Sabotaged (The Sundance Series Book 3)

by C. P. Rider

  Once inside, I walked through the kitchen without looking too hard at it, and took the stairs to my apartment slowly, my joints stiff and sore. I needed to move, to get blood flowing through them so they'd feel better. I also needed coffee, but a shower first.

  Someone had cleaned my apartment while I was gone. Earp would be getting a dozen of his favorite cookies as soon as I was baking again. Maybe two dozen.

  Thirty minutes later, I had a fresh bandage on my neck wound, my bracelet was sparkling clean, and my hair lay in happily moisturized curls down my back. Instead of my usual sundress and sneakers, I put on a pair of jeans and a yellow cotton T-shirt with my sneakers and even slapped on a little makeup. I felt more myself with my hair fixed and a little gloss on my lips. Funny how that worked.

  Because it was just me, I made coffee in the French press I'd brought over from my tío's kitchen a couple of weeks ago. Thank God Fiera hadn't broken it. I had to use powdered milk as creamer, but I wasn't complaining. The coffee was hot, and I was drinking it at a table in my café.

  Though the windows were still boarded up, the front door had been replaced, too. Earp strikes again. Three dozen cookies.

  I spent the morning throwing out old food, including the last of my birthday cake, and making a grocery list. Maybe Chandra would go with me to La Paloma again. If she was worried about running into her ex, we could go to another restaurant. Or no restaurant at all, only DiscMart for supplies.

  Early afternoon, I drove across the street to Sundance Auto and gave the Rezvani keys to King Jones—less my bakery key. He cursed at the sight of the wrecked vehicle. "Alpha Blacke has to take this to the dealership. I can get it running, but I can't fix this kind of body damage in my shop."

  As far as I was concerned, he could send it off a cliff. Every time I saw the tank I thought of Xavier Malcolm, and I didn't have any happy memories with the guy.

  I decided to walk down to the post office and check the business mailbox. It was something to do that didn't involve trying to figure out what to clean next in the panaderia.

  As I walked, I thought about my dad. He'd dropped a bomb on me, and I was still picking the shrapnel out of my skin. Alma Costa, or whatever her name was, wasn't my mother. Yet, in every way that counted, she was. It upset me that she was gone, and I never got to say goodbye. There were things I would have liked to have said to her. Things I'd like to have asked her. Dad said she'd loved me. I wanted to hear her say it was true.

  Even though I now had more real and honest answers about my history than I'd ever had, I felt unsettled.

  On my way home, I got a call on my cell.

  "Hey, kiddo. You okay?"

  "Hi, Dolores. I'm okay. Stiff and sore, but the charm helped. Where are you?"

  "The hyena dropped us off a couple hours ago. The fire witch is with us. I wanted to let you know we decided to keep her."

  Fiera spoke in the background. "That's not a nice way to phrase it. I'm not a dog you picked up from the pound."

  "No, I bet a dog would be less trouble. Oh Dot, you know what I mean," Dolores said, and then to me: "Fiera is a good egg. She's looking for a place to settle, and we've got that little cabin on the property. Needs work, but Earp says he can get it livable in short order. Meantime, she'll bunk with Dot and me."

  That cabin needed a lot of work. Last I saw, it was less cabin than condemned shed. "Good. I'm glad she's there."

  "It's really okay with you? I know she was part of that sanctuary, but I got the feeling she was more friend than foe."

  "She was. Is." I shifted the phone to my other hand. "Fiera was like me. Trapped and doing the best she could."

  Dolores sighed. "I imagine that's true. Another shifter came back with us, too. Wolf named Tellis. We helped a little with healing, but the apothecary says she's got something real good for silver poisoning, so we dropped him off at the medical center."

  "Be kind to him, Dolores. He was treated badly in that place."

  "Yeah. Seems like that's going around." The phone made a scuffling sound as Dolores moved it around. "You sure you're all right?"

  "No. But I'll find a way to be."

  "You should come out here. Go for a soak in the hot spring. Dot, Fiera, and I'll work on a new healing charm for you. Unless the tiger took care of it?"

