“Ada—”
“No. I’m not humiliating myself in front of the entire congregation.” She hated the way her voice quivered and hands shook as she talked. “If you want to punish me, you’re going to have to think of another way to do it.”
The room once again fell silent except for the sound of her mother weeping not-so-silently into a napkin. Amazingly, Ada wasn’t crying anymore. She was anxious and half-terrified, but the shame and embarrassment were beginning to fade under the growing pride over finally standing up for herself.
Up until this point, Marsden had sat and watched her unfolding family drama with an impassive face. It was almost as if he wasn’t really there or involved in anyway. But as Ada waited for her father to decide her fate, the expression on Marsden’s face changed from casual observer to smug superiority. When he opened his mouth, she knew she wasn’t going to like what came out.
“I can’t live with this guilt, Ada,” he said. “God knows I didn’t intend to sin, but I did, and now it’s eating at my soul. I have to go before the congregation. I have to. God has put it in my heart, and I can’t turn away from Him again.”
It was like she was trapped in one of those horrible videos her Sunday school teacher made them watch to learn how to deal when Satan “came at you” out there in “the real world.” Those Sunday school classes were always the hardest for Ada to handle. Between the horrible dialogue, bad acting, eye-roll inducing plots, and Mr. Jim’s fondness of air quotes, she would have to dig her nonexistent fingernails into her palms to keep from screaming. She thought nothing could be worse, but she was wrong. Having her life turned into one of those ridiculous plots and having to listen to Marsden spout off some cheesy-ass lines he had probably been planning for hours was much, much worse.
“You know it’s the right thing to do,” he said, his voice ten times more irritating than nails on a chalkboard. “Come with me, Ada.”
“No.” She wondered how many times she was going to have to say it before they understood. “If you want to go up there, then you’ll have to go alone.” Marden’s eyes widened slightly. “In fact,” the breath she drew into her lungs was ragged and shallow, “maybe we should both start doing our own things from here on out.”
“Doing our own things? Are you… Are you breaking up with me?”
She hadn’t planned on it, but she suddenly felt like someone took away the millstone she hadn’t realized Marsden slipped around her neck ages ago. How long had she wanted to do this without admitting it? At least a year, maybe longer. Maybe she’d never really wanted to be with him in the first place. He was her parents’ choice, not hers. If she had her choice, she would pick someone with a bit less piousness and a lot more actual personality. Someone who let her be herself and not the ideal everyone expected her to be. Someone who made her laugh.
Someone like Joshua the Immortal.
She shook off that unwanted thought and focused on the task at hand.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Marsden,” her mother said. “Ada didn’t mean it like that at all.”
“Actually, I did.” Her father open his mouth and she realized this was going to be next to impossible if she didn’t figure out a way to pull a Jesus card, and quick. “Don’t you see? Our relationship with each other is damaging our relationship with God.” Oh, yeah. That was good. “We need some time apart from each other to find our way back to Him.”
“Are you sure?” her father asked, probably already grieving the loss of the son he’d always wanted. “Is this really what God has put on your heart?”
“Yes.” Maybe God hadn’t put it there, but her heart was feeling it all the same. Maybe it would start cracking apart later when she realized her relationship with Mardsen was really and truly over, but she didn’t think so.
“Ada, you’re tired. It’s been a long couple of days with everything going on. I mean, you were the hospital at this time last night,” Marsden said, reaching for her hand, which she promptly snatched away. If she let him touch her, if she let him remind her how his hands were always warm and comforting against her always frozen fingers, she might lose her resolve. She shoved her hands in her pocket, silently telling her fingers they could get warm by marking “break up with someone” off her list. “Is this because of what happened last night?”
For a second, Ada thought he’d been talking about meeting Joshua. Luckily, she realized what he was really asking before she replied.
“No.” Well, maybe. Getting shot at definitely helped with her newfound courage, but it had nothing to do with her desire to finally detach herself from Marsden after years of them using each other to simply have something to do. “This has to do with what is right for me. And this,” she motioned between the two of them, “isn’t it anymore. Is it really working for you? I mean, seriously? Are you happy with me?”
Marsden was rarely at a loss for words, he could talk for days about himself, his former acting career, and how God had changed his life, but he had no reply to Ada’s questions. He sat there with his mouth partially open, like he was going to say something, but no words came out.
Ada could see a fresh argument forming in her father’s eyes, and her mother looked ready to jump in. Faced with the battle ahead, Ada’s body finally decided to let her feel the full impact of everything that had happened over the past two days. She was tired, too tired to deal, and so she took the coward’s way out. Giving into the whirl of emotions swirling inside, she let tears that were only part crocodile run down her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it. She wasn’t sorry she was doing what needed to be done, but she was sorry for how it all went down. “I’m sorry, but it’s over.” And then she ran from the room, wishing she could run so long and so far she could leave her life behind.
Chapter 8
Joshua felt as if God had abandoned him. How else would he have ended up at The Strip on the first Saturday in June along with every other person within a hundred mile radius?
