"Hey, she's not in charge here," I teased. "She's just a soldier."
"Right." He lightly brushed his fingers against my cheek. "Sorry, Captain."
"General," I corrected, catching my breath at that brief touch.
He gave Sonya a kind goodbye before disappearing into the house. She nodded, but I don't know if she really heard. Victor and Robert brought out two wooden kitchen chairs and set them in the shade. I chose a spot on the ground. Nobody spoke. It wasn't the weirdest thing I'd ever experienced, but it was certainly strange.
Sydney returned later with the groceries, and I briefly abandoned the group to check in with her. Victor's keys were lying back on the counter, which I took as a good sign. Sydney unloaded an assortment of food and handed me a box of a dozen donuts.
"Hope that's enough for you," she remarked.
I made a face at her presumption but took the donuts anyway. "Come on outside when you're done," I told her. "It's like the barbecue of the damned. Except . . . there's no grill."
She looked puzzled, but when she joined us later, she seemed to get what I'd been saying. Robert brought out a bowl of Cheerios, but neither Sydney nor Victor ate. I gave Sonya a donut, the first thing that took her attention from her yard. She held it in her hands, turning it over and over.
"I don't know if I can. I don't know if I can eat it."
"Of course you can." I recalled how Dimitri had regarded food uncertainly too. "It's chocolate-glazed. Good stuff."
She took a tentative, rabbit-sized bite. She chewed it a billion times and finally swallowed. She closed her eyes briefly and sighed. "Such sweetness." Slowly, she continued taking more tiny bites. It took forever for her to get halfway through the donut, and at that point, she finally stopped. I'd polished off three donuts by then, and my impatience to accomplish something was growing. Part of it was still the irritability from spirit, and part of it was just my continual restlessness to help Lissa.
"Sonya," I said pleasantly, fully aware of how pissed off Dimitri was going to be at me defying his instructions. "We wanted to talk to you about something."
"Mm-hmm," she said, gazing at bees hovering around some honeysuckle.
"Is there a relative of yours . . . someone who, uh, had a baby a while ago . . . ?"
"Sure," she said. One of the bees flew from the honeysuckle to a rose, and she never looked away. "Lots."
"Articulate, Rosemarie," remarked Victor. "Very articulate."
I bit my lip, knowing an outburst would upset Sonya. And probably Robert too.
"This would be a secret baby," I told her. "And you were the beneficiary on a bank account that took care of the baby . . . an account paid for by Eric Dragomir."
Sonya's head whipped toward me, and there was no dreamy absentmindedness in her blue eyes now. A few seconds passed before she spoke. Her voice was cold and hard—not a Strigoi voice, but definitely a back off voice. "No. I don't know anything about that."
"She's lying," said Robert.
"I didn't need any powers to figure that out," scoffed Sydney.
I ignored both of them. "Sonya, we know you know, and it's really important we find this baby . . . er, child. Person." We'd made guesses on the age but weren't 100 percent sure. "You said you were worried about Lissa earlier. This will help her. She needs to know. She needs to know she has another family member."
Sonya turned her attention back to the bees, but I knew she was no longer watching them. "I don't know anything." There was a trembling in her voice, and something told me that maybe I shouldn't push this after all. I couldn't tell if she was afraid or on the verge of rage.
"Then why were you on the account?" This came from Victor.
"I don't know anything," she repeated. Her voice could have made icicles form on the ornamental trees. "Nothing."
"Stop lying," snapped Victor. "You know something, and you're going to tell us."
"Hey!" I exclaimed. "Be quiet. You don't have interrogation rights here."
"You didn't seem to be doing a very good job."
"Just shut up, okay?" I looked back at Sonya, replacing my glare with a smile. "Please," I begged. "Lissa's in trouble. This will help her. I thought you said before that you wanted to help her?"
"I promised . . ." said Sonya. Her voice was so low, I could barely hear it.
"Promised what?" I asked. Patience, patience. I had to remain calm. I couldn't risk a breakdown.
She squeezed her eyes shut and raked her hands through her hair violently, almost like a child about to have a tantrum. "Promised not to tell. Promised not to tell anyone . . ."
