As much as we’d all been working together, and getting stronger, Theo demanded more. He was pushing us all to our breaking point. In the corner of the gym Winston was drenched in sweat, his hands on his hips, glaring at my boyfriend.
“You’re a slave driver,” he grumbled under his breath.
“I heard that, Churchill.” Theo glanced in his direction raising a brow.
Winston grinned. “I meant for you to.” Then he made a kissing face.
“I hate that guy,” Theo growled softly to me.
I snickered. “Face it, you actually kind of like him.”
Theo stood up straight. “I respect him. There’s a difference. Now, get up off the floor and do it over again.”
“Ugh,” I groaned, but managed to lift my aching body up and into a standing position. Theo had me jumping over large blocks—I swore they had to be six feet tall, they were nearly as tall as Theo himself. But he insisted jumping over large obstacles would be beneficial in battle, so there we all were, jumping like maniacs. Poor Adelaide was so red in the face I feared she was seconds away from passing out. Maybe if she did he’d finally give us a break. The only person not subjected to this madness was Jee, not for lack of trying on Theo’s part, though, but apparently even Theo didn’t argue with Jee.
I pulled my white blond hair out of its ponytail and redid it, making sure to gather the shorter pieces that always wanted to come loose, before I started jumping again.
There was no way I was going to be able to get out of bed tomorrow, let alone do this again, and I hoped Theo knew that.
I believed he knew what he was talking about, he always seemed to be right, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. My whole body felt like a wet stringy noodle.
I got a running start and launched my body over the block, falling on my ass on the other side.
Theo tilted his head, his arms crossed over his chest. “Again. Try landing on your feet this time. That’s what they’re for.”
I glared at him. “And you try sleeping with one eye open tonight.”
His lips twitched and I couldn’t help but smile. At least I got him to break his stoic expression. Frankly, I couldn’t stay mad at him too long. I’d missed him too much. I could even relish in him yelling at me like a drill sergeant because it meant he was here in front of me, flesh and blood.
I’d thought he was dead, and then he’d been only a voice in my mind, a ghost to me. But he hadn’t left me. Our story wasn’t over yet, and now I knew to cherish every moment.
I did it again and again and again before he finally gave me a break and went on to berating Winston and Ethan.
Adelaide sat on the floor stretching her legs out. She winced as she flexed her toes.
“Remind me again why I missed him?” she joked.
I bumped her shoulder with mine and we exchanged a smile. “Because he’s your brother, and while he’s hard headed, a giant pain in the ass, and an outright jerk most of the time, he really does love us.”
“Yeah, he does,” she sighed heavily. “But it’s more tough love than sweet love.” She stuck out her tongue.
“Heard that!” Theo called out.
“I meant for you to!” she retorted.
I shook my head. Those two were far more alike than either would ever admit.
Theo finished with Winston and Ethan and stood in the middle of the room surveying the four of us. “All right, two-mile cool down run and then we’re done for the day.”
“Theodore!” Adelaide scoffed. “Two miles is hardly a cool down! That’s two freaking miles!”
He narrowed his gray eyes on her until they were nothing more than slits. “Want to make it four?”
“No, sir.” She swallowed thickly and looked at me like a deer caught in headlights.
“Don’t you think you’re going a bit overboard?” I gave him a look.
That narrowed-eyed gaze landed on me next.
“All I’m saying is, you better run it with us.”
He shook his head and grumbled out a, “Fine.”
The five of us headed outside, Theo in the lead, to run two miles.
Those two miles felt like two hundred. I was already so sore from the day’s exercises, not to mention the week of rigorous training Theo had already put us through. I thought we’d been working hard before, but that was a piece of cake compared to this. If we weren’t prepared after this then we never would be.
When we left, Jee smirked at us, purposely walking by eating an ice cream sundae. After all this I’d be too tired to eat anything. I wasn’t sure I could even get in the shower.
As our two mile “cool down” came to an end, the four of us stumbled inside Jee’s building while Theo remained bright as a daisy. I might kick him in the shin later for the hell of it. That arrogant smirk of his was getting to me. He was lucky he was so handsome.
Once inside we all took turns showering. Mine took forever since I could barely lift my arms to wash my hair and, as sweaty as it was, there was no way I couldn’t not wash it. Theo owed me a full body massage after all this with no fun times for him.
I dried off my body and hair as best I could with the towel before gathering it up in a messy bun. It was getting really long and I should probably cut it so it wouldn’t get in my way, but I kind of liked it. For now I wouldn’t worry about it.
I changed into a loose pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Something comfy, but I wouldn’t look like a total bum. I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. Scratch that, I looked like a bum, but I didn’t care.
I slowly made my way downstairs, wincing with every step as it sent a spasm up my legs. I’d woken up three times the night before with cramps in my legs. Something told me I’d be up even more tonight.
Something delicious smelling hit my nose and I perked up as my belly came to life. I hadn’t been sure I could eat, especially when I thought I’d have to make something myself, but my stomach had other ideas.
“We have pizza!” Adelaide called from where she sat on the floor. Several pizza boxes were open on the coffee table.
