by Gina LaManna
“Tell him I was crying like a baby all night,” Hettie said. “And you had to comfort me.”
“Or say that you wanted to wish me goodbye,” Ainsley offered. “Either way, go now. If you hurry, maybe you’ll beat him to the bungalow.”
I nodded. “Ainsley, I’ll see you soon?”
“You better believe it.” She gave me a hug, a ruffle of hair, and a kiss on the cheek. “Stay safe, boss.”
I bid goodbye to the rest of the group, and then wound my way through The Twist. By the time my feet reached the sand in front of the bungalow, I’d kicked off my flip-flops and fallen into an all-out sprint.
“You’re moving mighty fast.” The low voice rumbled off the front porch. “What’s got you flying, sweetheart?”
I stopped in my tracks, breathing heavily. I hadn’t seen Ranger X sitting in the shadows. “Nothing.”
Upon closer inspection, Ranger X wasn’t sitting, he was swinging lightly on the hammock hung across the porch. The very same hammock where we’d met, and he’d first fixed those brilliant eyes on me. Now, he sat with his feet up and his gaze resting on my face.
“I wasn’t flying. . . ” I took a few steps closer, dropping any sign of an excuse and heading straight for the apology. “I’m sorry, I stayed longer at Hettie’s. I should have sent you a Comm.”
He glanced at the sunrise.
My shoulders sank. “I know you asked me to be home, and I’m really sorry.”
Ranger X went back to swinging. He didn’t say a word for a long time, and that scared me more than if he’d raised his voice. The disappointment in the air between us was more unbearable than anything.
I should have just kept my mouth shut, but somehow, my brain thought that if I kept talking, it’d make things all better. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough.”
“An hour?”
He shrugged. “Does it matter? You weren’t here.”
“I said I’m sorry!” My voice came out clogged. That sinking feeling in my stomach had appeared, the same one that arrives when a police car shows up in the rearview mirror and flashes its lights. That sense of foreboding where bad things were coming and I couldn’t do anything to stop them. “I was at my grandmother’s house. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
He swung his feet to the ground, his black eyes fixed on me. “I didn’t say you were doing anything wrong.”
I met his stare, but his eyes were dull. More disappointment awaited every second I looked into his irises, so eventually I averted my gaze. “What are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything, Lily.” He crossed his hands over his knees, focusing on the ground as he pushed his body back and forth, back and forth on the hammock. “I’ll tell you exactly what I’m thinking.”
I bit my lip, waiting, steeling myself for whatever came next.
“I’m thinking that I’ve specifically asked you not to run across the island in the middle of the night by yourself. Why, Lily, why are you doing these things? I would have met you at The Twist! I would have held your hand all the way home. I’m doing my best to keep you safe, but you’re making it an incredibly hard job.”
I swallowed. “I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking.”
“I don’t believe that.” Still looking at the ground, Ranger X shook his head. “You’re a smart woman, and I’ve never once seen a moment where your brain has stopped churning at a hundred miles an hour. The question is what. What were you thinking about?”
The question sounded rhetorical, but his posture demanded an answer. When he looked up, his expression was raw, cautious—like dancing on the tip of the sword, just waiting for the hurt.
“Nothing,” I said again. “I’m sorry. I wanted to say goodbye to Ainsley, and Hettie. . . ”
The excuses fell flat on my lips. It felt disrespectful to lie so blatantly to Ranger X, so I didn’t. I didn’t speak at all. “I’ve told you about this before, and nothing has changed.”
“The thing you can’t talk about,” he said calmly, shifting his weight. “I thought you said you’d tell me everything tonight.”
“Everything I can,” I said. “And I will. Here is what I can tell you.”
I gave Ranger X credit for sitting patiently through my tale. True to my word, I filled him in on everything from my meeting with Liam to my trek with Ainsley to find the Witch of the Woods. The only details I left out were those involving The Core.
