by K. J. McPike
Her ID.
“Is her address on there?” I breathed.
“Of course. That’s why we’re not still out there searching for her.” Cade tossed the card to me with a flick of his wrist. I caught it and quickly read the print next to the picture of Delta.
DIANNE JOSEPHINE MELBOURNE
192 MELROSE CT.
PHOENIX, AZ 85007
She’d changed her name, but she still lived in Arizona. I frowned. Her mom said she hadn’t seen Delta since her disappearance all those years ago. Why hadn’t Delta gone home like Xiomara thought she would? Why live so close to her family but never go and see them?
“What if she doesn’t feel safe enough to go home after your little stunt in the woods?” Xiomara sank to her knees in front of the sofa and studied the contents of Delta’s purse on the floor. “I told you she’s paranoid.”
Cade waved her off. “She’ll have to come home eventually. We’ll be waiting there when she does.” He turned to me. “Find a landmark in Phoenix. We’ll figure out a way to her house from there. She won’t be able to get there for at least a couple days, especially if she doesn’t have her ID. In the meantime, we can see if she has any photos of the other three.”
I nodded, setting Delta’s license on the coffee table. I knew it would be hours before we could get to her house. Even if I found a landmark online, and even if by some miracle it was close to where Delta lived, I would have to find a time when no one was around to see me show up. Not to mention, I would have to go through the whole process of finding a public bathroom or some other private area to bring Cade and Xiomara with me. But it would be worth it if there were photos of the others.
Not if we have no hope of getting to Delta anymore.
I swallowed my doubt. Cade was right—Delta had to come home sometime. I just hoped it was sooner rather than later.
Delta’s house was an eyesore. There was flower print everywhere, from the wallpaper to the sofas to the curtains. The whole place had a fake perfume smell that made me want to gag. How did she stand it?
“You take the first bedroom,” Cade instructed Xiomara. “Nephew, you take the second. I’ll take the living room.”
I followed Xiomara down the hall and turned into the doorway on the left. Scanning the collection of photo albums that lined two sets of white shelves, I realized I wouldn’t be able to do much in the way of searching. I didn’t know what any of the others looked like. Pulling out the first album, I decided I could at least rule out landscape shots or ones that didn’t include females. Then I’d just collect anything that could potentially show Ori, Ursula, or Solstice for Cade and Xiomara to go over.
As I flipped through the crinkly plastic pages, I pulled out every photo that showed any girl who could have been a member of XODUS. Soon, the pile of pictures was starting to take over the floral comforter on the twin bed.
We were well into the evening when Xiomara cried out, “I found one!”
Tossing aside the photo in my hand, I barged into the other bedroom with Cade right behind me.
He plucked the image out of her hand before I could and held it close to his face. His mouth curled into a smile as he handed me the picture. “Say hello to Solstice.”
Chapter 14
Heartless
My pulse pounded as I studied the redhead in the photo. She sat beside a younger-looking Delta in what appeared to be a restaurant booth. Xiomara was in the picture as well, perched opposite Delta. Neither looked as sour as Solstice, whose blue eyes were so light they didn’t seem to fit her dark scowl. Or maybe that was supposed to be her sexy face. Either way, I was glad she wasn’t grinning so big it distorted her freckled features.
Memorizing the shape of her nose, mouth, and jaw, I turned my focus back to her eyes. They were the key to projecting to people, especially when they had aged. Once I was sure I had her face down, I held my breath and pictured her in my mind.
A flash of images came together. Bubbles dripping down white tile walls. Hands shampooing wet hair. Water running off ivory skin. Lots of ivory skin.
I snapped out of the preview before my body could follow it and let out a few choice words. Of course Solstice would be showering when I finally found her. Kidnapping Xiomara while she was in a flimsy nightgown had been bad enough. I was starting to feel like a pervert.
“It didn’t work?” Xiomara dropped onto the twin bed, clutching the wildflower-print comforter with both hands.
I tossed the picture onto the dresser beside me. “It worked. I just saw her.” Way more of her than I intended.
“Well, why didn't you bring her here?” Cade demanded, a network of creases forming above the bridge of his nose. “What are you waiting for?”
“She was in the shower.” I avoided his gaze, inadvertently meeting Xiomara’s instead. I didn’t like the way her eyes softened, the skin beneath them inching up as if she just watched a kid take his first step.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Cade’s voice came out eerily soft as he ran a hand down his face. The white, jagged line of his scar practically glowed against the rest of his reddened skin. “That’s what’s stopping you?”
I gaped at him. “What was I supposed to do? Nab a naked chick?”
“Why not?” He threw his arms out wide, nearly taking up the full width of the bedroom. “Let her be humiliated. She deserves a lot worse than embarrassment.”
Xiomara’s snort told me I wasn’t the only one appalled by what he was suggesting. I didn’t care what Cade said; I wasn’t about to kidnap anyone with their butt cheeks on display. I had some standards.
Knowing my uncle wouldn’t drop it, I reached for ways to stall. “I just…I want to get a good look at her apartment.” As the words came out, I realized it really would be a smarter plan. We’d found a picture at Delta’s place, after all. Who was to say Solstice wouldn’t have photos of the others, too? It would be foolish not to look into the possibility. “She might have something useful,” I pointed out. “I want to make sure I can go back.”
