Firstlife (21 page)

I take the conversation in a new direction. “Why do you have an accent but the King doesn't?”

“I spent a lot of time with the director of the Learning Center. What you would call an orphanage.” His thumb brushes over my navel, making me shiver. “James grew up in the orphanage, too.” His tone is hesitant, and I know he's doing his best to gauge my reaction.

I'm no longer hurt by memories of James, but... “Show him to me.” This is an opportunity I can't pass up. An opportunity for closure.

“I knew I should have kept my mouth closed,” Killian grumbles as the camera pans out. “Curiosity got the better of me.”

We whisk down a darkened street, finally stopping at a pub...going through the door. Dark wood-paneled walls are illuminated by glow rocks that were made to resemble gas lamps. A glass floor offers a view of multiple bedrooms...beds...and the couples writhing on them. I'm about to look away—really—when I spot James. Handsome James, sitting at a table with two other guys. The three are throwing back cold ones and laughing uproariously.

“Her tits were...” One of the boys kisses pinched fingers, as if he's praising the taste of spaghetti.

The other two guys—James included—nod in agreement.

“I know she's signed,” my ex-boyfriend says, “but I may arrange a meeting with her, anyway.”

The third guy slaps his arm. “Leave some for the rest of us. I'm still pissed you stole my blonde.”

“What can I say? She likes 'em big.”

Okay. “I'm done,” I snap, and the vision fades.

A thousand different emotions slam through me. The front-runners? Humiliation—such a stupid girl, falling for his act. Incredulity—so desperate for affection I refused to see the truth. Disappointment—people suck. Fury—I let a two-faced lying jerk hold me.

My taste in boys is seriously screwed up.

“I'm sorry.” Killian's tone is raw with anger and regret. “I'll be killing him shortly.”

“Don't bother. I'd rather
James
be the author of his own destruction.” I roll to my side. “Archer told me about Dior.”

He stiffens as he rolls to
his
side. Our gazes meet. We're so close. If he were human, I'd feel the warmth of his breath on my skin.

“Did you steal her to hurt Archer, win her soul, or because you had feelings for her?”

Resignation darkens his features. “I did it to hurt him
and
to win her soul. Strike at me, and I strike back twice as hard. But...” He reaches out, smooths a lock of hair from my cheek before lying down again. “I check on her occasionally. She used to laugh. She doesn't anymore.”

Such a tangled web these boys have woven. “There has to be something you can do to help her. Not on Archer's behalf, but hers. She's part of your family.”

He runs his tongue over his teeth. “You could make her freedom a condition of your contract.”

Another manipulation. One so high-handed I'm actually shocked he tried it.

“All right. Cuddle time is over. I'm not changing my plan.”

He grabs my wrist to stop me. “Ten—”

I use one of Archer's moves, swinging my free arm around, slamming my fist into Killian's jaw. When his head turns from the impact, I punch a second time, where the Shell is most vulnerable: the small control panel behind the ear, marked only by the tattoo of a square.

He goes still, and I know I have one minute, maybe two, before he's able to move again. “Disrupting the connection,” Archer called it.

I stand, and Killian is only able to track me with his gaze. “This really is goodbye,” I say, raising my chin.

“Afraid not, lass.” His hand shoots out and latches on to my calf, yanking me off my feet. I tumble backward, landing on a mound of pillows. He's looming over me a second later. “Sign with Myriad.”

“Go to Many Ends. And get off me!”

“Sign!”

“Screw you.” I push him and climb to my feet under my own steam.

Before I'm halfway up, he hooks his foot behind my ankles and pushes me back down. “If you're not going to do the smart thing and sign, you need to learn to protect yourself.”

“Archer taught me—”

“Don't care. He isn't the best. I am.” Killian waves a hand over my prone form, all
here's your proof
. “Lesson one. Always strike your opponent while she—or he—is down.”

I glare at him. “Archer said the exact opposite. I'm supposed to help my enemy up and possibly win a lifelong friend.”

“That's the perfect thing to do. If you want to be stabbed in the back later.”

Maybe. Maybe not. I thought the same thing while living at the asylum. But look at Sloan. At meeting one, we fought. We tried to kill each other. Now we protect each other.

Killian offers me a hand.

I hesitate. “I'll let you teach me a few tricks, but that's it. Afterward, I'm gone.”

“Very well. I'll follow.”

Stubborn, frustrating boy! I reach out as if to take the offered hand only to kick out my leg.

