CHAPTER 26
I woke up at four-thirty and, thanks to a parade of thoughts of guns and blood and amazing kisses, was unable to go back to sleep. I slipped out of bed without disturbing Nathan and padded quietly out of the room, shutting the door softly behind me. Callie was asleep on the couch, and I tip toed past her into the bathroom.
I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle the shriek of horror at the sight of myself in the mirror. I combed desperately at the ragweed on my head, but it was useless. The only thing worse than my hair was my face, with a half-moon shadow under my eye and a red welt that marked my cheek.
That bitch did give me a black eye.
I found a washcloth and scrubbed at the smudges of dirt and dried blood, only to reveal more bruises. A lot more. I gave up on my face, and washed the blood off my hands. That was when I realized I was covered in it. Washing off in the sink wouldn’t cut it.
I opened the door and nearly ran into Alec.
“I was coming to look for you,” I said to him.
“Lucky me.” He tilted his head from side to side, and his eyes scrutinized me. “You need a shower.”
“That’s why I was looking for you.”
He pushed past me into the small bathroom. He carried with him a change of clothes. Upon closer inspection, I realized that they were from my closet, in Boone. He set them on the counter along with a towel and a small bag filled with girly accessories. I recognized shampoo and body wash in the mix, and thought it all looked like it had come from my bathroom.
He turned and caught me gawking at the collection. “Thought you might want to have some of your own stuff.”
“How did you...?”
“I have my secrets. And Callie helped.” He held my eyes a moment before he stepped around me. He stopped in the doorway with a grin on his face. “I’ll try not to think about the fact that you’ll be in my shower. Naked.” He winked and closed the door behind him.
Only Alec could find a way to flirt at a time like this. But then, his don’t-give-a-shit demeanor was one of the things that drew me to him in the first place. He had always found ways to make me laugh, and this was no exception.
It felt good to laugh again.
After I made sure the lock on the door worked, I got in the shower. I took my time as I scrubbed away the blood and grim, washed my hair twice, shaved, and dressed in clean familiar clothes. A touch of makeup covered the worst of the bruises on my face.
Callie and Nathan were still sleeping soundly when I emerged from the bathroom.
The back door off the living room was propped open, and allowed signs of the approaching dawn to sprawl across the floor and a wave of cigarette smoke to reach my nose. I peeked through the gap, saw Alec sitting on the steps, and pushed the door open. A soft squeak announced my arrival.
Alec glanced over his shoulder with a smile. “Much better.”
I hovered in the doorway, though I didn’t know why. Hadn’t I defended Alec all along? Hadn’t I insisted to Nathan that Alec wouldn’t hurt me? I had believed it then, and I still did. Alec had saved my life, just as much as Nathan had.
I was also very aware of the fact that he had admitted to being a Skotadi.
He patted the spot beside him and smiled reassuringly. “Come on. I’m still me.”
Skotadi or not, I knew Alec wasn’t a threat to me. I lowered to the step beside him. A short beat of silence stretched between us before he spoke up.
“I’ll understand if you have a hard time trusting me.” He turned to me with a sad smile on his lips. “But I’m not going to stop trying to prove myself to you.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to me, Alec.”
“Sure I do. You’ve learned a lot in the past few weeks. You know what you are, what I am, what he is.” Alec spoke of Nathan sourly. “Problem is, you learned everything from his side and was taught to distrust me. Right?”
“Isn’t it true that Skotadi are evil?” After what I had experienced, he would never convince me otherwise.
He nodded. “They are.”
My breath hitched and my next words caught in my throat. “Are you a Skotadi?”
“I am.” He slid me a sideways grin. “But do you think I’m evil?”
That was the part that had never made sense to me. Nothing about Alec was evil. Except maybe that grin of his.
“I never believed that for one second,” I admitted.
He looked both surprised and relieved. His eyes held mine, unusually serious for him. “Do you trust me?”
