by K. J. McPike
Cade’s face lifted. “Great point, nephew.” Those three words felt like my biggest victory in months. Maybe he wouldn’t regret keeping me after all. “Bring her here,” he said.
Within a couple minutes, I projected to the basement, gave Xiomara a brief explanation, and brought her back to Solstice’s living room. Thankfully, she’d grown accustomed to projecting with me, and I didn’t have to wait for her to get her bearings anymore.
Wasting no time, I pointed to the picture. “Who’s that kid?”
Xiomara squinted at the image. “That’s Daniel.”
Yes! She does know who he is. My eyes shot over to Cade, but he was still focused on Xiomara.
“Okay…” He rolled his hand impatiently.
“He lived in the community with the rest of us in San Francisco. He wasn’t a semmie, though. His mother had him from a previous relationship. It was Daniel’s younger brother who was half Astralis. Anyway, for some reason, Daniel latched onto Solstice, and Solstice had a soft spot for him. She said he reminded her of her nephew. After we were stranded here, he was the only one who could make her smile.”
“Then we have to find him,” Cade said.
Xiomara frowned. “You can’t find him. He’s dead.”
My gulp was audible. “What?”
“He died a couple years after we met him,” Xiomara explained. “Cancer. Getting stuck here was really hard on Solstice, but losing Daniel…” She sighed. “Solstice was never the same after that.”
A lump formed in my throat. I told myself I didn’t feel bad for Solstice—she didn’t deserve any sympathy—but the kid…the poor guy didn’t even make it out of his childhood.
Maybe Kala didn’t either. The thought came crashing down on me like a rogue wave, leaving me struggling to breathe. Nothing happened when I tried to project to Daniel because he was dead. What if the fact that I couldn’t project to Kala had nothing to do with how much she’d changed physically? What if she…
The room seemed to shrink. My legs felt like flimsy twigs as I grasped the arm of the sofa. I bought into Cade’s theory about Kala’s changed appearance without question, but how could he possibly be sure? What if something had happened to her? We had no way of knowing. What if Cade only made that up so we’d get his ability back? What if my sister—
“What’s the matter, nephew?” Cade’s question broke through my thoughts, and he was next to me an instant later. “Are you okay?”
Looking at his concerned face sent a surge of guilt through me. He’d moved heaven and earth to find me, taken me in without a second thought. And how did I thank him? By questioning his motivation. What was wrong with me?
I shook my head. “I’m fine.” Kala is alive. It had to be true. I’d been through way too much in my life to be dealt another blow. There had to be some balance.
Xiomara edged toward me. “Kai, are you sure?”
Pushing my face into a hard expression, I nodded. “I’m just trying to figure out how we’re going to get Solstice to talk now that we know we can’t use him.” I tossed my hand toward the photo on the mantle.
“Talk about what?” Xiomara asked. “I’m surprised she hasn’t already led you to everyone else. She wants to undo the energy sink more than anything.”
Chapter 16
Desperation
Xiomara looked from my shocked face to Cade’s and back again. “I’m serious,” she said. “Solstice begged us to undo the sink for years. She’d do anything to get her ability back.”
“Oh really?” Cade straightened up, his head nearly touching the stucco ceiling. “Then why is she refusing to help us?”
“She didn’t refuse.” I groaned, feeling my hope crumble around me like a cheap cracker. “She never said she wouldn’t help us—only that she couldn’t.” I dropped onto the blue and white plaid sofa I’d been gripping for support. “She said she doesn’t know anything.”
Xiomara pulled her grown-out bob into a small ponytail and held it in place with her hand. “Well, she wouldn’t lie about that. If she said she doesn’t know anything, then she doesn’t.”
“This is such bull!” I shouted, fighting the urge to kick a hole into the wall. “What kind of friends don’t keep in touch?”
“It’s been twenty years, Kai.” Xiomara let her arm drop to her side, releasing her hair so it fell back along her chin. “I cut off contact to keep my family safe. I’m sure the others had their reasons, too.”
