by AR Colbert
Sean’s eyes widened. He turned again to examine Tate, who stood patiently with a half smirk, still petting Millie’s dog.
“We need to get back to the house,” he said. Then, to Tate he added, “whatever you’re looking for, this isn’t it.”
What was that supposed to mean? Somewhere behind us, in the shadows of the park, an owl hooted.
Tate crossed his arms and raised his chin a fraction of an inch. “Oh, I think it is.”
“Everly, you need to stay away from this guy.” Sean narrowed his eyes.
“Why?”
Tate stepped closer to me, sliding his arm casually across the back of my shoulders. The warmth of his touch sent a buzzing feeling down my spine. I wanted to curl in closer and feel his arms wrap around me. We’d only just met, yet I felt comfortable with Tate. Protected. Safe.
“Why would she want to do that? We’re friends, aren’t we, Everly?”
I tilted my head slightly to look up at his face, my heart pounding in my chest. I met his golden gaze with a lazy grin. Friends? Heck yes, I wanted to be his friend!
“Everly. Everly!”
I snapped my eyes back to a very irritated Sean.
“Come on.” His patience was growing thin.
Tate curled his fingers around the edge of my shoulder, and I leaned into him ever so slightly. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to be right here.
“You go ahead,” I said. “Tell Millie I’ll meet up with you guys soon.”
Sean huffed and walked to a grassy area beside the sidewalk, shaking his head. He picked up a stick and waved it in front of the dogs. Then, with a wide swing of his arms, he launched it. “Go get it!” he shouted.
The dogs lunged forward, yanking me from Tate’s warm body. I tripped and stumbled, but somehow managed to stay on my feet as I chased the dogs, their leashes still wrapped tightly around my hand. A moment later, Lemon Drop emerged victorious, the stick dangling from her droopy dog lips.
I turned around to see the boys bowed up at each other. They were several yards away now, and I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it looked like one of them might slug the other at any moment.
Why were they so defensive? Or better yet, why had I been so reluctant to leave Tate? With distance between us once again I realized how foolish it would have been for me to stay behind. I still didn’t really know him.
“Sean!” I called. “I’m ready now. Let’s get back.”
“Hang on!” Tate shouted with a frown. He dropped his glare from Sean and jogged over to me. The sight of him running casually over sent another flight of butterflies in my belly. Could he actually be interested in me? I’d always thought love at first sight was just for fairy tales. But maybe… if he was feeling just as woozy around me as I was around him… perhaps this wasn’t so foolish after all. Maybe it was meant to be.
“Don’t touch her!” Sean yelled, running quickly after him.
The dogs were getting excited again with all the activity. They wanted to play. And it did look like it was all fun and games at first. But no one was having fun after Sean lost his temper.
With surprising swiftness, his heavy fist rose and echoed a dull whack as it collided into Tate’s perfect nose.
CHAPTER 12
“What are you doing?!”
“I’m protecting you. That’s my job.” Sean shook out his hand.
“Are you okay?” I rushed over to Tate, who rubbed his jawline, the shadow of a smirk still tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m fine. But let’s get you out of here. This guy has lost it.”
I prepared to walk away with him. We didn’t need that kind of violence in our lives. It was only common sense: Tate made me feel happy and giddy inside. Sean made me feel grumpy, and apparently he had a violent streak.
“Don’t do it, Everly.” Sean’s tone was menacing. “He’s messing with you.”
I looked back and forth between the two. Yesterday, they’d been strangers to me. Today, they both urged me to leave the other behind, and they were literally fighting over who I should leave with. Why? Why would either one give two licks about me?
“Ignore him.” Tate reached out and gently rubbed his thumb down the side of my cheek. I practically purred under his touch, forgetting my suspicions from a mere three seconds earlier. Then he was jerked away from me again with a giant shove from Sean.
“What is wrong with you?!”
“What is wrong with you? I told you he’s messing with you. You’ve fallen for his glamour. He’s a siren.” Sean pointed an accusing finger at Tate.
