"Did I pass out?"
She snorted and from Marina it was the best sound ever. "More like left your body. Sort of. I love it. Look at the power I have over you. Big strong Outsider."
He groaned. "If only that was a joke. Total, complete domination if you want it, Marina."
They were quiet and the cave around them seemed to be as well. He knew it wouldn't last. Marina's movements became less languid until she finally sat up. He rolled over to look at her. "Something on my lady's mind?"
"Couple of things."
"Uh-oh."
She elbowed him and he laughed. "Hit me. What are you thinking?"
"I get why you thought we had to all spilt up. I think it's wrong. The only reason we won against the mama demon was because you could go get Christophe."
She wasn't wrong. "When I came back from the other place, I was so sure. Less than a day here and everything is muddled."
"I know." She ran her hands through his hair. "Are we going to talk about how you got back here? How you came back after they gave you the power to change time. Drew, I can see it. You had to travel back through time and space. And the Kal version there told you it was going to hurt like hell and…"
He interrupted her, the pain in her voice giving him no choice. "Any amount of discomfort—large or small—is nothing to me. Not when it's the difference between being with you and not. I'd endure anything."
"I love you, Drew."
The sweetest words ever.
Chapter Twelve
Leonardo hadn't picked his spot by the wall by accident. Alexa was on the other side of the wall. Right or wrong, he couldn't stay away from her. Even if he didn't want anyone else to know why he sat there. This was the first time they'd been in each other's presence—well, space—with both of them in their own bodies.
The last time he'd been incorporeal and she'd been busy fucking the demon. He closed his eyes. Nothing remotely good came from thinking about that day. And yet he could never stop himself from dwelling on it.
Hours ticked by and still he could hear Jason and Charma softly talking in the room with his soul mate. He'd never known Jason to take so long with anyone. How bad off could she be? From what little he'd seen of her before she'd been whisked away, her lovely almost pixie-like eyes had dark circles around them and she'd lost a substantial amount of weight. Outsiders didn't get really sick. What was wrong with her?
He felt Gabriel approach before the man appeared in the doorway. No one knew he could do that. Tell someone was near by recognizing their energy signatures. It made a weird amount of sense. He was a power enhancer. The energy of those around him directly affected him all the time. Veli had once told him it would destroy a lesser man.
Whatever that meant.
Leonardo had killed Veil for his trouble. Some days he actually let himself think about that horrific moment but most of the time he did not.
Gabriel stood in the doorway for a minute. "Been here all night?"
"Is it morning?"
"For about two hours now." Gabriel set the cup of coffee in his hands down in front of Leonardo. "Brought you this."
Coffee smelled like heaven only Leonardo was pretty sure he'd throw up anything he tried to eat or drink. His stomach felt like lead.
"Thanks."
Gabriel slid down the wall until he sat next to Leonardo on the floor. The other Outsider's visit had to be purposeful. As much as they were all a family of sorts, he wouldn't categorize Gabe as his friend. Outside of Marina, Charma, and Kal, Leonardo didn't have any.
"Need something?" They always did.
"I figured you were waiting on news about Alexa. I thought maybe we'd wait together."
Gabriel and Alexa had grown up together. They'd both gotten joined with Sebastian through manipulation by the demon. After nearly killing Kal, Gabe had come to his senses and realized he was being manipulated. But, Alexa never had.
"Why didn't she have what it took?" Leonardo asked the question before he even realized he was going to.
If he'd thought about the words he spoke before he said them they would not have been uttered aloud. Letting people in, letting the group he took care of know how he suffered, it only showed weakness they didn't need from him.
However, since the question had been asked it couldn't be unasked.
"What do you mean?" Gabriel stared off in the distance. No windows meant they were always looking at walls. Leonardo wondered if it bothered the others as much as it did him.
"When Loraine came and found you. That day, when she pulled you from the water and you finally gave up the idea you could avoid our life."
"I'm not following you."
