Stormfront (Undertow Book 2) (25 page)

“Next time leave a note,” muttered Ana.

I looked to my friends, then back to Rillin, “You will have to prove yourself to my guards.”

“I would expect them to demand nothing less,” replied
Rillin.

Christian rocked from foot to foot where he stood, his arms crossed tightly over his chest as he thought. Finally he looked to
Rillin, “Elizabeth said she had two friends inside the palace. Two people who made her life bearable. If you are who you say you are, tell me their names.”

Rillin
tucked his hands in his pockets, “Well – she had been friends with Katherine, who she called Keek, the daughter of two metal workers who were kept in the palace, though I don’t know what happened to her the day we escaped. As to her other friend, I am hoping she was referring to me.”

Christian’s jaw pulsed, “I gave her necklace back to her friend Katherine after she died. She had left me a note instructing me to do so. I never knew Katherine was a
Feon. She must have been the one to alter the necklace in the first place. That means that Nikki Shea may be a Feon as well.”

“
Keek – I mean, Katherine, was her friend who damaged the device which freed me.”

Christian narrowed his eyes, “Speaking of friends, she never mentioned the name
Rillin
. Ever.”

“No – she never called me that.”

Christian suddenly looked less suspicious, as if Rillin was headed in the right direction. “What did she call you?”

Rillin’s
face revealed the smallest touch of longing. “Monster. She called me
her
Monster,” he replied quietly.

I took a slow, deep breat
h
as the elaborate chandelier inside Torrent Road came into view far above me. I shifted slightly and the right side of my chest and shoulder screamed and I hissed out a curse. That’s when I felt her beside me, her body pressed against mine, and one delicate arm hugged tightly to my torso.

Eila was
laying on the floor with me, curled against my body. We had fallen asleep together on a pile of blankets and pillows by the fire, not long after Rillin had left.

I didn’t try to distance myself from her.

Not after last night. Not anymore.

Rillin
had passed Christian’s test, and he had left hours ago to dispose of the body he had hidden in Eila’s barn, unlike Agent Sollen, whose body he had hung from a beam. Agent Howe had been right – his partner’s suicide was staged.

Rillin
said that once he knew Eila had ties to Elizabeth, he started following the FBI. He soon learned that Sollen was selling details of the Breakers to someone, most likely a Mortis, so he killed Sollen to protect Eila’s identity. After stringing up Sollen at his Boston apartment, Rillin had found a few more files and Dalca’s gun, all of which he took, though he was unable to pinpoint the soul thief who was buying all the details. I was grateful he had grabbed the files before Agent Howe had found them, along with his hanging partner. Unfortunately, Rillin agreed with Christian and me – Eila’s identity as a Lunaterra was now known. She would be marked for death by those Mortis who had fought against the Lunaterra. In Rillin’s opinion, last night’s attack was the first of many. As much as I wanted to distrust him, I believed he was right.

I felt Eila shift and she appeared above me, blocking the chandelier as her hair cascaded over one side of her face and dusted my bare chest. “How are your boo-boos?” she asked, as she traced her hand over the square of tape on my chest.

I reached up and touched her chin. “Boo-boos? I don’t get boo-boos.”

She sunk down to my shoulder, “They looked like bad boo-boos to me last night. Do you think they are all healed?”

Yes, said boo-boos were probably all healed, just damn sore. “I’m fine,” I replied, slowly sitting up and bringing Eila with me. She moaned, as if she didn’t want to get up yet. With her wrapped around me, I didn’t want to get up either, but I could hear voices in the library.

The early morning sun drifted in through the towering glass windows in the living room, twisting its way through
Eila’s hair, and catching the mahogany of her eyes. With her warm body nestled to me, and one of her legs twisted over mine, she was beyond tempting.

The tension from the night before eased from my body as I held her, knowing that she was whole and safe in my arms. I ran my hand softly under the fabric of my own shirt that she wore, and along the skin of her back and her kill mark, endlessly thankful that nothing had happened to her. My hand slowly slipped up her spine and she didn’t flinch – didn’t dictate a line I might be crossing. She closed her eyes as she felt my hand splay across her sweet skin, and I traced the gentle divot of her spine with my thumb, a perfectly centered valley along the small expanse of her back. Her eyes drifted open and she smiled, leaning in to steal my breath with a kiss, but
Kian’s voice cut through our moment as he appeared from the kitchen with Ana.