“I thought you guys deserved it.” Theo shrugged, picking up a slice and leaning back in a chair to eat it. How the hell did he make eating a pizza look sexy?
I grabbed a napkin and a slice of pizza before sitting down on the floor beside Theo’s chair. He looked down at me with a small smile, his leg brushing my arm. We both felt the need to stay close to each other. I was scared if he was out of my sight for too long he’d disappear completely. I ate my piece of pizza slowly, not only savoring it but also wanting to make sure the greasy goodness wasn’t too much for my stomach.
Finishing the one I started another but could only eat half. Theo grabbed the uneaten half from my hand before I could toss it and ate it, grinning down at me like the Cheshire cat.
It was all so normal.
In the middle of all this craziness, when a war was brewing, somehow we could find this little piece of heaven all to ourselves. It was such a simple thing, hanging out eating pizza with your friends, with the love of your life, but when only a week ago you thought you’d never have this again, it becomes everything.
Adelaide wiped her fingers on a napkin. “So, when exactly are we going after this fucker? No one messes with my brother and gets away with it.”
“Adelaide,” I snorted.
“What?” She shrugged daintily, her motions totally at odds with her previous statement.
Theo chuckled. “I don’t know, but I applaud your enthusiasm. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
She tossed a pillow at his head. “Ass hat, I watched you be, what I thought at the time, murdered. But instead you’ve been held hostage by a psychopath Iniquitous for months. Excuse me if I have some pent-up rage I need to unleash.”
“We have to be smart about this,” Theo said, smacking his hands together heatedly. “We can’t be unprepared like last time.”
“We can’t lose anyone this time either,” I whispered softly. I knew this was proba
bly a futile hope, in a war there are casualties, but I couldn’t help but put it out there. “We have to stick together.”
“I agree.” Adelaide stuck her chin in the air haughtily.
Theo shook his head but said nothing. He knew, as did we all, this was unlikely. It was easier to pretend everyone in this room would get to live a long life.
I stood and gathered up all the trash and empty boxes. Despite the soreness in my body I suddenly needed something to do. I didn’t want to think about the reality of living without any of these people. I’d only known them a year, but they were my family. Besides, I’d already lost Theo once. I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to survive losing him again.
Before I could finish cleaning up everything, Theo pulled me down and into his lap.
I let out a small laugh. “Hi.”
“Hey.” He nuzzled my neck and I warmed beneath his touch. I smiled and kissed his cheek. It was weird almost, being out in the open with him like this. Before, at the manor, all our moments had been stolen, secret, only for us. But here, we didn’t have to worry.
He rubbed his thumb in soothing circles against my back where my shirt had ridden up.
“Bleh,” Adelaide pretended to gag from her spot on the floor. “You two are sickeningly sweet and I can’t handle it. Get a room.”
“Offering yours?” Theo teased.
Her eyes widened. “No, no, absolutely not. Do not even think about fornicating in my room.”
Now I was the one fake gagging. “Oh, my God Adelaide, could you like not talk about your brother and me that way.”
She blushed. “Oh, God, I’m imagining it now. Make it go away. Why did I do this to myself?” She squealed, rubbing her eyes like it could erase the mental image she’d conjured up for herself.
“Here, love,” Winston said and grabbed her face between his hands. Her eyes opened briefly, but only for a second, before he kissed her. Not a soft peck on the lips, either. No, this was a full-blown make out kiss.
Theo growled. “Get off my sister.”
After a few more seconds, he let her go.
“What are you thinking about now?” he asked her, completely ignoring the daggers Theo was staring into the back of his skull.
“That.”
He grinned triumphantly at having accomplished his mission.
“Try that again in front of me, Churchill, and you won’t live long enough to see the next dawn.”
Winston stared back at Theo, completely unbothered. “Is it so completely abhorrent to you to think I might actually like your sister and she might like me back?”
“Wait … you like me?” Adelaide asked in a small voice, pointing to herself.
Winston grinned at her. “Well, yeah, I think it’s pretty obvious, or at least it should be now.”
Her cheeks tinged pink and in a move which shocked us all she grabbed his shirt in her fist and yanked him to her, kissing him even more passionately than he had only seconds before.
Theo growled in my ear. “Down, boy,” I warned him. “Let them be happy.”
He rolled his eyes at me and let out a sigh that sounded strangely like not happening. I elbowed him in the ribs and his next sigh sounded a lot like an agreement.
When the kiss broke I eyed Theo and he bit out a gruff, “I’m happy for you guys.”
“Don’t lie, Theodore,” Adelaide snorted. “It looks stupid on you.”
“See?” He turned to me. “No point in making me lie they know I don’t approve but …” His face softened as he looked at his baby sister. “I will do my best to be happy for you because all I want is you to be happy.”
Adelaide laid her head on Winston’s chest. “And he makes me happy. Thanks, Theodore.”
I smiled at Theo and kissed him, letting him know without words that for once I approved of his behavior.
