Mythe: A Fairy Tale (73 page)

“Yes, it’s me,” Richard responded in a calm voice. “I’m sorry I worried you. Thanks for getting my clothes.”

A sound of disgust from Mikey was followed by another expletive, this one more imaginative than the last. “I don’t think ‘worry’ really covers it, Richard!”

“Why would you do that? Where have you been all night and half the day?” Josh asked accusingly. His voice was so quiet Manda had to strain to hear it. “You could have been dead for all we knew.”

“I’m sorry,” Richard repeated, regret clear in his voice. “I forgot to call, that’s all. There was no need to worry.”

“How could I not worry?” Josh demanded, his voice rising. “You’ve been walking around here like a man waiting to die ever since Manda was killed. Honestly, I assumed the only thing keeping you alive was your need for revenge.”

Josh’s words sent a fresh thrust of pain into Manda’s chest.
I’m so sorry, Richard!

Josh was shouting now, his voice angry and hurt. “So what was I supposed to think when you go missing right after we finally catch Chelsea and Tina?”

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Richard apologized again.

Richard’s quiet words elicited a wordless roar from Josh. The shattering crash of something smashing into a wall near the door caused Manda to jump, barely able to stifle the cry that rose in her throat. The violent slamming of a door within the suite punctuated her alarm and she gasped softly. She carefully pushed the door open a fraction of an inch wider and peered through the gap. The angle of view was limited and she couldn’t see beyond the wall of the foyer, but on the floor against that wall she could see the broken remnants of a lamp.

She heard a loud, long exhalation of breath and quickly put her ear back to the door opening.

“You’re sorry?” Mikey barked incredulously. “Don’t you see how it looked, Richard?” He sighed in frustration, and then continued as though ticking off points on a list. “Chelsea and Tina are finally dealt with. You’re suddenly almost normal again for the first time in months. You put everything you’ve got into one last, phenomenal concert. You tell Josh that you have a few things to take care of and send him off alone. You make a grand gesture and send
everybody on the tour off for a big celebration. You completely spook Lizzy. Yeah, she called to check up on you. You call me, obviously upset and irrational, then hang up on me and destroy your phone—Josh found it in pieces—making it conveniently impossible for anyone to contact you. Then you vanish.

“No, why would anyone jump to conclusions?” Mikey finished sarcastically. “And you’re sorry. I’ve never seen Josh so scared and desperate, and you’re sorry. I never thought you’d put him through something like that. No matter how bad it got for you, you never treated him that badly before. You have to know how much he worries about you lately. And you tell me you forgot.”

“I know,” Richard agreed, his voice still quiet. “I was thoughtless and inconsiderate and I’m sorry. There was something I needed to take care of last night and I forgot to call. I was...distracted. I’m fine. There’s no need to worry about me.”

Manda thought of Richard gently rocking her the previous night, comforting her and then holding her in his arms all night while she slept. Her chest tightened with her love for him.
She
had been the something he’d needed to take care of.

“I don’t buy it,” Mikey challenged. “You wouldn’t just forget. What’s really going on here? Are you really fine? Maybe I
should
be worried.”

“Really, I’m okay. In fact, I brought something to try and make it up to Josh.” The sound of knocking followed. “Josh,” Richard called in a low voice, “would you please come out? There’s something I want you to see.”

Manda heard approaching footsteps and stepped hastily away from the door. Richard opened it and stepped into the hallway, holding the door open a fraction of an inch with his foot.

“You heard all of that, didn’t you?” he accused in a whisper.

She nodded, eyes wide and distraught. What kind of state had Richard been in to make Mikey and Josh both think that he would consider... She couldn’t bring herself to complete the thought.

He sighed in frustration. “It’s not as bad as they make it sound,” he assured her, pulling her into a firm hug before grasping her hand and drawing her toward the door. “And that could have gone much worse. Josh never even looked at the windows.” He winked at her again.

