Teague had never treated Hallie like a mother should treat a daughter. Even the bedtime stories she’d told Hallie had an ulterior motive.
“She could help you with the rips. Maybe it would confuse them, like it did in the park. Maybe it would slow them down.” I pushed up off the couch. “You can’t expect me to choose between her comfort and yours. There’s no universe where this even comes close to a contest.”
“It’s not just about her comfort, or the rips. If she’s activated, she could heal the continuum. She could go in and not come out.”
“We don’t know if that’s even a valid answer to the problem,” I argued. “Are you just supposed to fight the rips by yourself when you could have help?”
“Help from her comes with a price. It always has, and that won’t change now.” Tears formed in her eyes.
When I reached out for her, she pulled away. “Hallie, think about this logically, please.”
“I can’t … I just … I have to think.” Hallie turned away from me and picked up her phone. “I have to make a call.”
And then she was gone.
Chapter 22
Hallie
The sliding glass door opened as soon as I hung up.
“Can I join you?” It was Kaleb.
“Sure.” I put down my phone and wiped my eyes before facing him. I figured the first place people would look was my studio, so I’d escaped to the pool.
“I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things,” he said.
“That’s worrisome. Have a seat.”
He sat down beside me on the concrete as I sized him up. The dimples, the baby blues, the body. If I’d seen him in the Quarter, cruising Bourbon three months ago, I’d have had him pressed up against the back corner of a bar in fifteen minutes or less. Now? Nothing.
He tried to stop a grin, but couldn’t manage it.
“Damn.” I turned eight shades of eggplant. “I forgot you could read minds.”
“Not minds. Emotions.” He reached out to swirl his hands in the water. “Water is actually one of the ways I tune them out. But I have to be submerged.”
“Well, go ahead and dive in, because I don’t want to know what you just got from me.”
“No need. I got the same thing you’d get from me. We could’ve done some serious damage together at some point and time. But we’re where we’re supposed to be.” He acknowledged it as a fact and moved on, with no hint of flirtation or inappropriateness, passing the douche test with flying colors. “You’re in love with Dune, or close at least. Have the two of you talked about it?”
There it was again, welling up like a spring. The fear of losing him. I shook my head.
“Don’t let this overwhelm you,” he admonished. “Nothing has happened. We can still beat it.”
I stared down at my bright pink toenails in the water. “I bet you’re a pain in the ass to be friends with.”
“One of the best things about my ability is my excellent BS meter.”
“I have one of those, too.” I grinned. “Probably not as good as yours.”
“There are people behind you who have your back.”
“That’s kind of new for me. My dad is overprotective, and my mom is just a sorry human altogether.”
“We can’t be responsible for the family life doles out to us. Jack Landers is my uncle.”
“Damn.”
“I heard you on the phone with your dad. Well”—he held up one finger—“that’s not true. I felt you on the phone with your dad. That’s why I came down.”
“Our relationship is … difficult.”
“My dad was dead.”
I jerked my head around. “Was?”
“He’s a time traveler. Explosions, continuum issues, search and rescue.”
“The Hourglass seems to have a special talent for … bouncing back from death.”
“True. But we’ve all had a rough year.” He pointed to the tiny scars from previous piercings in his nose and eyebrow. The studs in his ears remained. “There are even war wounds.”
I noticed the edges of a tattoo at his sleeve cuffs and collar. It made me think of Dune’s, and the feel of his skin. Kaleb caught me staring. “Dune and I went to the tattoo parlor at the same time.”
“I love his. I bet Lily likes yours.”
“Lily accepts me for who I am. It took a long time, but so do I, and so does my dad. We’re going to pull you through this. The Hourglass has a special talent for that, too.”
I bit down on my lower lip. I didn’t want any more waterworks.
As if Kaleb knew, he gave me a pat on the shoulder, stood, and left me to contemplate the steam rising off the water.
Dune
Kaleb told me I could find Hallie at the pool. When I’d stared at him for a few seconds, he’d told me I should find Hallie at the pool, and then he pushed me in the right direction.
I surprised her when I sat down.
“What are you doing?” She looked at the water like it was alive and ready to come out of the ground to swallow me whole.
My stomach crashed to my feet when I considered her motive for being where she was. “Did you come here because you hoped I wouldn’t follow you?”
“No. No!” She grabbed my knee when I started to stand up. “I came outside barefoot without thinking about it, and the water is heated.”
Logic, not purposeful avoidance.
We both leaned back, hands behind us. Hallie’s feet were in the pool, mine folded uncomfortably. She gave me a side glance, and I turned around, back to the water, legs stretched out in front of me. We were still shoulder to shoulder, but I liked this position better. I could look at her face.
“There’s a pool outside the Hourglass. I actually live in the pool house.” I grinned. “How’s that for irony?”
“I’m glad pools don’t bother you.” She gave me a shoulder bump. “I bet you play a mean game of chicken, and we need to incorporate pool time into our first vacation together.”
“First vacation?” I watched her expression closely. “Does that mean you’ve reached a decision about how to handle the rip situation?”
