by Tamar Sloan
Tess’s eyes widen. “That’s a good sign.” She inhales sharply. “They think there could be more than one?”
“Maybe?” Tristan looks around, suddenly conscious Zarius isn’t here. That Tess asked if it was him when he came in. “Where’s Zarius? He’ll want to know all this.”
Tess bites her lip. “He hasn’t come home yet.”
“He’s not answering his cell?”
Tess shakes her head, worry spilling from her eyes. “I’m sure he’s just got caught up with something. You know how he is.”
Zarius can be single-minded when he thinks he’s found a lead. That could be it. Or he could’ve come across more Skins…
Tristan nods. “I’m sure he’s fine. Like you said, Zarius has probably lost track of time.” He picks up the box with the vials of nanites. “I’ll put this stuff back, then go for a drive, just in case.”
Tess shoots to her feet. “No!” She modulates her tone as she realizes she almost shouted the protest. “You’re still healing. Let’s give him another hour or two. It’s not even dark yet.”
Tristan’s about to object but the pleading in Tess’s eyes stops him. “Sure,” he smiles. “Zarius wouldn’t want us jumping into anything.”
Which is true.
He keeps telling Tristian patience is the one quality he hasn’t mastered yet. If Tristan had spent a little more time thinking, maybe the fifth Skin wouldn’t have snuck up on him.
Tristan goes to jog down the stairs but quickly stops. Although he’s definitely feeling better, it looks like there’s more work for the nanites than he thought. Inside the basement, he pauses as he sees his pod.
The shuttle he arrived in as a baby.
Smooth and egg-shaped, it glows with the same muted power the vials do. Thirteen of those landed on the same day as his did. At first, they’d assumed it was in the same general location as his, but as they’d come up empty handed, they’d had to widen their search.
The Skins think there could be more than one…
Could Mirror Point be their break? Maybe Cassandra is a Zodiac Heir.
Tristan’s breath pulls in sharply. Maybe Brielle is.
One of them might be his soulmate, and despite Cassandra’s flirting, it’s Brielle’s wide green eyes that fill Tristan’s mind.
Shaking his head, Tristan punches in the code to the safe. Inside, another simple black box lies in the gloom. The gems. Not all twelve, seeing as some of the Zodiac Heirs already had theirs, but six of them.
They’ll be the only way to truly know if Brielle or Cassandra are destined to join the fight against Chardis. The moment they’ll be united with their stone it will glow; their power will be amplified. Tristan grips the purple tourmaline hanging around his neck, aware there’s a second, identical stone in the box.
The stone that belongs to his Gemini Twin.
Placing the box with the vials beside it, Tristan closes the safe with a click.
Zarius’s voice trickles through his mind. Patience isn’t a weakness.
“Well, it sure isn’t one of my strengths,” Tristan mutters.
Thinking of Zarius has Tristan looking around. He’s already set up the basement as their command center. The back wall is covered with images and printouts. Most are cut-outs from newspapers, some are articles from alien fan sites. All researching landing of pods around the continent. The side wall has a bank of computer screens, several linked to the surveillance cameras around the house, others scanning the internet for the information they’re desperately searching for.
He’s about to head back up the stairs when a new slip of paper catches Tristan’s attention. It’s nothing more than a yellow note, but he knows it wasn’t there yesterday. He and Zarius spend hours poring over the information they accumulate, trying to find clues or patterns. If anything seems to be of interest, it gets pinned up on the wall.
Stepping closer, Tristan sees it’s an address. His pulse leaps—maybe it’s the address of the building from his vision! Glancing over his shoulder to confirm Tess isn’t coming down to check why he’s taking so long, he quickly slides in front of one of the computers and shuffles the mouse. The screen comes to life and Tristan enters the address into Google maps.
The little red pin pops up in a square of farmland. Zooming in, Tristan discovers it’s an old warehouse. Although it’s not what he was hoping for, he can see why Zarius thought it might be interesting. Isolated, but not too far away, it looks like an ideal place to hide a pod.