 
“All right already – this portion of the house has a G-rating unless Ana decides to change that with me first,” he said, winking to her. She gave him a shove, her dark hair bouncing slightly.

Eila turned a bit pink as she edged away from me and turned to Kian. “Hey! I like your new haircut!” she said, pulling herself off me entirely, ending my chance of a kiss.

Some days I really hated Kian O’Reilly.

It was then that I realized he had indeed cut his hair, which
had previously reached his shoulders. Gone was the straight, blonde surfer-look, replaced by a respectable, far shorter trim. He looked over to Ana, who had shimmied her way up onto the pool table. The sunlight pouring in through the windows outlined her in a golden halo, despite the bitter cold air outside.

She ran her hand through her newly colored hair, “Yeah, well – new beginnings and stuff. I dyed my hair, he asked me to cut his. Blah
Blah Blah.”

“She tried to take my ear off,” said Kian calmly.

“DID NOT,” protested Ana, but then she smirked. “Well . . . I may have thought about it.”

Eila was already heading for the kitchen, trying to keep my sweatpants
from falling off her lean hips as she asked Ana what was for breakfast. Ana hopped back off the table and trotted in behind Eila, as I dragged myself to my feet.

“Is Christian here?” I asked, pulling the tape from my chest.

“No – he left around two in the morning. With everything that’s going on, he might be thinking of pushing up that vacation he had mentioned.” Kian walked behind me and brutally yanked off the other piece of tape on my back and I growled. Any sign that I had been struck with two arrows last night had disappeared. Even Kian’s bruised face was back to normal.

Eila reappeared with her clothes from last night balled in her hands, Ana close behind her. “We’re going to get changed upstairs and then get to school,” said Eila, obviously delusional.

“Get to school? You can’t go to school today. We have things to discuss, and you fired up your ability last night. I want you to take it easy. You’re staying here,” I said, trying not to sound like an overbearing bodyguard.

She stopped and looked at me. “I have a test today and Ana has to climb to the top of that rope thing for gym. I refuse to stop my life just because, well, you know.”

“Because you are being hunted? Because you almost died last night?” I demanded sharply. Ana muttered something foul about the rope climb.

Eila sighed and wandered over to where I stood, “I get you are worried, but I can’t live my life in a cage. I want to LIVE, every
day. I want to go to school, watch dumb movies while eating ice cream, and maybe even go to prom.” She slid in closer to me, bringing her chest to mine, and my hand automatically went to her hip. “I want to be able to kiss the one who loves me so fiercely, without thinking about the rest of the world. I want to experience all that life has to offer, because for me, any day could be my last. I know you want me safe. You want me to survive. But there is a difference between just surviving and really living.”

She rose up on her tiptoes, laying a scorching kiss on my lips before heading upstai
rs with her short-statured co-conspirator.

I looked over to Kian, who had a huge,
irritating grin on his face.

“Ah, yes. The halls of academia beckon thee. Come young man, and learn thee well.”

I glared at him, “Oh, just shut up.”

School was pretty uneventfu
l
, until just before lunch. During English and Ecology, Jesse hadn’t mentioned his visit to my place, and I was grateful he didn’t bring it up. I had stopped off at my locker to switch books before heading to the Café to meet up with Raef, Ana, and MJ.

I was shuffling books and folders in and out of my locker, thinking about
Rillin, when a perfectly manicured hand slammed down on my locker door, nearly shaving my nose off in the process.

I followed the hand back up to the face of its majorly pissed owner, Nikki Shea. I studied her, trying to see if she was a metal maven like her ancestor and, if it was true, why she didn’t just make the locker come to life and eat me?

“Where is it?” she hissed, close to my face. I didn’t flinch, refusing to move back.

“Where is what?” I asked, though I knew damn well she was asking about the book I borrowed and Elizabeth’s necklace. Nikki’s book full of gears and equations suddenly made perfect sense if she tinkered in supernatural metalwork.

 “Don’t screw with me, Walker. I have you on video! Do you really think my computer wouldn’t have a webcam? You are some kind of stupid! You and that waste of space, Williams, should be thrown in jail until hell freezes over. Did he jump out a window when the robber came in? He is such a wuss! The dog is the only living being worth a damn in this godforsaken town. Give me back the book and necklace and I won’t tell my parents about the video.”

WEBCAM?? Damn it! Someone I knew who rocked
a fur coat once in a while was now on my hit list. Thank god she didn’t see him phase however, which meant the robber must have blocked the camera when he was trashing her room. Thank heavens for small favors, though I was still going to kill MJ.
The house is easy to break into
he said.
We won’t get caught
he said. When I find him, he better run for his life, ‘cause he’s a dead doggie walking.  