“We don’t care about their reasons,” Cade spat. “If you came up with leads, Solstice can, too.” My heart sank at the idea of spending more months running off on wild goose chases. I didn’t know how many more I could take before I snapped.
Xiomara dropped onto the sofa next to me. I shifted away from her, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Nothing came of those leads,” she reminded my uncle. “At some point, you have to accept that your plan isn’t working. What if we’re still stuck a year from now? Two years? We can’t keep doing this forever. I have to go home. My children need me.” Her voice wavered, and it freaking got to me. Not because it hurt Xiomara to be away from her family, but because I saw how it had devastated her kids.
“Oh, but we can keep doing this forever,” Cade sneered. “If I’m stuck somewhere I don’t want to be, what makes you think I have any problem subjecting you to the same misery?”
Xiomara dropped her face into her hands. I felt like doing the same thing. I didn’t want to spend the rest of our lives trying to round up the other three members of XODUS either. There had to be another way for us to get to Alea, even if it meant we’d have to give up on restoring Cade’s ability.
“Between you and Solstice, I’m sure you can figure out something,” Cade insisted. “And we’re not going to rest until you do.” Moving over to where Xiomara and I sat, he held out his wrist. “Take us home, nephew. And bring Solstice to meet us. Anything she remembers about Ori and Ursula could help—old jobs, places they used to go, whatever it may be.”
I did my best not to let my face show that I was losing faith in Cade’s approach to saving my sister. He’d mentioned other Astralii hiding in this realm before, and at this point, it seemed like we would be better off trying to find them. Somehow, I would have to convince my uncle that it was time to explore other options.
I just didn’t know how to say it without making him feel like I was betraying him. I owed him so much, and I wanted to do my part to repay him. I’d hoped it would be through helping to get his astral energy back. He deserved to be happy, especially after everything he’d been through in his life and what he sacrificed for me. But how long were we going to keep running in circles before he accepted that we would have to try something else?
My eyes shot to Xiomara, who was sniffling next to me on the couch. We couldn’t keep her hostage forever just because Cade was too stubborn to let her go home. Even if she deserved it, her kids didn’t.
“Well?” Cade shot me a look. “Are we going?”
I suppressed a sigh. Now wasn’t the time to bring up my doubts. Xiomara would surely jump on my bandwagon, and Cade was already hurt that I’d projected her away from him earlier. The last thing I needed was to make him think I was teaming up with her to point out the flaws in his plan. He and I would have to talk later.
I cleared my throat and nudged Xiomara. She didn’t even look at me; she just let her arm flop in my direction. Her lack of enthusiasm pretty much summed up my own feelings, but I projected both of them home without complaining. Then I went to get Solstice from the shipping container, making sure to warn her that she needed to close her eyes to avoid the temporary blindness.
When we showed up in the living room, Xiomara looked like she might faint. “Sol?” she whispered.
Solstice’s head snapped up, and she swiped a hand across her eyes. “Mara? What are you doing here?” Her face tensed, as if she’d just answered her own question. “You led them to me, didn’t you? It wasn’t enough that they caught you—you had to throw me under the bus, too?”
&nbs
p; “They threatened my children,” Xiomara shouted.
Solstice’s eyes spit fire. “Always an excuse with you. I see you haven’t changed at all.”
I looked between them, too caught off guard to speak. What was with the hostility? They were supposed to be friends. I turned to give Cade a questioning look, but he met it with one of his own. Apparently, he hadn’t been expecting this either.
“Don’t you get it, Sol?” Xiomara sounded more exhausted than angry. “They want to find all of us so we can undo the sink. Once we do, it will free all of our astral energy. Then you can go back to Alea, just like you wanted."
“As if you did this for me.” Solstice scanned the granite countertop that lined two sides of the kitchen, and I couldn’t help but notice that her eyes paused on the front door across from it. “Of course you’d drag me into this and not the others.”
“Trust me, you were my last choice.”