When I finished, Ranger X raised an eyebrow. “You told me all of that, and there is still more that I’m missing?”
I hesitated, and then gave a single nod.
“I’m trying to wrap my head around this.” Ranger X kneaded his forehead with his thumbs. “You—my girlfriend—didn’t mention until now that you went into The Forest—the most dangerous place on the entire island. You fought off blood magic at the hands of a powerful witch—and there’s still something worse that you can’t explain.”
“I didn’t say it was worse, just that I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
“Well, I can’t imagine how your secret can be better than all of that,” Ranger X said, slipping out of his professionalism and laying on the sarcasm. “I don’t know what to say anymore.”
“Don’t say anything, just. . . just trust me.”
“I do trust you! None of this has to do with trust.”
“Then what is it about?”
Ranger X stood, stretching his long legs to their full height. He was an intimidating creature, tall, handsome—ferocious in his anger. His suit was rumpled from the day’s work.
He held one hand out in front of him, gesturing toward the entire island. “I’ve been waiting here for hours. Waiting, sitting on the porch for my girlfriend, who said she’d meet me at home. Meanwhile, a killer is on the loose. Someone is working blood magic—the most powerful form of magic for which we have no antidote. We have no way to fight mind bending or to predict the next attack. We don’t know who is responsible for it, where they are, or why.”
“That sounds worse aloud than it did in my head.”
“—then I see you sprinting across the sand. Your hair. . . ” He stopped, held a hand over his lips as if it’d become too difficult to continue. When he finally spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “Your hair was whipping all around and you looked like a shooting star. You are rare, Lily—so very, very rare. Gorgeous, and smart, and good. And I’m the lucky man who gets to hold onto you for a brief moment in time. Shooting stars are hard to catch, Lily, and they’re even harder to keep.”
My throat closed up, and I could barely see for the tears in my eyes.
“But now that I’ve touched a shooting star, there isn’t another light in this entire universe that can make me happy.” Ranger X’s eyes glittered. “I will give everything for you. I have, and I will again, and again, and again until you understand that. But I need something back. Because if you didn’t come running across that sand tonight, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
“I’m sorry,” was all I could manage. “So sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” Ranger X shook his head. “I’m not looking for an apology. That’s the strange thing, Lily. I’d been sitting here fuming all night, angrier than I’ve ever been in my life. I couldn’t see straight, and then out of nowhere, you appear, and I forgot about all of that. Everything. The murders, the magic, the mayhem. My anger dissolved into happiness. Relief, maybe, and love. But mostly, happiness.”
My heart nearly burst as I listened to Ranger X’s words, but my body remained frozen in place.
“My heart stopped when I saw you. Frankly, it’s been doing that since the day I met you. By all accounts, I should be dead by now.” He offered the smallest of laughs. A forced laugh, but a good sign. “However, if you hadn’t returned tonight, I wouldn’t know how to live. Maybe my body would continue to exist, but a part of me would die. Whatever it is you unlocked in here.”
I stepped up to Ranger X, rested a hand on his chest. He
put his hand over mine and held it there, his touch warm against the cool breeze.
He gripped the back of my head with his hand, held me close to his shoulder. “Here’s the thing, Lily. I can’t bottle the magic of a shooting star—it’d ruin it. A light like you needs freedom, I understand that. I understand you’re smart, and that you have your own passions and hobbies and work.”
His hands ran over my back. I shivered, pressing further to him.
“What I can’t understand is why you won’t call me. Talk to me. Tell me your secrets and let me help you with them,” he said. “Why are you hiding things from me?”
I swallowed. Ashamed to admit it, I couldn’t help the thought as it flew into my head. In that moment, I hated Hettie. Hated The Core. Hated that fighting for good could cause so much bad in my life, so much hurt and anger. If I was on the side of good, then why did I feel evil?
“You have to trust me for a little bit longer,” I whispered. “Please.”