  "No, he still can't heal me. Why do you think that is?"

  "Who knows? Shifters use moon magic and that stuff is tricky. Dot said she's planning to dig into one of her grimoires for information. There's a big section on shifters in the hairy book."

  I inwardly recoiled at the thought of Dottie's gross, hairy grimoire. "Whose hair is that?"

  Dolores huffed. "The grimoire's, of course. Whose hair is on your head?"

  It took me a second or two, but I got it. "The book grew hair?" Oh God, that was so much grosser than being made from hair.

  "Grows. Present tense. Come on over to the Fairfield Witches' Interdimensional Watering Hole this evening. Dot'll make you a prickly pear margarita and I won't make you hold the hairy book." She added, "Oh, and we can get me set up on one of those socializing programs for the phone."

  "Are you talking about a dating app?" Dolores on a dating app. The world was not ready for this.

  "Yeah. I told you I was tired of you and Dot hogging all the action. I need to find me a partner, too."

  "Sounds … good. We'll work on it. Tell Dottie and Fiera I'll do my best to stop by."

  I ended the call as I turned the corner in front of my bakery. The weather was pleasant. It appeared we were finally getting our five minutes of fall before winter. Beautiful day for a walk, but I was already tired. How much damage had Julio and Alpha Gold done to me? How much damage had the warden done with his silver experiments? Now that I knew I was not part human, I had to consider that the silver had had some sort of negative effect on my system.

  I'd talk to the witches about it tonight. Maybe bring it up to Maria Cortez, see if she had anything at the apothecary that might help, since the witches had deferred to her when it came to Tellis's silver poisoning.

  Thinking about Maria Cortez reminded me of my mother Maria.

  Was my mom a telepath? Or was she a spiker? My dad admitted he lied to me about her. My dad has always been secretive and controlling, and loose with the truth, but this time I wasn't sure which truth he was being loose with.

  I scrolled through my missed calls. My dad wasn't there. I was angry with the man, but I was also eager to hear from him, because he'd said he was going to send me a picture of my mom. I wanted to know everything about her. Where she had lived, where her family was from, if she had any living relatives. It was a comfort to me that she had been of Mexican heritage, like my dad and my uncle. I'd already lost so much of my identity because of my dad's lies, I'd hate to lose that side of me, too.

  At least Tío José was still my uncle—even if he'd come from the other side of my family. While I understood why he'd kept my dad's secrets, I couldn't help but be sad that he hadn't told me the truth. That's what I was, too: sad. I was too worn down to be angry with him. Maybe later, when I felt better.

  Gravel crunched beneath my feet as I tromped through the small parking area behind the bakery. I kicked a flat gray rock and it ricocheted off the dumpster. I needed to sweep back there. I needed to order more gravel, as patches of dirt were showing through in several places. I needed a nap.

  A nap sounded the best option of the three. Maybe a peanut butter sandwich and then a nap. I'd just taken a loaf of bread out of the freezer and there was peanut butter in the pantry. Score.

  I ate the peanut butter sandwich but didn't take the nap.

  My body wanted to rest, but my mind wasn't having it. Now that I was home and safe, reaction was setting in. Thoughts banged around the inside of my skull like bumper cars, one idea bouncing against another before careening away. My dad's lies, my real mother, my stand-in mother, the things I'd done at the sanctuary to survive, the things I'd done at the sanctuary in anger—I lay in bed
until I couldn't stand it anymore, then got up and went downstairs to clean something. Cleaning always helped to clear my mind.

  The spray disinfectants were under the sink. Bleached white towels lay in a short stack on a shelf above the sink. I grabbed one of both and headed for the café. The counters were intact, and some of the tables and chairs. They were clean, but I would scrub them again. I'd scrub and scour until I was too tired to think, and then maybe I would be able to sleep.

  Unfortunately, my jerk of a brain decided to take this opportunity to replay the death of Aaron Greenfield—not the first person I'd killed in the sanctuary, but the most innocent. The gorilla shifter had had a son to protect. He'd been fully prepared to kill me in order to do that, but he hadn't been a bad person. He'd had no choice. Neither had I, but I'd survived, and now that I had time to think and feel and regret, the guilt was eating me alive.