Leonardo rubbed his eyes. "That would be because I'm not doing a good job of explaining to you."
"Try again. I mean we don't really do this, you and I. We don't fucking talk about our feelings but I get the sense you're asking me something real. So make another attempt."
Exhaustion made Leonardo careless or he'd not be having this talk at all. "Loraine didn't know about any of this. She could talk to animals, she knew she was different but the fight between good and evil, she grew up not knowing a thing about it. She should have been vulnerable to Sebastian. Yet, she didn't give into evil. She somehow knew you were out there and she waited for you. She was strong despite everything she went through."
"I see." Gabriel nodded. "And you want me to tell you why Alexa was not."
"If you know."
Gabriel's laugh startled Leonardo for how out of place it seemed in the room, given the conversation they were having. "Fuck if I understand women."
"Well you have to know something. You've had a soul mate for quite some time. You lived with Alexa for a long time. I'd say you're in the best possible position to know something the fuck about women."
Gabriel tapped his feet on the floor. "Why do some of us do things and others not. I don't know. Loraine was sheltered. She had a grandmother who made up stories about fictitious parents. She had a career. The only real oddity in her life was she spoke to animals and her best friend was Futon the dog."
"Futon who keeps coming and going from our lives. What is he exactly?"
The other man shrugged. "A dog. An angel. I have no fucking clue. Whatever. Anyway, yeah. Loraine never got involved with the demon or gave into evil. She didn't have a slew of lovers. But I'll tell you something, Leonardo, and I really mean it. I wouldn't care if she had. The way it feels to be joined with her, to have the other half of my soul attached to hers, I would give anything to have it. Whatever you have to do to make it happen, Leonardo, do it. Don't get lost in small details of things you aren't going to give a shit about once you have her."
"From the guy whose soul mate wasn't working with the demon against us for months."
"No, but I did and you've all somehow managed to get over your angst about me. Drew did. Who knows what our two missing pieces are out there doing." Gabriel yawned. "Alexa was kind. Once we moved in with Sebastian and we were no longer starving or fearful, she devoted all her time to the poor. She's gentle. Whatever's happened, blame me. I shouldn't have left her."
Leonardo closed his eyes. "Don't rewrite history. We barely got you out of there alive. Sebastian wanted you dead. You tried to get her to come. None of this is on you."
Jason staggered into the room and both Leonardo and Gabriel jumped to their feet. Their healer was in bad shape. Leo rushed forward, grabbing Jason's arm. "You okay?"
"Not nearly." He shuddered. "I've not been doing this very long. But I've never seen anything like what's happened to her. You know how Drew has a touch of the demon inside of him? Well, that poor girl has Sebastian all over her. Every part of her body infested. I can't even fix her stomach without doing something about the demon. I don't think she can even eat. Charma is doing what she can but we're both not sure."
"Enough." Leonardo propped Jason up. "Get your soul mate and both of you go to sleep. We'll watch her, keep her safe." Make sure she didn't do anything to ha
rm any of them. See if he could get his head on straight. They needed him to lead again. "Gabriel, if Jason is this bad Charma's got to be nearly falling over. Go get her. Let's get them some rest."
Gabriel rushed forward past Leonardo while Leo let Jason lean on him to get down the hall. He wasn't going to lose his healers to Alexa. The prophecy said all the Outsiders had to be together to defeat the demon. Drew wanted them to separate into pairs. Leonardo supposed that was one way to interpret the prophecy.
But Leonardo preferred the traditional approach. They all had to be together? Great, Alexa was here. They'd keep her unconscious. Her body was here. Good enough.
She was covered in the demon. Leonardo's skin crawled at the thought. He wanted to kill Sebastian more than ever.
"It's like it's going to have to be burned out of her." Jason staggered as they rounded the corner. "I don't know what else is going to work. How do we do that without killing her?"
"No idea."
With his healers settled and their wards protected, it was time to make some decisions. The war needed to come to an end.