Finding one of the other pods would be pretty cool, but would it keep Zarius away the whole day? With no texts or calls?
“Only one way to find out,” Tristan murmurs, heading to the stairs. He goes to take two at a time, but when the first leap jars through his ribs, he slows. The nanites had better work their magic before he gets to Zarius or playing down the fact his ass got whooped is going to be hard.
“All okay?” Tess calls out as Tristan locks the door to the basement.
“Yep. All good,” Tristan states cheerfully. “I’m just going to chill in my room, give the nanites a chance to do what they do.”
There’s no way Tess is going to let Tristan go and look for Zarius straight after the fight with the Skins. Which means sneaking out.
Time to put all those lessons on stealth mode into practice.
Thankful for the carpet in the hall, Tristan keeps himself as light footed as possible as he heads to the back door. Turning the knob slowly but steadily, he waits for the resistance that tells him the latch is moving. He finds it and tightens his grip, slowly twisting it further.
Click. Tristan freezes, holding his breath, but there’s no sign of Tess coming down the hall. Slipping through, he repeats the process to close it. Out in the backyard, he pulls in a breath of fresh, calming air. Saying Tess is going to be unimpressed when she finds him gone is an understatement.
But if he finds Zarius, then forgiveness will quickly follow the fierce frowns.
The backyard is little more than lawn and a clothesline surrounded by an eight-foot hedge. Tristan lines up the prickly green fence. He’ll be able to clear it, but landing on the other side is going to hurt like pitch.
Stepping into a sprinter’s stance, he jams his back foot into the ground. He’ll need to gain as much speed as he can before—
“I don’t think so.”
Tristan’s push off is abruptly interrupted by Tess’s statement. He stumbles as all the momentum he was trying to launch has nowhere to go, floundering for a few steps before righting himself.
Tess raises a brow. “I’m just going to chill in my room? Really, Tristan? You never do that, even when we actually want you to.”
Dammit. Tristan’s shoulders sag. “I found an address. I think that’s where Zarius went.”
She’s already shaking her head. “No. You’re not well enough, yet.”
Tristan takes a step forward. “But—”
“No!” Tess seems almost as startled as Tristan as she half-shouts the word. She pulls in a breath. “I’m just as worried as you are. I don’t need to be worried about you, too.”
Tristan snaps his mouth closed on the argument he was about to pose. Tess is wringing her hands, something he hasn’t seen her do often.
“If Zarius doesn’t come home tonight and we don’t hear from him, we’ll go searching in the morning. Together.”
Tristan nods, not liking the knot of worry that’s clenching his gut. “Okay.” He smiles. “I reckon he’s found another pod and got trapped inside.”
Tess’s returning smile is strained. “I hope so.”
Slipping an arm around her shoulder, Tristan leads her back inside. “Let’s get dinner organized. If he finds the emergency exit button, he’s going to be hungry when he gets back.”
Holding the door open for Tess, Tristan sends out a silent message to the man who’s been far more than a guardian and a mentor. Zarius has raised him as his own son.
You’d better be back by morning, Zarius.
&n
bsp; Tristan doesn’t want to think what it could mean if he’s not.
10
Brielle
“So the new guy is kinda loopy, huh?”
Brielle and Adalind sit at their station in cooking class before the bell rings, savoring the last few precious seconds of alone time they have.
Brielle nods, keeping an eye on the door for Tristan. “Yeah, I should’ve known a good-looking guy like that was too good to be true.”
“He actually thinks he’s an alien?” Adalind’s smile is joking, but there’s a spark in her eyes that Brielle doesn’t recognize.
Brielle doesn’t want to be the one to start rumors. She’s had her fair share of gossip started about her, and no one deserves to be plagued by them. She shakes her head. “He was probably just messing with me. Some kind of joke to screw with my head.”
Adalind purses her lips, then shrugs. “Well then, it’s his loss. Some better guy will come along, and he’ll be even hotter.”
