Twisted i-3

by Gena Showalter

  Blink, blink. “I…I don’t understand.”

  “Well, understand this—he deserved better than you. A lot better.”

  Now Joe bolted to his feet. “You have no idea what I went through when—”

  “Make all the excuses you want. It won’t change the facts. You didn’t protect your own son. You’re greedy, selfish and an all-around bastard. Now give me your shirt.”

  The swift subject change threw the guy for a loop. “What?”

  “You heard me. Give me your shirt. Don’t make me say it again. You won’t like the results.”

  Joe jerked the material over his head and tossed it at him. “There. Happy?”

  Riley caught it. “Not even.” There were thick scars all over Joe’s chest—scars in the pattern of claw marks. There were also other wards, and Riley recognized the biggest. It was an alert. Whenever danger approached, his entire body would vibrate. No wonder he’d known to run when Riley neared. “Understand this, Joe Stone. If we want to talk to you again, there’s no place you’ll be able to hide now.” He brought the shirt to his nose and sniffed. Though he could no longer shift and didn’t know if he could track, his brothers could still do both. “We’ve got your scent.”

  With that, he, too, walked away.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE REST OF THE DAY, the entire night, and most of the next morning, Aden spent locked inside another motel room with Victoria, Mary Ann and Riley. They pored through the photos and papers Tonya Smart had given them, taking only a few breaks to eat or stretch their legs.

  Aden pounded back a pint of Victoria’s blood, appeasing Junior, Victoria downed a pint of his and a Big Mac, Mary Ann three Big Macs, and Riley a chicken nugget Happy Meal.

  When teased, he’d said, “What? I like chicken,” then went back to scowling at everyone and generally acting as if he was on his period.

  No one mentioned Riley’s wolf. Maybe because they knew the top of his head would explode. And no one mentioned Joe. Not even the souls. Maybe because they knew the top of Aden’s head would explode.

  Joe. His father. He’d looked into those dark gray eyes, and he’d known. Part of him had even recognized the man. His father, he thought again. His. Father. The man who’d given him up. The man who hadn’t loved him enough to keep him. The man who had thrown him to the wolves—literally. The man who had admitted the truth only upon threat of death.

  If he’d shown any hint of remorse…but no, Joe Stone was ashamed of who and what Aden was, even denying him the opportunity to see his mother, his sister. And now Aden felt as if he were bleeding inside. Bleeding and unable to suture the wound. There was a steady drip, drip inside him. He had a sister; Riley had seen her toys. Joe apparently loved the little girl in a way he’d never loved Aden.

  Drip, drip.

  For years he’d dreamed about meeting his parents. About his dad coming to his rescue, telling him how much of a mistake letting him go had been, about how loved he was. Then, when none of that had happened, the want had sharpened into indifference, and eventually the indifference into dislike.

  One look at Joe and the want had returned.

  Yet no matter what Aden had said, Joe had regarded him as a liability. I’ve made something of myself, he’d wanted to say. I’m king of the vampires now. More than that, I earned the title. It wasn’t handed to me. Would his father have regarded him with horror then? Probably.

  That wouldn’t stop him from wanting to be king. Or acting as king. Already he’d gotten texts from Sorin and Seth. Shannon sat in his cell and stared at the wall—until someone entered with blood for him. Then he attacked. Ryder was on the mend, yet inconsolable about what he’d done, and begged everyone who approached him to kill him.

  Sorin wanted to grant his request; Seth wanted to eliminate Sorin.

  Aden had commanded them both to leave the boy alone and let him heal. Oh, yeah. And to suck it. They were supposed to help him, not hinder him.

  Hey, I think I know them, Julian said excitedly, cutting into Aden’s thoughts.

  Focus, he had to focus. He peered down at the photo in his hand and saw two men. Both were of average height. One had thinning dark hair and glasses, the other had a full head of dark hair and no glasses. They were standing side by side, though they weren’t touching. Or smiling. The back of the photo read Daniel and Robert.

  So. Here were the Smart brothers.

