“No.” He shrugged. “Unlike my sister, I prefer not to make a fool out of myself doing things I know I’m really not good at.”
I skated to the side. “She’s just in it for the guys.”
He pretended to cover his ears. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to think about my sister and guys.” Chad shuddered. “Oh, great. She’s got one cornered. Now I really will have to chaperone instead of pretending to.”
“Your parents are strict.” Mine were tough but not anything compared to the Lyons. They had five kids and they were determined to know where each one was at all times.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Hey, I hate screaming down at you. It’s rude. To quote my mother, ‘one should never shout at a girl.’”
“Well, then. If you won’t come down I’ll have to come up.” I turned to stare at my friend. She laughed at something Glen said. I wouldn’t take credit for their meeting. Glen would have worked it out himself. I had no doubt he’d set out to meet her. Still, it was nice to see her happy.
Someone should be. I blinked. Wasn’t I content? Hadn’t I just felt free?
I skated to the edge of the rink and maneuvered myself out of the small gate leading to the observation area. This wasn’t a place I knew very well. I lived forty-five minutes away, but we had a similar place down by us, too. When the rink was used for hockey, the bleachers up ahead were where the crowd who watched observed. Chad made his way around to meet me over there.
He sat down next to me on the bench while I pulled off my skates. “Where did you put your shoes?”
I pointed to them where they lay next to about a hundred other pairs waiting for their owners. Nodding, he brought them to me.
“Thanks, Chad. You’re nice.”
“You’re welcome.” I redressed my feet and stood up. “How long should we leave Flirty out there with Glen?”
“I just texted Micah. He’s going to come and watch her so she can have fun. Kind of rude she’s ditched you. Want me to go remind her of her manners?”
“No.” I laughed. Chad could have fallen from a fantasy novel with a knight in it. Some kind of Prince Charming for a lucky girl in college when he went the next year. In the meantime, my ridiculous heart had sped up when he’d said the word “Micah.” “But maybe you could give me a ride home or loan me your cell phone so I could call my dad? Mine has been temporarily removed from me.”
My parents hadn’t wanted Jason to be able to call, and they’d wanted to know exactly how often he tried to reach me. Also, anything he texted had become suspect in some kind of silent case they were making against him. The ice rink felt a million miles away from the Jason mess.
“Yes.” He stood up and offered me his hand. I took it, not sure why he thought I needed it to get up, but it would have been weird to not use the offered help since Chad would have been left standing with his hand out there hanging in the air.
“You’ll drive me, or you’ll lend me your phone?”
He grinned. “I’ll drive you.”
“It’s a real hike. Not anywhere near here. Are you sure?”
“Yeah, it’ll be great. I can open up the car on the highway, see how the baby does.”
The baby? “The what?”
“Oh.” He actually reddened, which seemed impressive considering his dark, olive-shaded skin. “My car. I built it, or, well, rebuilt it. It’s a 1963 Buick Riviera. When I got it, the car really belonged in a junkyard. But now? It drives beautifully and I restored its original black color. Wow. I just can’t believe how well it turned out.”
“Cool.” His whole being had altered. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d started bouncing from one foot to another. “I can’t drive yet. I have another year.”
“Right.” He rubbed his cheek. “You’re my sister’s age. Tia. Tia. Tia.”
I didn’t exactly know why he kept repeating his sister’s name but as we finally got to his car, I found myself impressed. I touched the hood of the black car. I didn’t know anything about old cars. Sometimes I’d see a lot of them driving down the highways together, all of them heading toward some kind of convention.
In my mind, it had been the kind of thing done by old men who were retired. Not guys on their way to college thanks to a scholarship given to them by Isaac Icahn.
“How did you start doing this?”
He smoothed his hand over his baby, not looking up at me. “I wanted a car, was supposed to get one. I’d never had a job. My parents wanted me to really study, to be the best possible student I could be. They promised me when the time came they’d work something out so I could have a car.”
I never faced these kinds of problems. God, I was so spoiled. I had just become small inside.
“And they didn’t.”
“No.” He shook his head. “My sister needed her tonsils out. The operation wasn’t entirely covered by insurance.” His gaze met mine and I felt a jolt in the darkness. “I didn’t mind. So what if I didn’t have a car? Lots of people have it much worse than I do. I’m really lucky, actually.”
“I know you are.” Chad held a steadiness I’d never seen in anyone else before. Had he always been like this? Shouldn’t he be quasirebellious like the rest of us?
“But my dad felt awful.” He shook his head, touching the top of the car again. “Micah had been working for years. He never listened to the “just study” order. He always did what he wanted. Clearly, he was going to get a car with his own cash. It would be years until I could earn it. His having one and me not bothered me more.”
“I bet. I don’t have siblings. It’s just me. So all I can do is imagine. I think I get it, anyway.”
“Now being alone is hard for me to contemplate.” He unlocked the car and then ran to the side before I could open my door to let me in. “There are so many people in my house. Who do you talk to?”
“My parents?”
He grinned before he shut the door and went around to his side of the car. “I’d get lonely, I think.”