I had the urge to run over and shake her. Patience, patience, I repeated to myself. Don't upset her. "We wouldn't ask you to break your promise if it wasn't important. Maybe . . . maybe you can get in touch with this person . . ." Who had she promised? Eric's mistress? "And see if it's okay to tell us?"
"Oh for God's sake," said Victor irritably. "This is ridiculous and getting us nowhere." He glanced at his brother. "Robert?"
Robert hadn't done much so far today, but at Victor's command, Robert leaned forward. "Sonya?"
Still obviously distraught, she turned to look at him . . . and her face went still.
"Tell us what we need to know," said Robert. His voice wasn't kind so much as smooth and lulling, with a faintly sinister touch. "Tell us who and where this child is. Tell us who the mother is."
This time, I did jump to my feet. Robert was using compulsion on her to get the answers. Sonya's eyes stayed locked on him, but her body began to shake. Her lips parted, though no sound came out. A tangle of thoughts swirled in my mind. Compulsion would get us what we needed to know, but something told me, it wasn't right—
Sonya stopped me from any more pondering. She shot up almost as quickly as I had. She was still staring at Robert, but no longer in that transfixed, hypnotized way. She'd broken the compulsion, and now . . . now she was pissed. The features that had been scared and fragile earlier were filled with fury. I had no magical senses, but after being with Lissa, I knew raging spirit when I saw it. Sonya was a bomb, about to explode.
"How dare you . . ." she hissed. "How dare you try to compel me?"
Plants and vines near Robert suddenly sprang to life, growing to impossible heights. They reached out, tangled themselves around his chair's legs, and pulled. The chair toppled over, Robert along with it. Victor moved to help his brother, but Robert was already taking matters into his own hands. Recovering remarkably fast, he narrowed his eyes at Sonya, and she went flying backward, slamming against the wooden fence. Air users could do that trick sometimes, but this wasn't air blowing her back. This was spirit's telekinetic abilities. He apparently possessed them outside of dreams too. Lovely.
I'd seen spirit users battle it out before, when Avery Lazar and Lissa had gone one on one. That hadn't been pretty, particularly since more than this exterior psychic phenomena had occurred. Avery had actually dug into Lissa's mind—and mine. I didn't know Robert or Sonya's full skill set, but this couldn't end well.
"Dimitri!" I yelled, springing toward Sonya. I didn't exactly know what I was going to do, but tackling her seemed like a sound plan. From what I'd observed, a lot of spirit involved eye contact with the target.
And sure enough, when I managed to wrestle her to the ground, she struggled half-heartedly but mostly fought to keep her gaze on Robert. He screamed in sudden alarm, looking down at his own body in terror. Sonya was planting visions into his head. His expression hardened. He had to know it was an illusion, and a few moments later, he looked up, having broken her spell like she'd broken his earlier compulsion.
Dimitri came tearing out the door at that point, just as Robert used his mind to fling one of the chairs toward Sonya. Of course, I was on top of her, so the chair hit me in the back. Dimitri picked up pretty quickly what was going on and ran toward Robert, attempting the same tactic as me. Victor, possibly thinking his brother was in physical danger, tried to pry Dimitri away, which was futile. More vines b
egan to reach toward Robert, and I realized constraining Sonya wasn't all that useful.
"Get him inside!" I yelled to Dimitri. "Get him away from her!"
Dimitri had already guessed that and began dragging Robert toward the door. Even with Victor interfering, Dimitri's strength was enough to get Robert out of there and back into the house. As soon as her target was gone, all the energy seemed to fade out of Sonya. She made no more efforts to fight me and collapsed to the ground. I was relieved, having feared she'd turn on me once Robert was gone. Tentatively, still on guard, I helped Sonya sit up. She leaned against me, weak as a rag doll, and cried into my shoulder. Another breakdown.
After that, it was a matter of damage control. In order to keep the spirit users apart, Dimitri had taken Robert to the bedroom and left Victor with him. Robert seemed as worn out as Sonya, and Dimitri deemed the brothers safe enough to leave alone. Sonya collapsed on the couch, and after both Dimitri and I had tried to calm her down, we stepped away while Sydney held the Moroi woman's hand.
