Eternal Hope (The Hope Series) (24 page)

She smiled at him, and he closed his eyes and exhaled. It seemed the simple fact she was alive gave him permission to let go of the worry strangling his body. It fell from him like a shed skin. Kayden inched closer on the bed.

“He’s been reading you macabre poetry for four hours. I trust you remained comatose on purpose?”

Farley cracked out a smile- one that required considerable effort on her part. “I like macabre poetry.”

Daniel blew out a half laugh and sat up, his hair sticking up a little crazily. He must have been lying there for some time. “She was unconscious, Kayden. She couldn’t hear me.”

“Well, then, why did you spend all that time prattling on about death and origami and the sea?”

“Because I know how much you enjoy it,” Daniel said sweetly. He got to his feet slowly and went and opened her bedroom door. For a second Farley thought he was leaving. “You wouldn’t go until you saw she was okay,” he said, “but now she’s awake, your presence is no longer required.”

Kayden cut him a foul look. “Fine.” He got up and paused at the door, looking back at Farley. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

She smiled and nodded, pulling herself up into a sitting position. Daniel closed the door and walked silently over to the window. He sat down on the bed and stared at the book in his hands for a moment before placing it carefully on the floor and curling up beside her. “I thought you were going to die,” he murmured. His voice was controlled, flat. The fact that he used that voice said many things: that he was scared; that he was wound up tight; that he was hurting inside. She rolled onto her side and faced him, lacing her fingers through his.

“What happened?” she asked.

He blew out his cheeks, letting the air escape them slowly. “There were Immundus hiding in the trees. I wanted to go straight out there and kill the one in the road, but he said his men would kidnap you before I had chance.”

Farley drew in the smell of him, letting it ease away her fear and confusion. She lifted her hand and stroked the hair back from the side of his face. There was a deep gash on his temple where the Reaver had pistol-whipped him, slightly crusted with blood. Daniel winced when she traced her fingers over it. She leaned forward and kissed him just above the cut.

“And then what? He was at the door when I blacked out.”

“Then he lifted you out of the car and tried to run off with you into the woods.”

“And?”

“And…I went crazy.”

“You fought them?”

“I
killed
them.” He let his head loll to the side so he could look her in the eye. “Are you mad?”

She frowned. How could he think that? He’d saved her. She’d never imagined being the kind of girl who went gooey over guys hurting people for her, but this was different. This was real, not some jealous punch-up in a bar. Daniel was prepared to do anything to keep her safe, and that knowledge filled her with relief. She kissed him by way of a response, letting her lips do the talking.

“And then?”

“Kayden came and pulled me off one of them and drove us home.”

She let out a small laugh. “You let
Kayden
drive your car?”

He pulled his lips into a tight, bemused line and nodded.

“I don’t know if I should laugh or be offended.”

“You shouldn’t laugh and you shouldn’t be offended.”

“Why not? I’m willing to bet you’d never let me drive it.”

“I would,” he said, all prickly, “if I knew you could drive properly. The last time I saw you behind the wheel of a vehicle, you’d just gotten into a fender bender with the Immundus.”

Farley sucked on her teeth, choosing to ignore the dig. “And so I’m guessing the poetry was punishment for him mistreating the Viper?”

Daniel pulled a face. “He drives really well.” The resentment in his voice was tangible.

She laughed, cringing when her ribs spasmed with pain. “Well, I liked it, anyway- the poetry. Who wrote it?”

“Me.”

Farley did a double take and then looked down at the book on the floor. It was a hardback, properly bound with gilded lettering running down the spine. “You wrote the whole thing?”

“I did. It’s really depressing.”

“Can I read it?”

“No.” Daniel rolled his eyes, wincing slightly under her horrified gaze. “You can’t read it. You wouldn’t like me anymore if you did.”

“I won’t like you anymore if you won’t let me read it,” she said, trying to reach across him. Her head swam and she collapsed, sprawled across his chest.

“Maybe later.” He rearranged her into the space at the side of his body. “First, you need to tell me what happened to you.”

This was the part she’d been dreading. How did she tell him what had happened without it sounding really, really weird? After all, she had been making out with another guy. Technically it hadn’t been her, she’d just been inside someone else’s head while it was happening, but it had felt incredibly real. Maybe skipping out on how it had felt would be a good way to go.

“I saw Simeon again,” she whispered. Daniel tensed underneath her. “It was like a flashback, though, like I was reliving part of his past. I was trapped inside the body of his dead wife. A little.”

He peered down at her and hitched his eyebrow towards the ceiling. “A little?”

“Well, a lot. Very definitely trapped. I managed to break through, though. I talked to him. He seemed so… normal.”

“It was probably before his wife died and he accidentally turned her into a whyte. He wasn’t out of his mind then.”

“Yeah.” It did make sense. “He… they…” She took a deep breath. “He did something to her. He touched her, and this massive pain ran through her body. She was kind of enjoying it.”

Daniel drew a shaky laugh. “Oooh, in flagrante delicto.”

“Is that a Harry Potter reference?”

“Ha ha, no. Definitely not a Harry Potter reference. Unless people got busted having sex a lot in the book?”

Farley shook her head. “Not so much.”

Daniel smirked and planted a kiss on top of her head. “So Simeon was definitely a Reaver when you saw him, then. He wouldn’t have been able to do that otherwise. Sadistic bastard. You remember when I told you back in the hangar about how Reavers hook their human subjugates? By riding the lightning?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what you witnessed. Means his wife was doped up on his power half the time. More than a little sick.”

