They seemed relieved, and both took a seat beside me. The kids sat on the opposite bench.
Mine was a strange case and I guess that’s why the detective had reached out when I’d first come home. Either that or he didn’t really agree with my freedom.
I saw him the moment he walked in, scanning the crowd, and walking fast. I guess he didn’t want me killing a bunch of people in the mall and then screaming about their immortality.
The second he spotted us, he stopped moving and his eyes slightly bugged. This time it wasn’t me he looked at. It was Greg. Confusion mixed with disbelief crossed the detective’s face. Wasting no time, he hurriedly picked up his phone, talked for a little bit, and then walked over to us.
He stood in front of Greg, almost boxing him into that one spot. “Who are you?”
Greg looked at his wife and then to me before he answered. “My name’s Greg Grant.”
Leon shook his head. “Greg Grant is dead. I handled his body myself. He was killed five years ago by this lady right here. Now who are you, because I don’t remember him having a twin.”
Amber snatched her phone up, shooting death glares at the detective and myself. “I’m calling the real police and I’m reporting you both. This isn’t funny.”
A commotion started as a crew of policemen made their way toward us. Leon stood with his hands behind his back, watching their approach. Once they were close, he looked at one of the officers and then pointed to Greg. “Arrest him on suspicion of fraud.”
Greg looked at me as he was asked to stand up. “Delia, what is this about? I’ve got my family here. What are you trying to do to me? I was good to you.”
Amber began dialing her phone again. “I’m calling my mom to get the kids and then I’m calling our lawyer. Don’t worry, honey, we’ll get this straightened out.”
After the police led Greg away, the detective turned to me. “Do you have any idea what’s going on, because if I find out that you’ve been lying to me--”
Pissed that once again I’d been unfairly accused, I cut him off. “I was the one who called you. He came up to me and started talking nonsense. I felt like I was still locked up in that place.” I wrapped my arms around myself, visions of cold nights alone in that hospital invading my mind and making me shiver.
Leon watched them leave, a thoughtful look on his face. “Maybe you never belonged there in the first place. Come on, let’s get down to the station, see if we can figure this thing out.”
Sweat broke out over my skin, and my voice trembled when I spoke. “Am I going as a guest, or…?”
He put a hand on my arm to reassure me. “As far as I can tell you’ve not done anything wrong. Come on, we’ll figure this out. Hell, I’m as stumped as you are.”
Once we got to the station, I looked around for Greg’s wife and lawyer, but apparently, they hadn’t arrived yet. The detective led me into a room in the back. Greg was already there, with two officers guarding him. They left when we came in, shutting the door behind them so that only Greg, Leon, and myself remained.
Kravis was the first to speak. “Your wife’s gone now, so stop the bullshit.”
Greg exhaled deeply and sat back in his chair. “Well, I guess I’ll explain.”
Leon used his telekinesis to fly his gun out of its holster and into his hand. He held it by his side, as if not sure if he would need it or not. “Make it quick.” His voice came out clipped, his gaze hard and steady. He and I both took a seat at the door, blocking the exit.
Greg smiled and looked up at me through his eyelashes.
I shook my head. If he thought that disgusting smile was still able to charm me, he had to be delusional. “You set me up,” I accused, the words like acid on my tongue.
He didn’t even try to deny it. “I did.”
Leon’s head jerked up and he leaned forward in his chair. “How did you do it? How are you even still alive?”
Greg crossed one leg over the other. “Oh, I really am immortal. I can’t be killed, not by you anyway. Which is why I need your help.”
My head began to pound and I started a slow massage of my temples, trying to get a handle on it. I’d never been so confused in my life.
The way things were going I almost wished I were back in that hospital. At least there, things made sense. As ironic as that may seem.
I turned to Kravis for clarity, but he looked as confused as I felt. Good. At least I wasn’t the only clueless one in the room.
