His voice is Mattie's. It causes my throat to tighten instantly. "Mattie?" I croak again, unable to say anything more.
Joplin stirs to life near us and climbs to his feet. He looks as surprised to be alive as I am and even more shocked to see Mattie. Mattie's eyes leave me for a moment and his expression changes in an instant from adoring to vengeful.
Mattie continues to hold me effortlessly with one arm while he lifts his other. In his palm, a marble-size ball of blue light forms and grows. It's looks like a perfect sphere of blown glass. As it gets bigger, I see inside the circle. White clouds swirl along with silvery shimmering bursts of energy.
Joplin sees it, too; he raises his hands out in front of him. "I was ordered to be here. It's not my fault!" The light in Mattie's hand continues to grow bigger and brighter, making Joplin more desperate. Panting, Joplin points at May. "She had you killed! It wasn't me! She wanted your girl dead, but you were hit instead!"
A snarl rips from Mattie, like something wild abides inside of him. Without a word, he winds his arm back and throws the orb at Joplin. It strikes him in the head, exploding his brains all over Tellico next to him. Joplin's body falls to the dock in a puddle of blood. Tellico sinks to his knees in supplication, but it does no good. Mattie throws another blue ball of light at him and he's nearly torn in half; pieces of him fall everywhere.
May pushes herself up from her sprawled position on the planks. She rises to her knees and bows her head to Mattie in surrender. "Matteyo, I'm the one who came to help you—" When light begins to form in Mattie's hand once more, May screeches, "You can't kill me, Matteyo! It'll be war." Fear and desperation drip from May as she wrings her hands, unsure of what he'll do.
Mattie growls in frustration before he grits his teeth. "Run, Maybelle," Mattie says with a look of pure malice, "run far away and hide until I forget about you."
May gets to her feet and does as he ordered. She runs past us, out over the water at a speed I can't even fathom. Her feet make small splashing sounds as rippling rings billow out in her path over the lake, but they quickly fade and disappear as if they were never there at all. It only takes her a few seconds to fade into the night.
"Are you hurt?" Mattie asks while his hands travel over my limbs in an assessing way.
I shake my head no, but my lips answer, "I don't know."
He buries his face in my neck, holding me like we're the only two here. "Violet," he says with his lips, nuzzling me. My body becomes alive in an instant, craving his touch. "You came for me."
"You can't be real," I murmur, my hand traces the muscular curve of his shoulder. My tears blind me.
"This is real. I'm real," Mattie assures me with a look of concern that melts my heart. "You saved me."
"How did I do that?" I ask.
"You reunited my spirit with my body when you poured my ashes into the lake."
His eyes are losing their glow, settling back to a normal hue. It reminds me that he's not the Mattie I know; he may be the same person, but he never showed me this side of himself before. He never trusted me with his secrets. "I missed you so much...but I've been missing a lie. I've been in love with a lie," I murmur. I'm trembling all over and I can't stop.
"Shhh, you're going into shock, Vi. You're safe now—everything will be okay—I'll take care of you. I'll fix everything. I promise." He kisses my temple, and strokes my hair.
I want to believe him. "You took all those bullets for me," I whisper.
His lips turn down in a grim line. "That should never have happened. I was blind. I underestimated my enemies. It won't happen again. From now on, you'll always be protected."
Clyde groans and tries to sit up, but he clutches his head and lays back down on the dock.
"Stay there, Clyde," Mattie orders with concern in his tone. "I'll be back shortly to help you. I'm just going to take Violet to the house." He moves at a speed that makes me dizzy. In an instant, we're on the porch. The glass door opens for us and he carries me over the threshold. Mattie places me gingerly on a leather chair with a matching ottoman. Taking the blanket from the arm of it, he lays it across my knees. He sinks down to my eye level and uses his finger to tuck my hair behind my ear.
"You're safe here, Vi. I won't let anyone hurt you. Do you understand?" he asks me gravely. I nod because my throat is so tight I can't speak. He places a kiss on my forehead, "Don't be afraid. I'll be right back."
