“Can I trust you this time, Tia?”
She grabbed my arms and squeezed, the pressure of her touch lending credence to her words. “They took you away. They came and kidnapped you from the jail cell. Whatever has happened to you since, it’s all my fault.”
I could have contradicted her. Truth was, everything happening to her since I’d been kidnapped had been my fault. It seemed a good idea to keep Tia feeling guilty. She might be half out of her mind and grateful to see me, but somewhere inside of her slightly broken shell remained the soul of the girl who had once been my best friend. The same person who had, in fact, turned her best friend and her own husband in for judgment because she’d been so jealous.
She’d been capable of betrayal once, she’d be capable of doing it again if it got her something she wanted. Feeling badly might keep her loyal, longer.
The time I’d spent leading the young Warriors in a secret fight against the Vampires proved to be very useful. Before then, I don’t know if I could have strategized anything.
“I need to get down below before I go. I need to see what they’re doing down there.”
Tia scratched at the back of her neck. “I thought you wanted to leave. I can get you into the elevator to go Upwards. I’m not certain I can manage to sneak you down below. It’s a much more complicated maneuver.”
“Just show me where the entrance is. I’ll find my own way down.” Somehow. “You should go back. Spend time with your baby.”
Her eyes lit up and for a second I saw the old Tia staring back at me. “He’s a great kid. Hardly a baby anymore. Now, he’s more like a toddler.”
I wondered if Tia could remember the before-time or if her memory issues stemmed only from the last switcharoo in her brain. I would have asked her if, on the day at the Icahns’ barbecue, if she could ever have imagined we’d be standing here—me, planning an assault, and her, a married mother whom everyone thought insane—when we’d simply been two teenage girls wondering what to do with the rest of our lives.
“Come with me.” Tia beckoned me to follow her and I did, staying silent as we walked through the darkening streets.
Up ahead, I could see a structure not in Genesis before. A brown building stretching from floor to ceiling stood ominously in the distance.
“That’s it, huh?” I stopped walking. The doors, large, red, and guarded, were made of steel. I had to give Icahn credit. His people could build structures quickly. Of course, it begged the question of exactly how long Icahn had plotted his return and how easily he had managed to manipulate me into giving him exactly what he wanted.
“Yes.” She nodded, her blondish-brownish hair bobbing up and down as she did. “I told you. It’s harder to get in there than it is to get up.”
“Exactly why I have to get down.” I closed my eyes. There were so many things left to do, including finding out what had happened to Jason. I wanted to finish the job I had started. He couldn’t be allowed to continue to kill. Stopping him had been my first objective. None of the rest of this—going after Icahn and his malicious plans—should have happened yet.
“Tia, what’s going on?”
Tia swung around to the sound of the voice behind us but my eyes flung open even as my body froze. I’d know her voice anywhere, any time. She’d taken care of me from the moment I’d been born, and when she’d not been in the new life Icahn had created, I’d mourned for her every day without even remembering her.
“Mrs. Clancy.” Tia’s voice shook. Even in her deranged state, she had to know what this meant. “Have you met Rachel?”
I turned around slowly. I wanted to weep, to scream, to run into her arms. But Kate Clancy had no idea who I was.
She smiled, the indulgent lifting of her lips she gave to strangers. Her best weapon, my father had once said.
Extending her hand, she spoke. “I haven’t yet. You’re our new friend from somewhere else. The one who came from a village somewhere?”
She hadn’t recognized me on sight, hadn’t been struck down by an eternal motherly instinct, cloned and manipulated or not, which allowed her to always recognize her own child. She stared at me with no jolt of connection. My mother didn’t look like she might fall over from the power of the emotions present in from the sight of me.
She had no idea of my existence. She could neither remember the years she’d parented me before the world ended nor have any idea she’d been cast as dead in the rewrite Icahn had done of our lives the first time around. Kate Clancy only stood before me now because I had bargained for her cloning in my deal with the devil. I had thought it would be good for my dad to have her, since I intended to write myself out of the new version of Genesis. He hadn’t done so well without her. My father had been many things but never a drunk, until Icahn had taken away my mom.
I guess I hadn’t counted on having to see her myself.
Finally, I worked up the courage to place my hand in hers. If she noticed the shaking of my fingers, she didn’t remark on it. Of course, she’d be too polite, in any manifestation, to do so. Her fingers felt rougher than they used to. Then again, she didn’t get to have her weekly manicures anymore. Would she think it really odd if I took her fingers and rubbed them against my cheek? I suspected she would.
“Hello.” I smiled. Maybe I grimaced. I couldn’t be sure. My facial muscles had quit working.
“What are you girls doing?” She looked around. “I don’t think you should be around here without one of your brothers, Tia.”
“Mrs. Clancy.” Tia swallowed. I could see the muscles of her neck clench as she did. “I’m okay here with Rachel. We saw Micah a few minutes ago. He knows I’m here.”
My mother raised an eyebrow and dropped my hand. “Really?”
I knew her look. She didn’t believe us. Only this time, since she didn’t know she had any right to say anything to me about it, she wasn’t commenting. In the past, she’d have really let me have it.