  Do you think that’s really me? Julian asked. The one with the hair and without glasses, I mean. I would not have sported a comb-over.

  How do you know? Caleb asked. Or rather, grumbled. But at least he wasn’t crying. We don’t know anything about our former selves.

  “I’m glad you recognize the guys, but do you remember anything about them?” Aden asked. “Or why there are spell books in this box?” Lots of spell books. And the papers? All about casting spells. Love spells, black magic spells. Spells to raise the dead. Spells to find the dead. Was that how Robert had done what he’d done?

  If so, why didn’t Aden need spells to do what he did? Joe had claimed even his grandfather had used magic. Julian sighed. No. I don’t remember.

  Eve hadn’t, either. Not at first.

  Still. It was only a matter of time now.

  “And the Boy King is back from la-la land,” Riley muttered.

  Boy King? Aden flipped him off, and Victoria batted his hand to the mattress. They were on one bed, and Riley and Mary Ann were on the other. Since leaving Joe’s house, the pair hadn’t spoken a single word to each other. They were stiff, unwilling to even glance at each other.

  “Julian thinks he knows these guys. So, who’s who?”

  A yawning Mary Ann stood and clomped over to study the photo. “I saw pictures of Daniel on the internet. That’s him, and that’s Robert.”

  No way, Julian said.

  Caleb snickered, and Aden was heartened by the sound. If Julian was Robert, as Mary Ann suspected, then Julian had indeed been the guy with thinning hair and glasses.

  “He was known for communicating with the dead and helping the police find bodies. I printed out a few stories.” She dug through a nylon bag Riley had fetched earlier and handed Aden a thick stack of papers. “Should have given these to you before. Sorry.”

  “No problem. We’ve all been pretty busy.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “For you to absorb his soul into your mind, he would have had to die near the hospital. Which makes sense. His brother worked there, so Robert was probably visiting Daniel. What if he visited, raised one of the corpses in the morgue, and that corpse killed them both?”

  “From what you told me before, only Daniel was found dead in the hospital that night,” Riley said. “And he’d been mauled to death.”

  “Right,” Mary Ann agreed.

  Well, well. Conversation.

  Riley raised his arms as if she’d just made his point for him. “So where was Robert’s body?”

  “Never found.” She shrugged. “He just disappeared.”

  “Well, he had to have died that night, too. And nearby, just as you said, or Aden wouldn’t have absorbed him,” Victoria said.

  “What if Aden absorbed Daniel?” Riley asked.

  Julian grabbed onto that rationale like a lifeline. The one with the hair? I’m liking Riley’s theory.

  “But Daniel had worked at the hospital for years,” Mary Ann replied. “Why hadn’t he raised the dead before then? Someone would have noticed.”

  Riley arched a brow, looking her up and down with a darkness Aden had never before seen from him. “Maybe he had latent abilities. It happens.”

  She popped her jaw. “Maybe. So?”

  So, they all knew he was referring to her draining.

  “Please don’t make me referee,” Aden told them. “Anyway, I think we can all agree Julian was one of the Smart brothers.”

  If by one of you mean the handsome one, then yes, I agree, Julian said.

  Junior made a mewling sound in the back of Aden’s mind. The
ever-growing monster was hungry. Again. And he was getting harder and harder to appease, craving more and at shorter intervals.

  “I’ll read the stories,” Aden said, “and see if anything jumps out at Julian.”

  “Going back in time helped Eve remember,” Mary Ann reminded him. “Maybe you should let Julian take over and take you back and relive one of the stories through his eyes.”

  Time travel. Nearly everyone in this room had suggested he go back at some point, and he couldn’t seem to make them understand the consequences. “Change something in the past, and you change something in the future—a something that could leave you snot-crying for what used to be.”

  “Look at us, Aden,” Mary Ann said. “Can things get any worse than this?”

  “Yes.” Indubitably.

  “Well, I don’t see how.”

  Okay, how about this? “I could wake up and never have come to Crossroads. Never have met you.”