“Remind me again why we’re doing this and not Makya?” he asked, referring to the Omega whose job it was to serve the Alpha Pack. Normally, he handled all the less glamorous aspects of being part of the ruling body of the Shifters and Seers, like standing in line for an hour to pick up food for an important meeting between the Alphas and some of the more powerful Pack Leaders from around the world.
Talley pushed her Jackie O sunglasses up onto the top of her head. “Makya is playing chauffeur to both the Perov Pack and Mancuso Pack today.” The breeze blew a swath of long black hair across her face. The sun seemed drawn to the wedding set on her left hand as she brushed it away. “And if I’m not mistaken, you volunteered for this particular mission. I could have handled it myself.”
She could have. As the Stella Polaris, aka the most badass of Seers, Talley Donovan was more than capable of taking care of herself. But Jase, her husband of six months, had trouble remembering such things. To him, she was a breakable woman he loved more than anything, including himself. With so many other Shifters and Seers gathering in Lake County, Jase was driving himself to distraction with worry over his wife. When she’d volunteered to head out and pick up the food, Joshua had tried to save his friend an afternoon of panic by suggesting he go along with her.
“Angel needed to get out,” he said, citing the other reason he’d agreed to come along. “No one knows quite how to treat the Alpha Female’s human sister.” Since female Shifters were generally considered impossible until Scout proved them wrong five years ago, most Shifters and Seers were still trying to figure out what to make of their new Alpha Female and her very human parents and sister. To say interactions had been awkward and the atmosphere strained over the last few days would be understating things quite a bit. “A dose of normalcy is good for the kid.”
The kid in question was sitting on the end of a picnic table, posing for a group of wiry-looking middle school boys standing nearby. Joshua fought hard to resist the urge to forcefully put the boys’ eyes and tongues back i
n their head where they belonged.
Talley took a step forward as the line moved for the first time in five minutes.
“This is really hard on her,” she said, and since Talley could see a person’s thoughts and emotions by touching them, it wasn’t just an arbitrary statement. “When I was thirteen, I couldn’t See anything yet and thought I was latent, but I always clung to the chance I might have powers someday. And I’d grown up knowing about Shifters and Seers, knowing someday Charlie and Jase would start Changing. But Angel’s been thrust into the middle of our world with no hope of ever being like us. She feels like a freak for not being an actual freak.”
“She does?” How could he have not known? Joshua and Angel might antagonize each other on an hourly basis, but they were as close to being siblings as you could get without sharing blood. If he’d known Angel was feeling like an outsider in her own family, he would have talked to her before now. “She’s never said anything,” he said, coming to his own defense even though he knew Talley would never accuse him of neglect.
“She hides it well. She doesn’t want to come off as the whiny little sister.”
Joshua raised an eyebrow, and Talley smiled at the irony along with him.
“It’s one of the reasons she’s so drawn to you and Maggie,” Talley said. “You guys aren’t really Shifters or Seers either. She sees you as allies.” Talley’s gaze floated somewhere above Joshua’s shoulder. “And speaking of allies…”
A scream Joshua recognized as Angel’s rose above the cacophony of voices. His hand was already reaching for the gun on his hip when a ribbon of long brown hair sprinted past him and plowed into Angel, who was holding out her arms, waiting for the embrace.
“Jesus,” a voice that shouldn’t have already sounded so familiar said. “You would think they hadn’t seen each other since they went off to war five years ago instead of just last Sunday.”
Something shockingly close to a blush warmed Joshua’s cheeks. “Ada Jessup,” he said, trying to sound smooth and cool, but coming across more like a school teacher calling roll. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Joshua…” Ada scrunched up her nose. “Do you have a last name?”
“Smith.”
“Of course it is.”
Joshua just smiled back at her. It was really all he was capable of at the moment. He should have been more cautious and reserved around her after last night, but something about her made him forget all about what he was supposed to do.
“Well, Joshua Smith, it is certainly nice to see you out on this nice, sun-shiny day.” Her eyes trailed down his body and back up again. “You certainly look as cool and non-shiny as ever.”
“You look quite lovely yourself.” She was wearing a low-cut green sundress that complimented her eyes, along with other attributes the Serenity Shores uniform kept hidden. Had he really thought she was average looking just last night? “Have you met Talley Donovan?”
Talley reached out and grabbed Ada’s hand before the girl could have a chance to refuse.
“You’re Kinsey’s sister, right?” Talley said, shaking Ada’s hand longer than was socially acceptable. “Nice to finally meet you. Angel talks about you all the time.”
Ada’s eyebrows crept up her forehead as she tried to extract her hand. “Really?”
“Yes, apparently you’re what a cool, older sibling is supposed to be like. Jase gets lectures on it quite often.”
Comprehension sparked in Ada’s eyes. “Oh, you’re Jase’s… ummm…”
“Wife?”
“Yeah, that.” Even a flustered, embarrassed Ada was adorable. “Sorry. It’s just weird to think about Jase having a wife.”
“Not nearly as weird as it is to be a wife,” Talley assured her. “It’s been half a year and I still sign my name ‘Talley Matthews’ nine times out of ten and can’t say ‘my husband’ out loud without laughing. It’s kinda Twilight Zoney.”