He falls and I somersault on top of him, my knees pinning his shoulders, but he's wily and more agile than I'm expecting. He swings his legs up and under my arms, pushing me to my back. When he crosses his ankles above my head, his calves pressing against my face, I'm effectively caged. He can smother me but opts to bend his knees at my sides and sit up.

The moment I have the smallest bit of freedom, I sit up, too. He's straddling my waist, which means he keeps the advantage.

Time to up my game. “Killian.” I smile at him, running my hands slowly up his chest.

He closes his eyes for a moment. “This isn't going to end well for me, is it?” he says, his tone dry.

“No. It's not.” I lock my hands at his nape and use all my weight to fall backward, bringing him with me, bucking my hips midway down to roll him, placing my body on top of his.

Fingers suddenly fist in my hair and yank me backward. As I fall, I catch a glimpse of black hair and furious features. By the time I land, Elena has a gun aimed at my chest.

With a roar, Killian launches at her, slamming into her and knocking her to the floor beside me. The gun goes off, but he has a firm hold of her wrist, ensuring the bullet tears through the roof of the tent rather than my flesh.

He rips the gun from her grip, stands. “You don't touch the girl. Ever.”

“She was attacking you.” Elena jumps to her feet. “She could have damaged your Shell.”

“Which sounds like a me problem. She's mine. Mine to deal with. Not yours. Never yours.”

She raises her chin. “She may be yours, but
you
are
mine
.”

Killian stares at her for a long while before he laughs. A scary laugh. Then he goes quiet, and that's even scarier. “I'm not. And now I'll prove it.”

He raises the gun and—

Boom!

chapter sixteen

“With us, all things are possible.”

—Troika

Elena collapses, the bullet striking her between the eyes. No blood spews or leaks from the wound, and by the time she hits the floor, she's self-destructed, nothing but ash floating up, up through the new lunar panel in the tent.

“How could you...” I begin.

“She isn't dead. I simply decommissioned the Shell, hit it in a spot that doesn't damage the spirit inside. It's a safety measure for the times a Laborer doesn't have the strength to leave the Shell but must.” With barely a pause, he cups my cheeks and adds, “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine.” And I am. The cold-blooded murder of a Shell isn't really a big deal in the scheme of things. “I guess she got what she deserved for eating my cake, huh?”

“The cake.
That's
your main concern? I don't think I'll ever understand you.” He empties the chamber of the gun, tosses the weapon aside and walks a circle around me. A slow prowl. He's a predator who's spotted his next meal. “You could have died tonight. Elena could have pulled the trigger. At this rate, you
will
die, and soon. Death clearly stalks you. How many signs do you need? Choose Myriad, Ten. Now.”

“What I need is time.”

“You've had time. It's done you no good.”

Dang him! “Have you ever regretted your decision to stay with Myriad?”

He stops in front of me, saying, “Only once. When I lost Archer.” He pinches my chin and lifts, forcing my attention to remain on him. “What do you
want
, Ten? What can Myriad give you? A purpose? A place to call your own? Vengeance against your parents?”

“I can have each of those things in
this
life, on my own.”

“So. You want what you can't find here.” He releases me. “You want a guarantee.”

Yes! “I want to not regret my decision forever.”
Pressure...

“No one can give you a guarantee.”

“I know!”
Growing...
“Here, at least, I can tell myself that what happens is temporary. In the Everlife, I can't do that. It's permanent.”

“Until Second-death.”

“Well, I gather it's much, much harder to kill a spirit than a human.”

“Maybe
I'll
be killed if I fail to sign you.”

Pressure...exploding
. Another manipulation. The last one I'll tolerate.

With a screech, I take a swing at him. He ducks and my arm glides through air. But I'm already drawing back my other arm, already swinging it. This time, I make contact. My knuckles drive into his cheekbone. Pain shoots up my arm and pools in my shoulder as he wipes the Lifeblood from the corner of his mouth.

“Look at you, giving in to your emotions the way Myriad suggests,” he taunts. “Doesn't it feel good?”

“
Felt
good,” I yell. “Now I'm stuck with a broken hand.” And guilt! I always complained about Vans's hair-trigger temper, and today I acted just like him. Guilt is the worst, as much an enemy as fear!

Killian is gentle as he latches on to my wrist, studies my throbbing hand. “The bones aren't broken, just bruised.”

I draw my arm to my side, my anger far from appeased. “Are you going to be killed if I choose Troika?”