Greg sat patiently waiting. He had to be beyond deranged if he really thought I’d do anything to help him. “You took five years of my life, mind warped me without my permission, and now you think we should just be friends?”
He clasped his hands together on his lap and spoke in the most nonchalant voice I’d ever heard. “I did it to make you stronger.” He cocked his head to the side. “It doesn’t seem to have worked, though.”
I sat on my hands, sure I’d start choking him if I didn’t. He smiled as if that action alone proved his point. “Most people who’d spend five years locked up would come out fighting.” He shook his head in disgust. “I don’t know what I expected from you.”
Leon’s fists curled and his stare hardened. An angry buzz floated around him, but I needed him to keep it together until we found out more. Cops never liked playing the fool, and so far, Greg had duped us both. “You really want to spend the rest of your life in jail? Start talking.”
Greg let out a laugh that ended in a smug grin. “You really think your jail can hold me?”
Leon gave him a thoughtful look. “We have cells that block power. You’re not going anywhere, so you might as well tell us what the fuck is going on.”
Greg’s eyes flashed bright, and Leon shot him in the arm before he could start his mind control. Footsteps sounded, and Greg’s phone begin to squawk. “That was me, we’re fine. You can see from the interview window.” He hung up the phone and a few seconds later the footsteps receded.
Greg slumped over in his chair, hand on his arm, blood leaking from his wound. “You hit me!”
Leon held his hands up. “I told you I would. Now talk.”
Greg turned to me, accusation in his eyes, and hatred on his face. I turned away, not knowing what to do with that. Did he really blame me for his own stupidity? How was it my fault he’d decided to set me up for murder?
He cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “Your bodies are made up of fifty-seven to sixty percent water. Where I’m from, which is a different universe, if you haven’t figured that out yet, we’re seventy-five to eighty percent water. My country, Langunda, neighbors the country, Kelm. Their bodies, the Kelm, are seventy-eight to eighty-three percent water.” He said it like that explained everything and we could all go home now.
“Fascinating.” Leon said. “Now what does that have to do with you faking your own death?” His brows drew in tight together and he sat up a little in his chair. “And who’s in your grave?”
Greg laughed as if any of this shit was funny. “Oh, come on. No one’s in the grave. I mind warped the undertaker and gravediggers. It was a closed casket for a reason. I should know, I stood off to the side and watched, in case I needed to whammy someone real quick.”
Leon listened, nodding his head the whole time. “So you were telling the truth about being immortal. Okay, I’ll give you that, but why’d you leave her to rot? That’s the part I don’t understand.”
“Cause he needed me locked up,” I said realizing that he hadn’t messed up at all. Everything had gone exactly as planned.
Greg clucked his teeth at me. “I know that face, Delia. Think you’ve got this all figured out?” He shook his head. “You don’t.”
Leon pointed his gun again. “Well then, explain it. So that we can both understand.”
Greg’s jaw clenched as he looked at me. I took a moment to think back on our relationship. Had he always had this level of disdain for me, or was this a new development? His voice came out hard and scolding. “I
’ve never met someone so afraid to fight in my life.” He shook his head, incredulously. “I did everything I could to force your hand.” His fingers tapped the table in front of him. “Yet, no matter how bad I treated you, no matter how fucked up, you never tried to fight me. Remember when you got your pocketbook stolen? How about the time you were jumped in that alley? Even then, you wouldn’t defend yourself.”
My hands shook, wanting to throttle him. If he kept talking he would soon get what he wanted, as it was, it was taking everything in me not to grab Leon’s gun and shoot him again. “You set all of that up?”
I’d been scared to leave the house for weeks after both incidents, and here he was smiling like a proud parent. My eyes flew to the detective’s gun and Leon shook his head and put it back in its holster. I wasn’t going to really use it, but I guess he didn’t know that.
Greg sat watching, a big smirk on his face. “Sending you to jail was a last resort.”
