Last Kiss Goodnight

  Jecis and Dr. E were here, in the garage, he realized.

  Laughter suddenly reverberated inside his head. Again, familiar. Dr. E's. A moment later, a fiery skull with red, glowing eyes appeared at the other side of the room, its mouth open, its sharp teeth revealed.

  That skull sped into motion, a mere inch away from Solo in a single blink. He jerked Vika behind him, hoping to shield her from whatever was about to happen, just as those flame-drenched bones reached him--and swallowed him whole.

  *

  Vika heard a thump.

  A second later, light flooded the cold, underground room Solo had led her to, and she saw that he was on the ground, motionless, his eyes closed. Concern overwhelmed her, and she began to bend down to help him--when she caught sight of Jecis, Matas, and Audra, standing at the far wall, and froze.

  They'd found her.

  Horror and dread mixed, forming a toxic sludge in her veins. Jecis was scowling, Matas was grinning, and for once Audra was gazing at her with sympathy. She was pallid, and she was shaking, no longer a pretty woman. Her face was swollen, discolored and scabbed from Jecis's rings.

  Scabs Vika herself had borne many, many times throughout the years.

  Despite his amusement, Matas, too, looked as if he had come into contact with her father's fists. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and there was a knot on his jaw.

  They each wore summer clothes: tanks, lightweight pants. Yet still their corruption managed to cloak them. The misshapen skull she'd glimpsed inside Big Red stared at her through her father's eyes. Dark shadows hovered over Matas's shoulders, thicker than before.

  "No," she said with a shake of her head. "No."

  "Thought you would have a better life without me, did you?" Jecis said, a hint of madness in his tone. Madness, fury, and evil. Pure evil. "Thought some disgusting otherworlder would care for you in ways I could not?"

  He had no idea she could hear him, she realized. A fact she could use to her advantage. She just had to figure out how.

  "Well?" he demanded.

  "Yes," she said, happy to discover there wasn't a tremble in her voice. "I did. I do."

  Surprise widened his eyes, and he stomped toward her. I will not cower. When he reached her, he grabbed her arms in a painful vise grip and shook her. "I loved you." Spittle rained over her face. "How could you betray me like this?"

  "You never loved me."

  "I gave you everything."

  "You gave me nothing but pain and sorrow."

  He raised his hand to hit her, but rather than back down, rather than plead for mercy he would never show, she lifted her chin. The surprise returned, now magnified, and he slowly lowered his arm.

  "You've changed," he said, and he didn't sound happy about it.

  "I have." And she would never go back to the way she'd been. She had traveled too far down this current road, had gone from cowardly to courageous. Even looking back, she couldn't see where she'd started. "How did you get here?"

  "A little man, Dr. E, came to me. He told me where to find you and vowed to empower me in ways I could only dream of . . . if only I vowed to kill you."

  Kill you. The words echoed in her mind, leaving an empty ache in her chest. "And did you agree?"

  He flashed his teeth in a parody of a smile. "I did. And you deserve to die, after what you did to me. But first," he said, "I'm going to teach you the same lesson I taught your mother: Leave me and suffer."

  He motioned Matas forward.

  Her former guard walked over, bent down, and, straining under the muscled weight, hefted Solo over his shoulder. So badly Vika wanted to lash out, to do something, anything, to save him. But she didn't. Not yet. Right now it was three against one, and she had no way to transport Solo. Solo, who had not moved or made a sound since falling. What had her father done to him?

  "With the power Dr. E has given me," Jecis said, "I can create stronger solar flares. I can choose where I end up, when I end up--up to a certain point. I can only go short distances, but the more I do this, the better I become." He raised his arm, mumbled a string of words she didn't understand--words that lifted the fine hairs on her body and left a sour taste in her mouth.

  Suddenly white lightning speared the air just in front of her, creating a split in the ether. The edges were drenched in fog, but through the center she could see . . . outside the cabin. Cold, wintry air even blustered inside the garage.

  Jecis jerked her through, and a second later, she was standing outside, in the exact spot she'd seen. Matas and Audra followed, and the pocket of air closed behind them.