“Mrs. Clancy.” I choked on the word. Mom. Mommy. Mother. I wanted to use the words so badly they made pain travel up my spine even to think them. “I’m going to walk Tia home and then I’m going to back to my residence.”
She narrowed her gaze. “Really?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Ma’am,” I added as an afterthought. She had, after all, taught me manners even if she couldn’t remember she had.
“You look really familiar, Rachel.” Her voice lowered an octave. “Have we met before?”
Yes! “No.”
“All right.” She shook her head. “It must be the red hair. I guess all redheads look like family to me.”
“Right.” I really had no idea what to say.
“Well, you two run along, then. I have to go find my husband. He’s in the council meeting.”
Dad sat on the council? I could have laughed at the absurdity. The traitor sitting with the people in charge? Talk about life’s ironies.
“You make sure you’re inside before the lights go down. There are curfews for a reason.”
I wondered if I asked her what those reasons were if she could have told me or if that “there are curfews for a reason” phrase simply poured out of her mouth because it had been trained to do so. We had no curfews when I’d lived here.
Tia grabbed my hand and pulled me forward.
After a moment, I finally felt like my mouth might actually work again, like it could form words instead of a babbling bunch of meaningless, incoherent mush. I stopped walking and turned to my former best friend.
“Do you have any other memories? Of a time other than this one?”
She shook her head, her eyebrows sloping down in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind.” I grabbed on to her arm. I really shouldn’t have said anything. “Thank you for saving me back there with my mom.”
“She is your mom, isn’t she?” Tia nodded to herself. “I thought so. But she wasn’t here before. How? And how is Chad here? He died.”
“Ssshh.” Clearly, Tia needed so
me more time to really understand what I’d explained to her. She stared at me, her eyes wide and confused. For some reason, she almost looked wild with the way she stared at me, like a Vampire who knew it was about to be staked. “We can’t talk about this in the middle of the street.”
I really needed to think long and hard about Tia’s mental condition. Her family basically kept her locked up. My mother hadn’t wanted Tia wandering alone. Could she be dangerous? To herself? To others? Or, like I had a million times before, had I taken something simple like a look in someone’s eyes and run with it until it became a big, dramatic mess in my mind?
“You’re right.” She shook her head and we stayed quiet until I’d walked her to her door. Before she entered the house, she turned around to regard me. “So, will you leave tonight?”
“No.” I sighed. “I have to find out what Icahn is doing down there. Then I’ll go tomorrow. Or the next day.”
I had to give up my idea of finding Jason this time around. He’d be gone by now and not hanging around the area waiting for me to catch him again. The good news, however, was his entire pack would be centrally focused on getting Andon returned to them. If I made my way back to Redemption, I might be able to get the younger Icahns to track him for me.
If I managed not to get killed sneaking into the elder Icahn’s private lair tonight.
Her face brightened up so she looked almost like herself again. Almost. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe you’d like to come in and see the baby.”
“Sounds nice.” I realized I meant it. I hadn’t seen the little guy in months. He’d probably doubled in size or something. I knew next to nothing about babies. In fact, it still weirded me out a lot she had a child. If we lived in the world we’d come from, she most likely wouldn’t have had one so soon. Then again, where it counted, Tia remained Tia. Her decision-making remained the same in every lifetime.
Who knew what kind of trouble she could have gotten into in college?
I forced my thoughts back to the present as I walked away. It didn’t do me any good to get caught up in the past, considering I detested every person I’d met who remembered life before the Vampires rose up.
I thought back to my conversations with Tia. My gut told me not to trust her. Not because, like in the past, she intended me harm. By contrast, she seemed to feel genuinely bad about what had transpired when the Icahns had kidnapped me. She didn’t understand everything that had occurred after had been because I’d decided it would. The right thing to do might be to tell her, to let her off the hook and relieve some of her guilt.
I turned around to look back at Tia’s house. Inside, if I entered, I’d find the Lyons family. They were never very far from each other’s company. There had been a time, with my father drunk ad nauseam, I’d wanted nothing more than to be a member of their tribe.
But when it had come down to it, their presence, their love—the security I’d thought I’d wanted—had held me back. Tia belonged in there and if her guilt kept her from accidentally throwing me either literally or figuratively to the wolves, then so be it.
These days, I felt perfectly comfortable living in shades of gray. I’d never be evil. When all was finally said and done, people might also say I’d never been particularly good, either. The distinction didn’t bother me at all.
Hard decisions always came with a price attached to them.
I’d learned from my mother that most of us existed in shades of gray. The trick had to be figuring out which scenario I could stomach and then doing it.
In two strides, I’d moved back toward the doors where Icahn and his crew hung out. I could wait for total nightfall, only I’d decided against waiting the second I’d seen the location. Icahn would be expecting me to cause trouble as soon as the lights went out. At the very least, he’d be cautious. Probably, he’d have patrols out, conveniently making sure I stayed where I’d been put.
I rolled my eyes. He should have known better. Sticking me in a place where I’d never be comfortable only motivated me to get out faster.