“Glamour? He— wh-what?” I turned to see a stone-faced Tate glaring back at him. Then he turned his cold gaze on me. The warmth from his eyes was gone, replaced with something much more sinister. I shivered and ran my hands up and down the sides of my arms. “Are you saying that he’s… like us?”
“Us? That confirms it,” Tate sneered. He reached out for my wrist, but this time Tiny Tim stepped between us, letting out a deep, rumbling growl, stopping him in his tracks.
“Good boy,” Sean said, patting the dog. “See, even the animals recognize you for what you are. Leave her alone.”
“You know I can’t do that.” Tate crossed his arms. “Now that I know what she is, I can’t leave her alone. I can’t return unless I’ve got her with me.”
“You don’t know what she is. None of us do yet. You can’t take her if she’s pure, so I suggest you wipe that arrogant grin from your face and run along now.”
“Or what?” Tate stepped up to Sean, daring him to hit him again. “She’s not pure. Look at her.” His lip pulled up in disgust as his eyes scanned up and down my lanky frame. Ouch. So much for love at first sight. I was such an idiot.
He stood six inches taller than Sean, but something about the way my new friend held himself made me want to put my money on Sean. He was scrappy. If I didn’t fear him damaging Tate’s gorgeous face, I might’ve even liked to see them duke it out.
Then again, now that I knew Tate’s gorgeous face was manipulating me and toying with my emotions, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to see it busted up a little bit after all. Especially if he was trying to kidnap me as Sean implied.
“Touch her, and the hunter will become the hunted.” Sean said after a silent stare down. I held in a snort. He was being a little melodramatic in my opinion, but it worked. Tate’s eyes flashed with fury. “You know what happens if you hunt a mortal.”
Tate’s lip curled. “I’m still not convinced she’s mortal, either. And the fractured must be dealt with. You know that as well as I do.”
I shook my head emphatically, pushing my hands out in front of myself and flipping them over, as if there was some kind of evidence to prove to him that I was as human as the next girl.
“Totally mortal. See? I’m not fractured.” Neither boy glanced in my direction. They were too focused on being the more intimidating man… or whatever kind of beings they were. And maybe that was a good thing. I didn’t want to get my mother into deeper trouble by admitting that I was mortal. But I definitely wasn’t immortal. Ugh. There was no way to win here.
“I’m going to report you,” Sean said at last.
“I dare you to draw attention to her. Go ahead. They’ll execute her mother and then turn her over to me, anyway.”
“She may be pure.” Sean insisted again through tightly gritted teeth, practically hissing his words.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Tate winked and blew a kiss in my direction. “And I will be seeing more of you, darling.” He turned on his heels and jogged off into the shadows.
Tiny’s hackles were still raised. I calmed the dog and looked up at Sean, who was still fuming in the low light of the street lamp.
“Well, that was interesting,” I said. “I gather he’s a Keeper?” Sean shifted his steely gaze to me and I shrugged. “I mean, I’m not interested in keeping him. I meant like the being. Like you guys. Obviously, I wouldn’t want to keep someone who tried to glamour and
kidnap me. Or at least I don’t think so. Explain glamour to me? Because if it’s what I’m thinking of, like a fairy—”
“You didn’t mention that you’d run into an Agarthian during your story earlier.” Sean interrupted my nervous rambling. “Is there anything else you conveniently forgot to mention?”
Agarthian? I wanted to argue that I didn’t even know what that meant a few hours ago, but Sean definitely wasn’t in the mood to argue about the minutiae.
I’d told them about the painting at dinner, but I didn’t mention the tablet. Something told me it was sacred. It wasn’t something to casually toss out in conversation. Could I trust him to help me figure out what it meant without reporting anything back to his mother?
It really felt like we were on the cusp of figuring out what happened to my mom. She wasn’t taken by the Atlantean authorities, according to Claudia. But Tate and the Agarthians didn’t seem to be involved with her, either. He had his sights set on me. Maybe the tablet was linked to her disappearance somehow. It was the only stone we’d left unturned, no pun intended.
