“Great. Later today.” After I made things right with Molly, if I even could.
Malcolm walked up behind me, putting his arm around my shoulder and drawing me away from Levi, who went back inside the house. “You think we need to leave our daughter.”
“Not without your consent. I needed to know if he could do it. I’m not making decisions anymore. We all have choices. It’s time to use that ability. I … hell, Malcolm, I’m not better. Okay? Whatever I was, I still am. I see things clearly now. I see you. I’m not making sense.”
He laced his fingers between mine. “Try again. You’re not better.”
I needed to. “Michael basically beat me into getting my head in order. With his power and, yes, physically if I attacked him.”
A muscle ticked in Malcolm’s jaw. Michael was gone. Malcolm was going to have to get over it. “I was practically—what’s the word?—feral. He helped. I needed the pain. I got it.”
Malcolm sucked in a breath. “I couldn’t have helped you with that.”
“I know.” I kissed his hand. “It’s like my whole life, even before the Shadow Dimension, I was standing on the edge of the cliff by the purple waterfall, waiting for something. A sign. A direction. How much was I going to have to take? How many hits did we all need before there were too many? I’ve refused my path many, many times because what I wanted was to be back, nine years old, and to never have gotten shot.”
His eyes widened. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“Well, what kind of person wishes for a reality where they never had their children? What kind of person does that? I felt like even thinking that way made me a bad person, a bad mother, and then the shadow situation came. I came to believe I deserved to be there because I’d been such a horrible person, and then I got angry.”
Talking about this was a lot harder than I’d thought it was going to be.
“You were not a bad person. You’ve always been among the best people I know. Honey, the kids don’t know how you feel. Or felt. Or whatever. You think about them all the time. You love them.”
I hoped he was right. “Do our thoughts determine our futures? I don’t know. That’s above my pay grade. Listen, the point is, I’m getting out of my own way. I choose it now, Malcolm. I choose to be done with that creature, to send him back where he belongs. That’s my choice. If no one else wants to, then that’s perfectly fine. I’ll do it.”
“Not alone. Not without me. I always choose you.”
I kissed his cheek. “I know you do. You came and got me from my hell. I never said thank you. So, thank you.”
He pressed his forehead to mine. “You said you weren’t healed.”
“I’m not. It’ll never be easy again. No matter what happens, I’m always going to be waging a battle inside of my own head. All the parts of me. As long as we both remember that, maybe this might eventually be okay.”
“I love all of you.”
He always knew what to say.
* * *
“So you’ll all have to think about it. We have to battle, but we have to want to as well. Anyone who wants out should go to the Other Space. You can get there. I can help. The battle is coming. But I don’t want to force any of you into it. Michael is gone. As far as I’m concerned, your obligations are over. He wanted us to be a merry team of shadow killers. Well, he was no more an enlightened entity than I am. Time to make our own choices. I know where The Master is. I can see him. You all can, too. In your minds’ eyes.” I held out my hand. “If anyone wants me to activate that power to go to the Other space at will, let me know.”
Surprisingly, Ross took my hand. I hadn’t seen Erin since I’d been back from the Shadow Dimension. I hoped they were okay. She’d taken the news about Ross having special powers better than Levi, had but it couldn’t be easy. They’d been living in New York City, living a good, regular life. Her whole existence had been upended.
Ross blinked as the power hit him; he’d be able to travel dimensions and to see where the bad guys were if he wanted to. I could also give Victoria her powers back, if she wanted them.
Shrugging, Logan spoke first. “We’re all here, hon. I don’t think any of us are going to turn and run.”
“Great, then tonight, I put The Master back where he belongs. He’ll have hundreds and hundreds of shadows with him. It might be a blood fest. Any one of us could end up following Michael to wherever. I have to check on the Phoenix and Chelsea. I’m not sure what’s happening. All of it is up in the air.”
Henry nodded. “Then let’s get to all of it.”
Not until we got through one rougher topic. When the others disbanded, I stayed in the kitchen with Victoria, Henry, Levi, and Malcolm. This was hard. I didn’t even know how I felt about the subject, let alone what I wanted them to say.
“If we do this, it doesn’t end tonight. It goes on and on forever. This is a war that can’t be won. We don’t go back to life like nothing happened. Our kids will have to be trained so they can train. This is how it happens. If it happens.”
Victoria rubbed her forehead, and Henry sighed loudly. “The kids?”
“That’s right. The kids. Yours and mine. Unless we all say no. We’re still in charge of them. For now. My fear is we say no now”—I looked at Levi because, out of all of us, I thought he was the most likely to decide our children were not eternal warriors, and I couldn’t even blame him for it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t read him at all—“and then they need the training after we’re all dead. Or our grandchildren do. Then, boom, there’s no Michael; there’s no one to help them.”
“Do it.” Levi’s voice startled me. “Whatever you have to do to make them strong and capable. They can have a life, any life they want, if they are able to handle their business.”
Wow. I smiled at him. Sometimes he surprised me. He wasn’t the same man who had once let me down. Malcolm was silent. Our daughter was an infant. Maybe this felt too far away to him.
