by May Dawson
Bennett and Silas exchanged a glance.
I threw my hands up in the air. “Well, I thought you two weren’t getting along, but apparently you can unite on keeping me in the dark.”
“I don’t want to keep you in the dark,” Silas said carefully, “but people get weird when they know what’s coming in the future. And you’ve been re-writing the prophecy anyway.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about that,” I said. “When I met the tarot reader, she said Chase had already missed his chance to die, but he would get another soon. Then Chase was stabbed. What was in the prophecy?”
“He was originally supposed to die protecting his brother,” Silas said.
I stared at him. “Well, I didn’t do anything to stop that.”
But I would have, if I had known.
Silas shifted, and for once, he almost looked abashed. “Maybe you did.”
Bennett frowned at Silas disapprovingly. “You interfered with destiny.”
Silas shrugged. “I don’t really give a damn about destiny if it makes my girl unhappy.”
“Oh, fantastic. The only thing more dramatic than a teenage wolf is a twenty-year-old warlock with a god complex,” Bennett muttered.
Silas smiled to himself.
I smacked his arm. “You never even told me how old you are.”
“That’s the part that gives you pause?” he asked. “Not the warlock bit or the god complex?
“I already figured those both out, Silas. But I thought you just graduated high school, like I did!”
He shrugged. “Sorry. I collected a few missions-completed before Keen sent me back to school in another world. I’m still bitter. She was thrilled about the opportunity to send me on a mission that was a) vitally important and b) absolutely miserable.”
“It’s not all bad. You get to hang out with me.”
Silas pulled a face, and I smacked him again. He caught my hand, his fingers tightening around my wrist and reminding me of Echo, before his fingers relaxed and he pressed a kiss to my palm.
The waitress arrived then, offloading a cheeseburger and fries and a slice of cherry pie for Echo, pancakes and bacon for me. “You sure you don’t want anything?” she asked Bennett.
“Oh I’m fine. I just live to see them happy.”
Silas and I exchanged a skeptical glance as soon as the waitress had moved away. That was definitely not the case.
“Skimming over the past, because it’s not nearly as interesting or bleak as the future,” Bennett said. “Winter will be thrilled that you brought home the last piece of his puzzle. He’s this close to being able to ‘cure’ all the wolves.”
I paused in the middle of a slice of bacon, and Bennett added, “Yeah, I thought that might remind you both this is no joke.”
“So what do you want us to do?” I asked. “I assume you didn’t bring us here to feed us French fries and pessimism.”
“No,” he said. “I want you to escape the Day tonight. With all the pieces. With the Cure itself.”
Silas eyed him skeptically. “That easy, huh?”
“That easy,” Bennett promised. “I’ve got to stay here to keep working against the Day. Winter is trying to master the Rips, and in the process, he is making them far worse.”
“I could kill him on my way out,” I suggested, my words brasher than I felt on the inside.
“Don’t get cocky,” Bennett warned me. “He could turn you inside out, Maddie. You’re lucky that you survived, thanks to…” He waved a hand in the general direction of Silas, as if Bennett was at a loss regarding what to call him too.
“So that’s it? That simple?”
“Well,” he said. “You have to escape the Day. And I’m not going to help you.”
Silas leaned back, a confident smile slipping across his lips. “I think we’ll be okay. There isn’t much that Maddie and I can’t do together.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Bennett said.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Silas
That night, Maddie and I undressed in the quiet of my room. It was the middle of the night, a time when Winter was often in his workshop. We needed to pretend that everything was normal until it was safe to grab the pieces and run.
Things were definitely not normal. But it wasn’t the threat of Winter skinning us alive or turning us into a pair of creepy dolls that had my heart racing. I was used to the danger.
No, what made my heart race was Maddie’s back to me in the moonlight, her soft hair falling over her narrow shoulders and cascading along the defined muscles in her back. She slung her t-shirt to the floor and headed for the bathroom. Apparently, cleaning up in the gas station wasn’t enough for her.
Dozens of times before, I’d hopped up onto the counter to talk to her while she showered. We’d been friends, and things had been comfortable between us. I’d had my feelings when I caught a glimpse of her slender naked body, or when her skirt slipped up her thighs, or when she grabbed my hand in hers. I had hoped she’d had feelings about me too. But when nothing was spoken, it all felt safe.
Now I hesitated.
Nothing about my relationship with Maddie was safe anymore. Not after what I’d done. She’d seen one side of me at the academy. Now she knew just how cruel and dangerous I could be, no matter how righteous the cause.
She stopped with her arm cocked above her head, one hand on the doorframe, and looked over her shoulder at me. “Are you coming, Echo?”
“If you want me,” I said.
Her lips parted in a faint smile. “Always. Despite my better judgement.”
“I’d grovel if we had time,” I said, following her into the bathroom.
“I think we can make time.” She knelt at the edge of the tub to turn it on, and the sound of rushing water filled the room.
I peeled my t-shirt off too as I padded barefoot across the room, and she looked over her shoulder.