Telling Daniel that Simeon hadn’t wanted to do it felt a little awkward; it would be like defending him, and there was no way she was ever going to do that. She snuggled deep into Daniel’s chest. “After that the room caught on fire and everything melted. I started screaming like a banshee and then everything went black for a very long time.”

He brushed his fingers lightly against her hair. “Yeah, you were screaming in the car most of the way home. It was quite discomforting.”

             
She could imagine how frayed his nerves must be after experiencing that. She buried her face into him and hid there for a while, trawling through the disaster of the day. Agatha. The Immundus. Simeon. Their conversation in the car about the possibility of returning to school when all this was over seemed even more unlikely now than it had done before.

“How do you think they found us? What are we going to do?”

“No idea on both counts,” Daniel said. “We’re having a meeting in the morning about it. We might have to leave.”

“Leave?” A surge of anxiety reared its ugly head. Farley had just started to feel comfortable at the cabin. “Do we have to?”

“It’s just an option at this stage. Don’t worry about it now. We’ll weigh everything up tomorrow.”

Saying,
don’t worry about it now
was as pointless as saying don’t breathe or don’t blink. Worry was about the only thing she was capable of at the moment. She closed her eyes, trying to block everything out. “I’m tired,” she whispered. “Will you stay with me?”

“Mmm-hmm. Forever,” Daniel whispered back, “Always.”

The sleep that Farley had felt creeping up on her disappeared in a puff of smoke. His words- the ones designed to make her feel safe and protected- were startlingly close to the promise Simeon had made to Aria. As she lay there, listening to the air rushing in and out of Daniel’s lungs, she realized Simeon felt the same way about Aria that Daniel did about her. That was a frightening thought; if Daniel ever lost her, she knew there’d be no lengths he wouldn’t go to in order to get her back. Simeon was going to do the same.

The kitchen smelled like burnt toast and coffee. Not a rich, warm, roasty smell, but acerbic and bitter. The combination of the olfactory assault and the crappy night’s sleep she’d had was making Farley antisocial.

“Jeez, it stinks in here. Can we open the window?”

“Ooh, sensitive nose? You’re not
pregnant
, are you?” Anna said slyly, chomping down on a piece of blackened toast. Totally unsurprising that she was responsible for the foul smell in the air. She was usually responsible for most bad atmospheres in general. Farley scowled and took a seat. There were eight of them gathered around the kitchen table, and every one of them looked pissed off. She couldn’t help but feel like this was, yet again, all her fault.

Tess had bags under her eyes the size of suitcases, and Oliver looked like he was hopped up on so much caffeine he couldn’t sit still. Grayson surveyed each of them critically, as though voicing a caustic narrative to the gathering in his head. Anna and Cassie whispered to each other behind their hands, occasionally shooting Farley the odd glance. The efforts of two days ago were swiftly being forgotten. Operation: Be Nice To Cassie was going to have taken a severe hit after this morning’s meeting, that much was clear. Back to square one.

The worst part of the morning meeting was Daniel and Kayden. They sat on opposite sides of the table, staring at each other and refusing to look away. If Farley didn’t know any better, she’d almost suspect them of competing in a staring contest. But no- that would be far too immature. Daniel kicked back and folded his arms across his chest, careful not to lose sight of Kayden’s dispassionate expression. Grayson broke the silence, clearing his throat and tipping forward in his chair.

“Well, we might as well get down to it. We all know why we’re here. What are people’s thoughts?”

“I think we should leave. Immediately,” Kayden said firmly, locking his jaw.

Daniel stared back at him. “I agree.”

A stunned silence fell over the table while everyone processed this. Farley considered making a show of placing her hand on the floor to see if hell had, indeed, frozen over, but that wouldn’t help matters. And besides, their surprising agreement was too upsetting: they both thought they should leave the cabin. The idea sucked.

“Is that the best option here?” Farley said. “I mean, Daniel and I were at least seventy miles away when the Immundus found us. It could have been pure fluke that they came this far into Montana.”

“Doubtful.” Grayson took a deep draught of his coffee before quantifying his comment. “Something had to draw them here. We have to assume it was you, Farley, and there will be more Immundus on their way. Plus the last group of them to come this way hasn’t returned to the Tower, and Daniel suspects one of them escaped. If that’s true, then we have no choice.”

Eight bodies shifted around the table, uneasy at the idea that the Simeon’s men could already be rushing en force back to Montana as they argued. Tess stared glumly down at the mug steaming in between her cupped hands.

“Couldn’t we wait here for a couple of days? Farley’s right. It’d be stupid to risk giving up a perfectly good safe house when we could get caught on the road.”

“I disagree,” Oliver announced. “If they have any idea at all where we are, then we should leave. An hour away is still too close for comfort. Either way, our next step should be based on a vote, not by Kayden and Daniel deciding what’s good for us. This is a democracy not a dictatorship, right?”

Tess’ hand shook on the handle of her mug. She glanced around the table, pausing on Farley. The look cemented on Farley’s face must have been pretty telling. She was sure she’d managed to keep her mouth from literally hanging open, but she knew her eyes were still saucer-like, and her eyebrows had hiked up in the middle of her forehead. Where the hell had that come from? Oliver pressed his lips together until they practically disappeared.

“I’m just saying… maybe we shouldn’t be relying on anyone in particular to come up with a plan of action. Maybe we should all be jointly responsible for what happens next.”

“That’s why we’re here, Oliver,” Daniel said. His voice was composed but cold. “No one is in charge. We’ll figure this out together.”

Oliver blew out sharply from his nose, rolling his eyes. “
Uh-huh
.”