare down at my thighs, wondering if that’s what I looked like when I first met them months ago.

  Ares nods his head as he moves out of earshot and into the large bedroom, but he leaves the door open. Silence falls over us. I shift on the couch, unsure of what to say to my mom. Should I ask her about Leon, about why she left with him?

  Dante stalks across the room and leans against the back of the sofa, with his body turned in my mom’s direction. I watch her face as he folds his arms over his chest and gives her a broody glare. I don’t even think he can help it at this point. A few more seconds of silence tick by, none of us seem to know what to say or do next.

  I open my mouth then close it, still at a loss. A few words from Ares’s mumbled conversation reaches my ears. I tilt my head and my ear twitches. Dante makes a grunting sound behind me.

  I peer up at him, but he’s still staring at my mom, who is watching at me. I flush, knowing she saw what I was doing. Using the guys’ abilities has become second nature to me, and I didn’t even think twice about using those gifts to hear Ares’s conversation.

  “We will have company soon,” Ares announces, as he strolls back into the room and slides his phone into his pocket. He leaves his hand tucked inside and looks over all of us.

  “Who?” I question.

  “Our parents.”

  “All of them?” Milo sounds hesitant.

  “No, just Rosa, Mal, and William.” Ares walks over toward the suite door.

  “Rosa, is your mother? Ares…” She says his name slowly, like the memory of his name is tickling her mind. She looks over at me then back to Ares. He’s ignoring her for the most part. It’s probably better that way. I don’t think Ares is very practiced at being nice to people he isn’t happy with.

  “Yes, she is our mother,” Dante answers for him.

  “Wait, both of you?” she murmurs incredulously, her eyes searching the ground.

  Dante takes a deep breath. “Yes.”

  “I haven’t seen Rosa since…” She trails off, not finishing her sentence.

  “Yeah, well, she told us what she knew about you and Leon, which wasn’t much I’m afraid,” Ares adds as he waits near the door for his parents to arrive.

  “She helped me.” Mom looks down at her palms, like she’s expecting to find something there.

  “If you were so worried about all of this, about keeping me from finding out what I was, why did you bring us back here?” I blurt, finally settling on a question. I need to understand what she was thinking.

  Her hands ball into fists. “I tried to stay away, but I knew what I was doing was wrong.” She glances up at me briefly before her eyes dart back down to her hands.

  “I had no idea if Rosa still even lived here. I did know my parents were gone.” Her voice goes flat. “I’ve been running for so long, I’m so tired.”

  I scoot a little closer to her on the couch. “I’m glad you brought me here, Mom I wish… I wish you would have told me the truth. Maybe if you had been honest with me, I would have understood better, helped you more.”

  “Laura, it was never your job to help me.” She looks up, her eyes unfocused as she gazes across the room. “When I first left, I was so busy trying to keep us safe and pretending everything was normal, that I didn’t have time to worry about anything else.”

  She starts picking at the skin on the side of her thumbnail. “But after you were born…” Her eyes close and she shakes her head. “You looked so much like him, every time I looked at you, he was all I could see.”

  I shrink back into myself. Dante’s palm lands on my back, and when I look up, I see that Milo and Ollie have moved closer.

  “Every single day you reminded me of what I lost. I hated myself for feeling like that, but I couldn’t stop it either. You would go off to school, and I would go to work, and I would think about how much I loved you, how important you were, but then…”

  “You would see me and hate what I represented.”

  “No, Laura, I never hated you. I hated myself, I hated the fact that I let Leon kill your father.”

  Chapter 2

  “My father? But I thought Leon was my father?”

  A sneer falls over my mother’s face. “No.” She shakes her head vehemently. “Wyatt was your father. Leon, he was wrong… so wrong.”

  Dante’s fingers cup my shoulder, and he squeezes. A light tapping on the door draws my attention before it’s pushed open. Rosa looks hesitantly into the room, her eyes settling quickly on my mom.

  “Mandy,” Rosa murmurs as she walks into the room but stops short of coming all the way over to the sofa.

  My mom lets out a shaky breath and pushes herself up to stand. “Rosa,” she responds, her voice thick with emotion.

  They stare at each other, not speaking, but somehow so much is exchanged between them. It’s Rosa who makes the first move after several long moments of stunned silence. She lifts her arms with a sheen of tears shining in her eyes and beckons my mom to her.

  The first step is slow, but once that initial hesitation is gone, my mom closes the short distance between them.

  When she lets Rosa wrap her arms around her and she settles her face just under Rosa’s neck, I feel like I’m seeing a whole new version of my mom. Milo takes the opportunity to slide into the seat she vacated, his large palm landing on my knee.

  I know the shock must be clear on my face when I glance over at the guys, almost asking if they are seeing what I am. My mom rarely ever touched me in a loving manner, would almost do anything to avoid a simple everyday touch. Living in such small quarters, it was glaringly obvious that she was evading me. Yet, here she is, looking completely comfortable in the Rosa’s embrace.