I nod again. He immediately rises and is gone before I can blink. As soon as I realize that I'm alone, I put my hands to my face. It takes me a second to realize I'm crying. I pull my hands from my eyes and look around, spotting a box of tissues on the side table next to me. Reaching for it, my arm shakes so much I knock over a picture on the table. I pick it up to set it back where it had been until I notice it's a black and white picture of Mattie. I wipe my tears on my sleeve. He's standing in a field in front of an enormous zeppelin. Next to him is a bald man with spectacles and a white handlebar mustache. The caption reads, "With Ferdinand, 1910." My finger traces Mattie's young face, his three-piece suit, the chain of his watch fob that hangs from his vest pocket...the frame slips from my fingers and shatters on the floor.
Rising from the chair, I stumble toward the front door. A groan slips from me when Floyd's dismembered body in the foyer blocks my path. I look away from him as I skirt his blood and flee from the house.
I walk numbly by the open passenger door of the Escalade. When I realize my wallet is lying on the seat, I go back and pick it up. Looking in the back seat, the bottle of white wine peeks out at me from the brown bag. I take that, too. Moving away from Mattie's car, I unscrew the cap to the wine and take a deep sip. The headlights of May's Mercedes SUV blind me. I walk toward them.
When I get to May's car, I open the door and climb in. The keys are in the ignition. Starting the engine, I turn the truck around and miss Milligan's charred body by inches as I pull away from the house.
I should probably tell Mattie where I'm going, but he might try to talk me out of leaving, or stop me...and I have to go because, what do you say to someone who has lied to you about who he is? What do you say to that same person when he comes back from the dead and slaughters his enemies? Or, better yet, what do you say to an alien? Words fail me right now; I'll say the wrong thing.
The silence in the Mercedes is definitely unwelcome, so I flip on the stereo and put the accelerator to the floorboard. The car rattles as it hits rocks and branches with bone-jarring effects. I clutch the steering wheel tightly and concentrate on the obscure road. There is only one thing for which I'm fairly certain: I can't tell Stan or Dr. Gobel about this. They'll lock me up and I'll never see daylight again.
Through force of will, I make it to a paved street and turn onto it, pushing the SUV as fast as it'll go. Tears drip from my jaw onto my damp shirt; I wipe then away roughly with the back of my arm, but my eyes never leave the road. I'm having a hard time staying within the lines. I'm desperate to stop the car, but too afraid to ease my foot off the accelerator. I keep riding the snake of blacktop, following its serpentine twists and turns, looking for the tail of the beast so that I can get away.
Street lamps illuminate a town ahead, the lights from which blur and elongate as I drive past. My eyes grow heavy from fatigue. A car passing me, going the other direction, honks furiously as I drift into the opposite lane. I correct the wheel, dodging back onto the right side. Yellow snake eyes appear ahead; as they grow nearer, they morph into the neon sign of a motel. Unable to go further, I pull off the road and park in the lot near the office. It's a motor lodge; all the beige-colored doors on both levels face the wrap-around parking lot.
My forehead rests against the steering wheel as I gather the courage to exit the security of the car. After a minute of deep breathing, I lift my head, opening the car door and braving the short walk to the office. To my relief, the glass doors aren't automated. I pull one open; the scent of coffee stains the air. The lobby is like a fishbowl with picture windows on three sides.
I pass a rack of brochures by a fake potted plant and stop at the front desk. The night clerk is alone watching highlights of the Tigers' game on the news. He glances at me through black-rimmed glasses. I manage to mumble my way through procuring a room.
After I pass back the signed credit card receipt to him, he gives me a plastic key within a sleeve, saying, "Room 110—through the doors—turn right—straight down."
"Thank you," I murmur.
I exit the way I came in. Turning right, I pay attention to the numbers on the doors, watching them ascend as I pass each one. I stop in front of a door with a floodlight mounted above it. Locating room 110, I fumble with the keycard. A car door opens and closes near me.
"Violet," Mattie says softly from behind. My heart flutters with desire at the sound of his voice, and then it pumps harder with fear. The basic survival urge of fight or flight nearly overwhelms me. I have no fight left in me at the moment, so there is really only one option. I stiffen and hurriedly place the card in the lock, shoving the door open. "Wait, please!"