“Maybe. I shouldn’t be thinking about boys right now anyway. The only thing that matters right now is keeping the Pierces’ favor.”
“I’m so glad your visit went well with them,” Adalind squeals. “Just two more days till your big dinner!”
The spark of excitement and glee that Brielle had felt when they left yesterday flares back to life. She can’t wait for Friday!
Just as the smile starts to spread on her face, Tristan walks through the classroom door. Brielle straightens her lips and looks away in case he thinks she was smiling at him. As he approaches their station, she’s aware that his eyes are on her, the heat of his gaze making her heart flutter and her nerves sizzle even as she tells herself she wants nothing to do with him.
He sits beside her, his sweet, musky scent teasing her nostrils, as if to whisper, “come closer.”
She doesn’t acknowledge him as he settles into his stool, and the uncertainty over where to put her gaze is almost maddening.
“Hey,” he says, nudging her arm with his elbow.
She doesn’t want to be rude, so she flicks a glance at him and says, “Hey,” in return.
“Listen,” he whispers, leaning closer. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I didn’t mean to freak you out. Can we just start over? Friends?” He holds out his open hand.
Tristan isn’t the kind of person she should be friends with, but she definitely doesn’t need any more enemies.
“Sure, friends,” she whispers. She stares at his open hand for a moment, debating accepting such a gesture. But the desire to touch him is too strong, and finally, she can’t hold back anymore.
She grasps his hand.
Warmth radiates over every millimeter of her palm at his touch, and before she can guess whether or not he feels it too, he gasps. Brielle looks up at him. His eyes are magnetic, a sort of gravitational pull locking hers to them. She’s struck by how blue they are, and how comforting it feels to be held by them. She could stare into these eyes forever, curl up into them and disappear into their crystalline abyss.
The classroom door closes, the sound shaking Brielle out of the spell.
She jerks her hand free a little too forcefully and says, “Just friends.”
He nods, accepting her terms. “You’re staying at school all day today?”
Brielle tenses. Please don’t let him ask to sit with her at break. “Ah, yeah. But—”
“Good. Make sure you do. It’s the safest place for you right now.”
Before Brielle can ask what that means, Tristan pushes to his feet. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Brom. But my mom just texted. We forgot I have an appointment.”
Brielle frowns. She didn’t hear a message, not even the buzzing when a cell is on silent.
Ms. Brom crosses her arms. “I find that hard to believe.”
Tristan grins as he walks toward her, holding up his cell. She reads it, her brows low. “You’ll need to wait here while she contacts the front office.”
But Tristan is already at the door, pushing it open. “I’ll tell her when I meet her there. Hope the class goes well.”
He’s gone before Ms. Brom can say another word. Brielle pulls down the brows that had hiked up. What in the world just happened?
Ms. Brom starts instructing their next cooking assignment—homemade mac ‘n cheese—and Brielle almost succeeds in getting through the period without thinking about the boy who is far too tempting, and far too great a threat to everything she truly wants. His weird actions just proved that.
When the bell rings for break, Brielle can’t get to the cafeteria quickly enough. She hasn’t been able to focus on anything but touching Tristan’s hand since this morning, and she needs the mental distraction she’s sure conversation with Adalind will give her. Why can’t she get this guy out of her mind?
She gets her lunch tray and sits at their usual table, absentmindedly squirting a packet of ketchup onto her burger as she scours the hundreds of faces for the one she’s waiting for.
Unfortunately, Cassandra’s face is the one she finds, and Cassandra sees her, too. Like a Brielle-seeking missile, she zooms straight through the sea of students to Brielle’s table.
Great. Maybe if she ignores her, Cassandra will just go away.
“Hi freak,” Cassandra’s venomously silky voice chimes over her shoulder.
No such luck.
“Don’t you have anyone else to torture?” Brielle asks in as cool a tone as she can manage.
“I heard Tristan ditched you at Creamy Dreams,” she says, bulldozing Brielle’s calm façade. “What did you do to scare him off so quickly?”