  A few whispered words are exchanged between the two women. Mal makes his way over to the small bar and pours four glasses of liquid. There were only three unused glasses left, so when my mom finally pulls away from Rosa, he keeps a thin plastic cup for himself after passing out the others to all the parents in the room.

  Head held a little higher, my mom takes another look around. She glances at everyone’s faces but lingers on mine. “I came back here because I knew I needed help. But I never would have returned had I known it would lead to this.”

  A sliver of hurt pierces my chest. I reach over for Dante’s and Milo’s hands simultaneously. I have absolutely no regrets about coming here. I have my mom back and found the four most important people in my life. I couldn’t regret it if I tried.

  “Mom, this is where I’m supposed to be, where I want to be.”

  “If we’d never come here, Leon would have never known about you.” Her eyes plead for me to understand.

  “If we had never come here, I wouldn’t have this.” I raise both of my hands, which are still wrapped in Milo and Dante’s. “I would still be all alone.”

  Mom takes one small step closer. “You weren’t alone; you had me.”

  “Did I? Because I don’t even think I know who you are.” Ares settles himself so he’s halfway between her and me. It’s a move obviously calculated to protect me from her.

  Mom’s foot slides back on the carpet as sh
e shrinks in on herself. I don’t think that it’s Ares’s mere presence that has her retreating. No, I think it’s her inability to argue the truth I just spoke.

  “We should talk about what kind of threat Leon poses right now. I think that’s what we should be focusing on,” Ares suggests.

  My mom nods, her eyes falling closed as she concedes.

  But I can’t just let it go, not yet. “How did coming back here help him find us?”

  Mom sighs. “I don’t know how much you know, but my parents…” She pauses, and clears her throat, then shakes out her hair. “I’m from this area. I guess he had someone watching to see if I would ever return.” It’s clear by her tone that she’s only making an assumption. She glances over at Ollie in suspicion. He’s the farthest away from the group, standing with his arms crossed over his chest as he glares at my mother.

  “If you think we had something to do with him finding you, then you can fuck off,” Dante snarls, pulling her attention from Ollie.

  “Dante Luca Costa,” Rosa chastises.

  Ollie snickers behind us, but I ignore him. Instead, I squeeze Dante’s hand and tip my head in his direction, but his eyes are glued to my mom, an orangish glow highlighting his irises.

  This is not at all how I expected her return to go. “So, Leon, he took you from the RV?” I need to get this conversation back on track before someone says something they’ll regret.

  Mal and William move in closer to Rosa now that she and my mom are no longer embracing. Ares is still angled between Mom and me, but I can see her around him when she rolls the tumbler—from which she hasn’t taken a sip— between her palms. “He didn’t, he had a woman come to the door. I knew I shouldn’t have opened it, but she had a bruise over her eye, and she really looked like she needed help.” She lets out a small groan at how easily she was fooled.

  “It was like she was just confirming who I was. As soon as she saw me, she mumbled that she was fine, to forget it, and walked away back in the direction of the entrance of the park. I knew I had made a mistake immediately.”

  “Then?” Ares prompts.

  “I waited until the next day, a few hours after Laura left for school, and walked out of the camper. He picked me up before I made it to the road.” Mom shifts her shoulders in a shrug.

  “Why did you go to him? Why didn’t you just move us again?” I’m trying to make sense of this, but I just can’t understand why, after she ran from him for so long, she would go to him now.

  “I thought if I went back, I could keep him from finding out about you,” she tells me, like it’s an obvious answer, and I should have realized it on my own.

  “I should have gone the same day the woman showed up, and because I didn’t, Leon saw you come home from work that night then go to school the next morning. As soon as I realized he already knew about you, I made sure to keep him busy. Every time he turned around, I was trying to escape, fighting him, doing anything I could so he didn’t have time to pursue you.”

  My back falls against the sofa cushion. Releasing Dante’s and Milo’s hands, I cover my eyes with my palm while I squeeze my temples between my thumb and middle finger. “I wish you would have just told me all of this from the beginning.”

  “Maybe I should have, but what would it have changed?”

  I peer up at my mom. There’s a flush to her cheeks and her eyes are bright, but a little bloodshot.

  “We could have helped you, Mandy,” Rosa offers.

  Mom spins to face her friend. “And risk dragging you all into this, too? Never. You have no idea how crazy he is.”

  “Tell us,” Ares demands.

  Mom’s lips thin as she shakes her head in denial. “He killed Wyatt,” she proclaims, like that should tell us everything, “just because he wanted his power. Wyatt was a mimic.”

  Ollie sucks in a breath, almost a whistle. “Holy shit.” His eyes land on mine and they widen.

  “Why did Leon think if he killed Wyatt that he would gain his abilities?” Ares rushes to ask, and with his hand tipped back in Ollie’s direction, he makes a fist. Ollie looks at Ares’s fist and his lips thin as he rolls them in, keeping quiet.

  “Because he was crazy,” Mom declares, her arms spread out to her sides.

