"Bags."
Ruby grinned. Yes, that was what she needed. Very large, black garbage bags would do the trick. She could take them out slowly and put them down the garbage shoot a little at a time. No one would notice small doses of daisies in the garbage. It wouldn't look strange.
Grabbing her purse, she rushed toward the front door just as a huge ton of black garbage bags appeared out of nowhere landing with a boom on the living room floor.
Ruby backed up, until she leaned against the wall. She covered her mouth to stop her screams from traveling out of her mouth.
This was bad. Very, very bad. It had never been this intense before. Why was this happening to her?
* * * *
Zane Walsh knew trouble when he smelled it and the whole operation from start to finish made his 'run' radar go off. Still, he wasn't the type of person to cut and run so he didn't do as the voices in his head instructed him. He'd gotten good over the years at ignoring them. After all, only crazy people heard and spoke to themselves. Zane wasn't particularly happy with the idea of being nuts.
Scooping his black hair out his eyes, he pushed the long strands up his forehead. He'd been paid to rob the safe of this rich old lady's house. Something about a will being in dispute. He didn't really care about the details. As long as the money was green and placed in his offshore accounts, the reasons behind the deal were inconsequential to him.
He'd never failed at a job and he wasn't going to lose now. If he had to, he'd use his particular skill set and walk out the front door undisturbed.
As he found the final number that would open the device, he couldn't help his grin. It had taken years to become a master safecracker. But he'd always figured if he could build them, he could break them and this particular baby had been one of his own designs.
It was ironic. When the police needed help catching criminals they came to him, not knowing he was on some of the most wanted lists in the country. They just didn't know his name—and that was how it was going to stay.
The safe practically purred as it opened silently. He smiled at the sound. Maybe his radar had been off-kilter. This was going to be a walk in the park.
"Freeze."
Zane didn't turn around. Obviously, he'd gotten hopeful too soon. The voice that spoke to him sounded old and prickly.
Not the cops.
Not that it would matter. But the police would make things more complicated. The person catching him in the act was clearly the broad he'd been hired to rob.
"I've called the police." He heard the distinct click of a gun—a .45 he'd guess from the noise—and, although he hadn't turned around, was most likely being pointed at his head. Could the old lady shoot? He had no idea but some of the old timers he'd encountered over the years were ten times tougher than their younger counterparts.
"You don't want to do that." He wouldn't pull out his voice unless he really had to. The woman was old; he didn't want to cause her permanent brain damage.
"Turn around."
Zane grabbed the envelope stuffed inside the safe and did as he'd been instructed. It was dark in the room but he could see the outline of the elderly woman just fine. Her hands shook as she held the gun but he wasn't foolish enough to believe she wouldn't fire it. Desperate people did desperate things. The trick would be to convince her she really wasn't in any trouble.
"Look, I'm not taking anything from you that you can't get back."
She let go of the gun with one hand and flipped on the light. Zane's eyes protested the onslaught of sudden brightness but he kept his features bland and unthreatening. He was not going to end up shot because he reacted badly to the lights being illuminated.
Pointing at him, she gasped. "You."
"What?" He shook his head. As far as he could tell, he'd never seen the lady before—ever.
"They told me you would come and here you are." She grinned like she'd been given the best gift ever.
"Shit." Zane shook his head. "You're crazy, aren't you?"
* * * *
Alexa Lane waited until Sebastian had left to go find coffee before she ran to the bathroom to vomit. Oh god, what had she done getting into this sexual relationship with Sebastian? What was wrong with her that she couldn't enjoy it?
He was a gorgeous man and he loved her. Her body heaved as her stomach tried to empty her already vacant insides. Sweat broke out on her forehead. Maybe she was just built 'wrong' because it had always felt like she should never have sex with anyone. Not one man had ever turned her on to the degree that she wanted to spread her legs and invite them inside.
Doing it with Sebastian… well, she was woman enough to admit that she'd been jealous as hell that Gabriel had gotten a girlfriend. Not because she wanted Gabe, that felt icky to even think about, but because he had found someone to love him. So, she'd forced it with Sebastian and now here she was puking because the only guy who had ever loved her made her cringe internally when his hands met her naked skin.
Chapter Four
Eden tried not to look at Marina as she shoved all her clothes in her suitcase. Well… as she shoved all her clothes in Marina's suitcase. Eden didn't actually have her own luggage. She'd arrived on the Outsider Island with just the clothes on her back. But Marina had one and even though the other woman objected—vehemently—to Eden's leaving, she was letting her borrow her luggage.
"Where will you go?"
Eden placed her last item of clothing into the bag and zipped it up. "Not sure. Guess I'm going to make it up as I go."
"That's not a very good plan."
She knew that, but she wasn't going to give Marina the satisfaction of agreeing with her. "Well, it's the only one I have."
"Eden, you're smarter than this."
"Really?" She looked up, finally staring at Marina. The other woman was her friend. She cared about her—felt like a sister to her, really. But, right at that moment, she wanted to strangle her. Why couldn't everyone just leave her alone to live her life and stop telling her what to do? "Because you all treat me like I'm either an imbecile or a child."
