Sleek.
Muscular.
Sprinkled with dark hair.
Unblemished.
“You healed me,” Wyatt said,
looking at his friend. He shifted and felt
the ache rush through him, knew it would
be a day or two before the lingering
discomfort finally dissipated. But, hell.
He was alive.
For the first time, that thought wasn’t
a disappointment.
But Elliott was shaking his head,
wonderment and understanding in his
eyes. “No. I didn’t do anything.”
Wyatt frowned and felt the tightness
of his face. He reached up to massage
his brows and more dark flakes fluttered
down. His jaw, his cheeks, his mouth . . .
they were tight and hard and shiny . . .
and they shed.
“What happened?” he asked, and
experimentally got to his feet. Simon
was there, and so was Fence. They were
both looking at him as if they’d never
seen him before.
“Take it easy Wyatt,” Elliott said
again—but he made no move to stop
him. Instead, he positioned himself as if
to catch his friend should his legs give
way while watching in awe.
Wyatt stood there, on his own two
legs, in the middle of smoking rubble.
Charred wood and other debris littered
the area. Early morning sun blasted
down, bright and new. The smell of
smoke was everywhere.
“What happened?” he asked again.
“I think,” Elliott said, a ghost of a
smile
touching
his
lips,
“you’ve
discovered your special ability.”
“Yeah?” Wyatt replied, letting that
sink in as he looked down at himself.
More burned skin had fallen away, and
bigger patches of fresh, undamaged skin
were showing.
“You came out of that fire covered in
ashes, your skin just peeling away,”
Simon said, kicking away a smoldering
piece of wood. “And now look at you.”
“Holy shit,” Fence said. “You’re a
motherfucking phoenix.” He looked
down. “And, bro . . . you need a new
pair of pants.”
O
nce someone brought him a new set of
clothing, Wyatt found he was perfectly
capable of participating in the recovery
work Simon, Fence, and other residents
of Envy had been doing, even as he
continued to “shed” the last bit of his old
skin. He joined in the work immediately,
knowing how important it was to locate
any survivors as soon as possible. His
body was achy and his eyes gritty, but
those were minor discomforts. Other
than that and the fact that his mind was a
little muddled, the rest of him seemed to
function just as well—or even better—
than before. He actually felt quite . . .
new
.
“Can’t decide whether you’re a
phoenix or a freaking snake,” Fence said
as his buddy brushed away more burned
skin from behind his knees. It seemed to
cling more stubbornly there than
elsewhere. “Either way, it’s fixin’ to be
a helluva mess every time you do . . .
whatever you do.”
“I could use a shower or a swim,
that’s for damned sure,” Wyatt replied.
“But there’s time for that later. Most of
it’s gone.”
“Yeah. And, you know how the Hulk
is when he changes, he busts out of all
his clothes, so he always wears his pants
way too big? Well, man, you better find
some fireproof shorts for yourself, bro.
Or you’re gonna be making a stir with
the ladies, showing your junk around
like that.” Fence rumbled a chuckle,
showing his brilliant white teeth.
They were clearing the remnants of
debris from the two tents and the one
building that had gone up in smoke.
Wyatt wasn’t surprised to learn that he
could pick up and move smoldering
pieces of wood with his bare hands. He
felt the heat but it didn’t burn.
“Any casualties?” he asked Simon as
they tossed the burned-out remains onto
a pile that would later be burned to the
ground.
“Other than you?” His smile was
wry. “Only the poor dog you tried to
save. Some burns and other injuries, but
that’s it. As far as we know, anyway.
But we’re still looking to make sure.”
Wyatt heaved a large piece of door
onto the pile. “Me?”
“Yeah, mo-fo. When that roof came
down on your head, we knew that was
all she wrote. The damn fat lady had
sung,” Fence said, swiping an arm over
his soot-streaked face. But his eyes
danced with humor as only his could
during such an unpleasant topic. “No one
could get to you either, brother—you
were buried in flames. Not till we got
the fire out and it cooled off this morning
enough for us to dig your ass out.”
Hell. Wyatt tossed an unidentifiable
piece of furniture onto the pile. “Thanks
for pulling me out.” He wondered what
would have happened if they hadn’t dug
him out. Would he have died? Or had it
been only the heavy ceiling that kept him
from being able to walk out under his
own steam? Because it sure as hell
wasn’t the fire that did it. Neither the
fire, nor the smoke—either of which
should have finished him off.
It didn’t really matter: he was alive.
And he wasn’t sure he wanted to go
through it again to find out how or what
happened.
“Elliott’s up to his balls in work in
the infirmary, but he came out to find you
first thing,” Simon told him. He didn’t
need to add that the doctor would have
done whatever he could to save him, and
knowing what a double-edged blessing
that skill was, Wyatt was relieved
Elliott hadn’t had to try. “And once this
is cleaned up and the injured are taken
care of, Vaughn wants all of us—”
“You know,
us
us,” Fence added
meaningfully. “We bad-ass dudes. And
our bad-ass women, too, of course.” He
looked around as if to make sure no one
had heard him tacking on that last bit.