“Lily. . . ”
I didn’t have anything else to say. My lips, my fingers, my very spirit trembled at the secrets I was holding inside, so I took a step back. Ranger X’s arms struggled to hold me close, but I slipped away and ran through the front door, up the curling staircase, and into my room.
The tears fell freely as I reached into my closet for a nightshirt. I wouldn’t have bothered normally, but my clothes were so filthy I couldn’t possibly sleep in them. Sliding into the cool fabric, I listened for Ranger X’s footsteps, but there were none.
I climbed in bed, sitting up, waiting. For what, I wasn’t sure. I needed to lock the door, I knew, but it was essentially morning, the sun rising by the second. If I waited a little bit longer, Gus would arrive to open the storeroom.
My eyes turned heavy, and I slid under the comforter. As my head hit the pillow, the lock on the front door clicked shut.
I should have known that Ranger X would lock up. After all, he was a Ranger; safety was his first priority. Guilt weighed heavy on my conscious, and normally, I would’ve tossed and turned all night. Since night had nearly passed, I had no trouble letting my eyes close as I slipped into sleep.
Some time later, the bed indented behind me. I fell into a dreamlike state, neither awake nor sleeping, my eyes red from crying, lips parched.
It was him. Ranger X. He smelled like home, an unidentifiable scent that had me curling up next to him and breathing in deeply. My soul relaxed as we touched, his broad, solid chest comforting against my back.
“Gus will be here soon,” I said, my voice cracking. “You don’t have to stay.”
“I won’t leave you like this.”
Ranger X’s warm body against mine brought another lump to my throat. I prayed that Hettie would change her mind and open the group to X because I couldn’t do this for much longer.
He leaned over, pulled the blackout curtains shut, pitching the room into darkness. Even so, my eyes flew open and I stared straight ahead, my eyes focused on emptiness.
Minutes later, or maybe hours, he snuggled in against my neck. His lips touched my skin as he whispered. “My name is Cannon.”
I shivered, my mind going blank. During my first day on the island, Ranger X had told me that he’d never reveal his real name to me. Names meant power, and he hadn’t been ready to give it to me. The meaning behind his words sent tremors across my skin.
Because I understood that with this confession, he’d given me everything.
“The Ranger program is my life. I stumbled onto it during a difficult time, and. . . ” He paused to clear his throat. “And it saved me from a dark future.”
He left time for me to speak, but I couldn’t possibly find the right words, so I did as Ainsley suggested. I rolled over to face him, and I showed Ranger X with a long, tender kiss how much this moment meant to me.
He pulled away, lingering too close. Our lips brushed against one another, the threat of a kiss looming as he continued, “I am head over heels in love with a girl. I have never been in love before, I know that now. And that is absolutely everything that you need to know about me.”
My eyes stung. I longed to tell him my side, to open my soul and let all of the secrets spill out, but Hettie’s promise was fresh in my mind, and I couldn’t do it. So I spoke from the only place I could, the only place honest and real and raw. I spoke from my heart.
“I am a girl who’s confused,” I whispered. “I love a man more than anything in the world, more than anything I’ve ever loved combined. But I made a promise to someone important to me that I can’t break. I’m loyal, often to a fault, and I hope the man I love will trust me for just a few more days.”
Ranger X brought his lips to my forehead and left his mark there. “A few days.”
“Yes,” I breathed. “I promise.”
He wrapped me so, so close. “As long as I can have tonight.”
CHAPTER 26
When I awoke later in the morning, the indentation in the bed was fresh, but a part of my heart had gone. I ran a hand over the sheets, smoothing them, trying to sort through the emotions swirling in my stomach.
Eventually, I gave up putting a name to my feelings and swung my feet out of bed. I opened the closet, grateful for the Styling Spell that supplied me with an easy, prepared outfit. I was in no state to make a decision, my brain still exhausted from the late night.
I donned a pair of loose, flowing capris and a stretchy tank top. Leaving my feet bare I took the steps two at a time. If I hadn’t left my room, I would’ve crawled straight back into bed and allowed the world to survive on its own for another day.