Ultimately, I didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t written in a language I understood, but perhaps an Atlantean could. I just hoped he could keep it between us.
“There was one other thing,” I said under my breath.
“Yeah? What?” Sean’s face was still cold, but I saw curiosity flash behind his jade eyes.
I appraised him again. “I’m not sure if it’s something I can explain. Can I show you?”
He took a step back and raised his hands. “Is it something that’s gonna get us in trouble?”
I shrugged. “It might. But it might also help me find my mom.”
He scratched the back of his head and glanced around the empty park. Finally, he sighed. “Alright, lead the way.”
CHAPTER 13
“So, tell me what exactly happened back there.” I passed Tiny Tim’s leash to Sean as we power-walked past my aunt’s street and back toward the gallery.
“What is there to tell?” He shrugged. “You were there.”
“I was there, yes. But I have no idea what you and Tate were talking about.”
“Tate?” Sean rolled eyes with a sarcastic laugh. “Thaddeus. He’s a soul hunter.”
I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk. “Uh, that sounds menacing.”
“It is. For you, anyway.”
“Because he thinks I’m fractured?”
Sean wouldn’t look at me or acknowledge my question. Evidently he thought I was some substandard being, just like Tate did. We walked for a few more steps as I considered everything I’d been told about fractured souls.
“So let’s say I am fractured…” I began after a bit.
Sean looked down at the sidewalk, clearly uncomfortable with the topic.
“That means I’m neither human nor Atlantean, right? But a mix of both. So will I live for a hundred years or a thousand? Or somewhere in between, like maybe five hundred? That could be cool. And will I get any powers?”
“Let’s hope not,” Sean muttered.
“Hey!” I jabbed him playfully in the ribs with my elbow. “Don’t doubt my abilities before I even get them.” I tried to lighten his mood, but nothing worked. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
“If you get powers, then yes, it means you are fractured. But no, you will not live to see a hundred. You will not live to see nineteen. That’s what the soul hunters are for.”
Soul hunters… I swallowed. “Tate’s trying to kill me?”
“No. Thaddeus is. That’s what they do. The Agarthians love to place sirens in the hunter role, because they can lure you in with their glamour. They make you feel good, get you alone, and after your walls are down they convince you to show them your powers. Once they have proof, that’s it. You’re done. They collect your soul and move on to the next one.”
He stomped ahead again, leaving me alone on the sidewalk, trying to catch my breath.
“Wait!” I shouted, finally allowing Lemon Drop to pull me back to the boys. “Hold on. You’re stating this like it’s a fact. But I don’t have any powers.”
“That’s good for you. Not so good for your mom.”
Because then she would be a proven criminal. A murderer. If I were mortal, that would mean my mom would have killed an Atlantean soul. Unless…
“What if my aunt is right? What if mom did hook up with some powerful Atlantean, and she was just too embarrassed to say anything about it? It’s possible. Maybe I just haven’t gotten my powers yet.”
“I doubt it,” Sean frowned, and he looked genuinely sad this time. “The bond of soul mates is strong. There would be no need to hide their relationship. In fact, if they’d bonded enough to conceive a child, it would be nearly impossible to keep them apart.”
“Maybe he died. That would keep them apart, right? Maybe he was super old when they met, and they could only have me before he passed.” I shuddered at the thought of my mom in a relationship with some nine hundred year old man. But who was I kidding? I shuddered to think of her with any man at all. For as long as I’d been alive, it had just been the two of us.
He twisted his mouth to the side, considering it. “Unlikely. But not impossible.” I thought I saw him nodding softly from the corner of my eye, probably thinking the scenario through. But the gallery was just ahead on the opposite side of the street, and my thoughts were immediately consumed with what we were about to see.