The anxiety in his voice makes me hesitate. I glance over my shoulder; he's still bare-chested, wearing the damp, gray dress pants that belonged to Ellis.
"How did you find me?" I ask, leaning against the doorframe for support.
"I've been following you since you left." He uses his thumb to point over his shoulder at his Escalade next to the Mercedes.
"I didn't see you."
"I didn't want to scare you, so I didn't use my headlights. I was afraid you'd wreck."
"Couldn't you just use your super-alien powers to levitate my car and save me?" I ask, my voice thin and raspy, sarcasm my only weapon.
"I don't know—maybe—I couldn't risk it. You're too important to me. I'm a little weak right now."
I pale because he's serious; the information unsettles me even more. "Are you okay?" I ask, worriedly.
He scoffs for a moment, highlighting the ridiculousness of my question, but answers, "I'm physically fine, just weaker than normal."
"Is Clyde okay?" I begin to panic. I left without finding out.
Mattie's eyebrows rise in surprise before he says reassuringly, "He'll be okay. He heals quickly. So-wah contacted Ned. He'll take care of him. Are you okay?" Mattie asks.
I shake my head. "I don't think so. No." My chin trembles for a moment before I clench my teeth and swallow past the lump in my throat. "I'm pretty sure I'm not okay. I don't think I can talk about it right now, Matteyo."
I make a move to enter the room, but pause and cringe in a bracing way when Mattie extends his hand to me and says, "Wait."
He reads my fear and lowers his hand, balling both of them in fists. The starkness of his gaze roots me where I am as he comes closer. His shoulders round protectively towards me as his face nears mine. "I'd never hurt you, Vi. Never."
I look into his blue eyes. His eyebrows rise slightly as he drinks in every inch of me, hesitating on the curvy parts of me that I know he likes the most. He's so incredibly handsome that the effect is nearly blinding. At a foot taller than me he oozes raw, masculine power. It used to thrill me, and at the same time it made me feel safe—to be held in his arms—so wanted—so beloved. A part of me is desperate to feel his touch again, even after everything that has happened tonight. Loving him is slowly unraveling me.
"Everyone thinks I'm crazy, Matt. I must be crazy," I say in a self-effacing way with a small hitch in my voice, "because the Mattie I knew would've told me who he was."
"I wanted to tell you." His hand reaches out, leaning forward and tucking my hair behind my ear. His fingers linger in it.
"Why didn't you?"
"I calculated the risk and it was too high. Losing you was something I couldn't afford."
"Why were you even with me? We're clearly not meant to be together."
He frowns at that. "Do you remember the day we met?" he asks, his finger moving from my hair to the sensitive spot behind my ear. The feeling of his skin on mine is primal; it causes my heart to skip a beat with a growing ache for him.
"Yes," I murmur. "I brought my students to tour your gaming facility at Source Products."
"You did something else. You brought a gift with you."
I color in embarrassment and look away. "I didn't know what to get you to thank you for the art grant you gave the school. I mean, what does one give a billionaire?" I ask softly.
He smiles for the first time and I have to reach out and place my hand on his outstretched arm to steady myself. He leans a bit closer to me, saying, "I was about to go into a meeting with several heads from the automotive industry when my assistant brought your box into my office. I told Fitch to keep whatever it was without even opening it, but he said he'd already seen what it was and that I might regret it. He was right. "
"It was just a small piece from the collection I was working on. It wasn't valuable," I say, thinking of the glass sphere that I'd made. I chose the orb for its symmetry and beautiful blue coloring; it had stratospheric cloud patterns woven into it and bursts of silver—my eyes open wide as a thought occurs to me.
"Yes," Mattie nods intuitively when he hears my deep intake of breath. "The piece of blown glass you made is the mirror image of my light."
"It's a coincidence," I breathe in a whisper, thinking about the light that grew in his palm this evening.
"I calculated the probability; let's just say it's not even in the universe of coincidence."
"Is that why you started pursuing me for a date?" I ask.