* * * *
"Raquel." She turned at the sound of her name, her whole body tensing. Hearing his voice surprised her when really it shouldn't. She'd always known she could only run for so long. With no identification, no birth certificate, no passport she'd not been able to do more than sneak from one small town to a large city over and over again.
Then she'd been poofed back to where it all started and she really had no idea why. Austin, Texas. She loved the city, hated the memories. Life sure was funny. Growing up an orphan, shuffled from bad situation to bad situation had meant she never had a family to help her when things got hot…literally.
One second she'd been talking to Alexa, the next she was back in Austin. Why? Because life was cruel and apparently her time was up.
"I've looked for you everywhere." Out of everyone who had ever used her abilities, Michael Dorstore had been the most frightening. He'd used her and made her think she wanted to be whatever he needed from her. Raquel never killed anymore, but she had for Michael. And for the rest of her life she'd have to live with the ramifications of what she had done under his direction. He'd told her if he ever saw her again he'd kill her.
What did you think Raquel? You always knew it would you versus him.
Even her inner monologue couldn't give her a pep talk.
"And look at this. You come to me."
Raquel nodded. "You know what I'll do if you come near me."
The sun beat down on her. She'd forgotten about the Texas heat. The story went she'd been found in a box behind a closed down grocery store when she'd been a baby. Over the years, she'd gained enough information from the voices in her head to know she was part of a group of babies who had been forcibly separated from their parents. All of them had special powers.
Alexa was like her. The hottie—Zane—on the street was one, too. While it was nice to see others like her, it didn't matter anymore. No one was going to come rescue her from Michael and the hellfire she might have to rain down on both of them.
"I know what you're threatening." Michael shook his head, his grey hair falling over the scar on his cheek.
When had he started wearing it so long? She remembered when she'd given him the gash that never quite healed in the upper right of his left cheek. A rusty can opener smashed into his skin had been the desperate move of a girl with nothing to lose.
Raquel raised her chin. "I know you think it's just bravado. It's not. I won't come back to work for you."
"Then do it." Michael walked forward. "Set me afire. Burn me until I'm nothing but ash. But… I don't think you're going to. Because when it comes down it, you've always been a coward. A woman with the powers of a god and yet you do nothing to harm anyone else. You were made to be a weapon, Gia. My weapon."
She raised her arm. "Are you sure I won't roast you?"
* * * *
"Alexa."
She didn't know where she was but she was warm, she didn't have her usual hunger pains followed by nausea or the thumping in her head.
A woman stood before in front of her, bathed in a white light. She was tall, dark-haired, with kind brown eyes. She seemed somehow familiar, as though Alexa had seen her before. Like a distant memory…
"You're in deep trouble." The one's voice sounded kind, not accusatory. She touched the side of Alexa's face. "I wish I could say it was unpredicted but unfortunately that is simply not true. You losing yourself to the demon is a possibility every time you get sent back."
Losing herself to the demon? Alexa stepped toward the woman. A brush on her leg caught her attention and she glanced down. She wore a long white cotton dress that touched the top of her ankles. It was sleeveless and fitted. So simple and yet Alexa had never seen anything so beautiful in her life.
"Who are you?"
"A friend." The woman took Alexa's hand in hers. "A very old friend. Don't worry. You would have no way of remembering me. Not yet, anyway."
"Where am I?"
"What do you see?"
Alexa looked left and right. Calmness filled her body and soul, the likes of which she wasn't certain she'd ever had before. Everything was always so…hard.
"You and a lot of light."
The woman nodded. "This is a safe place, a stop where you and I can talk. The others…they've been here before, not that they'd remember any more than you will. The nature of this visit means you'll never recall our talk, not directly. I'm hopeful the fact that you've stopped by at all indicates a shift for you, the start of the path you've been missing for so long."
"Am I dead?"
The woman let go of her hand and touched the side of her face. "Not yet."
Alexa swallowed. Her answer wasn't a definitive no. "Dying?"