I grind my fingernails deep into my skin, trying to keep my composure. “Because you thought it would make me fight?”
“I had no idea they’d send you to a sanatorium. Not that it made any difference. You still wouldn’t fight.” He huffed liked I’d ruined all his life’s ambitions. “I waited at first, you know. Just knew you’d finally make a move.” He looked like he couldn’t believe things hadn’t worked out exactly as he’d planned. “Then I got tired of waiting, figured I’d catch up with you whenever you got out.”
A fire roared in my belly as I stared at him. “I never ripped anyone apart, so you deserted me and ran away?”
He gave me a blank look. “I would have saved you. Gotten you out of there. Had you been like any normal person and at least tried to fight.”
My hands balled at my side. The fucking gall. Who did he think he was, playing with my life like that? “So, let me get this straight. As soon as I’d started beating people up with my powers, you would have scooped in and saved me? Then what? Did you really expect me to fall back into your arms as if nothing had happened?”
The smug look on his face was answer enough. “You would have.”
Conceited bastard. “Why, Greg? Why go through all this?” I really wanted to know the answer. He’d set up this big elaborate scheme, with the sole purpose of making me fight. I shook my head. Apparently, he’d been setting shit up since the first day we’d met. But why?
“Because I needed you in my world.”
“Why not ask me to come?”
“I needed you prepared for battle. I’d been working on you for three years. I got tired of waiting.”
“Why not mind warp me?”
“Well, that only lasts for so long. Would have had to keep doing it. Which would have eventually turned your brain to mush. Who could you help then? No. I needed you there on your own. That was the only way this was going to work.”
I thought about the amount of water he said his people carried and slowly things began to click in place. With my power, I could hurt them, control them and that’s what he really wanted.
Detective Kravis apparently came to the same conclusion. “So, because you’re a coward, you thought you’d use her as an assassin?”
The look on Greg’s face said why not. “She can control water. Which means she can rip our bodies apart. Be a while coming back from that. Long enough to take over a whole country in fact.”
I felt my fingers twitch. “Not real smart letting me know how to dispose of you.”
His laugh said he thought that was preposterous. “Like you’d ever even try. Kelm has been planning to overthrow us for a while now. We have agents working both sides of the coin. We’re not strong enough to hold them off. Their forces are twice the size of ours. Their current leader, Yama, wants peace, but his second in command, Bale, well he’s been whispering in ears and making plans against us for years. We have it on good authority that one of his first official acts will be to take over Langunda.”
Kravis asked what I was thinking. “So why don’t you take them out first?”
He tapped his finger. “We don’t have the manpower.” Something he hated to admit, judging by the look on his face.
“So why doesn’t Bale get rid of this Yama and take over?” Again the detective and I were on the same wavelength.
“There are things worse than death. Bale would never be recognized as the true leader if he was to ever raise hands against the current leader. That’s not how things work there. Besides, we are immortal. Time means nothing to us. We’ve known Bale’s plans for the past twenty years. I searched for ten before I finally found someone with the ability to control water. Watched you for two before I approached.”
I felt sick to my stomach. The shit he’d gone through to deceive me. How much pain could have been avoided, had he been honest with me? “Why not tell me that? Why take me through all of this?”
He looked at me as if I’d just asked him to fly to the moon. “Knowing that’s the only reason I’d talked to you, would you have really helped me? I wanted to get to know you first, but the better I got to know you, the more I knew you would never come fight for us. Then I started to push you, things like the robbery and the beat down.” He held out his hands. “Still nothing. This last attempt was my final effort, and well, we see how that turned out.” He acted like I was one of the greatest disappointments in his life. How could I not have seen this before? Was I really that dumb, or had love blinded me to all his faults and shortcomings.
Still, he’d come back to our world. A married man with kids. That brought me up short. Where was his wife? She’d said she was calling their lawyer and coming straight over. I found it strange that she hadn’t made it here yet. “Where’s your wife?”