"No. It's why I skipped my meeting to find you in the building. I had to interrogate several of my employees to locate you. Everyone who played a part in transporting your gift from the front desk in the lobby was questioned thoroughly. I didn't really start stalking you until after we met on the tour."
"You mean when you pretended to be just another person taking the tour," I state, remembering how he had struck up a conversation with me as we walked from the lobby on the tour. He was charming and intelligent and so absolutely virile that I missed a lot of what the guide was saying, distracted as I was by his provocative gaze.
"It's a good thing I did," he smiles ruefully, "I had the hardest time talking to you after you found out who I was. It was like you swallowed broken glass."
"Extremely powerful men aren't really my type," I murmur.
"I know, you told me several times. I've never had to work so hard to get a date." He squeezes the back of my neck gently, triggering a carnal shiver to slip through me. I missed him so much. Him. This Mattie. Not the scary one at the lake.
"But you're so much more than what you've shown me, aren't you?" I challenge. "You're a ruler—you own slaves!" I say with tremendous disdain because it may be the worst offense in the litany of violations I've discovered.
"I own one slave," he corrects me. "Clyde. And I only bought him to protect him. If I hadn't, he'd be dead now. If I free him, they'll kill him without my name to protect him."
"Why?"
"He's the heir to another district. His family, the Parishes, were unseated. He's a threat to the new ruling family there. They want him dead. He's my friend; I'm not going to let that happen." The corner of his lip tightens with contempt for the situation.
I raise my hand to his face, smoothing the spot near his lip with my thumb. The action is completely involuntary. When I realize it, I drop my hand. I exhale a long breath before I shake my head. "This is all so crazy. You're like—" I struggle for a word.
"An alien," Mattie provides softly. "We prefer to be called 'Willas.'"
I nod solemnly. "Right...you're a Willa and I'm—what do you even see in me?"
"You're kidding, right?" he asks, like it's an insane question. When I just stare at him, he says, "You showed me how to love, Vi. I thought I was incapable of it."
My eyes narrow perceptibly. "That's because you'd been with May."
He shakes his head slowly, "No. It's because I hadn't met you—I wasn't with you. You're the variable in this scenario. You're eve
rything I could want. You're creative, intelligent—you have the best sense of humor. You're extremely beautiful and brave—loyal. After I found you, I would've done anything to protect my secret from you until I was positive you'd be able to handle it."
"What if I can't handle it?" I ask in a tormented whisper.
His legs spread to either side of mine. Heat warms me through my t-shirt as he places his hand on the small of my back. His fingers on my nape move to entangle in my hair. Leaning down, he rests his forehead against my brow. "You'll handle it. We're connected, you and I. You heard me calling for you. You came to find me. We're meant to be, Violet."
His forehead lifts from me as his lips draw nearer; mine part in response to their proximity. His mouth hovers a fraction away, but he doesn't kiss me. He waits.
A need inside me builds. I crave him so much it's a physical ache. It's more than lust. When he died, something shattered inside of me. Now that he's here, there's hope that what's broken can be mended.
Slowly, I inch forward. My breath catches when I feel the firmness of his lips against mine. It weakens my knees. I place my hand on his chest to steady myself; the strong beat of his heart plays for me beneath my fingertips. My face flushes. "Mattie," I say against his lips.
He deepens our kiss, pulling hard on my bottom lip so that I feel it in my core. "Don't ask me to let you go, Vi," he says with sultry roughness against my lips, "I won't."
Sliding his hand over me, he bends down and hooks it around the back of my knees, lifting me in his arms. He continues to kiss me senseless as he carries me over the threshold of my room, closing the door behind us with his foot. His elbow turns on the light. He walks unhurriedly to the bed; he's seemingly enjoying holding me in his arms as he devours my lips with his.
He lowers me to the mattress gently; my head rests with seductive comfort against the plump pillow. He sweeps loose strands of my brown hair back from my face; his body lingers decadently above mine, teasing me with his proximity. He lies beside me on the bed. We face each other. I know that I must have a starry-eyed look because, without him touching me, I'm having a problem again believing that he's real.
Take Me To Your Reader: An Otherworld Anthology Page 6