This time, I grinned. “That would depend on the context.”
He laughed and I was reminded of how much I had missed that sound. “I will never deny being a bad influence.” He sobered. “But on a bigger scale, like life and death, do you trust me?”
“In that case, I do. You saved me. And you saved Nathan. You didn’t have to do what you did.”
He looked annoyed when he glanced up at me, and his eyelashes covered most of what I saw of his eyes. “So long as he doesn’t think I did it for him. I only did it for you.” His ornery grin resurfaced and he shook his head incredulously. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I could have had him out of the way.” With the look he gave me, it didn’t take much to realize where his thoughts were leading.
“Alec, look...”
“I know, I know. You’ve got a thing for him. By the time I figured it out, it was too late to lock him back up. Just tell me one thing.” He rolled his shoulders back and turned his head toward me with a lopsided grin. “Is he a better kisser than me?”
I stared, shock rendering my brain incapable of forming an answer.
He bumped his shoulder against mine. “I could remind you if you’d like.” He wiggled his eyebrows in that way that always made me wonder how much of his teasing was real.
In this case, I thought it was more real than not, and my heart galloped nervously. I wished it weren’t true, but he still managed to fluster and excite me. I didn’t want to get back into that with Alec. I shouldn’t. Couldn’t. Not now. Not after what had happened with Nathan.
I steered the conversation away from kissing, and to the more serious matter. “Do you know what’s going on? Why people are after me, and apparently want me dead?”
He looked reluctant to change the subject, but did. “I probably know more than you and what’s his name.”
“Nathan.”
“Right,” he said like it didn’t matter. “We have some stuff to talk about when he gets up. All of us.”
“And you have the answers?”
He nodded distractedly. “Most of them. What I want to know is: who was the chick running things?” he mulled to himself.
“Lillian?”
Alec raised his eyebrows. “You know her?”
I hesitated. This was a tricky one. “I know of her,” I rephrased carefully. “You don’t?”
Alec waited for me to elaborate.
“She held me hostage for who knows how long...”
“Two days,” Alec chimed in quickly. “What do you know about her?”
Two days? I hated her even more now.
“Tell me what you know, Kris.”
“She used to be a Kala,” I started tentatively.
“That’s not possible.”
“Apparently it is,” I insisted.
“How do you know?”
I nibbled on my lip. This was Nathan’s knowledge to share, not mine. I was sure it was significant, and Alec would need to know. Even so, I felt like I was overstepping a line.
“Kris,” Alec urged. “How are you so sure?”
“Nathan knew her a long time ago, when she was a Kala. He told me about her.”
“He knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t a spy?” He paused and I saw him piecing it together. “Were they together or something?”
Alec took my silence as a yes. I saw the wheels turning in his head before he looked away.
“It was seven years ago,” I added quickly.
“He thought she was dead until she showed up in the barn right after you...” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Wait a minute. I almost forgot. What were you doing there?”
Alec shook his head like that was an insignificant matter. “I’ll get to that later,” he said. “What happened when she showed up?”
“Nathan froze. If you had seen the look on his face when he saw her, you would believe me. I knew from his reaction who she was, but I don’t know how or why. All I know is that she was a Kala, and now she’s a Skotadi.”
Alec’s eyes twinkled as he put more pieces together, and he talked more to himself than to me. “She was running the whole thing because she had inside knowledge about him, his habits, his strengths, his weaknesses. He was their link to you, and she knew him, giving them the advantage.”
“I don’t get it. Where do I fit in all of this?”
That had been the question from day one. Funny, Alec had been the one with the answer all along. His elbows rested on his knees, his chin in his hands, as he stared unseeing across the small back yard.
In the distance, rays of light from the rising sun peeked above the horizon. It was the start of another day. I should have seen the positive in it, maybe expected dawn to bring a new day and a new beginning.
Instead, uncertainty seeped from within and struck my heart with trepidation, and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like what the new day would bring.