  Dark hope turned her eyes into fathomless pools. “Maybe that would be a good thing.”

  Victoria’s chin trembled, as if she was fighting tears. “She’s right. If you had not come to Crossroads, my father would not be after you.”

  “Think about it, Aden,” Riley said.

  What was this? Gang up on Aden hour? “There’s another way to help Julian,” he said. “And we’re all going to be fine. Aren’t we, Elijah?”

  Silence.

  Hated silence.

  “Talk to me, please.” He hunched forward, resting his face in his upraised hands. “At the very least, argue the pros and cons of what they’re wanting.” Not that Aden would ever consider going back. “Don’t just leave me hanging.”

  A sigh, familiar, adored, necessary. I’m not going to tell you what I’ve seen, Aden.

  Finally, a response, and Aden was as relieved as he was irritated. After all this time, that’s what Elijah had to say? “So you’ve seen…what? What happens if I go back? What happens if I don’t? The end of this entire mess?” He was used to hiding his conversations with the souls, yet here he was, talking as if the souls were in the room, too, and he wasn’t embarrassed.

  He knew why. He was going to lose them and was savoring every moment he had with them. Another sigh. Yes. I’ve seen the end.

  Stuttering heart, sweating palms, blood going cold in his veins. “What is it? What happens?”

  Another dose of the silent treatment. Maybe they’d time-traveled back to five minutes ago, he thought bitterly. “Help me, Elijah. Please.” Otherwise I’ll have to try and force a vision, he thought.

  My refusal is helping you. I’ve been getting things wrong, Aden. Leading you in the wrong direction, making things worse.

  “Not every time.”

  Even once is too many.

  Junior growled.

  All kinds of sweetness suddenly filled Aden’s nose. He lifted his head. Victoria had scooted closer to him, was tracing her fingertips up and down his arm. As they were, he had a direct view of her thrashing pulse, the scabbed-over punctures in her neck. His mouth was a waterfall, but he would not let himself go corncob on her vein.

  “We’ll revisit the time-travel thing later.” Riley lumbered from his bed. “Right now, I want to see the wards on your head.”

  If by “later” he meant “never,” then yeah, Aden was on board with that plan. Elijah hadn’t told him anything useful. And until Aden attempted a vision on his own, well, there was no reason good enough to give himself a second chance to screw everything up.

  The scent of Victoria’s sweetness was replaced by the earthiness of Riley’s as the shifter—ex-shifter—loomed over him. Hard fingers combed through his hair, tugging at the strands.

  Riley said, “They’ve faded quite a bit and worked longer than they should have, but I know what they are. Joe wasn’t lying. These stopped you from being mobbed by creatures.”

  “Until I met Mary Ann.” Joe had expected Aden to be grateful about that. As if that were enough. Why couldn’t he have loved me?

  “The explosion of energy, or whatever it was,” Mary Ann said, nodding her head. “That’s what stopped the wards from working, guaranteed.”

  Riley let Aden go and plopped beside Victoria.

  She rested her head on the wide berth of his shoulder. “The magic you guys created together must have overpowered the one Aden’s dad, a mere human, created,” she said.

  “Don’t call him that,” he snapped. “His name is Joe.” Seeing Victoria and Riley together always roused his jealousy. But just then, he experienced something more. Their ease with each other, their taking comfort from each other…disturbed him.

  Her cheeks leached of color. “I’m sorry.”

  Great. Now he was taking his bad mood out on her. “No need to be sorry. I shouldn’t have reacted like that.” As he spoke, he watched as Riley rubbed her arm up and down. Again he was struck by their ease with each other.

  That should be me. Instead, they relied on each other. Had for years. Decades. Another thought hit him, a subject that had been bothering him since it had first come up, a subject he’d buried as more important issues arose. A subject he couldn’t dismiss at the moment.

  When Victoria had wanted to rid herself of her virginity, so that her first time would not be with the guy her father had picked out for her, she would have gone to…

  Riley.

  Only Riley.