Henry and Victoria made eye contact, and then he spoke. “We’ve always assumed Jack would have to be part of our life. We knew it when we decided to try to see if we could have a baby. Your kids seemed pretty normal, considering their pedigree.”
“Thanks.” Levi shook his head. “They do roll with things better than me. Better than Kendall, honestly.”
And just when I got a little nostalgic for the good old days with Levi, he went and said something like that. Even if, maybe, he was right.
My powers surged, and I pushed them back down. He wasn’t an enemy just because he made me angry.
“There are things out there we can’t make them ready for. Things that killed me several times.”
Malcolm’s eyes widened. He finally spoke. “Come again?”
“Long story. I promise I’ll get to it eventually. Listen, the best we can do is make them better than us. Then they can do the same for their kids. We can send away the shadows, but they’ll come back. If not for us, then for others. This is the burden. The one we didn’t ask for, even if Michael and the Others gave us a so-called choice—and they really didn’t.”
Levi shook his head. “I still think it’s better than not being prepared. You can’t run them out of town—me in tow—every time something bad happens. Grayson is old enough to get better at this. We all go to school to learn. Time to educate the children.”
Henry nodded. “Victoria will take Jack and go to the Other Space with Levi. Her powers are gone. That’s the best place for her right now. I’ll stay and help.”
My best friend had lost everything for me. Another person I hadn’t thanked. “Thanks for what you did.”
She hiccupped before she hugged me. I let her. My powers were still up and on alert because of Levi’s snarky remark earlier. If I needed to pound on something, I’d go back to the purple waterfall and slam on something there.
“I’m glad we could bring you back. I thought maybe I didn’t have enough strength.”
I placed my hand on her forearm. “I can give them
back.”
“No, don’t. I don’t want them.”
Now that was news. “You don’t?”
“It’s a choice, right? You say that, and I want to believe you. I want to be done. I died so many years ago; I came back, tried to do my best, like everyone else. But I don’t want to do this anymore. Maybe that makes me weak.”
Henry interrupted us, his voice loud when he did. “That does not make you weak. You’re the strongest person I know. End of story.”
“No one will think less of you. Take your son. Go with Levi. I doubt very much that it’ll just be the two of you.”
Logan stumbled into the room. His pupils were huge. He was clearly having a vision. “The portals are opening.”
Having delivered his statement, he grabbed the edge of the couch and would have fallen over if Malcolm hadn’t caught him. Logan groaned. Visions hurt. I’d never had one, but I’d seen it enough with Dexter and my mother. Whatever signal they got from whomever or whatever sent the message wrecked their bodies.
He leaned his head down between his knees. “Shit. I was in the middle of making a phone call to my college roommate. Can’t they, you know, wait?”
“I’ve never seen them give anyone that choice, so I’d imagine the answer to that is no.” I walked up to him. “What portals? What did they look like?”
He blew out a long breath. “Everything was dark, and yet there were creatures moving around that I could see despite the absence of light. Some small fires, here and there. Smoke rising.”
“That’s the Shadow Dimension. The portals are opening. That’s not possible. I closed them. When I jumped in. And fuck me, I’m not jumping back in.”
I really wasn’t. I’d do just about anything—and until that second I hadn’t realized I had any hard limits—but I was not going back to live with the shadows unless someday the universe sent me back there because I deserved it.
Malcolm shook his head. “If anyone has to go back in, it’ll be me.”
We needed Michael to explain this, only that wasn’t happening. He was finally … done. I took a deep breath. “Either my coming back undid the plug, or they’ve worked something else out. They’ve had hundreds of years. As you know, time is different.”
All of that time …
Malcolm put his hand on my arm. “Don’t go there in your head.”
“Sometimes I’m going to go there. It’s okay. We have to believe I can manage it, or we need to shut me down.”
Michael wasn’t here, but his wisdom—or whatever he would have called it—still was. “I had the energy to shut the portals before. I’m not doing it again. But there is a way to harness it, the Other space. They all lived there for years. I bet you the very essence of the place carries them. In the dirt. In the waterfall. In everything about the place.
“Do you want to take a trip?”
* * *
Returning to the Other Space with everyone whom I had lived with there for so long—and bringing my ex-husband and children with us—defined the word strange. I sat by the waterfall with Abbi pressed to my chest in a sling. Molly sat next to me, staring at the purple water.
“Pretty weird, huh?” I ran my hand through her dark hair. It had gotten really long. Her father thought of most things—but not haircuts.
She turned her head to look at me. “I think it’s really pretty.”
“I think so too. Listen, Molly, darling.” Parenting wasn’t coming easily to me. I’d lost it in all the time away, the ease with the kids, the knowing what to say. But I had to pull this off, or I had to vanish from their lives. I couldn’t stick around and keep screwing this up. “I, um, hurt you.”
She blinked rapidly. “Daddy says the shadows did some things to you and it wasn’t your fault. You’re getting better now.”
“That’s true.” My voice clogged up. I was going to cry. The first tear slipped from my eye, and I batted it away. Crying didn’t feel normal anymore. I couldn’t let myself do it, for many reasons. At the moment, Molly shouldn’t know her bravery overwhelmed me. I didn’t deserve her grace or her forgiveness. I should have held on better, even through all that time. They were my children. If I hadn’t lost hope, I could have been the kind of mother they needed when I came back.