  "One more, and you'll be home," Jecis said. Once again he raised his arm, mumbling, and once again lightning lanced down, creating a crack in the air. A curtain that had just been opened, revealing another location on the other side.

  Revealing the nightmare she'd left behind. The circus. Only, now it was surrounded by sunshine and light.

  Just before Jecis could tug her through, a ferocious roar resounded through the night.

  "What was that?" Audra whispered.

  "Come," Jecis commanded, his gaze roving the distance.

  The injured white tiger leapt from the darkness and slammed into him before he could take a single step, propelling him off his feet and onto the snowy ground. He maintained his hold on Vika and took her with him. On impact, oxygen burst from her lungs.

  Her father howled with pain as the tiger bit into his arm, dragging him several feet, shaking him. Finally Jecis released Vika, but only to throw a bolt of lightning at the tiger, causing the animal to fly backward.

  "No!" she screamed, attempting to jump up but slipping on the ice.

  A bleeding Jecis stood, grabbed her, and jerked her through the new opening. This time, Matas and Audra didn't walk through but ran, practically pushing her out of the way.

  Another roar, and she could hear the frantic clomp of the tiger's paws against the ice. He was running, determined to make another play for her father. But Jecis reached back and waved his hand, and the air sealed shut, blocking the creature from view and preventing him from entering the circus.

  He'll be fine, she told herself. He's better off. She didn't want him near Jecis ever again. Her father would have used the tiger's wounds against him.

  Just like he would use Solo against Vika.

  "Home," Jecis said, and spread his arms.

  Vika breathed in . . . out . . . as she looked around, the sights that greeted her caused her stomach to churn with sickness. White tents, Big Red, trailers, games and rides, and performers walking in every direction, setting up for tomorrow's show. The cold had been replaced by sultry heat, and the mountains with flatlands.

  "After you left," Jecis said, "we changed locations, thinking you meant to bring the authorities to my door. Thankfully, we were only gone for a few days since the little man had approached me and showed me a better way."

  An avalanche of sounds suddenly assaulted her ears, and she barely stopped herself from cringing. Voices, so many voices. Chatter, laughing, arguing. The grind of metal against metal. The squeal of tires. The crunch of stones beneath shoes.

  Jecis pushed Vika at Audra. "Lock her in her trailer. I'll deal with her once my wounds have been bandaged. And if she escapes, I'll blame you, my darling Audra." With barely a pause, he looked to Matas and said, "And you. Put the beast back in his cage."

  Thirty-one

  Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit.

  --LUKE 12:35

  SOLO AWOKE WITH A jolt, panic instantly infusing him. He remembered the cabin, and the fiery skull propelling toward him. But after that? Nothing.

  "Vika!" he shouted, bounding to his feet. Where was she? Had the skull gotten her, too? "Vika!"

  "Calm down, warrior."

  The Targon's voice penetrated his mind, and he spun. The sun shone brightly in the sky, and he had to blink rapidly to focus. Through familiar metal bars he could see the otherworlder, his caged neighbor.

  Bars. Cage.


  Dread beating at him, he looked around. He was back in the cage, he realized. Back at the circus, back in the menagerie. He'd . . . he'd been captured. The rest of the otherworlders were watching him. Some with anger. Some with pity. Kitten, with hope.

  "Don't despair," she said. "You did it once, something no one else has ever done, and you can do it again."

  They were dirtier than when he'd left them, as though no one had bothered to clean them even once. They were thinner, too, as if no one had bothered to feed them. But at least they were alive.

  And he could hear them. Once again, his ears were working. That meant Vika, wherever she was, was once again deaf.

  "Where's Vika?" he demanded of the Targon. "How long was I out?" The landscape had changed. Mountains had been replaced by planes, snowy tundra by red dirt, and trees by rolling wheat.

  "She's been locked in her trailer, and you were out only for the night."

  His relief was so potent, it buckled his knees. He tumbled down, shaking the entire cage.

  "She's your woman," the Targon said. "You've claimed her."

