Love Beyond Flames

  The muscles in his neck strained and she smoothed them. "Thank you for the pause."

  He nodded, once. And then moved. She cried out.

  Yes, every second of being with Zane was heaven.

  *****

  Zane ran his hands through Raquel's short locks. He massaged the back of her head. She lay pressed against his side. His woman. She needed to hear his whole truth.

  "I went to jail."

  She sniffled, rubbing her face against his skin. "I know."

  "I haven't really told you why."

  Raquel lifted her head. "I'm all ears."

  "No, you're all eyes."

  She groaned. "Very funny."

  He wasn't kidding. Raquel's eyes took up most of her face. They were dark, intense, and seemed to see right through him.

  "I robbed a convenience store. I didn't have a gun or anything. It was a stupid thing to do. I don't need to rob convenience stores. I can hear safes. Why did I do it? I still have no idea. I held my hand in my jacket and pretended it was a gun. Then I pretty much stood there and let them arrest me. Why did I do that?"

  She rolled over until she could look him straight in the eyes. "Well, first of all, you're lucky you didn't get shot if you were claiming you had a gun."

  He could still see the terrified look of the cashier's eyes. He was a kid, a teenager. Zane seriously doubted the kid could have shot him but she was right. One never did know.

  He could have been killed. "You're right."

  "Did you want to get caught?"

  Now therein lay the question. "I never ask myself that. Not ever."

  "All right. Well, you wanted to talk about this, my love. So, I've asked it. Did you want to get caught?"

  For a second, he couldn't speak. Zane had brought this up. He wanted to speak to her about it. "I wasn't sure where my next meal was coming from. I was lost. The zombies kept finding me. I was exhausted. Yes, I probably wanted to get caught. At least in jail, I knew where I was going. Nowhere."

  "How long were you there?" She asked him, and he still didn't hear judgment in her voice.

  "Five years. Out on good behavior. Although, I was hardly a model prisoner. Learned how to fight there. I thought I knew but I didn't. It toughened me up and when I got out I knew I didn't want that again. I stuck to safe robing. I do it really well. I don't get caught." He cleared his throat. "That was when the chanting started and I got approached by this really old woman while I was robbing her, talking about the Outsiders and how I had to go to Maine."

  She touched his chest. "Amazing you went. But, maybe you were remembering our time in our garden at night. You're only starting to remember it. I always did. You never told me that you were in jail. Not once during that whole time."

  He couldn't remember the garden except for recently. When the memories started to come back, the garden returned to his consciousness. It was so nice to never have to be separated from her, not even in sleep.

  "I don't know why. I'd have wanted to protect you. Were you telling me everything about what was going on with you?"

  She shook her head. "Absolutely not. I wanted to…protect you."

  "We're quite a pair."

  That was his thought as he drifted off to sleep. It felt wonderful to have told her about what he did to go to jail. He'd killed people, she knew that too. Every time had been self-defense, or recently when he'd dealt with Dorstore had been because of what he did to Raquel. So why did he feel so unsettled? Why did he feel like there would be reckoning for the kind of person he'd been?

  He fell asleep and woke up in the garden. He had to grin. Knowing about this made sleep so much more enjoyable. Not being able to remember years of it really sucked.

  Only…he looked around. Raquel was nowhere to be found. Huh. Well, maybe she hadn't fallen asleep yet. However, there was something else wrong, too. Their garden was…bleeding. Colors faded, greens, reds, dripping down onto the ground around him.

  What was the matter? He spun around. "Hello?"

  No one answered but the ground below his feet shook violently. What the hell? How was he supposed to handle some kind of earthquake in his dream state?

  The ground opened up and he fell through it. He went into a void of blackness, falling and falling. Zane had no idea where he was going to land. Or if he would. He looked around. At some point he had to wake up…didn't he?

  Finally, he slammed into a hard surface. Dim light from lit candles appeared out of nowhere and a man stepped forward.