I spoke again. “I’m sorry.”
She put her head on my lap. “That’s okay, Mommy.”
Of course it wasn’t, but it was too long a day to keep apologizing. She was way too young to take on my emotional baggage; I’d have to keep it to myself.
Levi rounded the bend and sat down next to Molly. “So you lived here. With purple waterfalls and floating trees.”
I blinked a few times, trying to figure out the floating trees. It finally dawned on me. “The floating trees.” The Others were gone; the place with the shrubs in the air had been their domain. I’d only seen it once. With them gone, I guessed Levi could wander.
“The floating trees are pretty, if I remember. Yes, I lived here. Purple waterfalls. I never did get over that.”
“Think we’ll be okay staying here for a bit, Molly?” Levi kissed her head. “Spend some time? Have some fun?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think we’re here to have fun. I think we’re here so Mom can handle things. I’m hoping this is the last time.”
When had she gotten so smart? I kissed her cheek. “Me too.”
* * *
I wandered around the area, wondering if this was the last time I’d ever do so. Abbi was still asleep in the way newborns always were. Or weren’t, if you wanted them to be. I stepped into my own cabin to find Malcolm sitting on our old bed.
He leaned back. “How did it go with Molly?”
“As well as can be expected. It’s going to take some time, assuming we have that.”
Malcolm rose and came over to us, placing his head gently on top of Abbi’s head. “We will. She’s still knocked out? Think she would keep sleeping if you placed her down on a mattress on the floor?”
“Maybe.” I looked around. “Why do you want me to do that?”
“Because I’d like to have sex with you on that couch. If that’s something you’d like to do.”
My whole body heated up the second he suggested the activity. “Well, I think we can give it a try for sure. The baby, I mean. I think we could handle the couch.”
His smile lit up the whole room. “I love you.”
As gently as I could, I managed to put Abigail to sleep on a mattress in the bedroom. She didn’t even stir when I set her down, which was amazing. Tip-toeing like it was my job to do so, I closed the door gently and met Malcolm by the couch.
“When we leave here this time, you’re going to remember me.”
He kissed me, hard. It was a claiming. I craved him. It had been a very, very long time for me. I hadn’t wanted this in so long. I ran my hand down the front of his pants, feeling the bulge there.
He moaned against my mouth. “You’re never to leave me again. You’re not to do it even to save me.”
“Last time, I didn’t see that I had a choice, but this time we’re in it together. Okay? You and me. We do this together.”
He kissed my neck, and I shuddered, pleasure rushing through me. “I can think of some other things I want to do together.”
I stepped back long enough to strip off my shirt. He quickly unhooked my bra. I breathed in the moment—the heat in his eyes, the way he stared at me as though I was the only person on the planet. I tugged at his shirt. We were going to fight true evil. This might be the last time we saw each other; we were going to do this right.
Reaching out, I grabbed his shirt, feeling the soft cotton beneath my fingertips. He’d dressed in jeans and a gray t-shirt. “Off.”
He grinned, a twinkle showing in his eyes. “Being here with you in this place, I can remember all of the times we were together before. I never thought I’d be back. Yet we’re both alive and together. Our daughter is asleep in the other room. We keep pulling through, and you’re still the sexi
est woman there ever was.” He finished his speech by tugging off his shirt as I’d demanded.
“When we first fell in love, we were both so young, teenagers really. You were always the best looking guy around. I can see you back then. Burning with energy. You contain it now. You’re still the most gorgeous man.”
I touched his chest, feeling his muscles and the brush of dark hair across it. We weren’t young anymore. I’d never felt so lucky to get older.
Chapter Five
He kissed me, and I moaned. If I could have blinked and had our clothes off, I would have, but unfortunately that wasn’t one of my powers. We had to get naked the old-fashioned way.
“You’re so crazy muscular right now. It’s really hot how strong you are.” He kissed me, and I jumped up, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist.
Malcolm had thought I was hot when I was thin, when I was pregnant, and absolutely not that way, and now. He seemed to view me through rose-colored glasses.
He lovingly touched me, running a hand down my neck to my breasts. When he spoke, his voice was husky. “I love you.”
“Good.” I kissed his chin. “I love you, too.”
Our caresses became more urgent, and soon our mouths were fused together like they’d been made to be that way. I held nothing back from him. I wanted him to feel everything I did. He deserved to know all of me. A river of fire moved through my body. I stepped back from him, dragging him to couch with me, his body falling on top of me before he caught himself. He nuzzled my neck as I arched against him.
My movements brought us close enough that I could feel his hard cock against my pussy. I trembled uncontrollably. I couldn’t remember another time when I had ever been so turned on. I threaded my fingers through his thick hair, and he moaned. Malcolm had always liked it when I played with his hair. For a man who guarded his heart and didn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve, when he needed, he needed.
His hand travelled up my leg until he found my pussy. With one finger he found my clit. I ground myself against him to give him more leeway. We were not sixteen, and the couch wasn’t as easy to maneuver on as the bed.