I briefly recapped what had happened. Dimitri's face grew more and more incredulous as I did.
"I told you it wasn't time!" he exclaimed. "What were you thinking? She's too weak!"
"You call that weak? And hey, I was doing fine! It wasn't until Victor and Robert got involved that things went to hell."
Dimitri took a step toward me, anger radiating off him. "They should never have gotten involved. This is you, acting irrational again, jumping in foolishly with no thought of the consequences."
Outrage shot through me in return. "Hey, I was trying to make progress here. If being rational is sitting around and doing therapy, then I'm happy to jump over the edge. I'm not afraid to get in the game."
"You have no idea what you're saying," he growled. We were standing closer now, hardly any space left between us as we engaged in our battle of wills. "This may have set us back."
"This set us forward. We found out she knows about Eric Dragomir. The problem is she promised not to tell anyone about this baby."
"Yes, I promised," piped up Sonya. Dimitri and I turned as one, realizing our argument was fully visible and audible to Sonya and Sydney. "I promised." Her voice was very small and weak, pleading with us.
Sydney squeezed her hand. "We know. It's okay. It's okay to keep promises. I understand."
Sonya looked at her gratefully. "Thank you. Thank you."
"But," said Sydney carefully, "I heard that you care about Lissa Dragomir."
"I can't," interrupted Sonya, turning fearful again.
"I know, I know. But what if there was a way to help her without breaking your promise?"
Sonya stared at Sydney. Dimitri glanced at me questioningly. I shrugged and then stared at Sydney too. If someone had asked who could stage the best intervention with a crazy woman who'd formerly been an undead monster, Sydney Sage would have been my last guess.
Sonya frowned, all attention on Sydney. "W-what do you mean?"
"Well . . . what did you promise exactly? Not to tell anyone that Eric Dragomir had a mistress and baby?"
Sonya nodded.
"And not to tell who they were?"
Sonya nodded again.
Sydney gave Sonya the warmest, friendliest smile I'd ever seen on the Alchemist. "Did you promise not to tell anyone where they are?" Sonya nodded, and Sydney's smile faltered a little. Then, her eyes lit up. "Did you promise not to lead anyone to where they are?"
Sonya hesitated, no doubt turning every word over in her mind. Slowly, she shook her head. "No."
"So . . . you could lead us to them. But not tell us where they actually are. You wouldn't be breaking the promise that way."
It was the most convoluted, ridiculous piece of logic I'd heard in a while. It was something I would have come up with.
"Maybe . . ." said Sonya, still uncertain.
"You wouldn't break the promise," Sydney repeated. "And it would really, really help Lissa."
I stepped forward. "It would help Mikhail too."
Sonya's mouth dropped open at the mention of her former lover. "Mikhail? You know him?"
"He's my friend. He's Lissa's friend too." I almost said that if we found the missing Dragomir, we could then take Sonya to Mikhail. Recalling Dimitri's feelings of unworthiness, I decided to avoid that tactic just now. I didn't know how Sonya would react to a reunion with her beloved. "And he wants to help Lissa. But he can't. None of us can. We don't have enough information."
"Mikhail . . ." Sonya looked down at her hands again, small tears running down her cheeks.
"You won't break your promise." Sydney was so compelling she could have been a spirit user. "Just lead us. It's what Mikhail and Lissa would want. It's the right thing to do."
I don't know which argument convinced Sonya the most. It could have been the part about Mikhail. Or it could have been the idea of doing "the right thing." Maybe, like Dimitri, Sonya wanted redemption for her Strigoi crimes and saw this as a chance. Looking up, she swallowed and met my eyes.
"I'll lead you there," she whispered.
"We're going on another road trip," Sydney declared. "Get ready."
Dimitri and I were still standing right next to each other, the anger between us beginning to diffuse. Sydney looked proud and continued trying her best to soothe Sonya.
Dimitri looked down at me with a small smile that shifted slightly when he seemed to become aware of just how close we were. I couldn't say for sure, though. His face gave little away. As for me, I was very aware of our proximity and felt intoxicated by his body and scent. Damn. Why did fighting with him always increase my attraction to him? His smile returned as he tilted his head toward Sydney. "You were wrong. She really is the new general in town."