When Richard opened the door and led her into the sitting room, Josh hadn’t emerged yet but Mikey was watching the door when they entered. He emitted a string of expletives that made Richard scowl before clamping his lips tightly shut and dropping onto the sofa in stunned amazement.

“Josh, I brought a peace offering,” Richard called out again.

“You’ll want to see this,” Mikey called, dumbfounded.

The bedroom door jerked open and Josh glared at Richard, his face dark with rage.

“If you think...” he began angrily, and then he spotted Manda clinging to Richard’s hand and his eyes widened.

“Manda?” he whispered. Then he hurtled across the room with a joyous cry. “Manda!” He vaulted over the sofa and scooped her up into an exuberant bear hug, spinning her around in a circle. His laughter filled the room. “Manda! You’re alive!”

“I won’t be for long if you don’t let go,” she gasped past the constriction of his arms as they crushed the air from her lungs. He released her at once, immediately contrite. She laughed and hugged him fiercely. “Hi, Josh.”

Josh hugged her back, more gently this time.

“We thought you were dead. What happened?” Josh asked, bewildered but happy. Abruptly he spun toward Richard. “That’s where you were all night!” he accused with sudden understanding. “And you couldn’t even call and let us know?”

“Please don’t be mad, Josh,” Manda pleaded. “It’s all my fault. I was a complete wreck last night. I just sort of fell apart,” she confessed, head bowed, “and Richard spent all night picking up the pieces. I was horribly high-maintenance. It’s really not his fault.” She heard Richard start to protest behind her, but Mikey cut
him off.

“Would someone like to explain what the…,” he began, then paused when Richard made a warning sound and continued more carefully, “…explain what is going on please?”

“Sit down and I’ll tell you what I know. Manda will have to fill in the rest,” Richard suggested. “And I’ll have this back, thanks,” he added proprietarily, shooting Josh a challenging grin as he put an arm around Manda’s waist and drew her away from his brother. He pulled her down onto the sofa with him and wrapped his arms around her possessively. Manda smiled at Josh, who sat down in a large armchair and gave Richard a dirty look, though his lips kept twitching up at the corners in a persistent smile.

“So, I assume you found Kastl?” Mikey asked.

“Actually, Kastl found me, right after I talked to you,” Richard corrected. “By the way, I apologize for shouting at you Mikey. I was a little worked up, as what’s left of my phone can attest. Anyway, right after I hung up on you Kastl showed up and told me Manda was still alive. He’d been hiding her from Chelsea and Tina, which meant he’d hidden her from everyone else as well.” Manda felt the smallest of shudders course through Richard and she twined her fingers through his as his arms encircled her.

“The obvious question would be how you’re still alive?” Mikey prompted.

“You were hurt so badly,” Josh commented thoughtfully, then gasped. “Kastl changed you!”

“You got there a lot quicker than I did, but no,” Richard corrected him, “Manda isn’t a shapeshifter. Basically, Kastl and some of his friends have developed a way of altering our blood to create a sort of miracle cure, but it doesn’t change the recipient into a shapeshifter. Kastl was able to use that to save Manda.” He bent his head down and pressed a kiss to her collarbone and she shivered.

“He is
so
on my Christmas list from now on,” Josh promised with feeling.

“Yes. We definitely owe him a lot. Anyway, Kastl filled me in and then took me to Manda. I think she was glad to see me,” Richard continued, smiling smugly.

“I have a feeling it was mutual,” Josh chuckled to Manda, “but where have you been all this time?”

Manda quickly outlined the months she’d spent in her mountain hideout, not going into detail, merely painting the picture of her temporary exile in broad strokes. When she reached the previous day’s events she faltered.

“When Kastl told me I didn’t have to hide anymore I couldn’t quite believe it. It seemed like I would be a ghost forever.” She
had
felt like a ghost—existing outside of her own life, looking in but not allowed to participate. She shivered again.

“It’s over now, sweetie,” Richard murmured in her ear. “I love you and I’m never letting you go again.”