Cade’s groan quickly turned into a roar. “We’re not here to listen to you argue!”
Both women ceased talking, and I took advantage of the silence. “The sooner you come up with a plan, the sooner you never have to see each other again,” I said. Please, just come up with something that has some promise.
Xiomara sighed, pressing her palm against her forehead.
“Oh, are you frustrated, Mara?” Solstice jeered. “Give me a break. It’s your fault we’re in this mess. You should have let me out of this realm after your stupid plan backfired.”
“We both know going back would’ve been too dangerous.”
“Maybe for you. Arlo never had any issues with me. He would’ve taken me back.”
“Yeah, so he could kill you himself.”
“Enough!” Cade glared between the two of them and spun around to storm into the kitchen.
I frowned after him. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He pulled a bottle of rum out of the cabinet. “If I’m stuck depending on these immature fools, I’m going to need a drink.”
A drink? If he was resorting to alcohol, he had to see this wasn’t working—that this wasn’t going to work. Whether he liked it or not, it was time to start looking into a Plan B.
Chapter 17
Options
Solstice shifted on the couch, tucking her legs under the skirt of her dress. “Are you sure we can’t trace the others?” She jabbed Xiomara with her elbow way harder than necessary. “Just try.”
Cade shot her a look as he jammed the lid back on the dry erase marker. He stood next to the giant white board we’d propped up using one of the bar stools and the kitchen counter. Xiomara, Solstice, and I sat on the sofas, and the two of them had been calling out names for my uncle to add to the list of Ori’s and Ursula’s old friends and acquaintances. It was like some messed up version of a grade school exercise, but with hostages—and a gun waiting on the dining room table.
Given that my uncle was on his fifth rum and Coke, I wasn’t so sure having a weapon anywhere near him was a great idea, but he insisted we needed it in case Xiomara or Solstice tried anything. The gun was a couple feet away from him, so he could reach it before them, but I could project over and grab it before him if I had to. I just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Xiomara ran her hands over her cheeks. “I told you what Delta said. Tracing our astral energy won’t get us anywhere.”
“What if Delta’s wrong?” Solstice threw an arm toward the board. “We don’t exactly have tons of choices.”
That much was true. We’d spent the last three hours tossing around ideas, and the best thing we had come up with so far was to have Solstice call Delta’s cell phone. It hadn’t been hard to figure out the number—we used the phone we found in her purse to call mine so we could see the number we needed. Solstice left a voicemail saying Cade and I had come after her at work and she needed Delta’s help to put a block on her apartment. We just had to hope Delta would get a new phone and use the same number—and that she would call Solstice back.
“Maybe we should at least give it a try.” I looked around to each of their drained faces. “You know, just to rule it out.”
Xiomara sighed. “I don’t even remember how to do it. Delta only went over the theory with me once, a long time ago.”
“Well, you’re the only one she showed any crystal stuff,” Solstice grumbled. “So you’re basically our one shot.”
“Drop it.” Cade swirled the ice in his drink, making it clink against the sides of the glass. “It won’t work.”
“Neither will tracking down friends and employers from two decades ago,” Solstice shot back.
Xiomara’s head thumped softly against the wall behind her. “Fine,” she huffed. “If Kai takes me to a crystal shop tomorrow, I’ll try. But I wouldn’t bank on it.”
I wouldn’t bank on it. That seemed to be the theme of the night. I stared at the dry erase board as if the names on it might magically start forming a coherent plan. I could feel myself getting more and more antsy about trying to convince Cade to look into alternatives.
“What if you tried projecting to this?” Solstice tugged down her bottom lip. The deep pink skin was marked with a black X.
I frowned. “What’s that?”
“It’s a tattoo we all share.” Xiomara pulled at her own lip to reveal an identical mark. The defeat in her expression lifted as she let it pop back into place. “Can you project to symbols?”
I got to my feet and moved over to the opposite sofa where Solstice sat next to Xiomara. “I can try.”