I looked at Nikki, who had a hard, angry glow about her. Her hand had curled around the combination lock on my locker and she was squeezing it so hard, I could see every tendon in her hand. She knew I had broken in, but she must have also seen the other guy trashing her room. How did she know I took the book or the necklace? Maybe she didn’t.

“I didn’t take a damn thing from your house!”

I didn’t move and finally she snapped, screaming in my face, “GIVE THEM BACK!”

“NO!” I yelled, though stupidly admitting I had the damn things.

She leaned in closely and whispered in my face, “I know what you are. I know what he and his brother are as well. After you messed up in the Breakers, my parents had no choice but to tell me everything – about what you are and about Raef and Kian. They told me to leave your sorry ass alone – to stay away, and I have. But YOU are the one who invaded MY space! And I don’t care anymore if my parents told me to keep my distance or that Katherine and Elizabeth were pals. I have no intention of ever helping you. Ever. Katherine was an idiot – just a slave to the needs of your damn kind. Why couldn’t you just stay dead inside the Breakers?”

I was struck into silence. My mind was spinning as I watched her push away from my locker, warning me to return the book and necklace as she tossed her hair to the side, and turned to stride down the hallway and out of sight.

I stood there, shell-shocked for a moment. Nikki Shea knew.

She knew
everything
. Even worse, she knew about us.

All the blood in my body seemed to plunge to my feet. I needed to tell the others immediately about her, maybe strangling MJ as I did so. Raef was going to be livid that I broke into Nikki’s house and just as freaked about the fact that Nikki knew what we were. Just fantastic.

I grabbed for the lock on my locker and went to turn the dial to my combination, but the stupid thing wouldn’t move. I gave it a hard yank, but it stayed locked and unyielding, not unlike my crappy luck.

I tried to force the bugger into submission, but it wouldn’t give an inch. The bell rang and soon I was the only person left in the hallway, swearing at a five-dollar lock. I needed to get to the Café before Raef worried why I wasn’t there, but I needed my books for my next class.

So I did the only thing I could do – I pulled out my flame-thrower and roasted the sucker from the door.

Okay, no I didn’t, but the dream was no less tempting.

Instead, I texted Raef to tell him I was okay and then I ran to the janitor for the bolt cutters. I ended up running to my next class as well. By the end of the day, I had logged a mini-marathon inside the beige walls of BHS because I lacked a simple flame-thrower.

I bet I could’ve bashed it off with
Rillin’s damn billiard ball though.

As the last bell rang for the day, Raef and Ana joined me at my locker, complete with new padlock. I quietly filled them in on the whole breaking and entering with MJ.

“You broke into her house?” asked Raef, upset and a whole lot shocked.

“And you didn’t take ME?” demanded Ana. Raef glared at her.

I sighed. “Look – MJ was right. Well, at the time at least. We figured the necklace would allow us to read the diary and maybe throw some light on Rillin. But with everything going on, we haven’t had a chance to even use it on the diary. We wanted everyone there when we opened it.”

“And you took some French book with a bunch of drawings in it . . . and all of MJ’s clothes?” asked Raef, shaking his head.

“Where is MJ?” I asked.

Ana shifted her
backpack, “He had to run to The Milk Way to do something for his mom. He will meet up with us later.”

I glanced to Raef, who was staring down the hallway at all the students leaving for the day. “You should have told me, Eila. I feel like you never tell me anything anymore.”

He was right. I had kept things from him, but I had no more secrets left. “I know – I’m sorry. I was just trying to prove that I’m not a complete, idiotic weakling. I swear to you, I have no more ridiculous secrets though.”

Raef moved in close to me and wrapped his arm around my back pulling me in tight. A few classmates saw us and whispered a comment to one another. Raef never showed his affection for me so openly, and our contact made my cheeks flush.

“You don’t need to prove anything to me, Eila. And I could never, ever see you as a weakling,” he said quietly.

“I make stupid choices sometimes,” I whispered.

“They are just logically-stunted decisions,” he said with a soft smile.

But then I totally killed the mood by confessing the tidbit about Nikki getting a fun little history lesson from Mom and Dad. The admission instantly threw Raef and Ana into a tense silence. Between Nikki’s knowledge and the attack from last night, surviving seemed like a far more daunting task than ever before, even with Thor on our team.