“Not as Twilight Zoney as Jase actually finding a decent woman to marry him,” Joshua said. “I’m still waiting for you to come to your senses.”
Talley snorted. “Says the boy who pushed us to get together in the first place. Don’t even try with me. I know you love him as much as I do.”
It was true. He did love Jase. After seven decades without a friend, finding one who was as close as a brother was at times overwhelming. When he’d hacked into the university’s computer system and assigned himself as Jase’s roommate, he hadn’t expected to like him. Everything he’d learned about Jase Donovan painted him as an arrogant prick, and Joshua’s first impression lined up with that evaluation pretty nicely. Then, Talley had shown up and everything Joshua thought he knew about his new roommate changed.
On the outside, Talley and Jase didn’t make a lot of sense. He was a star athlete with a horde of female admirers. She was smart, curvy, and shy. But once you saw them together, you knew.
At first, Joshua was drawn to the unfolding drama that was Talley and Jase’s unacknowledged attraction and love for one another. It was like an ABC Family drama playing out in his dorm room. By the time the two finally got around to throwing themselves at each other, he was emotionally invested in not only the relationship’s outcome, but the characters.
He’d intended on fading back into obscurity after he helped Scout and Liam take over the Alpha Pack, but the temptation to be near people who knew his truth was too strong. A week of healing turned into a month of helping the new Alphas get their legs underneath them, which turned into him swearing an allegiance to Scout and Liam and becoming one of the highest ranking members of of the Alpha Pack. It wasn’t a path he would have consciously chosen for himself, but he wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world. They had quite literally brought him into the light, giving him a place where he could exist without relying on the anonymity of the midnight crew to hide the fact he never aged. Jase, Talley, and the rest of the Alpha Pack had become his family, and if it was possible for him to give his life for them, he would.
So it was completely unimaginable he would put them all at risk by exposing himself to this girl who was smiling up at him as if he hadn’t told her he was a supernatural creature who couldn’t be killed. Yet, he knew if he had it to do all over again, he wouldn’t change a thing.
“It was nice meeting you, Talley,” Ada said, and with her show-me-all eyes, there was no doubt she meant it. “Buzzkill Boy,” she made a show of looking around at all the hot and sweaty people impatiently waiting in one line or another, “good to see you’re doing your job so well. Keep this up and you might get a promotion.”
“I do what I can.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to do.” She nodded at the picnic table where Angel and Kinsey were sitting with their heads bent together. They would take turns glancing over at the group of boys before whispering something and then erupting in giggles. “Those two are having too good of a time. I must relocate one to a church bazaar to squash any happy, fun-having thoughts she may be harboring.”
“You’re going so soon?” Joshua tucked his hands into his pocket to keep from reaching for her as she started to walk away. “What if I run into trouble? Someone might turn on some music or blow up a beach ball at any moment, and then we’ll have a party-atmosphere crisis on our hands. I can’t handle it on my own.”
Ada turned around and walked backwards as she talked. “Sorry, Buzzkill Boy. You’ll have to handle it this time. The short leash corporate put me on has been trimmed down, and if I’m not at the church in the next fifteen minutes, I turn back into a completely grounded pumpkin.” With a final wave, she turned to retrieve her sister. Joshua watched until the two of them were swallowed by the crowd before turning to meet Talley’s all-knowing gaze.
“You told her.”
Joshua scrubbed a hand over his eyes, hoping once his vision cleared he would be somewhere different than this place and conversation.
“She mostly figured it out for herself,” he told her, but it sounded weak even t
o his ears. The line moved forward, and he shuffled along with the rest of the masses, although food was now the absolute furthest thing from his mind. “Sometimes I wish you could See me as well as you do everyone else so you could dig into the hidden depths of my head and tell me what I’m really thinking.”
Talley reached up gave his cheek a grandmotherly pat. “I don’t need to See you to know what you’re thinking, Joshua. It’s written all over your face.”
“It is? Awesome. Could you maybe read me what it says?” He had kept his secret so long it no longer took effort. Telling it was harder than keeping it, yet last night the words had flowed freely. “I’ve put us all at risk, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why I did it.”
“I can’t tell if you’re honestly in denial, or if you just want me to think you’re in denial.”
“Denial of what?”
Talley twirled a piece of hair around her finger. “Have you ever seen a tree that kind of leans?” she said after a minute of deep thought. “It’s still rooted in the ground, but you just know all it’s going to take is one big gust of wind and it’s going to come crashing down?”
“I guess…”
“You’re that leaning-over, just-waiting-to-fall tree.”
Joshua thought about it, looked at it from a different angle, and then thought about it some more.
“I’m a tree?”
Talley nodded. “Yep.”
“A leaning tree?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That is getting ready to fall?”
“Yes. That’s you,” she said with an indulgent smile as if he was a small child who had been mildly clever.
“I’m guessing the falling part is the important part of this analogy?”
“Yep.”
Joshua had no idea where this was going. “Where exactly am I falling?” he asked.
Talley smiled her biggest smile. “In love with Ada Jessup, of course.”
Infinite Harmony Page 7