  Aden jackknifed to his feet, his hands fisting, Junior’s growling more pronounced. And that’s when Aden knew beyond a doubt. Junior wasn’t just hungry. He truly was reacting to Aden’s emotions.

  “Aden, your eyes,” Victoria gasped out. “They’re violet, glowing.”

  “Get your hands off her,” he said, shocked by his voice. Layered, one his own, one raspy with smoke. Both enraged. “Now.”

  Riley’s eyes narrowed. At first, that was his only reaction. Then, he dropped his arm at his side and stood. “Yes, my king. Whatever you wish, my king. Anything else, my king?”

  “Riley,” Victoria said, her gaze never leaving Aden. “Leave the room. Please. Mary Ann, make him leave the room.”

  Riley just stood there. Mary Ann jumped into action, at least. She grabbed Riley’s hand and tugged him out the door. He didn’t resist, and a second later, there was an ominous click.

  “You know,” Victoria said, wringing her hands.

  “I know.” Harsh, menacing.

  “I—”

  “Don’t want to hear it.” Aden swiped up the box of papers and books, stalked to the bathroom, slammed the door behind him. On top of everything he was already dealing with, his girlfriend had slept with one of his friends. A long time ago, sure. But he’d always comforted himself with the fact that Riley and Victoria were friends, only friends. Now he couldn’t do that.

  He wanted to beat Riley’s face into pulp. Instead, he closed the lid on the toilet, sat down, and dropped the box between his feet.

  “See that one coming, Elijah?” he sneered.

  No reply. Of course.

  You can’t blame Victoria for— Julian began.

  “I don’t want to hear from you, either. Let’s just go over this crap and figure out who you were. Okay? All right?”

  Silence.

  Silence he was suddenly grateful for. At least he hadn’t actually seen Victoria in bed with Riley, at least Edina had taken center stage in each of those visions. Visions. The perfect distraction. Maybe now was the time to try and force one.

  Or not, he thought half an hour later as sweat poured down his chest. His turbulent emotions had interfered, preventing him from making any headway. Whatever. He’d try again later. As for now, he picked up one of the books and started reading.

  OUTSIDE, COLD AIR BITING at her with teeth she couldn’t see, Mary Ann whirled to face Riley. “What was that about?”

  His expression was hard, completely blocking her out. “Nothing.”

  Nothing. Oh, really? “Do you hate me now? Is that why you won’t talk to me or tell me the truth? Should I
take off again?” The moment she realized what she’d said, she wanted to snatch the words back. What if his reply was an unwavering yes?

  Wary, he scrubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t hate you.”

  No mention of the other thing, she noted. “Do you resent me? Is that why you can barely look at me? Why you won’t talk to me? Why you offer Victoria comfort but not me?”

  One of his brows arched. “Do you need comfort?”

  Something else of note: that wasn’t an offer.

  She’d hurt him. She’d destroyed his life. And there was nothing she could do to make it up to him. She knew that. But that didn’t stop her from loving him. From wishing things were different.

  “No,” she lied. “I don’t need comfort.” She wanted to lean her head on his shoulder, that strong, strong shoulder, exactly as Victoria had done.

  “You’ll want to answer differently in a few seconds,” a male voice said. A voice she recognized. Tucker’s voice.

  Riley spun, but the demon was nowhere to be seen.

  Before fear had time to set in, a strong arm wound around her waist, and another around her neck. Cold steel pressed into her vein. “Riley,” she gasped out.

  He peered over her shoulder, his eyes narrowing. “Let her go.”

  “We’ve gotta talk,” Tucker said. “All of us. Preferably alive, but I’m open to negotiation.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ANYTHING YET?

  “No.”

  Well, look again.

  “I’ve looked eight times already.”

  Look again.

  “How many times can we have this conversation, Julian?”

  Let’s not find out. Let’s look. Again.

  Aden ground his teeth. He’d left the toilet a few seconds ago, and now crouched on the floor. His head fell back, resting on the cool porcelain of the tub, and he stared up at the ceiling. Frustration was eating at him, but he once again thumbed through the papers he’d brought with him.