He sighs. “No. But the fact that you belong in Myriad hasn't changed. It's meant to be.”

Meant to be. Meant to be.

The words reverberate through my mind, and I go still. For years, my mother told me,
We make things happen
. Then one day she came home and announced,
I was wrong. If it's meant to happen, it will happen. If it's not, it won't.

She changed her mind, because Myriad changed their stance.
Truth evolves
, they like to say.

Even my dad agreed.
We learn as we grow.

While that's certainly true, shouldn't spiritual laws be rooted in a firm, uncompromising foundation?

Next, I remember what Archer once said to me. Believing in Myriad's idea of fate allows people to shift blame for every travesty, every disaster and every decision to an outside force. It means that, no matter what choice I make, what is meant to be will happen, which ultimately means my choices are inconsequential.

So...no, I don't believe in fate. No outside force is pulling my strings. I might have been born with a purpose, a divine destiny, but my decisions—even my indecisions—are mine. My actions—and lack of action—are mine. Because, at the end of the day, the consequences are mine alone to bear.

Deacon was right. I had the answer all along. I just didn't want to see it, because I didn't want to have to make the choice I was supposedly fighting to make.

But okay. All right. I'm learning, and I'm strengthening. I'm also changing. What should never change? The truth. Truth should remain the same, always and forever, a steady base at my feet; otherwise it was once a lie—once a lie, always a lie—and I have nothing concrete to stand on, only sinking sand or gossamer silk that tears at the first sign of pressure.

That's another point in Troika's favor. They never change what they believe. What's right for one is right for all.

And Myriad's tiered packages? The ones I once praised? One life should not be more valuable than another.

Surprise! I like Troika.

I reel. I reel
hard
. I've struggled to get to this point for so long, and now I'm here, and it's wonderful but...even in the midst of my revelation, I'm still not ready to pull the trigger and make covenant. Do I really want to war with the people of Myriad?

There's a
thump
outside the tent. What the—

Killian shoves me behind him, again blocking me from possible attack. The entrance swishes to the side and Archer and Deacon stride inside.

Well. Though I feel as if I've been beaten up inside, I leap forward to stand between the longtime adversaries. “I'm fine, Archer. I don't need a rescue.”

“That's not why I'm here.”

Killian's hands tighten into fists. “You shouldn't be here at all.”

Archer steps toward him, and Killian steps toward
him
. Deacon grabs hold of Archer, and I flatten my palm against Killian's chest to shove him back.

“Everyone...just...
stay calm.
”

The anger drains from Archer as he focuses on me fully. “There's been a new development. Your mother... I'm sorry, love—”

“Love?” Killian demands.

“But she's sick,” Archer finishes.

“Sick?” I press my hands against my stomach. “What's wrong with her?”

A moment passes before he admits,
“Baiser de la mort.”

No, no, no, no, no. “Someone
poisoned
her? Who? How?”

“I don't know.”

My heart explodes inside my chest again and again, an endless bomb capable of unfathomable destruction. My mom is sick. She's...she's dying. I shouldn't care. The woman paid good money to lock me away, to have torture after torture heaped upon me. In a year, she visited me a total of three times, her work more important than her only child. Only toward the end did she seem to remember my existence.

And yet I still remember the woman who wiped away my tears anytime I skinned my knee as a child, the woman who braided my hair, hugged me close and told me she loved me more than the sun and stars.

I have to see her. Screw my quest for time and solitude.

My gaze locks on Archer. “I'm leaving within the hour. Don't try to stop me.”

“Why would I want to stop you? I'm going with you.”

“
I'm
going with you,” Killian says, his voice nothing but metal shards and fire.

Someone is trying to kill me, and I'm smart enough to know I can use the protection while I'm so distracted. From both sides. “Here's the deal, the only one I'll offer. You both vow you won't hurt the other and you can both go with me.”

“No,” Archer says. Succulent, to the point.

“Hell, no,” Killian says. Piss and vinegar.

“Otherwise, I go alone,” I finish. Yes, I'm smart enough to know I can use the protection, but I'm also stubborn enough to go without it.

Archer purses his lips. Killian curses.

All business, I say, “How long will it take us to reach LA?”

“Until we know who wants you dead, we'll have to drive. No planes. No public transportation, period.” Killian shudders. “We can make the forty-two-hour drive in roughly thirty-six. Maybe.”

Definitely. “We'll take turns driving. And just to reiterate, you boys won't insult, attack or hurt each other during the trip. That's all I'm asking.”