  Even if Zane hadn't gotten his memory back, he'd have known anywhere who stood before him. The ultimate bad guy in the universe—the Father—wore an Armani suit with expensive Italian shoes and an earring in his left ear. He was older, but not ancient. Maybe in his forties. All of it was a put-on. In the same way that Sebastian had once taken a body, it seemed his Father had as well.

  "That prophecy. I've been listening to it over and over for so long I can barely stand it anymore." He looked Zane up and down. "I have watched my son, my wife, and my daughter all lose to you. Why is that? I wonder. No matter. Easiest way to stop the prophecy and win this tiresome contest? Keep you all locked in your own heads. You have to be all together to win. You'll stay here." He shrugged. "And starve to death out there. Your soul mate won't know what to do. Maybe she'll die of a broken heart." He yawned. "Goodbye, Zane. Enjoy your captivity. I hear that you're good at that."

  A clinking sound shut him into wherever this was. Zane hadn't uttered a word but as he jumped to his feel he felt his chest tightening. This was very, very bad.

  What had he gotten himself into? And how would he get out?

  Chapter Eleven

  Raquel shook Zane's body. Why wouldn't he wake up? Tears flew down her face and Jason yanked her back. "Nothing is going to be solved by rattling his brain around."

  He was right. But Zane was unconscious and he wasn't waking up. When she'd gone to their garden and found it destroyed she knew something was very wrong. But she hadn't imagined this.

  Jason spoke softly. "Let Charma work. She got me out of the prison of my own mind."

  Raquel took a deep breath. That was right. The ancestors had told her stories about that. Charma saved Jason from a prison that was in his own mind. Sebastian's sister put him in there. This would be okay. It was why they all worked together, so they could save each other from this kind of event.

  Charma lifted her head. "He's not in his own mind. This is different. It's like something or someone has moved his consciousness from his own head to somewhere else. Zane isn't in his own head."

  Raquel waited for Charma to finish. "Yes? And?

  Fix it!"

  Jason sighed. "She can't fix it and neither can I. I've

  never heard of such a thing."

  "I don't understand. Neither of you can fix him?"

  Loraine stepped forward. "Don't panic. Just when everything seems like it's all going to hell, something amazing happens. We'll recover Zane. I know we will. Futon says that light comes from the darkest day."

  It was only because Raquel really cared about sweet Loraine that she didn't tell her to screw off. Right at that moment, Raquel didn't care one bit about what Futon, the dog, said about light and darkness.

  Raquel decided instead to ignore her. "What is there left to do?"

  This couldn't be the end. It wouldn't be as simple an end as Zane went to sleep and didn't wake up. That would be ridiculous and not an okay ending to a man who battled as long and hard as Zane did. She loved him. She would not see him end at all. And somehow she couldn't get her head steady. How did she reconcile Zane maybe dying? How did she…

  "I can fix this." A voice filled the room and all at once the Outsiders with her turned to look at it. Was that real? Was Sebastian in the room with them?

  Where had his voice come from? The man appeared before them. He was no longer corporeal but wore the look of the man he'd once been before he'd lost his human form and become even more frightening than he had been before.

>   "You won't be able to get him back unless I help you."

  The demon was here and he was offering to…help?

  Leonardo jumped to his feet. His hands were fisted and he'd moved upright so quickly the chair he sat on flew back, hitting the wall with a crash. "You."

  Sebastian nodded. "You could try to hit me, Leonardo. But we both know I'm only a vision of a solid self. Your fist would hit the air. It might be amusing to see. Go try it. See what happens."

  "You destroyed my love. So keep this in mind. When your end comes, I will be delivering the final blow."

  The demon had the audacity to shrug. Raquel didn't see any concern in his gaze at all. "Maybe. Maybe not. I can tell you all this, you won't be winning anything anytime soon. My father is here. He is angry and he is done. Your boy Zane, over there? He's just the beginning. He will pick you apart bit by bit until—bam—you're all dead."