"Not sure."
Also not a great answer. Alexa took a deep breath. She didn't want to get annoyed with whatever dream figure this turned out to be. Beautiful moments simply didn't happen to her. "You said something about a demon?"
"That's for you to figure out. This moment between us is just a blip, a spot for you to rest, to see if you can find yourself again. The woman you were born to be. Sometimes you make such poor decisions, you and Leonardo both. So pivotal to the battle, the ones who win it or lose it in the end. And yet…you aren't steady. The ones most likely to turn."
Alexa placed her fingers over the woman's. "You're so warm, like the sun."
"Just the opposite, dear."
What? Alexa's eyes flew open.
She was on a bed. Somewhere in the distance, water dripped steadily. She jolted up, her heart beating wildly.
"Easy, 'Lexi."
The face of her childhood friend and protector appeared before her. She hadn't seen Gabriel Ward in…well, she'd really lost track of time and then they'd been together on the street again like they had when they were children. One thing had become abundantly clear in their brief coming back together. He hated her. Tears pooled in her eyes and she didn't have the wherewithal to stop them from streaming down her face.
"Gabe." Her voice cracked. "Is that really you?"
"It's me." He sat on the edge of her bed. "Who else would it be? The pretend me?"
She lay back on her pillow. For some reason she'd been having a fantastic dream she couldn't remember. A sense of wellbeing had made her actually feel rested for a change. Gabriel's attitude, however, was rapidly undoing any relaxation she gained.
"I get it. You hate me. You teamed up with the people we were against and they made you think I'm the enemy. I get it."
"Alexa…"
"Don't." A voice from the doorway caught her attention and Gabriel whirled around to see the speaker.
A man stood leaning against the doorframe. He was tall, dark-haired, high cheekbones. A pair of glasses rested on his nose and although the room wasn't brightly lit she could see through the frames he had dark eyes. He sauntered more than walked into the room.
Alexa's mouth went dry.
Who. Was. That?
"You have tried more than once to explain this to her. At this point, she's going to have to figure it out herself. She'll have ample time to get to know us. Since she's not going anywhere."
"Right." Gabriel nodded. "Well, I'll leave you to it then, Leonardo. Um, Alexa." He didn't turn to look at her. "Loraine is going to come see you later. Try to be nice, if you still know how."
His words burned. Of course she knew how to be nice. Just because she didn't care to become friendly with people who she'd sworn to defeat didn't make her exactly mean.
Gabriel's exit left her alone with the man he'd called Leonardo. She'd heard Sebastian mention the man several times. He was their leader.
She grabbed the sheet, which covered her, as her mouth started to water. Oh, god, she wanted blood. Her restful sleep had clearly not cured her of the affliction. Would it ever go away?
"Here's the deal." Leonardo sat on the edge of her bed. "You have to be here. If it were up to me, I'd send you out of here as fast I could, but a prophecy I had nothing to do with creating tied my hands and made it clear you had to be here. So here you will be. I have two members of my crew who would like nothing more than to make you feel better."
"I don't understand. Why do I have to be here? I don't have to do anything at all. I don't know what you think give you the right to…"
"Here's what gives me the right." He didn't raise his voice, by contrast, he whispered. How could such a low sound give off so much heat? "I'm in charge of a group of eighteen people. You happen to be one of them whether I want you to be or not. You're beautiful and I would bet when you're not all kinds of fucked up you're very powerful. I have a job to do and waiting for you to come around has not been working. Particularly, it would seem, not for you. So you'll stay here with us. Or if we have to leave again, you'll go. You can use this as a time to get better or you can consider yourself kidnapped. Suit yourself."
He stood up and she watched him, transfixed with the way his mouth moved. The words he spoke weren't inherently hostile, yet the way he said them left no question he was furious with her. Restrained, but dangerous. Or maybe she just knew he was because sometimes she understood people more than she should. Like the way she could find anyone, anywhere.