  "She is. I have." And he would not lose her. Not this way. Not in any way. "Where's Jecis? Matas?"

  A flash of fury in the Targon's eyes. "They're setting up for tomorrow's show."

  It was time for information, Solo decided, time to learn the Targon's motives. "You hate him. Matas. You hate him more than Jecis, the man responsible for your predicament. Why?"

  "Hey, Jolly Red," Criss called. "You don't call, you don't write. You have some nerve showing your face here again. My brothers are coming for me, you know, and they'll have something to say to you. You just left me behind!"

  The Targon held out his arms, and the world just . . . stopped . . . moving, even going silent. Solo frowned--or tried to. Like the world around him, he was motionless. His body felt as though it had been covered by cement, even his arms too heavy to lift. The only part of himself that he had any control over was his eyes, and he kept those trained on the otherworlder.

  Only the Targon could move. He stalked to the side of his cage, his lips curling into a smile that wasn't a smile. "Don't worry. Unlike you, their minds are on lockdown. They have no idea what's going on. And did you notice I'm stronger than before? I've been practicing."

  Stronger, despite the cuffs.

  The cuffs!

  "Yes, you are bound, too," the Targon said, and suddenly Solo's head could move.

  He looked down. Sure enough, the metal of the cuffs circled his wrists. Jecis . . . oh, Jecis would pay. "There's no key, you know."

  The otherworlder absorbed the news and shrugged, as if he simply didn't care.

  "How are you able to wield so much control with the drugs pumping through your system?" Solo asked.

  "The drugs are inhibitors."

  "I know. So?"

  "So. There is a fatal flaw to such drugs. A flaw spelled out in the name. They inhibit, they do not wipe away."

  "Why have you remained, then?"

  A return of the rage, now laced with sadness. "Your woman once took care of mine. Mara was her name, and she and her friends heard about a magical circus called Cirque de Monstres and came for a visit. Matas saw her, wanted her, raped her, and vanished with her before I could get to her. He had no idea that we were linked, and that I knew everything he was doing to her, as he was doing it." More and more rage seeped from his tone. "I could have killed him from the start, and maybe I should have, but I wanted to experience everything my Mara experienced. I wanted to see my tormentor every day--until I destroyed him."

  He wanted to punish himself for not saving his woman, and he understood. He did. He wasn't sure how he would react if he discovered Vika had been harmed in any way.

  Vika . . . the girl he loved.

  Yeah. He loved her. With all of his heart, with all of his soul, he loved her. She was the one. The other piece of him. Somehow, she had entangled herself in his life, as if he were a tree and she the ivy, and he could no longer distinguish his foliage from hers. They were two halves of a whole, better together, dependent on each other.

  "Nothing to say?" the Targon quipped.

  "Nine days," Solo replied through a throat now raw, recalling what the Targon had said the night of his escape. "You plan to destroy the circus."

  "Yes. But now, there are only four days left."

  "Do not wait. Act now."

  The Targon pretended he had not spoken. "I saw the way your Vika took care of my Mara. I heard the conversations they had--until Mara severed our connection. I was glad when you came along and began to watch out for little Vika." Tension branched from the corners of his eyes. "I didn't see into Mara's mind again until the night of her death, when Vika's father found her, gave her to Matas, and the male . . . the male . . . destroyed her."

  "I'm sorry, Kaamil-Alize. I know you have a plan, and you want to stick to it, but my woman still lives and she needs me. Help me now. Today. Together, we can end this."

  A shake of that dark head. "I told you. I must first experience everything Mara did."

  "Were you raped?" A harsh question, but one that needed to be asked.

  A tic of the muscle beneath the otherworlder's golden eyes. "No."

  "Then you have not experienced everything she did, and you never will. There's no reason not to act. You can have Matas, I can have Jecis, and we ensure no one else ever suffers this way."

  Silence.

  "We can save Vika, the girl who helped your Mara."

  Again, silence.

  "If you do nothing, you're as bad as the male you despise."

  The Targon popped his jaw. "We all watched Jecis increase your dosage of the inhibitor. If you become emotional, or if anyone presses that magic little button on your cage, you'll be too weak to fight."

