by Lena North
“We could draw that up as a chart, and start mapping what we know,” Jiminella chimed in. “We know the guy is most likely Cameron from the research program, that he posed as an imposter and wants the group from Norton killed.”
“We also know he’s part of the Ophidians, smuggling drugs,” Miller said.
“He wants the crystal Wilder found in the mountains. That’s why I was kidnapped,” Mary added.
“And now he has one of the cups from the swords,” Mac scowled.
“Two,” I said. “Maybe even all three.”
“What?”
“At least, he thinks he does,” I clarified, and turned to Sloane. “They took the one from your father’s hotel. That’s how I came to think of it right now. Wilder told me about the break in.”
Sloane started grinning, and said, “You’re right. He would think he has the one my father had in his hotel. It was a replica, though, and Da is not a stupid man, so it was in no way an exact copy. He made quite a few changes to both the cup and the stones.”
“You might check in the church in Norton, and move the one there to a safe,” I said.
“Right,” Miller said and was on the phone even before he’d walked down the three steps leading away from the porch.
We were silent for a while, and then Nick stretched, which made me wince. It had been over seven weeks since he was shot, but I was still worried he’d pull something.
“I really need a vacation from all this shit,” he said again.
“Me too,” I said.
“Then take one,” Hawker said, and I turned to him. “Go to Marshes or those Islands for a week or two.”
The idea of just going away from everything for a while was tempting, but we couldn’t just leave, could we? Hawker must have read my face like an open book because he scowled, although it was pretty clear that it was mostly fake anger.
“We lived without a scout for the past six years, Snow, and we actually did manage to bring down a bad guy or two without you.”
I held his gaze, and asked quietly, “Maybe you don’t need me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. “We’ve managed with the birds, but with a scout, a real one… A human's way of thinking, but working seamlessly with the bird? It’s different. Better. Having Oz was great. You’ll be great too.”
I exhaled as he spoke, and realized I hadn’t known how much I’d been looking forward to my role in the group. Then his actual words registered, and I glared right back at him.
“Great?” I snapped. “You’re saying Da was great?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but I slammed my hand into the table, and then I pointed at him.
“My Da was amazing, Hawker Johns, and you know it. Me? You better believe that I’ll be beyond fantastic too.”
His face softened, and the tips of his mouth went up a little.
“Yeah,” he said. “Oz was amazing.”
I relaxed and leaned back on Nick’s chest again, and felt his strong arm squeeze me gently. I suddenly longed to go back to the Islands. I’d been there for such a short time, and I wanted to sit down with Pauline and talk about all that had happened. I wanted to go sailing and eat the fantastic seafood. I wanted to wake up with Nick in his house by the beach.
“Can we really go?” I asked.
“Sure,” Hawker said calmly. “We need a couple of weeks to gather intel anyway. Need to make plans for what comes next. Besides, it’s less than an hour away, you can pop back for the day if we need you.”
I tilted my head back to look at Nick.
“Marshes for a few days first?” he asked and didn’t wait for a verbal confirmation of the reaction he must have seen on my face. “If it’s okay with you, Dante?”
“Don’t be an idiot, of course, it’s okay,” Jinx replied, and added with a cheeky grin, “We’ll have a party. Are you any good on the dance floor, Nicky?”
I was about to inform her that Nick would likely prove to be an excellent dancer when Dante bent his head and murmured, “I’d appreciate if neither of you replied to that.”
“Okay,” I reassured him sassily. “I won’t tell you how good he is.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Comeuppance
We parked outside the village, and Nick started laughing.
“Quite a difference from Croxier,” he said.
I grinned at him, thinking about the small town on the Islands and the insane traffic. Then I took his hand and walked along the familiar road through the village where I’d spent a big part of my life. It felt like coming home, but it also felt strange. I was different, and everything was familiar, but it was as if I didn’t quite fit in anymore.
“Have I changed?” I asked quietly, looking at my cousins who walked on either side of Nick and me.
Olly had gone with us to Marshes, to make sure I didn’t die.
I’d blinked when he said that and opened my mouth to protest, but he just looked at me with those dark, unfathomable eyes of his and said, “You can yap about this for a while if it makes you feel better. Won’t change a thing.”
I closed my mouth and scowled, which made him chuckle. Then he’d picked up his leather duffel bag and strolled over to his car, and now he was walking next to me.
“Some,” Olly said but didn’t elaborate.
“Yes,” Dante agreed. “A little. I know you don’t like it, but I still brush your mind with mine sometimes. It’s happier. Lighter. Before, there were always shadows in your mind, right at the edges. I didn’t see them, or maybe I was so used to them that I thought it was just you. But they’re gone.”
“They’re gone from her eyes too,” Nick said quietly. “I saw them. Almost brought me to my knees when we first met, that endless sorrow. Then they started to fade, though, and now they’re gone.”
“Oh,” I said.
I had expected them to say something lighthearted about how I’d grown up, or crack a joke.
“Don’t think anyone around here will notice,” Jiminella said, and added with a chuckle, “They’ll be too busy staring at Domenico.”