“Yes. That's
all
.” Killian glares at me.

“You aren't asking.” Archer crosses his arms over his chest. “You're commanding.”

I stare him down. “I regret nothing. Now. I'm going to the cabin to gather my things and talk to Sloan. If you're both here when I return—alive and unharmed—we'll take off.”

I head outside to find the sun rising, chasing the incoming storm away. I pause to catch my breath, for once unable to lose myself in the vivid shades of pink and gold painted over the sky.

A moan draws my attention to the ground. Charles is sprawled in a pile of leaves, twigs littering his hair. Archer must have hit him where it hurts. I leave him to his recovery and make my way to the house, happy there isn't another tornado brewing.

Sloan is waiting for me in the foyer, pacing. She's dressed in a black tank, black jeans and a pair of combat boots, her ponytail swishing from side to side.

“Hey,” I say.

She closes the distance and pulls me close for a hug. “I heard Archer and Deacon talking. I'm sorry about your mom.”

At first I'm not sure how to respond. Slowly I wind my arms around her and hug her back. Taking comfort, but hopefully giving it, too. “Yeah. It sucks.”

“You're going to see her?”

I nod.

She sighs. “This is where we part ways, then.”

I open my mouth to protest.
No! We stay together.
But resignation settles in and settles fast. This had to happen at some point. Her decisions are her own, and I won't try to make her do what she doesn't want to do just so I can keep my friend at my side.

“You heading home or staying here?” I ask.

“Heading home. I wanted to wait till after my birthday, but I'm too impatient. Don't be surprised when news stations blast stories about the Aubuchon family home burning to the ground soon after the prodigal daughter returns. No estate, no reason to marry.”

The pain in her voice is raw and ragged. “Change your mind about marrying the first unsuitable guy?”

“Yeah.” She fluffs her hair. “No one deserves me.”

That's my girl. “I'm sorry about your family,” I say, and I am. Every child should feel invaluable. Loved without strings.

“I know you understand.”

“Yeah. I was a ticket to money and fame, nothing more.” I give her another hug. “Stay safe, or I'll be ticked. We still don't know who tried to kill us.”

“No worries. I'll have a bodyguard. Deacon agreed to come with me.”

“Good.” I hate the thought of her out there alone.

An excited gleam sparkles in her eyes. “I think I'm gonna give him the honor of being my gentleman lover until we reach Savannah.”

I choke on a laugh. “Gentleman lover? Really?”

“What? I didn't think it'd be polite to call him my show pony.”

We smile at each other, snicker really, and I make my way up the stairs. In my bedroom, I brush my teeth and hair and stuff the clothes and toiletries Archer gave me into a bag. I grab the stash of protein bars I've been hiding
just in case
, then roll my scalpel and a few kitchen knives in the shirts to prevent clinking.

I head downstairs, determined. To my surprise—and really, I'm surprised that I'm surprised—Archer is waiting for me in the living room.

He scowls. “It's safe to say you were the target of the plane crash. Someone wants you dead and plans to use your mom to draw you home.”

Yeah. He's probably right. “That someone knows me well, because I can't not go see her.”

“She's going to die. Going to her won't change—”

“She's not going to die!” Deep breath in...out. “You don't know the future. I survived
baiser de la mort
. She can, too.”

“You survived a weakened version. She was given a full dose.”

My chin trembles, and I shake my head. “You don't know that.”

“I do. I've been in contact with her friend's TL, who's stuck around to monitor her progress.”

Her friend's TL? My mom doesn't have a Troikan friend. Well, not to my knowledge. “Tell the TL to give her Lifeblood.”

“She has. Many doses in fact. But Lifeblood isn't a cure-all, Ten. It's a spiritual strengthener. A power source. It can speed up the healing process, but it can't repair what's damaged
beyond
repair.”

I hear his unspoken words—
She's beyond repair.

I stalk past Archer, banging my shoulder against his. “Are we gonna chat all day or start driving?” I'm out the door before he can respond.

I march across the yard. Outside the Troikan perimeter, Killian is standing next to a black SUV. He's wearing sunglasses, hiding his eyes, the one real feature found on a Shell. His dark hair is tousled by wind.

I move around him to throw my bag in the backseat of the vehicle.

He comes up behind me. I feel him. Not the heat of his body, but him. All him. I turn, and he's
right there
. So close we're pressed together, two halves of a whole.