  Scrub, scour, think.

  I was on the floor, wiping down the base of a table, when the back door opened.

  My first thought was that it was Lucas, though he'd called earlier and said he had some things to take care of and would be by later tonight.

  My second thought was, aside from Lucas, good things rarely came through the back door unannounced.

  "Hi, Neels."

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Julio strolled into the café. He wore a brown uniform that reminded me of the one worn by the delivery service most of us in Sundance used. The matching brown ball cap was tugged low over his jeweled green eyes.

  "Do you have a death wish?" Slowly, I rose to my feet. My head felt light and my joints stiff. I thought I'd only been scrubbing tables for an hour, but it must have been longer.

  "Neels, I—"

  "You should have kept running." I tossed the dirty cloth on the table, set the disinfectant beside it with an audible thump. "Why in God's name would you come back here?"

  He took off his cap, held it against his heart. "The ring, Neels. You kept the ring I gave you. I saw it. I know you still care."

  That meant he'd broken into my apartment when I wasn't around, the jerk.

  "Julio." I leaned a hip against the table. "I'm not the person you once knew. I told you that. After what happened to me at that sanctuary, I'm not even the person I once knew."

  "I had to take you there. It was the only way to free you from Blacke's influence. You don't see what he's doing to you because you're blinded—"

  "Do you know what women like me call men like you?"

  "Neels, I'm trying to expl—"

  "Poison. Toxic. A flaming bag-of-shit boyfriend inside a chemical fire of a relationship."

  Julio tossed his cap onto the table I'd just cleaned. "Listen to me. I was only—"

  "But you aren't poison, toxic, or even a burning bag of shit." I shook my head at him. "You're worse. You're sabotage incarnate. Malicious, spiteful, vindictive sabotage."

  His brows drew low over his earnest gaze. "I know you're angry, but that's because you don't understand. I love you, and you're trapped here with Blacke. I knew you wouldn't come willingly, so I had to think of some way—"

  "You deliberately set me up to destroy me. I mean—" I laughed humorlessly. "—isn't that the very definition of sabotage?"

  "Neels." Julio's voice shook, which made me think that perhaps I was finally getting through to him. "I was trying to save you, save us."

  "Oh, so you were saving me? You set me up to be kidnapped, positioned me in such a way that I had no choice but to commit murder, then attempted to make my worst nightmare come true by changing me into a spiker-shifter crossbreed. When exactly does the saving part start?"

  "Changing you was for both of us. It's the only way for us to be safe. You know it's true."

  Teeth clenched, I said, "I was safe before you came into my life. You've been on a path to destroy me since the day I met you."

  "That's a lie." He paced away from me, rubbed his shoulders as if he were cold. "We're supposed to spend our lives together, remember? You love me."

  "I thought I did. But now I think I was just lonely—and kind of stupid. Blind."

  "So, what?" Julio's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "You think you love Blacke now? The guy is using you. Don't be a fool. Come on, Neels, you're smarter than this."

  "Whatever Lucas has done or is doing is nothing compared to what you did to me by taking me to that sanctuary. I killed, Julio. I was forced to kill another paranormal to survive, and it's wrecking me from the inside out."

  "I never wanted that. I assumed you'd behave. You've always had your rules."

  He'd assumed I'd behave? As if what had happened to me in that place was my fault? I hadn't thought it was possible to despise him more than I already did.

  "If you don't walk out that door and out of my life forever, I am going to end you, Julio Roso. Don't doubt it. If you do one smart thing today, do not doubt that what I am saying to you is the unqualified truth."

  "We're meant to be together," he said.

  That was the moment. The moment I knew that he wasn't going to do the smart thing and leave. The moment I knew that whatever I did next, either nothing or something, I'd have to live with my decision forever.

  The last time a Roso came at me, I fled, running until I was out of road, and only then did I stand my ground. By the time I faced my enemy, I'd already lost everything.

  Because I'd done nothing.