  That word. Bam. It resonated in her mind. That was from the trip with the ghosts she and Zane had taken. Every time they asked how they died, one of the survivors in that time said bam. It had seemed really bizarre. But now?

  She jumped to her feet and this time it was her turn to make the chair slip backwards. "No."

  All eyes turned to her. "Don't like the deal, Raquel? By the way, beautiful job letting Zane take the burden from you of killing Dorstore. His soul is dark enough, don't you think? I mean, what was one more little murder for Zane? He's done already."

  She ignored Sebastian. There was never anything he said or did that didn't stink of evil. "Listen to me. The day I met Zane in this life—the big day—Kal's ghost came and got us. He brought us back in time so we could see a glimpse of what might be. They kept using a word—bam— and it didn't make a lick of sense to us. It was Christophe, Isabelle, Samuel, and Eden. Only, Eden's mind was gone." She hated to remind them of this, they'd all heard it before and no one had liked it then any more than they were going to like it now.

  "This is the moment. This is the point. This is why you did that, Kal." She pointed at him and he shook his head.

  "Hopefully, it's not anything I'm going to actually ever have to do."

  That was true. Raquel continued. "We thought we'd changed things. Right? In that vision, Isabelle told me I'd never told her about travelling back in time. And since I did then that's a big change. But not good enough. Bam. It's that word. You kept using it, all of you who were still alive.

  It stuck with me. This is when we make a mistake."

  She rounded on Sebastian. "No. Go away. You want your father away from you? Handle it yourself. Maybe you can kill each other. We're not interested. Bam. Go away." "You'll live to regret this. You won't get him back." "I will." And she wasn't just saying that.

  As she uttered the words, she knew. Zane would come back to her. They'd always been together and although their beginnings in this life had been the pits, the fundamental truth was that love didn't die. Not the kind that she and Zane shared. He would come back to her. In this life and any future ones they had.

  This was a bump in the road

  Sebastian stared at her. He must have seen something in her eyes. Maybe it was her resolve. He blinked out of the room.

  Marina let out a long sigh. "I've reinforced the room. He won't be able to come back in. These public motel rooms. There's so much constant movement. I can't explain it. It's hard to keep things steady."

  Drew rubbed her arm. "Don't worry, my love. You're doing a great job."

  Christophe spoke up. "Personally, I don't want to end up dead with Ruby. I'm in favor of anything that might change that eventuality. And, for once, I might be able to help."

  He looked at Ruby. "I can go back or you can…" Christophe never got to finish. A book appeared in his hand. "Thanks, babe."

  She nodded at him. Ruby had been asked to use her powers a lot lately. She'd never moved people from one location to another before. It had exhausted her. Still, it seemed that she was able to still move small objects without straining herself.

  He looked down at the book. "For once, Abraxas will prove to be helpful. He wrote on this subject, the idea of the consciousness leaving the body. It's actually something Outsiders can do." He walked over to the chairless table and set the book down on it. "Nothing to be concerned about if we're doing it on purpose. Only, I don't think Zane did. Sebastian said his father did it. Let's assume he wasn't lying about that. Okay, it's possible for consciousness to be moved without the person's consent." He tapped the book. "Wouldn't be a problem if…" His voice trailed off.

  Raquel rocked back on her feet. In all of her years of fighting these battles, she'd never heard of such a thing. But then again there were lots of things regular Outsiders could do that the eighteen of them could not. They never had the time to hone their craft or learn something new. It was be born, fight, die. Do it again. Who knew what her knowledge base would be if she could ever take a breath?

  She tried to relax her shoulders and failed. "Finish that sentence. If what?"

  "If Alexa were here. I think she'd be able to manage bringing him back. Her power? The one that lets her find us wherever we are? We'd probably be able to turn it around and find wherever Zane's consciousness has been stashed if she were here."

  Well, then there was a simple fix to this situation. "I have to find Alexa."

  "If only that were so easy. The one of us who has the power to find anyone else is, in fact, Alexa." Leonardo rubbed his eyes. "And I can't feel her so I'm not any use to you that way."