Cade’s only response was to further narrow his eyes.
“At least someone is being rational,” Xiomara murmured.
“I’m sure she’ll be done in a few minutes,” I added, hoping Cade wouldn’t react to her dig. I couldn’t handle more of a strain between them. Being in the same room with them had become unbearable over the last two months.
“A few minutes?” Cade stalked over and grabbed me by the shoulders. “You have to be stronger than this!” He shook me as if it would drive his point home. “We’re never going to get out of this nightmare if you insist on trying to make it convenient for the people responsible. There’s never a perfect time to—”
“Leave him alone.” Xiomara’s hand appeared over his shoulder, her long nails digging into his shirt as she tried to pull him away from me. “He’s not a heartless monster like you.” Cade shook her off just as I jerked out of his grasp. My own momentum carried me backward, and my legs hit the edge of the chair behind me, sending me straight into the deep-set seat.
Cade shoved Xiomara into the wall and pinned her there, his face twisting into a sneer as she cried out. My eyes caught the butt of the gun still tucked into the back of his pants, and I jumped to my feet. With their tempers flaring, I wasn’t going to risk him pulling that thing on her, even if it was a low-caliber weapon. We still needed her help to undo the sink.
I pushed my way between them, forcing Cade to break his hold on her. Before he could react, I grabbed her arm and projected to our in-law apartment. Xiomara started to speak, but I appeared at the top of the stairs and locked her in the basement without a word. Even with the door closed, I could hear her calling my name.
I ignored her. Whatever she wanted to say, I was sure it was some kind of appeal to my conscience. She had a bad habit of trying to make me feel guilty at every opportunity, as if I needed her constant reminders that I was doing things I didn’t want to do. But she would never understand. No one understood me except Cade
.
Too bad he’s going to rip you a new one the minute you go back to Delta’s.
Pressing my forehead into the door, I shut my eyes. The longer I stayed here, the angrier my uncle was going to get. While I admired his ability to overcome guilt, sometimes I just wished he would listen to reason.
He probably wishes you would, too. I sighed. Cade did have a point—there was never a good time to abduct someone. The only real excuse to avoid it was the risk of exposing ourselves, and he knew as well as I did that no one would see me if I grabbed Solstice out of the shower. This was why he was always telling me that my morality was holding me back. The only reason I hadn’t followed through was some self-imposed code of conduct.
Why couldn’t I just let it go like he could?
With another sigh, I straightened up and projected to Cade, bracing myself for his wrath. Sure enough, he sat on the arm of the sofa with his arms crossed, looking at me like he regretted the day he agreed to adopt me.
“Now you’re defending her, is that it?” he snarled. “Did you forget who really has your best interests at heart? Who’s really ready to do what it takes to get your sister back?”
The last jab made me wince. “I wasn’t defending her,” I argued. “I locked her back in the basement so you and I could talk without her getting in the way.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” He slid off the couch and lumbered over until he was towering over me. “That’s the point. Instead of talking, you should be acting.”
I tensed my jaw. “Fine. I’ll go get Solstice now. Should I take her to the cage or our basement?”
That at least got Cade to pause. His face lifted in thought. “Better make it the cage. We won’t mention Xiomara yet. Solstice will be more likely to cave if she thinks she’s in this alone.”
“Done.”
“Wait.” Cade held out his wrist. “Take me there now. I don’t want you and Solstice making nice without me, or you’ll be defending her next.”
I refused to take the bait. Wordlessly, I projected him to the shipping container I’d first used to kidnap Xiomara. It smelled musky, and the hand-cranked light had long since gone out. The only illumination came from tiny rays that squeezed through the holes I’d drilled into the walls. Turning the handle on the man-made light to bring it to life, I eyed the mat in the corner. Somehow, despite it being inside a sealed space, it looked dirtier than the last time I saw it.
“Don’t make this an all day thing.” Cade rolled up his sleeves. “I’d rather not cook to death in here.”
Ignoring him, I closed my eyes and slipped into a preview of Solstice just as she finished pulling up the side zipper of a sky-blue dress.
Thank God she has clothes on. I followed the preview and appeared behind her. At first, she was too busy digging a bottle of prescription pills out of the medicine cabinet to notice me. She shut the glass door at the same moment I moved to grab her, and we both caught my reflection. My overgrown black hair was wild, my green eyes shadowed by thick, dominant brows hardened to make me look every bit the heartless monster Xiomara insisted I wasn’t. But she was wrong. This was who I’d become—who I had to be.
Solstice opened her mouth to scream, but I clapped a hand over her face. Wrapping my other arm around her shoulders to hold her in place, I felt my shirt soak through where her wet hair pressed against my chest. The jolt of cold distracted me long enough for her to get out a muffled, throaty sound. I tried not to think about who she might have alerted. I couldn’t worry about her loved ones right now.
Taking a moment to memorize the jewel design along the mirror so I could come back, I took her to face my uncle.