Heaven forbid if Zoë thought she was an
afterthought.
“He wants all of us to meet and
strategize about what to do next,” Simon
continued. “We’ve only got forty hours
to figure out what to do.”
Wyatt stopped what he was doing. In
the craziness of his reawakening and the
blur of urgent work that needed to be
done searching for survivors, he’d
forgotten about all of that. The memory
of all that happened before the explosion
and fire came rushing back in a cold,
shocking wave.
David. A surge of hope and optimism
fluttered inside. As soon as they were
finished here, he’d locate the man and
find out if the miraculous had happened.
If—
He froze. The Strangers. The
helicopter. How could he have forgotten
that
?
Remy
.
“Where’s Remy?” he asked sharply.
No one immediately answered, and
he said it again as an unpleasant feeling
curdled in his belly. “Where the hell is
Remy?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Fence said.
“But I’m betting she’s with Ana and the
others. She and Jade have been helping
Elliott in the infirmary, and I think Sage
and Zoë were fixing to do some other
cleanup inside.”
Fence’s words were easy, and they
should have put Wyatt at ease . . . but,
hell, he knew better. And his gut told
him it might not be that simple. He
glared around at the mess that had
changed an area of celebration into a
place of fear and pain. Tendrils of
smoke still curled up from one pile of
rubble, and soot and ash danced in the
breeze. People were talking quietly as
they worked, and much had already been
accomplished. The damaged area was a
relatively small space and cleanup was
under control.
“I’m going to look for her,” Wyatt
told Simon. Their eyes met and the other
man gave him a sober look of
understanding.
“No one knows who she is, man,”
Simon told him in a low voice. “That
she’s Remington Truth. Just us. And
Vaughn.”
“And Ian Marck,” Wyatt snapped.
And wondered if he could really trust
Vaughn Rogan—especially when his city
was at stake.
“Pinche,”
Simon muttered. “You go.
I’ll take a look around too.”
Wyatt’s long legs took him off
quickly and efficiently. He went to the
infirmary first, where he found Elliott
well in control of the ill and injured.
And just about ready to deliver a brand
new baby as well. That might have been
a spark of optimism after a night of
darkness, but since no one there had seen
Remy or Dantès, Wyatt found little
reason to smile.
His next stop was inside the pub,
where he’d left Dantès in the care of a
couple of teenage boys last night.
Neither of them were there, but one of
their moms was and she told Wyatt that
Dantès was safely with her son.
But that meant Dantès
wasn’t
with
Remy.
“Zoë,” Wyatt snapped when he saw
her rushing off somewhere. She was still
wearing the clothes from last night, and
her white slacks were streaked black
with soot, and were gray everywhere
else. She was wearing hiking boots and
her face was haggard.
“Holy fucking shit.” She nearly
dropped the tray of food she was
carrying. Her eyes bugged out. “Are you
alive or a damned ghost? There’s no
damned way—”
“I’m alive,” he said shortly. “Long
story. Have you seen Remy?”
She stared at him, blinked, and then
refocused. “No. Not since last night,
right after you went up to the stage.” Her
face went grim. “Now that I think of it
. . . I haven’t seen her at all.”
Wyatt tried to quell the icy feeling
creeping over him, but he couldn’t.
Remy wasn’t the type of person to hide
away when there was work to be done,
people to be helped. The Remy he knew
would have been out in the middle of
everything, giving orders and telling
everyone what they were doing wrong—
even if they were right.
Which
meant
something
had
happened to keep her from being there.
“What
about
Ian
Marck?”
he
demanded.
Zoë shook her head.
The cold sharp claws of fear gripped
him tightly now. Not good. This was not
good.
He had to get Dantès. If Remy was
still in Envy, Dantès would find her.
R
emy paced the room. It was a well-
appointed, comfortable space; she
should be able to relax, calm herself and
think clearly. But her stomach was in
knots, tightening and loosening in turn.
I shouldn’t be here.
But Vaughn had convinced her it was
the best, the only, option, for now. Until
they figured out what to do.
Forty-eight hours.
It had been ten
o’clock last night when the helicopter
appeared and it was eight o’clock now.
That meant the timeline was down to
thirty-eight hours. Hardly more than a
day and a half.
She swallowed, pacing faster.
I
could just turn myself over to them.
They wouldn’t do anything to me if I
hide the crystal. They’d need me to get
it back. To tell them where it was.
Of course, there was always torture.
She shuddered. She didn’t think she’d do
well with torture.
Maybe there was a way she could
bargain her way out of the situation.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for them to
have the crystal. After all, she’d had it
for twenty years and it didn’t seem to do
anything.
But she knew in her heart that wasn’t
the case. They wanted and needed the
stone for something important enough to
be searching for it for half a century.
One woman—or even a whole city—
standing between the crystal and the