He deflected the question. “Mind letting me up so I can stretch my legs a bit?”
Leon snorted. “Not a chance. Now keep talking.”
He exhaled loudly as if telling us the truth was some big burden. For him it probably was. “Amber’s not my wife. The kids are trained agents. All are from Langunda. Everyone there’s willing to help. We need you, babe. But you must be willing to fight. You have to.”
I swallowed hard, trying to control my emotions. The sheer audacity of this man. “I’m not helping you,” I said as firm as I could. “Me against a whole country. Does that really make sense to you?” I looked at Leon. “Does it make sense to you? I mean you do think this is as irrational as I do, right?”
Kravis looked as if he couldn’t believe I’d even bothered to ask. He pointed to Greg. “The only question is why doesn’t he see that? He really seems to believe that one untrained fighter can take on a whole army. I may need to order a psych eval. He could be suffering from delusions.”
Greg looked completely unfazed. “Seventy-one percent of the earth’s surface is water. There’s not a person alive whose body’s not composed of the stuff. You could rip it all apart if you wanted to, yet you won’t even try.”
My mouth went dry at the thought, that had never been what I’d wanted. “That’s… That’s not what my abilities are for,” I stuttered. Just the thought of hurting others with my powers left a cold lump in the pit of my stomach. I could never do that, and I didn’t feel as if that was something to be ashamed of.
He looked at me with disgust. “Oh yeah, yeah, you use it to keep your coffee warm and your food hot. Most people use stoves for that.”
It was true. I used my powers for daily mundane things because that’s what they were made for. My mom had always instilled that into me and my sister. The path to least resistance was the best one to take. Violence was never the answer. There was always a better way. So, no. I wouldn’t help him defend his country from someone who wasn’t even currently threatening it. I shook my head. “Not my fight. I’m not getting involved.”
Leon nodded his approval and then stood, “She’s given you her answer and I’m placing you under arrest.” He took out his cuffs.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Greg raised his hands. “Under arrest for what?”<
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Was he even serious? I didn’t even give Leon time to answer before I started naming off his sins. “How about illegally mind warping me? Or, I don’t know, how about the fact that I spent the last five years locked up for something I didn’t do? That good enough for you?” My voice shook with anger and I didn’t care. I wanted to rip his eyes out. This man was vile, and the fact that I’d once loved him sickened me to my core. “You really don’t believe you did anything?”
His chin jutted out like it used to when he’d done something wrong, but wanted to convince me he was right. “I was acting on the orders of Bebbi. Langunda’s top ruler.” His voice lowered and turned into a growl. “You can’t judge me and your laws can’t hold me.” He made a move for the door and Leon used his TK to sling him across the room.
Greg hit the wall and crumbled to the floor. He only stayed down for a second, before he was back on his feet. His eyes flashed blue and a stream of light came from them aimed toward our heads.
He missed us both. Leon waved his arm and slung Greg again. This time, when he fell, he began to chant, and his eyes flashed like before, when he’d tricked me into shooting him.
My mind went back to that time, five years ago. I tried to take a breath, as my hands shook, and my pulse raced. Five years of my life taken away because this man didn’t know how to take no for an answer.
Years of him pretending to love me, pretending to care. All so that he could use me. Get what he wanted, and then discard me like yesterday’s trash.
Sweat dripped into my eyes. Who did he think he was? I’d mourned his death. For years, I’d been haunted with the belief that I’d killed the man I loved.
My eyes started to burn, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. For the first three months in that place, I’d cried day and night for a man who only saw me as a pawn.
I’d trusted him. More than I’d ever trusted anybody in my life. For me, that was huge. My body began to tremble and the whole of my insides started to rumble.
They’d put me in a straitjacket when I’d first arrived at the sanatorium, locked me in a padded room for days. I felt the rage building, could feel the storm brewing.
A Magical Reckoning: Magic and Mischief Book 1 Page 7