“I’ve got nothing to compare it to.” I touched the dashboard. When was the last time I’d even been in a two-door car? “So you didn’t tell me yet how you got this.”
“Oh, right.” He shrugged. “My dad came home with this. He said we’d redo it together but then this strange case come onto his desk. Something to do with scientific fraud and chemical weapons. Scary stuff. I heard him telling my mother one night. He really didn’t have the time. I decided to teach myself to do it.”
“And you could? You bought a book or something and then figure out how to redo old cars?”
He ran a hand through his hair. Something about what I’d just said had lit him up. Chad practically glowed. “I did. Yes, and it turns out to be a very collectible car so if I wanted to, I could make a lot of money on it.”
“How did you afford the parts?” It couldn’t have been easy. Each small retouch must have had to be ordered.
“Micah became, how should I put this? Distracted. With other things. So I took over his job as a golf caddy and sometimes working as a waiter at the golf club. And I made enough, over time, I could have bought myself a decent used car.”
“Only you cared about this one by then.” I leaned back in the seat. “You could already see it for what it should be.”
“Yes.” He shook his head. “Tia’s age, right?”
I smiled. He seemed really preoccupied with my age and I had no idea why. “I’m a month older.”
“Not enough.” He looked away.
“For what?”
Just as he would have answered, a car pulled up next to us. Two doors opened almost simultaneously and Micah stepped out of the passenger side followed by a blonde from the driver’s. She laughed, throwing her head back.
“And my brother arrives.” Chad raised his eyebrows before rolling down the window. “Took you long enough.”
“We were across town and I wasn’t going to ask Pepper to rush through her meal.”
“Not wh
en she paid for it,” Chad muttered and I snorted, covering my mouth. So this was how Micah didn’t drive? Women lived to chauffeur him around?
“Nice to see you, Rachel.” Micah leaned against the car and winked at me. Heat infused my cheeks. Darn it. Why did he have to be so cute?
“Hi, Micah.” I bit down on my lip. “Tia’s inside with a guy named Glen.”
“Big brother told me over text. A guy, huh? Well, I’m going to have to check this loser out. See if he’s worthy of our little Tia. Don’t you worry. Chad will get you home safe. He’s steady as they go.”
Extending his hand to Pepper, who looked from my vantage point like she was five-foot-seven with a figure to die for, blond hair, and blue eyes—why did girls like her always get to have names like Pepper? They walked together toward the entrance of the rink.
Tia would not be happy to see him, not if he managed to embarrass her with Glen. I guess it wasn’t really my problem but still, I kind of felt sorry for Glen.
“You like Micah.” Chad started the car.
“I think he’s safe for me to like.” I almost gasped as I said these words. My mouth had decided to present me with new ideas before my brain had time to dwell on them.
“Because you just got dumped?” He pulled out into traffic, speeding up while he did.
“Actually, I broke up with Jason.” How had he gotten the impression I had been the one to be discarded?
“Then why do you feel badly about it?”
“Just because I decided it wasn’t working out doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to mourn the end of a significant relationship in my life. And it ended really messy.” Should I tell him? I kept talking. “He hit my dad.”
“He hit your dad?” His eyebrows rose. “Did I hear you correctly?”
I sat back more firmly in the seat. “Yep.”
“What’s the matter with him? Who hits the girl’s dad?”
I grinned. Chad had a way of saying things, even if they were things other people would say too, and they made me smile. Micah had been right. Chad Lyons could be called steady. Although I wouldn’t use steady as the word to describe him. Instead, I would say solid. Nothing bad would ever happen to a girl who stayed with him. When had I decided I liked such a feeling?
***
Now
I walked out into the clearing, flanked on either side by Micah and Chad. Micah’s face appeared blank. Whatever he thought about he’d hidden away somewhere and now I couldn’t read him at all. Chad’s eyebrows furrowed downward. He chewed on his lip. Something bothered him. In the distance, I could hear voices.
“Micah, can you let me speak to Chad for a moment?”
He nodded, looking between the two of us. “Yep.”
I stopped moving and Chad followed suit.
“You didn’t help Deacon to knock me out and turn me over to Icahn?”
Chad shook his head. “I did not. I’ll admit at first I was in on it but then I remembered you, remembered all this stuff. It’s my fault what happened. I assumed from the way he behaved Deacon had gotten on the same page. I didn’t know he was going to attack you.”
He reached out to touch the back of my head, rubbing the spot where Deacon had whacked me. I winced and he dropped his fingers.
“Headache?”
Until he mentioned it, I’d done a pretty good job of ignoring it. Now, however, the throbbing increased. “I guess.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.” I really was feeling horrible about a lot of things and there were some things I needed to say to him away from prying ears.
“Chad, I’d do it again. Erase everyone’s brains to bring you back. There shouldn’t be a world without you in it. We should make a law where you have to be alive for the world to spin on its axis.”
A tear slipped down his cheek and he batted it away. “Don’t. I’m not any more important than anyone else. I won’t have you making deals. If it’s either me or Icahn or me or whoever, you do what you have to do to get things straight.”
“I can’t promise you I won’t.” I took his hands. “I didn’t know sadness until I lost you.”
He touched the side of my cheek. “I’m just a clone. A duplicate copy.”