He smiled back at me, brushing a piece of hair behind my ear which had fallen loose from my bun. I captured his hand in mine before he could let it drop, entwining our fingers together. I looked down at our joined hands and felt a tug in my heart, like it recognized the feel of his hand and was saying mine.
“Can you tell me again exactly what she said?” Theo prodded as the two of us sat on the floor of the living room in the middle of the night long after all the others had gone to sleep. We weren’t purposely being secretive. The nighttime was the only time we could really be alone together, and instead of sexy times most of the time we went over every detail we knew that might help us in our quest to defeat Thaddeus.
Once again, I went over in great detail our meeting with Cleo, telling him about how she said we were soul bound, and about the key.
“Where’s the key?” he asked.
I pulled out the chain containing the firefly necklace from him, the key now hanging beside the jar.
He smirked. “Smart girl. Now tell it all to me again.”
“Theodore,” I groaned, ready to smack him upside the head. “We’ve been over this ten times already. I don’t know what else I could possibly tell you that I haven’t.”
He rolled his eyes. “This is important. Cleo is ancient. She doesn’t just talk to anybody. Meeting her wasn’t a coincidence.”
I took a deep breath. “Fine, let me try something.”
I closed my eyes and twisted my neck. Reaching up, I placed my hands on his face.
“Uh … Mara?”
“Shut up,” I seethed. “I need to concentrate.”
I wasn’t sure if what I was trying was even possible, but I figured with our combined freaky special powers it might work.
I hoped.
Behind my closed lids, colors began to swirl and transform.
“What’s happening?” Theo’s voiced was laced with panic.
“Shh, trust me.”
I felt his body relax beneath my hands as the picture became clearer and through my eyes he watched the entire conversation with Cleo play out. It was interesting for me too to watch it like this, not in the moment and able to entirely observe it.
“Jee,” she hissed under her breath, “why are you here?”
“I brought friends,” he explained.
“I can see that … well not see, but I know,” she griped.
“We—they—need to talk to you. It’s important.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk to them.” She turned away, giving us her shoulder.
I opened my mouth to argue but Jee gave me a look, silencing me.
“Cleo,” he said in a sickly sweet voice, “this is important.”
“You’ve said that once already—twice is just repetitive. I’m blind not stupid.”
“I never ask you for anything, do I, Cleo?”
Watching now I could sense her unease. Her wariness of magical strangers. I didn’t quite understand what she was exactly, some oracle of some sort I assumed, but it was clear she’d been mistreated in the past.
“I’m asking for your help now. For my friends. You know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t necessary.”
She swiveled back to face us. “I’m not in the habit of giving favors but I suppose this once I can make an exception.” I watched as she looked at each of us. She was blind but yet in some way she could clearly see each of us. How fascinating.
“Thank you.” Jee bent and placed a kiss on her cheek.
“Very well,” she muttered. “Let’s not do this out in the open.”
She placed a closed sign on her cart and stood.
“Follow me.”
She led us through the mall, and down a hallway, through a door and then another before we were in a storage closet. Once the door closed behind us and it was dark she tapped her cane against the cement wall three times in a triangle pattern. The wall melted away and we stepped into her home.
“Welcome to my humble abode.” She sunk onto one of the cushions. “Sit, sit.”
We all did, and ended up in a circle with her in the center.
“So, tell me light one, why are you here?”
“Light one, dark one, it’s all about the balance really. The balance can’t be disrupted without everything going … Well, let’s just say it’d be bad.”
“Dark one,” I repeated softly. “That’s what the Iniquitous called Theo before … before …”
She smiled, flicking her fingers so hundred of candles littered around the room sprung to life.
“You cannot have the light without the dark. It’s all about balance. When the fates align and connect you get two halves of a whole.”
Winston cleared his throat. “Are you saying Mara and Theo are soul bound?”
“Soul bound?” I repeated. “What is that?”
Her lips twitched. “It’s when the cosmos create a soul too great, too powerful, for one body to sustain it so they break it apart, and two separate souls are born, but they are in fact one.”
“This doesn’t mean we’re like brother and sister, right?”
“No.” She laughed like I was silly. “It means you’re connected in a ways most only dream of.”
“Like not even death could separate us?”
She frowned. “Yes, not even death could cross such barriers.”
“That’s not why we came here.”
“I assumed not.” She clasped her hands and laid them in her lap.
“When we were fleeing the manor in Seattle, we found Victor. I don’t know if you know him—”
“Antonescu?”
“Yes, that’s him.”
“Continue.”
I took a breath. “He was dying, and he told me I had to get away from there and I had to find Cleo. That she—you—held the key to the truth. But I don’t know what that is. What’s the truth, Cleo?”
Her lips twitched with a slight smile. “I knew you’d come to me one day. Your mother knew too.”
“My mother? How do you know my mother? You’re my age, right?”
Jee shook his head and laughed.
“Looks can be deceiving, Mara.” She pulled her lips back revealing her teeth, the incisors sharpened to fangs. “I’ve walked this earth longer than anyone should. It’s a lonely life—a half life—but it’s my life.”
She smoothed her hands over her skirt and looked at me.
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