Brielle rolls her eyes, disbelieving how quickly true events become distorted by the gossip wheel.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I was the one who walked out on him.”
Cassandra throws her head back and lets out an insulting laugh. “I’m so sure.”
The last thing Brielle wants is to put any kind of black mark on Tristan’s social life as the new student. “I had to leave to meet with a couple that’s interested in adopting me, as a matter of fact.” A small tingle of satisfaction swirls in her chest as she confesses this to her childhood rival.
Cassandra’s black-lined eyes widen in surprise, then squeeze shut as she buckles over giggling. “Oh, that poor couple! I wonder if they have any idea what they’re in for. As a conscientious citizen, I should warn them.”
Coming out of nowhere, Adalind pops up between them and pushes Cassandra back. “You’ll do no such thing.”
Cassandra gawks at Adalind, mouth agape. No one has ever touched Cassandra like that, and she seems just as stunned. Cassandra may be athletic, but she’s not the type of girl to get into a catfight. Especially not at school.
Cassandra quickly reclaims both her composure and her catty mask. “You’re right, they’ll figure it out eventually. It’s only a matter of time before they see the truth that I know only too well. No family worth having would ever adopt you.”
The statement is like a slap in the face, the words stinging as they assault Brielle’s ears.
“Oh and your loss with Tristan is my gain. We’re going out this weekend.” She winks, the gesture feeling more like she stuck her tongue out, then she saunters away to the table her clique has claimed as their lunch time throne.
In her wake, Adalind is still standing in a battle-ready stance in front of Brielle, flexing her fists at her sides.
“Forget about her.” Brielle tugs on the bottom of Adalind’s shirt. “Let’s just try to enjoy our food.”
Sneering in Cassandra’s direction, Adalind pulls her tray closer and sits next to Brielle. “What is her problem with you, anyway? I mean, she’s nasty to everyone, but why does she have such a target out for you?”
Brielle returns to dressing her burger. “Believe it or not, but little miss perfect grew up in the same orphanage I did.”
Adalind’s mouth rounds into a perfect O. “What? Seriously?”
“We actually used to be best friends before she
got adopted.”
Adalind leans in, starving for the juicy gossip Brielle’s about to share. “What happened?”
Brielle has been fighting the memory the last few days, but now that it’s been brought to the surface, she’s helpless not to relive it.
“Sister Agatha told me Cassandra was about to be adopted by some parents I’d just met.”
In fact, Brielle had rushed back to the room she shared with Cassandra as soon as Sister Agatha told her the news, her heart thumping with horror.
“Did you hear?” Cassandra’s face beamed with the brightest smile as she came up to grab Brielle’s hands. “I can’t believe it’s finally happening. I’m going to have a family, Bri! A real family!”
“Yes, I heard,” Brielle said, unable to lift her brow for the deep frown that held it so heavily down. “About that, listen—”
“Maybe they can adopt you, too!” Cassandra went on, so full of excitement that she practically glowed like the sun. “We could be real sisters! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
Brielle puts her face in her hands. “I found out some stuff… I had to warn her.”
Brielle’s heart had cracked inside her chest. Cassandra had been like a sister her entire life, and the thought of being sisters legally was truly wonderful. But it couldn’t happen. Cassandra didn’t know.
“Cass, that’s not going to happen,” Brielle had said, trying to find the right way to tell her best friend the truth.
Cassandra’s doll face pinched in confusion. “What do you mean? You don’t want us to be sisters? I know I’ve been spending a lot of time with Gabby lately, but you know you’ll always be my best friend.”
Gabby was a new girl at school who had recently been taking up a lot of Cassandra’s attention. And while Brielle had to admit she’d been a little jealous of the two getting so close, she held no ill will about the friendship. Cassandra was allowed to have other friends. That was a natural part of growing up. Well, for most people…
“This has nothing to do with Gabby,” Brielle prefaced. “Cassandra, I know the Sinclairs seem like they are the perfect parents, but they’re not. Please, you can’t let them adopt you.”