Her eyes brightened, her lips curling up slightly. She’d said that I was hers, and she was right. As she straightened, she turned into my arms.
I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she gazed up at me. “How about instead of groveling, I show you why I’m… the way I am?”
“How about in addition to groveling?” she suggested, but she smiled. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Ms. Northsea.” I shed my jeans, then stepped into the hot, rose-scented water and held my hand out to her.
She gave me a long look, but took my hand. She always did. That faith made my heart race in a way that other dangers never could.
I wasn’t sure I’d survive it if I ever let her down.
I still had a mission to complete, though, whatever it cost me. Whatever it cost us.
I settled down into the water, drawing her body against mine. As she floated, the curve of her ass brushing my lap, I anchored her with an arm around her waist.
When she rested her head on my shoulder, I turned my face toward her to kiss her hair.
The cat padded into the room and meowed at us.
“Not now.” I waved her off.
The cat didn’t listen. Shocker.
Maddie smiled, relaxing against me as the two of us floated in the rising water.
“I’m going to let you walk through my mind,” I murmured into her ear. “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
“There’s no way I can hurt you, can I?” she asked.
Typical of her to think of others first.
I shook my head. “No, they’re just memories.”
I murmured the words of my spell as I let my mind drift, opening my memories to her. The warm water and the walls around us faded.
The two of us stood in the backyard of the Harlan Home for Abandoned Children. But we couldn’t see the sign from where we were. From behind, all we saw was the squat stone exterior of the building and its three stories of misery
The street that led to town was visible from here, the forest behind, but we stood in the open space between, where t
here were a handful of swings and slides and monkey bars.
“This is where you grew up?” she asked, looking up at me.
“Not exactly here,” I said. “They let me inside at night.”
She smiled faintly, but the smile disappeared as she saw the rise of dust on the road, the kids squabbling there.
“Great,” I muttered.
I wanted to let her walk through my mind, but apparently my strongest memories were not the ones that painted me in the most flattering light.
Frowning, she took my hand. Well, here we go. I walked with her around the building to the road.
The childhood version of Silas almost broke away from the half-dozen townie kids who had jumped me on my way home from school.
Orphanage kids attended the same school as the townies. I’d been kept after school that day because my teacher wanted to talk to me about entering an essay contest. I was just eight then, a smart kid with a powerful flair for magic and an easygoing, cocky attitude that irritated people around me.
I looked basically the same as I did now, except much, much smaller. The younger version of myself had blond hair buzzed short in the same style as every other boy in the orphanage, freckles dotting my nose, and blood running down my face. I broke away from the crowd and the hands that grabbed at my clothes.
Maddie gasped, then moved quickly toward the knot of kids who tackled me to the ground again. I grabbed her elbow, bringing her up short. “It already happened. You can’t change anything.”
“Someone should have,” she said hotly.
“There’s darkness in every world,” I told her. “Magic doesn’t make a utopia. Humans are still terrible, even if they’ve got powers, even if they’re shifters or vamps.”
“I love your cheery outlook,” she said.
“I earned it,” I said, just as the boy cried out. Maddie jumped, covering her mouth with one hand in horror.
The townie kids were kicking him now, a knot of kids who steadied each other with hands on each other’s shoulders like little buddies as they tried to stomp me out of existence. I knew it was long done and past, but phantom pain burst across my back, my head, as if part of me was still on the ground, trying to shelter my face and my organs at the cost of bruises blooming across my back and my arms and legs. Then the kid wet his pants.
It turned out that memories could hurt.
I turned away, remembering how that had felt, just as the roar of laughter went up from them. But Maddie clung to my hand, holding me tight. Her shoulder brushed mine as if she was leaning into me.
“Someone should kick their asses,” she muttered.
“I did, later,” I said. “I found every one of them alone, sooner or later. Took me almost a whole year. They got smart toward the end there.”
Her lips parted in a smile.
“It wasn’t very smart of me,” I said, “since every time one of their parents bitched to Mr. Rollins, I paid for it. So really, I caught two beatings—this one and that—for the one time I made them pay.”
“You don’t regret it though,” she said.
“Not a bit.”
They’d finally left me alone in the dirt. I’d crawled into the shadows of the trees, crying so hard that my chest shook. Maddie and I followed the child version of myself, even though her brows twisted together as if she wanted to scoop me up and rescue me.
“It gets better,” I promised.
The kids in the orphanage escaped out to play, clattering down the stairs from the back door. Frederick and Isabelle spread out, searching for me.
Isabelle had found me first. “Oh, Silas,” she’d said, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. I’d leaned my head against her, still sniffling. Sebastian smuggled out clothes for me, and I’d changed there in the dim light of sunset filtering through the trees. No adult was going to comfort me—I was far more likely to be punished—but my friends clustered around me, protecting me, looking after me.
“I’ve got to help them,” I said softly.
Maddie looked at me, her eyes widening. “What do you mean?”