  “Yes, but what exactly did he do that made him think he was going to receive Wyatt’s abilities if he killed him?” Ares’s tone is a little more patient.

  Dante shifts next to me, his thigh pressed against mine from hip to knee. Milo leans forward so his elbows are braced on his thighs.

  “I don’t know.” Mom shakes her head, her eyes glazed in thought. “Wyatt, we always had this connection from the moment I met him. I never really had that with Leon. I mean, the signs were there, same identifier, but with Wyatt I got this feeling—like electricity dancing on my skin when he would touch me.” Her eyes close like she’s thinking back.

  She tips her chin down, continuing, “I never had that with Leon. It was like something inside me,” Mom fists one hand over her chest, “knew there was something terribly wrong with him.”

  Ares lifts his hand and covers his mouth. He pulls down, stroking the short stubble on his chin in a sign of frustration. “Did it work? Whatever he did, did it work?”

  Mom looks up and meets Ares’s eyes. “I don’t know. He made me believe it did, but that’s not even possible, right?” She widens her arms and looks around, hoping someone will have an answer.

  “We don’t know either,” Mal tells her. “Leon, he pretended everything was fine after you left. It was only after the incident at your parents’ that everyone realized something was very wrong. He was thought to have died with them that day.”

  “The council did an investigation. He had several norms on his staff. It was easy enough to find out what he’d been up to, but no one had any solid details—none of the people who were investigated anyway,” William adds.

  “Everyone thought he killed you, too. We didn’t tell them any different, because we didn’t know if you were still alive.” Rosa steps forward and clasps my mom’s hand. “We didn’t know where you were, if he had gotten to you.”

  Mom gazes at Rosa with a sad smile on her lips. “I couldn’t come back, Rosa; I couldn’t risk you, Ares, or the guys. I had already put you in too much danger when I came to you the first time, but I was desperate.” She reaches up with her other hand and folds that over the top of Rosa’s. “And you helped me so much, so much.” She licks her top lip as a tear falls. “That money you gave me helped me survive for years.”

  Rosa’s lips turn down. “We could have done more, protected you.” Mom is already shaking her head in denial.

  “I couldn’t, Rosa. I had already lost so much. I couldn’t do that to you, not to any of you.” Mom looks at Mal and William.

  Silence falls and the couch shifts as Dante rearranges himself again. “What about today? If you’ve been trying to protect Laura, how did you end up here with him today?”

  I drop my hand to Dante’s thigh and squeeze, drawing his attention. “She told me to run, she was warning me he was coming.” I look over at my mom and our eyes meet.

  “I did. I was hoping to get her out of here, away from all of this.” Mom winces.

  Dante lets out a low growl of a noise while Ares’s back goes rigid. “I didn’t know who her Infinity was, I still don’t know any of you. I was doing what I thought was right to keep her safe,” she defends.

  “Mandy, my boys—these boys—they would never hurt her. What you went through, that’s not what Infinities are about. You know that, Mandy, you’ve always known that,” Rosa urges.

  My mom tips her head back, closing her eyes briefly, and nods.

  “Leon brought me here to get her to come willingly.” She lifts her hand to stop Ollie from talking when he opens his mouth to argue. “I was never planning on taking her back to him,” she adds.

  Ollie makes a few grumbling noises in response.

  “Where was he going to take her? Where is he staying?�
� Ares latches on to the opportunity to gather more information.

  “I don’t know—a house?” Mom shrugs looking around. “It was only about twenty-five minutes from the RV park. Maybe forty minutes from here.” Her grimace shows her frustration that she is unable to be more helpful.

  “Why go after her? He had you, what does he want with Laura?” Milo chimes in.

  Mom purses her lips. “At first, I thought it was just because he was hoping she was his daughter,” she sneers. “I think he knew he could control me through her, but after today…” Mom shakes out her hands and forms fists. “I don’t know. The way he looked at her, it was like he knew she had something he wanted.”

  Ares spins and faces me. “What abilities does he know about?” he demands.

  “Shadows…” Ares nods, encouraging me to continue. I look down, and add, “My animal.” I can’t really say tiger, since I don’t fully shift. “And… the electricity, but he might not know that one though. I didn’t use it, but I pulled on the power.”

  Ares just stares at me as a myriad of emotions flit through his eyes. Dante places his hand over mine, which is still on his thigh. “If Leon thinks he can take people’s abilities and Laura has more than one ability…” Dante looks over at me. “He’s really going to want her now.”

  “Fuck!” Ares barks, as he turns on his heel and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He pauses before he reaches the bedroom door and looks back at each of our Infinity. “I’m going to handle this,” he states before he disappears through the door.

  “What should we do now?” I whisper, but no one has an answer.

  “Should we really be going home?” Milo questions Ares. “Your parents’ place already has an alarm and a security set-up.”

  Ares’s grip on the steering wheel tightens as he looks in the rearview mirror. “It also has Amanda.” His eyes dart in my direction.

  Ollie leans forward so he’s between the front seats. “As far as we know, he doesn’t know about the new place, right?”