The tattoo on my back itched. I’d gotten it after I’d survived my first adventure Upwards. Every once in a while, it bothered me. I never could tell why it occurred when it did. I’d only seen it in the mirror a few times but I knew it to be a multicolored fairy Micah had personally designed. A pixie.
I wished she could be an eye on my back. What was coming? What was behind me? Unfortunately, my pixie held no real magic. Just a picture placed on my body because I happened to have been a Warrior and the tradition of tattooing the Ones had been going on forever.
Or at least we thought it had. I knew better now. I guess she got to be a forever emblem on my body to remind me I had many pasts and just one future.
It took me two minutes to get to where I needed to go. The guards who’d been standing still earlier when Tia and I had walked by were still there. If I could get one of them to move, this would be a piece of cake. One thing Keith had taught us when he’d trained us to fight had been to deal with the situation we were given and not wish for one we didn’t have. I had two people to subdue, silently, and so I’d have to make the best of it.
I walked toward them slowly, glancing left and right deliberately. I’d never be an actress. However, I needed to pull this off. I tugged on a strand of my hair.
The guards shifted as I approached, moving into defensive positions. This didn’t speak well for what I had planned.
Innocent, Rachel. I smiled. “Um. Hello.”
I waited for a response from one of them and got none. I continued. “I’m new here. Maybe you heard about me. My name is Rachel. I come from, um, a village.”
They didn’t answer, although the one on the right looked at the one on the left. I didn’t know them so they hadn’t been here when I’d last been. I took a deep breath. Both of them dwarfed me. The one standing on the right had blond hair that hung just below his ears. Completely not okay for Warriors.
“All right.” I lowered my voice. I’d planned to be lost and confused. They didn’t seem to be buying it. “You know who I am.”
I didn’t phrase it as a question. It wasn’t one.
Blondie grinned. “We do, Rachel. We were at Redemption when you were brought in.”
“Uh-huh.” I should have figured. Icahn would bring his own people with him this time for protection.
“This place is off-limits.” Goon Number Two spoke from next to Blondie. He had nearly black hair and a dark eyebrow instead of two separate ones.
“I know.” My hands felt steady at my sides. I supposed not shaking was a good thing since I was about to attempt to beat up two men who each had at least five inches and probably one hundred pounds on me.
I stretched my arms over my head, letting my muscles wake up. “I don’t suppose you’re going to make this easy on me and let me go in?”
They both shook their heads.
I didn’t think so.
Chapter Seven
Then
Jason stared down at me and I knew I had to look like death warmed over. I shifted in my hospital bed, wishing the gown they’d put me in could have been slightly less hideous.
“Tell me again what happened when the Wolf jumped you.” He paced back and forth from the window to the bed. We’d gone over this ten times now. His questions were more invasive than the ones the police had asked.
“It landed on top of me. I hit my head. I don’t really remember after.”
He bent over me, his face close to mine. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am”—Jason paused, scratching his head—“it didn’t bite you.”
“I don’t know why it didn’t.” I shrugged, which hurt my head. “I swear it had death in its eyes. For sure, it wanted to bite Micah Lyons.”
“Maybe you smelled too good to it. Maybe it would never, ever bite anyone whose scent moved it the way yours must have.”
My head hurt. I really, really couldn’t take Jason’s weirdness right then. “Sure, Jason.” I closed my eyes. ?
??Why not? I suppose the addictive, wonderfulness of my—what? Scent must have made the Wolf decide not to attack me.”
Jason let out an audible sigh. I opened my eyes and wished he’d leave. I couldn’t make him feel better about the fact he’d been missing when I’d been knocked around by a giant Wolf.
“Why did you push him out of the way?”
So he’d finally decided to ask me. I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t know. Instinct or something. I saw a Wolf charging him and I shoved him out of the way.”
“I need to go talk to my dad.” He looked at the door. “I hear your mother and father. It sounds like they’ve arrived.” It had? I strained my neck like it could help me hear better and neither of my parents’ voices reached my ears.
Jason leaned down and pressed a kiss on my lips. I closed my eyes. He smelled like…Jason.
After a second, he backed away. “I’ll be back, pixie-girl.”
“You’d better be. You never know what could happen when you leave.” I grinned. “A wild Wolf might plow through the door and come get me.”
He shook his head, not smiling. “Not possible.”
Turning on his heel, he exited the room with two strides. I sighed. It had been a really weird day.
“She was under your care, Andon.”
Now I could hear my mother in the hall. Her voice rose to the level of shrill. I shuddered. I wouldn’t want to be Andon Kenwood for all the money in the world.
“Kate.”
My father tried to interrupt her but, as I’d experienced many times in my life, once my mother got going into an extreme level of anger, she would not cool down until she felt good and ready to.
I’d never cared for Andon Kenwood and the way he stared at me like he knew all of my secrets. Still, I didn’t need my mom to create more problems in my relationship with Jason. Not when I had to figure out if I wanted a relationship with him.
“Why was she left alone where she could be attacked by wild animals?”
I rolled my eyes. She acted like I was five. Left alone? What were the Kenwoods supposed to do? Stand with me and hold my hand to make sure I crossed the street okay?