“They’ve been arrested back in my world,” I said. “When my mission is over, I’m going to go rescue them.”
“I’ll help you,” she said.
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Oh, wow,” she said. “There’s a deterrent. I’ve never done anything before that wasn’t a good idea.”
I laughed out loud, and I didn’t realize how tense I was until then. Maddie was balm for my soul.
“What else do you want to see? Do you feel like you know me now?” I asked.
“I’ve felt like I knew you from the first time I saw you,” she admitted. “I had the strangest sense of déjà vu the first time I met you.”
“Ah, yes,” I said. “About that. I have a confession… you had met me. We were at the prospective student orientation together. We fought off some witches that attacked the academy.”
“What?” she demanded, her eyes widening.
“Ah, I was hoping this whole spectacle would make you less mad at me,” I said, waving my arm in the general direction of the past she was wandering through.
“Why don’t I remember any of that?” she demanded.
“Because I erased your memory.”
She pressed her lips together tightly, as if she was holding herself back from yelling at me. Her eyes were wide.
“Want to see when the Rebels came recruiting at the orphanage?” I asked brightly. “They took three dozen unwanted kids to train to fight the system. Or, better yet, I can show you what it was like at the rebel academy—”
“You did already, didn’t you?” She smacked my arm. She might have meant it playfully, but she was Maddie, so she hit me hard enough to sting. “I had these dreams about this amazing school, about fighting these things—”
“That came through the rips between worlds,” I filled in. She might remember what I showed her fondly, but that fight hadn’t been a great day for me. “It’s all right. We’ll prevent the apocalypse.”
“You’d better tell me everything,” she said. “Can you give me back my memory?”
“I think,” I said. “Do you want me to try?”
“Yes, yes, I do.”
The two of us surfaced from the water, in the real world. The water had cooled around our bodies, and she scrambled away from me, sitting on the slick bottom of the tub. She raked her wet hair back behind her ears, frowning at me.
“You have to come here for me to fix your brain,” I said, holding my hands out toward her head.
“What will it take to fix your brain?” she shot back.
“A question I’ve been asked many times before, from Rollins to Keen,” I assured her.
Shaking her head, she crept on her knees across the tile until she was between my open legs. I brushed my thumbs over her temples, looking for the pathways in her brain that I’d blocked. Her memory snapped back in a second.
Her lips parted, her eyes moving rapidly under her eyelids, as if she was reliving the memories in a few minutes instead of the day that our first adventure together had taken.
When she opened her eyes, she said, “You are impossible.”
“I’ve loved you since then,” I said. “If it makes you feel better.”
“That’s why Lex thought I was a liar,” she said. “I told him that I wasn’t going to the academy. I wanted to go to your school. I didn’t remember what I said, but he must have.”
I pulled a face. “Sorry.”
“Sorry?” she demanded.
I didn’t know what to say, but she grabbed my face and pressed her lips to mine.
I cocked an eyebrow, wrapping my arm around her waist. It was only when she broke away that I asked, “So does that mean I’m forgiven?”
“Oh no,” she said. “I’m expecting some amazing groveling from you in the future.”
I grinned, before she added, “Oh, I’m not joking. But I love you anyway.”
Then she kissed
me again, and the two of us slipped down in the water, and it didn’t matter that the bath had turned cool.
We could always heat things up.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Jensen
As we raced along the road, Lex twisted in his seat to glare at Rafe, although Rafe was already glaring at him.
Awkward.
“Do you know what the hell he was talking about?” Lex demanded. “About Maddie?”
Rafe shook his head. I could tell Lex didn’t believe him, and Rafe must know too, because his eyes narrowed.
“Clearborn said he knows Maddie doesn’t need us to rescue her,” I said, the pieces snapping together for me. “Because he’s the one who sent her. She’s on a mission. And no one thought to tell us.”
Lex’s jaw tightened. “I’ve known Clearborn was keeping something from me… that he knew something about where she went.” His gaze flickered to Rafe. “Maybe if you’d asked, he would’ve told you something.”
Rafe stiffened in irritation. “Maybe I didn’t need to ask, because we should all be on campus. Clearborn doesn’t explain himself to you.”
“Yeah, he does. If our girl’s in danger, that’s our business,” Lex shot back.
“She didn’t tell you either,” Rafe pointed out. “Hell, you think she put some fucked-up spell on you…”
I wasn’t sure which hurt more, imagining Maddie putting a spell on me or knowing I’d fallen for it.
I glanced out the window. The houses were getting increasingly close together as we drove.
Just as we hit the edge of the city, an area full of strip malls and gas stations, we found Clearborn’s car abandoned on the side of the road. There was no one else in sight, but his car door stood open, the dome light casting a faint glow of yellow light.
“Shit,” Lex said.
Rafe raked his hand through his hair. “Fantastic. You two.”
“I don’t think it’s fair to blame us for an attack on Clearborn,” I said dryly. “People try to kill Mr. Popular on a semi-regular basis.”
