by K. J. McPike
“Oh.” Crap! Of course the very first thing she wanted was to be reunited with her mother. Now that she’d asked, I couldn’t say no—not if I wanted her to project to my sister and figure out the route I had to take to get to her.
“Yeah, of course,” I said, my palms starting to sweat. How was I going to get out of this? I couldn’t take her to my basement—there was a chance she would recognize the house from when she’d seen Cade threatening Solstice with the gun. “We, uh, just have to get a new chain for this thing.” It was a lame way to buy time, but it was all I could think of in the moment.
“I have plenty of chains in my room,” Lali offered.
Naturally. “Yeah?” I shoved the necklace into my pocket, scrambling to think of something to stall her. But it was useless. I knew nothing I could say would stop Lali from wanting to go to her mom. There was nothing anyone could say to convince me not to go after Kala, either, and Lali was just as stubborn as I was.
You can pretend to hit a block. I was ashamed of myself for even thinking it, but I knew it was the only way to stop this disaster waiting to happen. I had to make Lali think the stone didn’t work.
“Okay,” I said, fighting the protests from my conscience. “Then let’s go.”
She took my hand, and I saw her lip tremble as she closed her eyes.
I was such a jerk.
I dove over to where Lali lay sprawled out on the wood floor of her bedroom, her face twisted in pain. “I’m sorry!” I shouted. “Are you hurt?” Shifting my hand under her to help her sit, I realized she had tears streaming down her cheeks. And it was my fault.
After my failed attempt to convince her to let me go after her mother first, I’d thrown myself backward to fake hitting a block. I’d at least had the foresight to lean forward and prevent my skull from cracking in the process, but Lali had no warning. I hadn’t meant to hurt her, but from the looks of things, I had—emotionally and physically.
She made a rasping noise as I eased her upright.
“Hey, easy,” I urged. I had to bite the sides of my tongue to stop myself from shouting out a thousand more apologies. She tried to say something but didn’t quite manage.
“Lali, just breathe.” I ran my hand in circles across her back and stared at her eyes. Her pupils didn’t look dilated. That was a good sign, right?
“Why…” she gasped. “Didn’t it…work?”
“I don’t know,” I lied, my mind already working to come up with more ways to deceive her. “Maybe the stones aren’t the reason the guards can move through blocks. Maybe there’s more to it.” I could tell she wasn’t buying it, and I didn’t blame her. But I was running out of ideas.
“Or maybe it’s because I don’t have an astral form,” I tried. “You said the Astralii were wearing them when they permeated the walls, right?”
Her face lifted. “Let me…try.”
Well, that backfired. “How will you be able to wear it in your astral form?” I challenged, desperate to deter her. “You told me it repels things.” Thank God she’d mentioned that back when she was trying to learn how to permeate.
Lali slumped forward, and I thought I had finally gotten her to drop it. Then she sucked in a breath and said, “Oxanna has an astral form.” Naturally, now that I wanted her to be discouraged, she was a big bucket of optimism.
“But she doesn’t know where your mom is,” I reminded her.
Lali covered her face, and I forced down the lump in my throat. Getting what I wanted had never sucked so much.
“I’m sorry.” I studied her rumpled comforter simply to avoid seeing Lali look so broken. “I really thought the stone would work, too.”
“So, what? This was all for nothing? We just give up?” Her voice rose with each question. “I can’t accept that, Kai. I won’t.”
“We’re not giving up.” If you’d just let me go home, I could figure out a way to get you your mother. Knowing there was no other way to get out of this, I said the last thing she wanted to hear. “We still have one option left.”
She glared at me, picking up on my meaning. I didn’t really want to go after Ori and Ursula, but I needed an excuse to go home.
“I know it’s not what you wanted,” I continued, “but it’s the only way. If we can get all of them to release the energy inside the crystal, this will all be over.”
“Yeah, for you,” she burst out. “But they don’t know where my mom is.”
“Lali, look at me.” Not surprisingly, she didn’t. I moved closer, pressing my back against the wall as I sat next to her. “We’ll find her. We’ll find both of them. Whatever it takes. Just trust me.”
Ha! Trust you? Do you even trust yourself anymore?
Lali still refused to look at me, and I couldn’t take it. I had to go. I had to get her mother, get our story straight, and reunite the two of them. Then I’d let Lali try the crystal to find Kala. I’d have to backtrack on what I’d said about the crystal not working for Lali’s astral form, but she’d be much more open to trying if she had her mother back. I was sure of it.
Giving Lali one last look, I projected myself home. I stopped in my room to drop off the guard’s necklace, headed downstairs, and yanked open the door to the basement. “Xiomara,” I called out, taking the steps two at a time. “Do you want to go home?”
She raced over, catching me just as I reached the bottom of the staircase. “What?” She brushed aside the short wisps of hair that had fallen into her face. “What did you just say?”
“I’m going to take you home. But only if you agree to a few conditions.”
“Kai—”
“It’s nothing bad. We just have to come up with an explanation for how I found you.” She shifted uncomfortably, but I was determined to convince her. “We could say Solstice and Delta ended up having a picture of you, and I found you hiding out from the Eyes and Ears. That’s easy enough, and Lali would believe it if you went along with the story.”