Chapter 15
Allies
Cade nodded approvingly as Solstice did the same doubled-over wheezing thing Xiomara had done the first time I brought her to this makeshift cell. I didn’t try to catch Solstice, though; that would have guaranteed more goading from Cade. I stepped aside and let her stagger backward until she fell onto the mat with a soft thump.
She cried out and grabbed at the air, struggling to get up. Cade watched with a gleeful expression, like this was entertaining or something. I knew he’d been waiting for decades to exact his revenge on these women, but the look on his face triggered a twinge in the pit of my stomach. This wasn’t supposed to be fun. As eager as I was to get this over with, and as grateful as I was that we’d finally gotten Solstice, I wasn’t enjoying any of this.
Then again, I hadn’t gone through what my uncle had because of these women. Maybe I’d be singing a different tune if they’d ruined my life.
Using the ridged wall to claw her way to a standing position, Solstice moved her head from side to side blindly. “Who are you?” She was breathing so hard she could hardly choke out the words. “Wh-why can’t I see?”
“You’ve got bigger problems than temporary blindness.” Cade pulled the gun from his waistband and aimed it at her. A tremor moved down my throat, but I told myself my uncle knew what he was doing. He was probably skipping right to threats because Xiomara and Delta didn’t volunteer any information when we simply asked.
“Cade?” Solstice rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands, and I wasn’t sure if she’d seen him or if she still recognized his voice after all this time. “H-how did you find me?”
“That doesn’t matter.” I straightened up to sound stronger. Maybe if I started acting more like Cade, we would start progressing faster. “What matters is that you’re going to tell us what we need to know.”
Solstice blinked in my direction. “Who’s with you?” She squinted between us until her eyes settled on the gun Cade had pointed at her. She let out a soft gasp, and I knew her vision was back. “What do you want?”
“You know what I want,” Cade said. “Did you and your little friends really think you could take away my astral energy and get away with it?”
“Cade—”
“Save it,” he barked. “If you don’t want me to shoot you right here and now, you’ll lead us to the rest of them.”
Solstice snorted and lifted her wet hair so it no longer clung to her bare shoulders. “As much as I’d love to see those skanks go down with me, I can’t help you. I cut off contact with them a long time ago.”
Cade took the safety off the gun. “You’re lying.”
“Afraid not. So I guess you’ll have to shoot me.” The conviction in her words pushed the air out of my lungs. I told myself it could’ve been an act to save the rest of them, but I still had to fight to keep the panic out of my voice.
“I’m sure you have something,” I insisted, more for myself than her. I couldn’t handle another dead end. “Old photos or—”
She let out a sharp laugh. “Are you listening to me? I don’t have anything. I want nothing to do with their lives.”
“Do we need to pay a visit to someone you do care about to get you to cooperate?” Cade threatened.
“Ha!” Solstice’s face twisted in disgust. “You think I care about anyone in this godawful realm?”
“Look,” I said. “Either you help us, or you never see the outside of this box. How about that?”
“Then I guess I’ll be getting even paler soon.” She crossed her arms and leaned a hip against the wall. “I can’t help you.”
I kept my face expressionless and turned to my uncle. “Let’s go back to her apartment. There has to be something there.”
But Solstice didn’t even flinch as we vanished.
It took all of five seconds to gather that Solstice wasn’t big on photos. From the looks of her bedroom, she wasn’t big on much at all. The walls were bare, and there wasn’t a single frame or photo album. Other than a full bed, night table, and small bookshelf that housed a few trinkets and candles, the rest of the room was nothing but carpet and white walls.
I followed Cade down the hallway, noticing it was just as bare as her bedroom. The hall gave way to the living room, which housed some blue and white couches and a fireplace. My eyes caught on an o
versized framed photo on the mantle at the same time Cade noticed it.
“There.” He pointed to the image of a teenage-looking Solstice hugging a blonde kid who couldn’t have been older than three. Cade and I both smiled, and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was thinking. Solstice may have claimed she didn’t care about anyone, but she clearly cared about whoever that boy was. If we could get him, we could make her admit anything.
I stepped forward to get a better view of the photo. From the looks of the young Solstice in the picture, it must have been taken quite a while ago. “Do you think I could project to him?” I asked, suddenly skeptical. “Solstice looks so much younger in this picture—that kid could be like twenty by now.”
“Well, we won’t know until you try.”
I sighed. The only other person I’d tried to project to based on a childhood image was Kala, and I’d never been successful. Cade said it was because the picture and the handful of memories I had of her were from when she was a baby, and she’d changed too much since then. What if it was the same story with this kid?
Like he said, you won’t know until you try.
I studied the photo, taking note of the boy’s bright blue eyes. Focusing on his image in my mind, I waited for the projection to take over. But there was no rush of images behind my eyelids. Only blackness—just like when I tried to project to my sister.
“Nothing,” I muttered. I looked around, as if another option might magically appear in the bare room. As annoying as it had been seeing the perfect little collection of framed photos in Xiomara’s house, I was starting to wish Solstice was more like her.
Wait…
“Do you think Xiomara knows who the kid is?” I asked. “She and Solstice were friends at one point. Maybe she could help us find him.”