"No, we don't."
Eden stood. After a second of fiddling with it, Eden managed to get the handle of the suitcase pulled up so she could roll the thing behind her. "Yes, you do. And I'm not arguing with you on this matter. Leonardo basically called me useless. I won't be that. I won't be a burden. I'll make my own way."
"What will you do if you have a vision out there in the real world and it incapacitates you?"
Eden shrugged like it didn't matter when the reality was that idea terrified her more than anything. What if she got incapacitated and a car ran her over? It was why her family had shoved her in the demon-infested mental institution to begin with.
"Then I guess I'll die if I can't get myself under control." She tried to smile and suspected she failed. Doubt threatened to eat her up from the inside out and yet still she had to maintain her cool or this would be all for naught. "Leonardo said it was time to put up or shut up."
"Leonardo must be in one of his moods. You know not to listen to him."
Marina might be able to dismiss Leonardo like his opinions didn't matter but Eden could not. She hadn't grown up with their designated leader. She didn't think of him as an annoying brother but rather as a colleague she'd rather impress than continuously disappoint.
Eden had spent her life as the weak link. She didn't want to be that anymore.
"Do you have any money?"
That stopped her in her tracks. Money. Yes, in the real world you needed some of that to get by. It had been years since she'd needed any.
"No."
Well, there went her big idea of running off on her own. If she didn't have cash, she wouldn't be able to even get a taxi to take her anywhere when she got off the boat on the mainland. What the hell had she been thinking?
"I have three hundred dollars in my wallet. You can have it."
Eden felt tears threaten at Marina's generous offer. She looked away before they fell, spoiling
her dignified retreat. "I can't take your money, 'Rina."
"It's not any more mine than it is yours."
Eden stared at Marina. "What?"
"We spell cast it. Need money? Sure, we can have some appear. That's how Veli never had to hold a job all the years he dragged us all over the world. It belongs to you as much as it does to any of us. If you need more, we'll make more."
Eden could remember all the years of driving around with her parents in the caravan of God's Light and Children. They'd obsessed about money. There were certain towns where they knew the populace gave them a lot whenever they drove through to preach. They'd hold on to that like fiends, hoping it would last through the places where people had less to give.
After that, some unknown benefactor had paid for her years in the mental health facility. She still didn't know who had forked out the money for that. She'd never thought to ask how the Outsiders supported themselves. As it turned out, apparently, they magically made money.
"We couldn't do what we had to do if we all needed to keep up with our day jobs, so to speak."
That made sense and Eden tried to smile to cover her new unease. If she'd been so completely unaware of how they functioned in this place for the last six months, could she possibly expect to make it anywhere else? Maybe Marina was right. Maybe she shouldn't trek out on her own.
Except if she didn't do it now, if she didn't force herself out the door, then she would never leave. She was thirty-one years old and she'd never ever go anywhere. She'd spend the rest of her life in this place, not getting control of her powers, letting everyone down, and then eventually dying when the demon defeated them all.
If she was ever going to be strong, if she was ever going to be worthy, she had to go now.
"Thanks for the help, Marina. I will take you up on the money. But I'll pay you back, even if you can always get more."
That was the only way she was going to feel okay about it.
Her friend ran forward, grabbing her on the arm. "Why are you doing this? You're family. You don't have to leave. Leonardo is shitty to me all the time too. It's just his way."
"I don't like what my role has turned out to be in this family."
And that was the truth. If there was ever a chance she could help the Outsiders on their quest to bring down the demon, she needed to know she could stand on her own two feet.
She wouldn't allow herself to be the one they all had to worry about. Not anymore.
* * * *
Eden felt the rough onslaught of the wind off the Atlantic pound in her face. She sat, gripping the edge of the boat as Kal sped through the rough water toward the mainland of Maine. She'd done this trip once before but she had no memory of it.
Thank God.
If she'd remembered just how nerve racking the actual transportation had been, she never would have thought she could do it again in a million years.
"It's okay, I do this all the time." Kal shouted to be heard over the noise of the boat and the roar of the wind.
She knew that to be true. Although Gabriel, one of their kind, could transport people across space, it exhausted him too much to ask him to do it all the time. Plus, the overuse of unnecessary magic could give the demon an 'in' on getting past Marina's wards. Eden shuddered at the thought. Sebastian didn't need any extra help.
She looked up at Kal. When he'd met Isabelle and taken the first steps to defeating the evil that hunted them, things had started to change. It was like his rediscovering his soul mate had triggered something in all of them. Something that had finally brought them together, that would eventually make all eighteen Outsiders join forces.
A pulse started in her head and she rubbed her forehead to try to make it go away. After a few seconds, it did. She shook her head. That had been a weird feeling.
"Hey," Kal yelled again. "Do you need any money?"
Eden would have smiled if the whole thing hadn't been so disastrously sad. "No, Kal. I'm good. Marina took care of me."