  He wasn't wrong. But there was always a way around. With eighteen of them in this fight together, and so many of them having crossed over powers, there was always something to do. That was part of the beauty of who they are.

  Or what made them so perpetually annoyed with each other…

  A thought dawned on Raquel. "Marina, can you chase her power?"

  "Chase it how?"

  Raquel wasn't making herself understood very well. "If we could find a piece of her power, could you chase it where it went?"

  Drew nodded, placing his hand on Marina's back. "She's going to say maybe because she doubts herself. But, yes, she can do that."

  Marina pursed her lips. "I guess if he says I can, I can."

  That would have to be good enough. Raquel moved until she was right in front of them. "Bring me back to the caves."

  "It's overrun with zombies," Kal said. "You'll be overwhelmed."

  "Can you help us with that?" If Zane had been there he would have offered to take care of the zombies.

  Kal nodded. "I can."

  "We all can," Samuel added. "We're good at killing them."

  She wished she could take them all up on that offer. "I'm afraid that isn't going to work. We need to slip in and out of there without the Father noticing. Drew, Marina, and I will go. We'll have to move on from there until we find her. Then maybe we'll need some help."

  Raquel hadn't asked Leonardo and it seemed obvious why she hadn't. He had also not commented. Did he understand how important it was they find Alexa? Did he appreciate just how bad things had gotten?

  "If you find her"—as though her thinking about him made him speak—Leonardo addressed her, "Please get her to come home. I can't fix things if she won't."

  "Right now, my concern is getting Zane back. All of my energy is going to go to that. If I can get her to come home at the same time, I will. Otherwise you'll have to figure that out yourself."

  When Alexa had been broken, Raquel had wanted to help them. Both Alexa and Leonardo had their faculties well in order now. Alexa had found her backbone. She didn't need interference from Raquel anymore, not when it came to Leonardo.

  Still, she had to remember what she'd learned in the other time. The order of things had been: Alexa lost all will to survive—Raquel couldn't see that happening now but what did she know on the subject, she supposed it could still take place—Leonardo died. And then Zane, some of the others, and she all went bam.

  Had she thwarted that yet?

&nbs
p; "Is anyone in here afraid to die?" She asked the question, looking around. "Are you afraid?"

  No one answered, so she continued. "I'm not either and neither is Zane. What scares me is unfinished business, of doing this wrong. I will not lose this because I made big mistakes. That's all. We have to try to see things two steps ahead, like we're playing a chess game. What comes next?"

  Leonardo looked away. "The end. One way or

  another."

  She patted his arm. "Let's do better than that, fearless leader."

  Raquel could barely look at Zane. She could feel that he wasn't there. His body looked young, strong, healthy. He was hers. Yet, he wasn't there. She could feel it. There was only his shell and that wasn't good enough.

  She put her hand on Drew's arm and said to the others, "If you guys have to leave here, please leave us a clue where to go to find you."

  "Or I'll just pop over and tell you we're leaving," Gabriel added. "Go get the fuck gone so you can get back. We'll take care of Zane."

  She knew they would but hurrying up seemed like a great idea.

  *****

  Sebastian had been so sure they would fold. They always did. What was the matter with them? They didn't think they could beat his father without him? Well, they were going to be very, very sorry, when his father ate them alive, piece by piece.

  Of course, Sebastian might be eaten alive, too. His father was no happier with him than he was with the Outsiders. He'd barely gotten away and only then because his father had decided to start by destroying Zane.

  They would all be sorry.

  He'd see to it.

  No one turned down Sebastian when he wanted something. They'd live to regret not joining up with him against a common enemy. They'd wish they had said yes.

  *****

  Alexa sat in her apartment listening to the ocean outside. She had homes all over the world, thanks to that demon. Sebastian had been generous in the places he'd kept her. Of course, she had no idea he'd been doing it because he wanted to keep her from her people.