Mikey cleared his throat with a smile and then addressed them both.

“So, the video
was
completed after Manda was supposedly killed.”

Manda gasped. “How did you know?”

“Richard figured it out last night,” Mikey said dryly, “and I thought he’d finally snapped.”

“The last picture in the video was one you’d taken at the baseball game,” Richard confided, “
after
you had supposedly already finished editing it.”

“I guess I wasn’t as clever as I thought I was,” Manda said, chagrined. Then her eyes sparkled eagerly. “Did you like it?”

“It’s amazing!” Josh answered enthusiastically. “Richard played it at the concert last night. You should have been there! Everyone loved it.”

“I was there,” Manda admitted. “You were both incredible. I’ve never seen either of you better.” She squeezed Richard’s hands and tried unsuccessfully to keep her voice light. “I’ve never heard you sing
Fairy Tale
more beautifully.”

Detecting the odd note in her voice, and correctly guessing the cause, Richard voiced the thought Manda was trying to suppress. “And I promised I would only ever sing it for you,” he said in a solemn voice. “I kept that promise, Manda. Every word and note last night was for you. Have I mentioned that I really, really missed you?”
His arms tightened around her and he buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply before murmuring in her ear. “The flowers were for Lizzy, our stage manager. I asked her for the impossible last night and she came through for us.”

“That was the first time Richard has even been on stage when we performed
Fairy Tale
all tour,” Josh added.  “I honestly didn’t know if he’d be able to do it.” Richard made an impatient sound and shifted restlessly, earning a defiant glare from Josh. “You’ve been wreck and you know it!”

There was a warning note to Richard’s voice when he responded. “I admit I didn’t cope all that well, and I already told Manda that you handled it better than I did. Can we just leave it at that? It hasn’t been easy on anyone, but it’s over now.”

Yes, it was over, but Manda knew that it still haunted Richard, just as it would continue to haunt the rest of them. Perhaps she could help dispel some of Josh’s ghosts though. Manda squeezed Richard’s hand reassuringly, knowing he wouldn’t like what she was about to ask of him. “Richard, I need to talk to Josh and Mikey. Could you please leave us alone for a little bit?”

“Oh. Okay,” he answered, and reluctantly unwrapped his arms from around her. “I guess I can go change.”

“No,” Manda corrected, steeling herself for his inevitable objections, “I mean really alone. I want you to go downstairs or something.”

An emotion akin to panic momentarily transformed his features before he could master himself enough to tease, “You’re kidding right? You’re already trying to get rid of me? Is it because I made you pay for the cab ride?”

She sighed, hating this as much as she knew he did, but she needed to talk to the other two men—Josh in particular—without Richard overhearing. “Definitely not. I don’t want you any farther away than this,”—she pressed herself closer to him to demonstrate—”but I need to talk to Josh about yesterday, and I think it’s best if you’re not around.”

Richard growled softly in frustration, obviously torn between his concern for Josh and his unwillingness to let Manda out of his sight now that he had her back.

“Don’t worry. I won’t let her get away,” Josh assured his older brother with a grin.

Richard still looked reluctant, so Manda shifted away from him on the sofa. “I can’t live in your pocket, you know. I can’t be with you every second of every day, as much as I’d like that.”

“I know. I just haven’t quenched my thirst for your company quite yet,” Richard complained with a fairly convincing attempt at levity. Only the tightness around his eyes betrayed his anxiety.

“You know, Richard, you might want to run over to the loft,” Mikey suggested with a meaningful, arch of his eyebrows. “You left something in your pocket a few months ago. I figured you might want it sometime, so I put it in your top dresser drawer.”

Richard looked startled and surprisingly excited. “I thought I’d lost it. Thank you, Mikey. I might just do that.”

Manda wondered fleetingly what was at the loft. In fact, she wondered why they weren’t staying there instead of in a hotel, but she brushed those stray musings aside, simply grateful to Mikey for the distraction.