Gus looked up from his work in the storeroom. He surveyed me, focusing on my eyes, which were probably red-rimmed and blotchy.
“Good morning,” he said, turning back to the plant he’d been dissecting.
I wanted to ask where he’d gone after the meeting last night, if he’d begun his work with Harpin, but I didn’t. Gus didn’t seem interested in talking, and I wasn’t interested in prying.
“There you are!” The cheeriest voice filtered through the open doorway. “How are you feeling, buttercup?”
Poppy bounded through the front door. With the minor exception of the lump on her forehead, she looked as bright and chipper as ever. She wore a lime green dress that twirled around her knees, her blonde hair glistening in the sunlight.
I forced a smile in return; Poppy had been there last night, and she wasn’t moping. “Hi yourself, you look great.”
“It’s a new day, the sun is shining. . . ” She grinned, and not for the first time, I wished for the smallest handful of her optimism. “Don’t you smell that fresh breeze? Come on, let’s go for a walk. Actually, nope. Scratch that. Why don’t you take a shower—please—you have dirt everywhere. I’m going to whip us up some breakfast.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary. I can cook something—” I began, but Poppy cut me off with a look.
She marched right up to me, rested a hand on my shoulder, and stuck her nose an inch from mine. “You listen to me, missy. You need a shower, food, and some fun. In that order. I’m the cure for your blues right now.”
“I don’t think now’s the time for all of that.” I looked at the ground as Poppy’s face fell. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her feelings; I just wasn’t in a mood for sunshine and rainbows.
“She’s right, you know,” Gus said. “Moping around ain’t gonna get you anywhere. Listen to her.”
I blinked back my surprise. The last time I’d heard Gus advocate for fun had been. . . well, never.
“See?” With renewed vigor, Poppy pinched my cheek. “Go on, girlfriend. If you’re not showered, smiling, and sitting on a barstool in twenty minutes, I’m coming into the shower myself, and nobody wants to see that.”
I laughed, then thanked Poppy and followed her instructions.
Twenty minutes later, I felt like a new woman. Never in a million years had I imagined a shower and a few bright words could turn my day around. I smiled as I
made my way into Magic & Mixology, all squeaky clean and bright-eyed. I’d even put on mascara.
“There’s my girl,” Poppy said, humming to herself behind the bar. “I’ve prepared breakfast.”
I followed her dramatic gesture to find two mimosas fizzing on the counter. “That’s not food.”
“It’s nourishment.” Poppy rolled her eyes. “For your soul.”
“Oh, naturally,” I said. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Drink it!”
“I have to work today,” I said. “Probably not the best idea.”
“Gus told you to listen to me. I’m here to cheer you up. It’s not healthy to be so sad all the time, Lily Locke. It’s times like these you have to remember the good.”
I slid onto the barstool. “How do you do it? After everything last night, and after everything with the Trials. How can you be so positive?”
“Well, hon, if the entire world turns to crap, I can’t do much about it. But I might as well enjoy the time I have left.” She gave me a smile, a twist of sarcasm in her words. Then she sighed, the smile falling from her face as she slid a hand around the base of her champagne glass. “It’s hard, sometimes.”
I clinked my glass against Poppy’s and took a sip.
“But there’s still so much to be happy about,” Poppy said, her voice thin, a little unsure. “I have you. I have my mother, and Trinket, and all of those rascals. Hettie and her craziness. I have two jobs that I love—I see my family every day, and I get to live on this crazy, magical island. Yes, there are terrible people here—but there are terrible people everywhere.”
I looked at the bar, focusing on the whimsical way Poppy’s words danced through space.
“That’s nothing new, Lily. There have always been bad people. Terrible people. Worse than The Faction, I’m sure of it,” she said with a sigh. “And I just have to believe that during those times there was someone—even one single person—who looked at the bright side. Who dug up hope when it was buried so far underground that nobody else could find it.”