  "Never." Not when it came to Vika's safety.

  "And we all heard them discuss your new and improved cuffs," the otherworlder continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "If the bones in your wrists expand, and I'm guessing they do when you transform into your prettier half, you'll activate the saws in the needles and you'll lose your hands."

  No need to think about his response. "That's a risk I'm willing to take."

  The Targon studied him for a long while. "I think I like you more with every second that passes. And I think I'm even willing to help you . . . for a price."

  "Name it."

  A fleeting smile, without a hint of amusement. "Reading minds is a little hobby of mine. I know about your farm, and I want it."

  Again, no thought was necessary. "Done. Help me today, help Vika afterward, if anything happens to me, and it's yours. I vow it."

  *

  Vika paced from one corner of her trailer to the other, reminding herself of the tiger in the forest. Only, her wounds weren't visible. Her heart was breaking inside her chest, a sense of helplessness razing her.

  She'd lost the ability to hear, and all of her furniture and the trinkets she'd left behind had been removed, leaving the space barren, devoid of a single weapon. In fact, there was only one weapon nearby and it was clutched in Audra's hand.

  Audra, who stood by the only exit, guarding it with her life.

  Vika stopped, just stopped, and faced her childhood friend, her tormentor. Actually, that gun wasn't the only weapon, she realized. She was a weapon. Solo had made sure of it--and she wouldn't make light of his lessons.

  "Let me out, Audra," she said. "Otherwise, you won't like what happens to you."

  "I won't like what happens to me if I do. Your father will kill me."

  "If you stay with him, he'll kill you anyway."

  "No." Green eyes glittered. "He's not going to hit me anymore. He promised."

  "He lied."

  "No, he loves me."

  "He knows nothing of love! And neither do you, I think. Love protects. Love cherishes. Love lifts you up rather than tears you down. Love makes you fly, and I love Solo."

  A flicker of sorrow, quickly gone. "Your beast is going to be the first
to die, Vika. You can't save him. No one can."

  No! She refused to accept such a thing. She could save him. She would.

  "One last chance," she said, making a proper fist.

  "Shut up, and--"

  Vika slammed that proper fist into Audra's nose.

  The girl yelped as blood spurted from her, and she dropped the gun to clutch at the injured cartilage. Vika dove for the weapon, and when she straightened, she aimed the barrel at Audra's chest.

  Wide-eyed, Audra flattened herself against the door.

  "I'm sorry I hurt you," Vika said, "but I'll do worse if necessary. Worse that will happen in three seconds, if you fail to move out of the way."

  "I don't care," Audra replied with a defiant shake of her head.

  "One."

  "Jecis will do far worse."

  "Two."

  The defiance drained, and tears welled in her eyes. Audra stepped out of the way.

  Vika brushed past her and stepped into the sunlight. But before she'd taken three steps, X appeared on her shoulder, wringing his hands together.

  Duck under the trailer, he commanded. Now!

  Heart suddenly slamming against her ribs, she dove for cover. She knew better than to pause and question him. Good thing, too. The moment the ground was pressed against her back, she felt the vibration of footsteps. A few seconds later, she saw her father and Matas's boots.

  The pair disappeared inside the trailer. Several seconds passed.

  Solo's in trouble, X said. He and the Targon have worked up a plan. They began shouting for your father and Matas a few minutes ago. But rather than confront them head-on, your father wants to use Solo's feelings for you against him.

  So low. So like Jecis.

  "What should I do?" she whispered.

  You know what you need to do, Vika.

  She did, didn't she? And it was brutal. It went against everything she'd ever believed. Or rather, everything she'd ever thought she had believed. Afterward, she would probably cry.

  Probably? No. She would. But this was war. This wasn't business as usual. Action had to be taken. Things had to be done. The strong could not trample on the weak and continue to reign.

  The trailer shook and she barely silenced her gasp. Jecis had either punched the wall . . . or Audra. Two sets of boots again appeared, this time stomping away. She waited one minute, two, then rolled into the light.