“You feel pretty real to me. Exactly the same as I remember.” I pulled him against me and reached up for a kiss. He didn’t disappoint me. His lips met my own and I sighed.
My memories of the last time we kissed had been so distorted by Icahn I wasn’t even certain if they were real. They may have happened in the car Chad built to take us to another habitat, or we may have kissed in the hallway of Redemption. Either way, I knew I liked it. In the time that was before, he had never placed his mouth against mine.
Chad being Chad, he would have thought me way too young. But not now. He’d approached me after my sixteenth birthday. Things were different in this world. Sixteen meant we were grown up. We could die side by side, killing the monsters.
We could love each other, too.
He grabbed the back of my neck and tugged me closer to him. Our lips parted and I could feel his rapid breath on my face. With my eyes closed—I must have done closed them at some point, although I didn’t remember when—the night felt like nothing more than Chad with his arms around me.
“Why did you talk to Micah instead of me?” His voice shook when he asked. “Have I lost you? Have you moved on?”
I opened my eyes to regard him. He still had his hand on the back of my neck. I moved my head forward until it lay over his heart. “What a ridiculous question.”
He stayed silent for a moment before he laughed, coming to kiss the top of my head. “It is not.”
“Micah is my friend. I needed someone less complicated than you. I thought you’d betrayed me. Imagine how much pain you would feel if I betrayed you.”
“I guess I don’t get women.” He nuzzled his nose against me. “Thank God Micah does, I suppose.”
“Oh, he really gets women.” I laughed and he joined me.
“When I was dead…so weird to say but I guess I’d better get used to it. When I was dead, did you move on? With Jason?”
“I did reconcile with him, for a little while. But I dreamed about you. Every night.”
“Can’t be angry at a guy for taking my girl when I wasn’t alive, can I?” He shook his head. “Which really sucks because I want to beat him into the ground for it.”
I leaned back to look at him. “Almost fell for Deacon, too.” I had, actually, but I wasn’t going to tell him again. I’d told them enough when I’d outed all of this by the fire. Some things didn’t have to be pointed out again. In fact, shouldn’t be. “You don’t need to worry about it, either. He just sided with Isaac Icahn. I think his behavior officially takes him off my list for potential dates.”
“You two,” Micah called out from up ahead. “If you don’t hurry up, they’re all going to come here looking for you.”
“Come on.” Chad took my hand. “There’s still so much stuff to do before we can ever rest.”
What else was new?
Chapter Fourteen
Chad squeezed my fingers as we approached the group. I knew all the people ahead of me, but it still felt like I’d stepped into a minefield.
Keith and Tiffany stood in the front, holding their son. There was no one to leave the baby with to keep him safe, I guessed. Keith nodded to me and a small amount of relief settled on my shoulders. If Keith could remember me, maybe there would be hope. The entire Lyons family had come, including Chad’s two younger brothers, whom they always tried to leave out of big events, for their protection. The whole family, except for Chad and Patrick, their father, had the same honey-brown hair. Chad and Patrick were dark. Carol, Chad’s mother, took one look at our joined hands, and nodded with a smile on her face.
I was glad she still approved of me, even after everything. I took in more people. Glen, next to Tia, which made me relieved. They’d been together for so long—longer than maybe even they knew. He’d bee
n terrible to me when we’d been in school together, studying to be Warriors. But now I liked and respected him. Besides, they had a child together, held tightly in Tia’s arms. If they could, they needed to figure how to work things out.
Teddy, who somehow always got stuck defending me when I got thrown in jail, nodded when I passed. Nearly the entire group had been with Micah and me when we’d blown up the Vampires. Except for Deacon, whose absence burned my soul. If nothing else, he’d been my confidant and I had always been there for him. Why didn’t he know what all these others seemed to?
I still had the ringing in my ears to show just how much Deacon hadn’t believed me.
I gulped as my gaze flew to the right. Both of my parents stood watching me. My father’s eyes were hooded; I couldn’t make out his thoughts. My mother stared straight at me, two continuous streams of tears passing down the sides of her face. Did they remember me or had someone told them I belonged to them and they’d come out to check it out for themselves?
Even though I would have loved to have continued to stand there squeezing Chad’s hand, I made myself let go. Some things had to be faced on my own.
Finding out if my parents remembered anything about me fell, for example.
My mother stepped forward first. I had to say something; I just had no idea what. “Listen….”
Cut off by an abrupt yank into my mother’s arms, I never got to finish what it was I would have said. Her body shook while she held me. Or maybe mine did. Low whispers from the crowd reached my ears. I couldn’t have cared less.
My mother held me. I sniffed, taking in her scent. Baby powder. How did she manage to get any, living as we did now? I didn’t care. She’d always smelled the same and still did. My mother, who had been dead, as far as I had known in this existence had been brought back because of a deal I’d made with a madman. My before-time memories were stronger now. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad about it.
Let them look.
“How didn’t I know you when I saw you?” She ran her hands through my hair. “I mean, I knew you looked familiar but I didn’t know you were my daughter. I’m the worst, Rachel. Please forgive me.”
The Warrior Page 71