  I opened myself, let Julio's energy flow into me. There was no need to draw. Julio was a strong alpha and I was getting better at taking energy without being detected. All that spiking I had been forced to do on other paranormals may have psychologically damaged me forever, but it had also taught me a thing or two.

  "Were you somehow blocking me back at the sanctuary? Is that why I couldn't change you?" Julio swung his gaze to mine. The desperation had left his expression, replaced with a suspicion-laced craftiness. "The other alpha said you were already a crossbreed. Is that true?"

  "No." I took one last lungful of energy, inhaled it as if it were air. "You and Alpha Gold couldn't change me because neither of you were stronger than me." At least, that was my working theory—and all I was willing to share with him.

  "That can't be right." He stared through me. "I think I know what went wrong, Neels. I want to try again."

  I locked onto his mind. It was easier now that I'd had so much practice.

  Fear. Julio was filled with it, the emotion worked into every corner of his brain. That was why he'd never stood up to his brother, and later, to Garrett Harris. Julio was afraid, and he carried that terror with him everywhere. It didn't matter that he was a strong alpha. Inside, he was a scared little boy. His fear had warped him.

  "Do you see that ofrenda over there?" I thumbed at the altar behind me.

  "I noticed it when I walked in." He smiled, and traces of the young man I once loved showed in his eyes. "You and José used to put one up at the bakery in Vegas. I always thought it was nice, the way you honored your dead. My family never bothered with the custom after my bisabuela died."

  "I remember you telling me that. I directed your attention to it, because I think when you stopped putting up your ofrenda, it was the beginning of the end for your family. The moment that you all forgot the importance of honor."

  "My family hasn't ended. There's still me—and you." He smiled and reached for me, lies in his eyes. "Come with me, Neels."

  "No." I drove into his head, pushed hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to kill him. I was walking a fine line, because I didn't dare let up and allow him to overpower me. He was strong enough to snap my neck like a twig.

  "Neels?" He blew out a hard breath and bent at the waist, grasping a chair for support. "Don't. Please."

  "You should have walked out that door when I gave you the chance."

  "Your life here is an illusion." He punctuated each sentence with a heaving breath. "Blacke doesn't care about you and I'm going to prove it."

  "What does that mean, Julio? What are you pl
anning?"

  His responding smile was the same one he used to give me right before he kissed me. Why had I never noticed how unhinged it was? "I'm going to take down Blacke, Neels. And then I'm going to take care of you."

  "No. You're not."

  That smile again. Empty, obsessed eyes, a void going straight down to his soul. "You don't have to worry about a thing. I'm going to keep us both safe."

  I almost felt for him in that moment. Almost. He was such a scared, small, weak person.

  But then I recalled how he'd held me down and sank his teeth into my neck. Knowing how much becoming a crossbreed scared me, he'd forced it on me. Forced his will on me. And I didn't feel for him anymore.

  I didn't feel anything at all.

  The hardest part of loading a body into a trunk is working around the spare tire. No one tells you this, but it's true. It has to do with the age of the car, of course. Newer cars have run-flat tires, or the tire is set into the lower part of the trunk. They don't have spares in such an awkward place, not to mention the additional accoutrements of tire changing.

  I took my cell phone with me, but I didn't call anyone, nor did I send a text. The witches would assume I had been too tired to stop by for drinks and a soak, and wouldn't worry. Lucas would call when he came by later and found me gone. I glanced at the bracelet on my wrist, played with the gold lock. Lucas could find me if he was really worried.

  To be on the safe side, I stopped in La Paloma to top off the old LTD's tank. Running out of gas on the side of the road would attract attention, and I did not want to have to spike a human cop. In general, I liked the police. They had a tough job and the pay wasn't close to enough for what they put up with. Specifically, though, I'd known a few real hard-ass type cops, and if someone like that pulled me over, I'd have to spike.

  So, I took precautions.

  My cell phone rang an hour into the drive. It was wedged into a handsfree mount on the air conditioner vent, charging via a cord plugged into an adapter stuck in the cigarette lighter. Thankfully, Julio and I used the same type of phone. I answered by voice command, half hoping it was Lucas, half hoping it was a wrong number.