“Kai, slow down. This is crazy.”
“No it isn’t. I don’t want to hurt her anymore.”
Xiomara blinked at me, the shock in her gray eyes reminding me too much of her daughter.
“Once Lali has you back, she can help me get to Kala,” I said. “Then we can all move on with our lives.”
“She’s not going to Alea! Not again.” Of course, now that I was trying to bring Xiomara back to her family, she was resisting.
I groaned. “She won’t be in any danger. Her astral form is invisible. No one will even know she’s there. All she has to do is project to Kala and find a way out of the lab. I’ll do everything else on my own.”
“You’ll get yourself killed.”
“Why do you even care?” I exploded, my whole body heaving. “Then you could all go on with your happy little lives without me ruining things all the time. Maybe everyone would be better off.”
Xiomara’s chin quivered, and she did the thing I least expected—she hugged me.
I tensed, squeezing my jaw as tightly as I could to fight the overwhelming urge to crumple into a ball on the floor. How could she hug me? After everything I’d done to her, how could she even look at me?
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” she whispered, her head resting on my chest. “You can redeem yourself. I know you have a heart in there.” When she pulled away, there were tears in her eyes. “I’ve seen it, even when you didn’t want me to. Just give yourself a chance to do this the right way.”
A shaky breath made its way out of my nose. “There is no right way anymore,” I moaned. “Not with this. I’ll take you home right now. Just say you’ll help me.”
She studied my face, and I told myself she was considering going along with my idea.
“I’ll take Lali to Solstice’s apartment,” I went on. “Solstice and Delta are already there. We can pretend they traced you somehow. Please. I just don’t want Lali to hate me.”
Xiomara stayed quiet for so long, my hope started to falter. Finally, she sighed loudly. “Oka
y, Kai.”
My heart soared. “Really?”
She nodded, and before I knew it, I was hugging her again.
“Thank you.” I let her go and grinned at her. “Thank you so much. Be right back.”
Spinning around, I sprinted up the stairs and projected back to Xiomara’s house in record time. I appeared in Oxanna’s doorway, feeling like I could fly.
Then Lali looked at me, and the horrified expression on her face erased every shred of excitement in me.
“What?” I asked.
Her shock transformed into rage in half a second. Charging at me like she was going to strangle me with her bare hands, she shouted, “You lying creep!”
…Hearing that come out of your mouth was like a shard of glass in my heart. Somehow, I knew you had figured it all out. I was sure I’d lost you, and I didn’t know how to handle it. I was so ashamed, and so angry. Here I’d just gotten your mom to go along with my plan to reunite you two, only to have everything blow up in my face when I went to bring you to her.
As strange as this may sound, I found myself teetering between wanting to explain and wanting to make it worse. I didn’t know if it was better to try and get you to understand, or to be the monster I was sure you thought I was so you could just hate me. The feelings between us were already complicated enough, and I didn’t want to make things harder on you.
Unfortunately, no matter what I did, things just kept getting messier…
Chapter 55
Outed
I caught Lali’s arm before her fist connected with my face. “What?” I gasped, even though my gut told me she knew everything. I fought it, telling myself that I was jumping to conclusions, that there was no way she could have figured it out.
“Where’s our mom?” Dixon shouted, confirming my fear. He stormed toward me, looking just as murderous as his sister. Before he could complicate the situation more, I tightened my hold around Lali and projected her to Lanai.
She stumbled, fighting me as I held her upright by her forearms. “Where is she?” she screamed. “What did you do to her?”
“Lali, what are you talking about?” I knew I was grasping at straws, but I clung to the hope that she didn’t know everything.
“Don’t deny it! We saw you take her!”
I blinked twice. How could they have seen me take Xiomara? That was three months ago…
The time-traveling twins! One could go back to the past. Had he managed to go back to when I kidnapped his mother?
Lali strained against my hold. “Where is she?”
I sighed. There was no point in denying it. “She’s safe,” I said, wanting to bury myself in the sand blowing across my feet. “I haven’t hurt her.”
Seeming to find new strength at my confession, Lali jerked out of my grasp. “Let her go.”
I was planning to. But now that Lali knew the truth, there was no way she was going to help me get to Kala willingly. I would have to hold her mom over her head to get her to cooperate.
Cade had been right all along; I should have taken that approach from the beginning. Now I understood why he’d been against involving Lali, against trying to befriend her. It was too messy. Going to all the trouble of lying was too much to keep up with, while threats made things simple.
“You know I can’t do that,” I said, that one small sentence hurting me as much as it must’ve hurt Lali. “Not until we get Ursula and undo this sink once and for all.” Well, Ursula and Ori. I could project to Ori as soon as she got home, but we still didn’t technically have her yet.
Tears ran down Lali’s face. She looked at me with the fire of a hatred I’d never seen from her, like I was her arch nemesis. In a lot of ways, it seemed I was.
“How could you?” she sobbed. “I got you to Alea. I did everything you wanted.”
“Lali—”
“Just let her go. I’ll still help you, I swear.”