Quite a few of the villagers were doing just that as we passed them and I had a difficult time holding my smirk back.
“Have they never seen dreads before?” Nick asked, looking a little uncomfortable with the attention he was catching.
“It’s not that, Nicky,” Jiminella said. “It’s because you’re hot.”
“Smoking,” I drawled.
“Jesus,” Dante said and opened the door to the mayor’s house. “How long were you staying again?”
He looked so sweet, trying to fake annoyance, but I knew he was relieved we were there. It had hurt when we fought, and we were both glad to be together in Marshes again.
“They’re staring at me too,” Olly muttered.
“You’re hot too, honey,” I said. “Although in a scary, reaperish way.”
“Jesus,” Dante repeated and shuffled us all inside. “I’ll just go and check on Mrs. C.”
“Come,” I said to Nick. “Let’s go meet my grandmother. She’s not even remotely as scary as yours.”
Mrs. C took one look at Nick and then her face split up in a smile.
“Oh, my. You will fit right in here in Marshes,” she chuckled. “Do you like seafood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and added as an explanation, “I grew up on the Islands.”
She promptly announced that she would be making dinner that night because Dante was apparently useless in a kitchen and Jiminella was worse. Neither statement was entirely accurate, but we let her comments pass because she was a fantastic cook. That night we had dinner at the mayor’s house and slept in my little room in the house next door. Nick and I walked along the beach for most of the morning the day after, chatting with some of the villagers we met, and finishing it off with a quick dip in the ocean.
Jamie was waiting for us on the beach when we got out, and his eyes slid over N
ick’s scars.
“You look alive,” he said.
“Yup,” Nick said and started to dry himself.
“Hey snowy Snow,” Jamie said.
His smile was sweet and gentle, although I thought there was a quick flash of sadness in his eyes. It was gone so quickly that it could have been my imagination, and regardless, Nick had said that we should go with Jamie’s evasion tactics since it would make things easier for him. I could totally do that.
“Hello, James,” I said with a smile. “Torn off any trim recently?”
He started laughing, as I’d intended, and on our way back through the village, we took turns explaining to Nick what had happened that day in the hospital when he’d tried to hang from his fingertips.
“I hear there’ll be a party tonight,” Jamie said.
“Absolutely,” I said. “Daniele and Anetta are arranging it at the restaurant. We’re leaving tomorrow night for the Islands, so it’ll be a send-off for us.”
Having a celebration in Marshes was not in any way unusual, and there always seemed to be an abundance of reasons for them. I had asked if I could help with preparations, but they had scoffed and asked me right back if I thought they didn’t know how to organize a small dinner event. Since small meant half the village instead of everyone, I knew a lot of work would be involved, but they insisted that I should stay out of it, so I did.
After lunch, Jamie, Jiminella, and Nick went for a walk, saying that they wanted to look at her lab just outside the village. I suspected that it was mostly an excuse find time to talk about the research program, but it would be good for them. Since I anyway wanted to speak with my cousin and grandmother alone, I waved them off and went inside to make coffee.
Then I told Dante and Mrs. C the things my mother had accused me of, those last months of her life. It was hard, although not because of her words. I had come to peace with what she had done, in a way. It was hard because of the pain on their faces.
“You should have told us, Snow,” Dante said hoarsely.
“Maybe,” I agreed. “I couldn’t.”
“Of course you couldn’t,” Mrs. C said. “I wish I’d been stronger. You were too young, Dante, and I was too caught up in my own sadness to realize what she did. Should have known…”
“Should have known what?” I asked.
“She was never strong, Snow. Always emotional. Always unsure of herself. We were so happy when she met Oskar. She changed when they got together, and even more when she had you. She was so happy when you were born. They both were, and she seemed to become stronger. We all thought…”
She shook her head sadly and sighed.
“Was she crazy?” I whispered, voicing my worst fear.
What if I had that in my heritage from her?
“No, baby-girl, not at all. Her soul was just soft, that’s all.”
I looked at the older woman, and there was compassion in her eyes, but also strength. We weren’t related, not technically, but not all your heritage came to you by blood. I had some of her in me too.
“That’s what Da used to say,” I said, swallowed and admitted, “Part of me still hate her for what she did. What she said to me, but mostly because she took all those pills.”
“Of course you do,” Mrs. C murmured. “She wasn’t strong enough to hold it together and even worse, she wasn’t strong enough to hold it together for you. I’m still angry at her too, but mostly, I have forgiven her for not finding it in herself to ask for help. Perhaps one day you can do that too.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “I didn’t ask for help either, though.”
To my surprise, she suddenly chuckled.
“Yes, you did. You just didn’t recognize what you did, but the ones around you got it, and they responded.” She stretched out a hand and put it on Dante’s. “Dante. Your bird. That young man of yours. Hawker Johns.”
“What?”
I had certainly not reached out to Hawker, and over the years he’d been a constant annoyance in my life.