I became anxious, excited to get to the tablet again. I wanted to be near it, to touch it. The closer we got, the greater the sensation became. It was like I’d left a piece of myself down there in the basement alone, and we both knew I was about to come back for it.
Finally, after what felt like an hour at the crosswalk, we made it to the other side of the street. There were few people out now, so I had a clear view of the metal sign up ahead. “There it is.” I pointed.
“Rossel & Jude. Huh. I’ve never heard of it.”
“There are probably thousands of galleries in the city you’ve never heard of,” I said, urging Lemon Drop to move more quickly. I hadn’t thought the dog part through. We couldn’t leave them out on the street. Maybe we could just bring them inside with us. They weren’t exactly easy to hide, but at least they were mostly well-behaved.
“No, I walk this way every day on my route to work. I don’t ever recall seeing it here before.”
“Sounds like you need to pay better attention to your surroundings.”
The glass had been cleaned up from the street, but caution tape still stretched across the windows. I pulled on the door handles, hoping that they were still unlocked. But I’d never been that lucky, and of course, the doors didn’t budge.
Sean gestured toward the window. “Let’s just climb through.”
“Right. Because we’re totally discreet with these giant beasts. No one will think twice about a couple of college kids and two English Mastiffs climbing through the windows of an expensive art gallery late at night. They probably won’t even notice.” I rolled my eyes in case the sarcasm in my tone wasn’t evident enough on its own.
Sean didn’t see it, though. He was already halfway through the window after Tiny Tim, who jumped through with a surprising amount of grace. I followed them with a groan.
“If the cops show up here again I’m blaming this entirely on you.”
“It’s New York. No one cares. We could carry these pieces out one at a time and load them into the back of a stolen windowless van if we wanted to, and no one would bat an eye.”
“You say that like you’ve got experience.”
“Whoa.” Sean stopped dead in his tracks.
“It’s this way.” I tried to direct him to the basement, but Sean’s eyes were locked on one thing, and one thing only.
The lights were off inside the gallery and the halls were dark apart from secondhand light filtering in from the street. But there was one single spotlight, a beacon in the night drawing all attention toward its prized piece�
�a four foot tall painting of the strong, defiant girl who looked remarkably like me.
CHAPTER 14
Sean tilted his head, admiring the painting as he moved from side to side, taking it in from every angle. “It’s definitely you.”
“It’s not! Look.” I pointed to the scar beneath my lip. “She’s missing this. And if you look closely, there’s an intensity in her eyes unlike anything I could ever dream of possessing.”
Sean agreed, “She is much more intimidating than you. But wow. The similarities… if this isn’t you, then it’s gotta be your identical twin.”
Wait a minute. I slapped him on the shoulder. “Sean! You’re a genius.”
“You have a twin?”
I pointed at the painting. “Obviously.”
He raised a brow.
“Look at her. She looks just like me, only…different. Personality-wise. And she’s missing the scar. But what if I actually do have an identical twin? Maybe she’s living with my long-lost Atlantean father.”
That would explain everything. Of course my mom would behave strangely if she saw the painting of my twin after eighteen years of keeping it a secret. And that would be why I’d never met my father—and why she’d never revealed his identity. He’d probably bound his powers and disappeared just like she had!
Visions of the old Parent Trap movie flashed through my mind. “If I can just get to summer camp and trade places with this fierce girl, then maybe we can get our parents to fall back in love.”
“I can’t deal with you right now.” Sean shook his head. Then with a huff, he added, “That’s not your twin.”
“You can’t prove that. It’s just as likely that I have a secret twin as it is that some stranger named Rossel coincidentally painted a near-exact likeness of me from the other side of the country.”
“Tell me more about Rossel. You saw him right? With your mom?”
“Yeah.” I went over everything I’d told him earlier about the white hair and strange mannerisms. I told him about how Rossel knew my mom’s nickname, Tilly, and then— “Oh, and I think I forgot to mention this earlier. But he said something about an oath. It didn’t really register at the time, but I have no idea what kind of oath he was talking about.”