Even if Lali meant that, I was sure something would screw it up. Xiomara would find a way to stop her from going to Alea or something would go wrong. Things never worked out for me, especially not when it came to Lali. It was like this was all some sick cosmic joke, with my happiness as the punchline.
Maybe it was better if she hated me and helped me out of fear. Otherwise, I couldn’t depend on her. I couldn’t depend on anyone except Cade. Once I got his ability back, the two of us were going to save Kala without anyone else getting in the way.
“Help me with what?” I spat. “The necklace won’t work.” There was no point in explaining that lie to her; I wasn’t going to try and get her to use it anymore. “Cade is my only chance to get inside the lab, and he has to have his powers to do that.”
Lali made a noise somewhere between a wheeze and a whimper. The look of devastation on her face put a crack in my resolve. Before I knew what I was saying, I was trying to explain. “Lali, you have to understand—”
“Take me to her. Please. I have to see her.”
“That’s only going to make it harder for you.” You and me.
She dropped her face into her hands, and something tugged at me. How could I be so eager to make her happy one moment and so quick to crush her the next? I could hardly keep up with myself. But maybe if I gave a little, Lali would too. Maybe I should at least give her a chance.
“Okay,” I said, not sure if I was more disappointed in myself more for hurting her or for caring about her enough that seeing her hurt could hurt me, too. “Fine. But it can only be for a few minutes.” Any longer than that, and there was no telling how I’d cave next.
“What? Why?”
I took a deep breath. She was going to try and make me bend more. I’d been in enough battles of will with her to know that. I had to stay firm. “Do you want to see her or not?”
She gulped.
I reached for her hand, but she hesitated. Of course. She knows the truth now, and she’s always going to hate you for it.
I winced. Even if I tried to make it up to her, she was never going to look at me the same. “Come on,” I huffed. “Before I think better of this.”
I projected us to my house, and from the look on Lali’s face, she recognized the space. “What is this?” she asked, frowning. “Where is my mother?”
“She’s downstairs.” I led her to the basement door and pulled it open. She poked her head through the frame slowly, like she thought I might lock her down there, too.
Before I could say anything, Xiomara called out, “Hello?”
Lali gasped. “Mom!”
“Lali?”
I stood frozen in place, listening to Lali’s footsteps thud down the stairs. The sounds of sobbing and comforting made my fists clench. When was it my turn to have a reunion? When was it my turn to be relieved to see someone I’d been missing? Lali got to reunite with her mother. There was never a question that she would be reunited with her, even if she didn’t know it.
But my parents were gone forever, and I still had real obstacles to overcome to get to Kala. Lali had no idea how lucky she was that I was the only thing between her and her mother. She didn’t know what it was like being forced into situation after situation where she had to do messed up things just to try and get someone back. Yet, here she was, judging me for it. She was always judging me.
A loud pounding noise snapped me out of my spiraling.
“What just happened?” Xiomara asked the question, but I already knew the answer: they hit the block.
I tore down the steps, fire racing through my blood. Sure enough, Xiomara was climbing to her feet, and Lali was sprawled across the floor. Lali had tried to project her mom out of here to get away—to get away from me—after I’d been kind enough to bring her here.
That was it. Screw being nice.
“I knew I shouldn’t have brought you here,” I said, more to myself than to Lali.
Xiomara stepped in front of her daughter as if I might attack her. Clearly, she’d already lost faith in me, too. “Then why did you?” she asked. “What’s going
on?”
“I had a moment of weakness.” I studied Lali’s face, seeing the disgust there. “But I see you’re trying to take advantage of it.”
“How did you block this place?” she choked out. “You said the crystals to block astral energy were only in Alea.”
“What?” Xiomara looked between us. “That’s not true. Black tourmaline can be found here, too.” Naturally, she had to blow that lie, too. Wasn’t it enough for her that Lali knew the truth about what had happened with her mother?
“Did you tell me the truth about anything?” Lali hissed. Her question gutted me. Even though I’d had to lie about her mother, we’d spent so much time together over the last month that I actually felt close to her. I was honest with her about everything I could be honest about, and she wasn’t giving me any credit for it.
“I asked you to guide her.” Xiomara had the nerve to sound hurt. “Not fill her head with lies.”
For crying out loud, I couldn’t do anything right with these two.
Lali gaped at her mother. “You wanted him to—”
But Xiomara wasn’t paying her any attention. “What are you trying to do?” she demanded, her gaze still fixed on me. “Why did you bring her here?”
“Good question,” I growled. “It was a mistake. The kind people make when they let themselves start to care.”
“Care?” Lali’s mouth fell open. “You’ve been holding my mother captive for months! You used me!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. “I’m a heartless monster.” There. Is that what you want to hear?
“What do you want, Kai?” Xiomara asked, the poison in her voice telling me her earlier I care act hadn’t been real. Nothing would ever be real when it came to these two.
“To take Lali home,” I said. “I shouldn’t have brought her here in the first place.”
“I’m not leaving without my mother.” Oh, now Lali was making demands? I’d already told her this would be a quick visit, but here she was trying to take advantage of me again. Well, I wasn’t going to allow that. Not anymore.