I smiled back, hoping he wasn't aware of my body's reaction to us standing so close. "Maybe. But, it's okay. You can still be colonel."
He arched an eyebrow. "Oh? Did you demote yourself? Colonel's right below general. What's that make you?"
I reached into my pocket and triumphantly flashed the CR-V keys I'd swiped when we'd come back inside. "The driver," I said.
TWENTY-ONE
I DIDN'T GET TO DRIVE.
"General" Sydney didn't either, much to her outrage, though Dimitri did some fast-talking to explain why.
It all started when Victor discovered his car was having "engine trouble." He wasn't very happy about that. He made no accusations, but I think everyone there—even Sonya and Robert—could guess the malfunction wasn't coincidental. This meant we all had to pile in the CR-V, which hadn't been designed to seat so many people—which was why Dimitri had come up with a creative seating plan. Of course, one of those "seats" turned out to be the cargo space in the back. It was good-sized, but when Sydney learned it was her seat, she accused Dimitri of adding insult to the injury of taking her keys.
I wouldn't tell her so, but putting her back there was a sound choice. Dimitri's seating chart was configured to minimize threats inside the car. Dimitri drove, with Robert going shotgun, and me between Victor and Sonya in the backseat. This put a guardian in each row, separated the brothers, and kept the spirit users apart too. When I argued that he and I could switch spots and still maintain the same security, Dimitri pointed out that having me at the wheel wouldn't be safe if I had to suddenly flip to Lissa's mind. It was a fair point. As for Sydney . . . well, she was neither a threat nor a fighting force, so she got offloaded to the back. And speaking of dead weight . . .
"We have got to get rid of Victor and Robert now," I murmured to Dimitri, as we loaded the CR-V with groceries and our meager luggage (further reducing Sydney's space, much to her outrage). "They've done what we needed. Keeping them is dangerous. It's time to turn them over to the guardians." The brothers wanted to continue on with us in order to find Lissa's sibling. We were letting them—but not out of generosity. We simply couldn't let them out of our sights yet.
"Agreed," Dimitri said, frowning slightly. "But there's no good way to do it. Not yet. We can't leave t
hem tied up beside the road; I wouldn't put it past them to escape and hitchhike. We also can't turn them in ourselves, for obvious reasons."
I set a bag inside the car and leaned against the bumper. "Sydney could turn them in."
Dimitri nodded. "That's probably our best bet—but I don't want to part with her until we get to . . . well, wherever we're going. We might need her help."
I sighed. "And so, we drag them along."
"Afraid so," he said. He gave me wary look. "You know, when they are in custody, there's a very good chance they'll have quite a story to tell the authorities about us."
"Yeah." I'd been thinking about that too. "I guess that's a problem for later. Gotta deal with the immediate problems first."
To my surprise, Dimitri smiled at me. I would have expected some prudent, wise remark. "Well, that's always been our strategy, hasn't it?" he asked.
I smiled in return, but it was short-lived, once we hit the road. Mercifully, Victor wasn't his usual annoying chatty self—which I suspected was because he was growing weak from lack of blood. Sonya and Robert had to be feeling the same way. This was going to be a problem if we didn't get a feeder soon, but I didn't know how we were going to pull that off. I had the impression Sydney hadn't realized any of this yet, which was just as well. Being a human among a group of hungry vampires would certainly make me nervous. She was actually probably safer sequestered in the back from everyone else.
Sonya's directions were vague and very need-to-know. She only gave us short-term information and often wouldn't warn about a turn until we were right on top of it. We had no idea where we were going or how long it would take. She scanned a map and then told Dimitri to go north on I-75. When we asked how long our trip would take, her response was: "Not long. A few hours. Maybe more."
And with that mysterious explanation, she settled back in her seat and said no more. There was a haunted, pensive expression on her face, and I tried to imagine how she felt. Only a day ago she'd been Strigoi. Was she still processing what had happened? Was she seeing the faces of her victims as Dimitri had? Was she tormenting herself with guilt? Did she want to become Strigoi again?
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