Leaning down to examine the symbol inside Solstice’s lip, I realized it wasn’t a normal X. Instead of straight lines forming the inside angles, they were rounded. It almost looked like someone took a hole-puncher to four sides of a square. I studied the odd shape, not sure I wanted to know what it was supposed to mean. I closed my eyes, envisioned the symbol, took a deep breath, and…
Ended up previewing Solstice. Of course. Pulling out of the preview, I blew the air out of my cheeks and met the redhead’s eager gaze. “It just leads me to you,” I mumbled.
“What did I tell you?” Cade drained his glass, and I cringed. I really hoped he didn’t go for drink number six. Then again, maybe it was better that he was drinking. Maybe he’d be more open-minded when I pleaded my case about giving up on getting everyone from XODUS in one place.
“I guess that makes sense,” Xiomara said, though her disappointment was palpable.
I was sure mine was, too. I turned back to the board and inhaled slowly. We were getting nowhere, and the sooner I got Xiomara and Solstice out of here, the sooner I could talk to Cade about trying a new approach.
“Look, it’s almost a quarter to midnight.” I gestured to the stove clock. “It’s been a long day. If the best we can come up with is projecting to tattoos, we clearly need to try again with fresh brains tomorrow.”
I glanced at my uncle. Provided you’re not hungover.
Xiomara got to her feet, her jeans creased along the zipper from sitting for so long. “Can’t argue that.” She walked over to me with her wrist outstretched.
I reached for Solstice, too, but she crossed her arms. “I’m not playing slumber party with Mara,” she snapped. “Just take me home.”
“Not happening. You’re going downstairs, too.” Taking her arm, I projected her to the basement with her ex-friend. Solstice doubled over when we appeared in the in-law, and I knew she’d forgotten to close her eyes.
I started to pull away from Xiomara, but she tugged on my arm. “Kai,” she whispered. “Will you do me a favor?”
I furrowed my brow, equal parts offended and curious at her request. Did she think we were friends now? That we did each other favors? The fact that she thought I was soft enough to even consider asking made my jaw twitch.
Before I could respond, she held up her index finger and rushed around Solstice’s hunched form to the bed tucked below the stairs. Lifting the corner of the mattress, she pulled out a folded piece of pa
per. “I know you won’t let me go home,” she said as she came back toward me. “But will you take this to my daughter?”
“What is it?” I took the paper from her. Lali was printed across the top in tiny scrawl.
“It’s a letter.”
“Oh, can I write letters to my loved ones, too?” Solstice sneered, finally standing upright. “Let’s all play pen pals.”
“Shut up, Sol. You don’t have any loved ones.” Xiomara turned back to me. “It’s just to explain what’s going on.”
“Explain what’s going on? Like that you were kidnapped?” I scoffed. “I don’t think so.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s—”
“Ohhh.” Solstice clicked her tongue. “I almost forgot. Your little abomination of a daughter’s birthday is tomorrow, isn’t it? She was born on the anniversary of the day you expelled me from my home.”
“Shut up, Sol,” Xiomara shouted. “This doesn’t concern you.”
Solstice let out a bitter laugh. “You should have told your daughter she was a half-breed from the beginning. You should have told your clueless husband, too, but you love pulling people into your messes before they know what’s happening.”
“You knew what you were doing,” Xiomara fired back. “You were happy to punish Cade because he never reciprocated—”
“Don’t you dare!” Solstice dove at Xiomara with a newfound strength, but I stepped between them just in time.
“Stop it,” I yelled, holding Solstice back as she thrashed. I was already regretting bringing her into this. It would be a miracle if she and Xiomara didn’t kill each other during the night. “You two are worse than toddlers.”
With a final death stare, Solstice jerked out of my grip and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
That was it. I was going to convince Cade to switch tactics if for no other reason than to keep my sanity. Realizing I’d dropped Xiomara’s letter, I knelt to pick it up. I’d intended to hand it back to her, but she gasped excitedly.