“It gave you a purpose, didn’t it? To hate him and everything he stood for? He got that and gave you what you needed. Don’t you think he could have brought you to Norton when your mama died?”
I blinked, and my jaw went slack, but she pursed her mouth a little and went on.
“That man has powers way beyond what’s healthy for him, but he’s wiser than I gave him credit for.”
Yikes. That was quite a compliment from my rather cantankerous grandmother.
“I wished I could have helped you more,” Dante said.
“Dante, no,” I protested. “Please don’t blame yourself. You gave me everything I let you give me. Maybe if I’d told everyone, and we’d talked about it… But I made a choice not to put that burden on you, and it’s not like I have had a bad life. Most of it was good.”
I paused and looked up at the sky. She was there, just as I knew she would be. Like she always was.
“I had my bird,” I said and felt my mouth form a smile.
“Totally,” she replied, and I laughed.
“And now I have Nicky,” I added.
“He knows everything?” Mrs. C asked.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“More than good,” I said. “He has his demons to battle, and I have mine. Don’t know why we fit, but we do, in a big way. I love him.”
“Good,” Mrs. C repeated calmly, but I saw her swallow.
“I’m happy,” I said and leaned forward to give her a hug.
Then I went to my sweet cousin and stepped into his arms.
“I’m happy,” I repeated, reassuring him of a fact he surely knew already.
“Then I’m happy too,” he murmured into my hair.
We sat together, talking about Marshes and what Nick and I would do on the Islands. Olly joined us after a while, and the others came back. It was sweet to spend time with my family, so I was almost disappointed when Mrs. C suddenly looked at her watch and told us we had to get ready for the celebration.
Nick had slung a camera bag over his shoulder, and his hand twitched toward it when we approached the restaurant. It was packed with people, and the band had started to tune their instruments.
“It’s okay if you want to take some pictures,” I said.
“I’ll wait. Let’s walk in there together,” he said. “If no one minds, I’ll take some shots later.”
“I don’t care if they mind,” I said. “It’s who you are, and it saved you, so if anyone complains, then I’ll just glare at them until they stop.”
He stopped and looked at me.
“Saved me?”
“You thought you had no emotions, Nicky, but you did. They were pushed so far back that you didn’t realize they were there, but they were. They’re visible in every picture you took. Every single one is full of emotions that you just didn’t know you had. I hate them for what they did, but they didn’t break you. Not the core of who you were, or who you are.”
His eyes changed, and I smiled up at him.
“Love you,” I murmured.
He didn’t reply. Instead, he kissed me.
“Jesus, man,” Dante sighed. “A little less tongue in front of her family would be appreciated.”
Nick’s mouth hadn’t left mine when he started laughing, and I smiled into his beautiful eyes.
“Let’s go dancing,” I murmured.
“Absolutely,” he said. “I love to dance, always have.”
When Mrs. C and Jiminella started laughing, he raised his brows, but Dante had clearly had enough and shuffled us into the restaurant.
It was no surprise that Nick was a great dancer.
It was a, however, huge surprise to watch my cousin from the mountains on the dance floor.
Olly had moves that were similar to Miller’s, although slightly less provocative. As soon as the ladies in Marshes noticed the way he rolled his hips to the beat of the music, they moved in,
though, and he could have said no but he didn’t. Nick and I gave up after a while, and stood to the side, watching how Olly shuffled around the dance floor. He was moving his big body in a series of confident moves that were seriously cool, and the smirk on his face told me how much he enjoyed the surprise he’d given us.
“I wonder if Miller’s mama taught him,” I said.
“Huh?” Nick said and pulled my back closer to his chest, leaning in to hear what I said.
I grinned up at him and made a small shimmy downward, and then up again. My behind was swaying against him, and his eyes darkened.
“Three more days,” he said.
“What was that?” Jiminella said next to us.
“Nothing,” I said innocently.
“Three more days of what?” she insisted.
I recognized the look on her face and decided that it would be better to tell her. It didn’t matter if she knew what we were talking about, and she was anyway a licensed MD herself so she’d understand.
“Jamie said to wait eight weeks with, uh… activities,” I wiggled my brows a little and grinned. “Only three days left of the eight weeks.”
Her mouth fell open, and she frowned. Well, crap, I thought. Maybe she did mind knowing this about us.
“Jamie,” she barked, looking around until she found him. “Get your butt over here.”
He did, mostly because the tone of her voice was not the kind anyone would disobey.
“You told them to wait for eight weeks until they had sex?” she asked.
“Jinx,” Nick groaned, most likely hoping that she would lower her voice.
Jamie suddenly pressed his lips together, and then he murmured, “Maybe?”
What?
“Eight weeks?” Jiminella asked again.
“He did,” Nick said, but he had straightened and glared at his cousin.
“I was pissed, man. Can you blame me?” Jamie snorted.
What in the hell?
“We didn’t have to wait?” I asked weakly.
“Not really, no,” Jamie said with a crooked grin.
I turned to Nick, but he was still looking at Jamie. After a while, he sighed and shook his head.