That had been the truth. But when Eden came back, she wouldn't need anyone to do that for her anymore.
The boat slowed down as it approached the dock up ahead. "Now, you're sure about this?"
Eden swallowed. Was she? "Yes, I'm good, Kal. I appreciate the concern but I need to prove something."
"To who?"
She really, really wished he would let this go. "To myself, to Leonardo. I don't know… to the world, I guess."
"Look, if this is about Leonardo…"
She cut him off before he could follow it to the same conclusion Marina had made. "It's not. It's about me."
"All right." The boat came to a jolting stop as Kal threw the knotted end of a rope around a pillar on the dock. She guessed it acted like some kind of anchor but she really didn't know anything about how floating devices functioned. Before she'd looked out her bedroom window six months ago, she'd never seen the ocean before. Heck, she'd never even see anything that amounted to a large lake.
Her life had pretty much amounted to long travels over large passages of land. Maybe that was her problem. Maybe all the water around her made her powers go awry.
Maybe she was just lousy.
* * * *
Eden wandered the streets of the beach town, feeling more alone than she ever had before. Her feet hurt in her soaked-from-the-snow sneakers and they squeaked with every step she took. Her fingers had long since stopped hurting from the cold and she knew she needed to get inside soon.
Forcing one foot in front of the other, she sloshed forward just as a new batch of snow descended from the sky to cover her already-wet head. Kal had said he'd wait until eight o'clock that night in case she changed her mind and wanted to come back. He'd also insisted she take her cell phone.
This would be the moment she'd turn around if she was going to. Instead, she fisted her hands and tried to make out what the very dirty, un-illuminated sign said. She thought it said 'Beach Cove' but it could have said 'Beach Dove.' To be honest, she wasn't exactly sure but it didn't matter one way or another.
If the office was open and they had a room, she'd be staying there that evening. After she knocked on the outside door of one of the buildings that she assumed acted as the check-in area, an older man opened the door.
Eden took in his appearance as she tried to smile despite her freezing body. He looked to be in his late sixties. What hair he had left, appeared silver around the top of his bald head. His eyebrows, which were still dark brown and fuzzy, furrowed downward as he regarded her in what was clear concern. She couldn't blame him. At the moment, she had to look like something had swallowed her up, digested her, and spit her back out again.
"Can I help you?"
"Yes, hello." Eden held her chin up. She had to stop cowering everywhere she went. This was an easy transaction. They had rooms—she hoped—and she needed one. "I'd like a room please."
"They're not for free." The man cleared his throat. "Not even in this weather."
He thought she couldn't pay? "I would expect to be charged for it."
"I see." He looked her up and down, which made Eden stand up straighter. Whatever her appearance might currently suggest, she wore nice clothes and Marina's bag was of fine quality. No way could he think there was anything inherently 'wrong' with her appearance. And even if he did, to steal a phrase from Gabriel, fuck him.
Eden had been judged her whole life. Usually, she could ignore it. Maybe it was simply a compilation of the entire day but she wanted to wring the old man's neck. Wandering the streets of random towns with her parents, wearing dresses that looked like they belonged to women who had lived during the revolutionary war with her hair braided down her back was hard enough. At least she could understand the stares. But she looked normal now—well, as normal as she could, given her extreme height and red hair.
"Are you in some kind of trouble?"
"Can I have the room or not?" She wasn't going to answer this man's questions. Not while he stared at her rudely and hadn't opened the
door so she could come inside and get warm.
"It's fifty dollars a day."
"Fine." Eden dug into her coat to look for her wallet. "I'll pay you every morning."
"There's no maid service this time of year."
She nodded. "That's fine, too. I'm used to taking care of myself. I've been doing it my whole life."
"This is room 1C. It faces the ocean and it has heat."
Well that was something. She needed the heat, badly. Her hands looked blue and her nose felt like it might fall off. Concerning the ocean, for a woman who had never seen one before six months ago, she had gotten used to the constant noise it made and the way it made everything around her ebb and flow. She'd be glad not to lose it yet. Wherever she ended up might not be near the beach.
"Is there some place to get something to eat?" She wasn't hungry at the moment but she would be at some point. Better to ask this man all the questions she might have right away since she wasn't sure what was going to happen two minutes from now.
"This time of year?"
She bit down on her tongue to stop her retort and opted for short answers instead. "Obviously."
"It's a ways down the road. There's a restaurant called Eppie's. It's open twenty-four hours a day."
Well, she wasn't going to walk there now but maybe in the morning the snow would subside and she'd give it a go. "Thanks."
As she dragged her bag behind her, she reminded herself that things could be worse. She could be sitting back on the Outsider Island obsessing about being left behind while they all went off and saved the world without her.
She might be wet and cold but she was proactive. That had to count for something, somewhere.
Finally reaching her beachfront room she opened the door to the smells of mold and dust. She sneezed as she pushed forward, compelled to get warm no matter the level of cleanliness. For one night, this room would do.