“I talked to my … dad.”
That explained why she’d grabbed her phone and run outside so quickly, and was probably the reason why Kaleb had followed shortly thereafter.
“What did he say?”
“He agrees with your plan, thinks she should share the load. He wanted to drop everything and come home.”
“Did you think he wouldn’t?” I asked.
“I have a lot to think about. I asked him to trust me.”
“I’m sorry that it’s come to this, but the choice is crystal clear to me.”
“There’s a part of me, a really stupid part, that still wishes things could be different. That she’d be the cookie-baking mom, the kind that was a hundred percent in my corner. But I know that’s not the case, and it never will be.” She took a deep breath. “And Dad used to love her. I asked him if he knew about the genetic engineering. He said he didn’t. He also said he didn’t love her anymore.”
“Is he your—”
“Yes.” Her conviction was accompanied by calm. “In every way that matters, and biologically. She didn’t pick my dad to be her husband by accident.”
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
“I’m not. It’s one of the best things she did. Maybe the best.”
“It resulted in you.” I leaned in, and then stopped a millimeter away. She closed the distance.
It was a slow kiss. I savored her mouth, concentrating on it and nothing else. I wanted us to live our lives in seconds instead of hours, because no one knew how many we had left.
“There are too many people in this house,” she murmured against my lips.
“So let’s get a plan together and get rid of them.”
She pulled away. “Do you have ideas?”
My gaze traveled the length of her body. “So many.”
I got an eye roll, b
ut she didn’t mean it. “About the rips?”
“I think so.” I stood up and held out my hand. “Your mom is out there somewhere, and I’d rather we find her than vice versa.”
She put her feet on the ground and let me help her up. Once she was standing, I turned around. “Piggyback?”
“Piggyback?”
“Yeah. I don’t want your toes to get cold.”
She put her arms around my neck and jumped. When her legs went around my waist, I wrapped my hands around her feet and started for the house.
“Dune?”
Her breath was warm on the back of my neck. “Yeah?”
“I’m falling in love with you.”
I didn’t miss a step. “Good. Because I’m already there.”
Chapter 23
Hallie
After Dune’s breathing was deep and even, I slipped out of bed. I was too nervous to read, and listening to music only made me want to dance, which wasn’t conducive to other people’s sleeping patterns. I was supposed to contact my mother the next morning and ask her to meet us at Poe and Dune’s apartment, where Poe would pull her into a veil.
Poe had disappeared after agreeing to the plan. I’d tried to talk to him, to make sure he knew that whether he helped or not was his choice, and that he shouldn’t feel pressured. He’d just shaken his head and walked away, carrying blame on his back like fully stacked free weights.
I stared out the window at my studio, my usual solace in times of stress, and grabbed my toe shoes. I slipped downstairs and outside in less than a minute. I’d just passed the courtyard when the bottom dropped out.
The wrought iron gate made a clanging sound, and I stopped dead.
“Hallie! Get down!”
Carl, head of security, had followed me out of the house. I remained frozen as he lurched toward me. The sound of a silenced gunshot echoed three times, and he clutched his chest and hit the ground.
Memories broke free from my subconscious. Benny’s blue eyes, wide open and empty. The devastating feeling that it was my fault.
The blood.
It covered the pavers now, just as it had covered the gray stones outside Jackson Square. The difference was that Carl still had light in his warm brown eyes, and he was talking to me. I dropped to the ground beside him.
“Run. Your dad will never … forgive …”
“I’m not leaving you.” I searched the dark, hoping for help, but fearing more violence. “Someone heard the shots, they had to—”
My head jerked back as a hand wrapped around my hair and pulled me to my knees. I looked up, expecting to see a guy holding a semiautomatic, some thug my father had crossed finally getting his revenge.
It was my mother, holding a handgun. A shadowy figure stood behind her, but I couldn’t make out any features.
I stopped caring when two more shots fired, one to the back of each of my ankles.
Pain exploded through my Achilles tendons, and then everything went black.
Dune
Hallie was gone.
In an unthinking panic, I covered the whole house twice before I thought to wake up Michael and Kaleb. “Hallie’s gone. None of the guards have seen her, and the lights are off in her studio.”
“I’ll go get Lily. Hang tight, brother, and we’ll find her.” Kaleb threw on clothes and headed for the girls’ room.
Michael didn’t inflict small talk on me while I waited. I paced. My skin felt too small for my frame.
“Dune.” Lily entered the room, followed by Kaleb. She had a US atlas in her arms.
“Please tell me you found her.”
“I did, but …”
When she hesitated, I growled, “Tell me.”
“She’s alive, and she was near the river. By the warehouses behind the French Market.”
“Who she’s with?”
Lily bit her lip. “Her mother.”
“Wait—you said she ‘was’ near the river. What does that mean?” I asked.
“Now I think she’s in it. They must be on a boat.”
I cursed and punched my fist into the nearest wall. Teague had thrown my vulnerability in my face at the park, and now she was using it against me. What if Hallie encountered a rip world? What if she couldn’t get out? My thoughts scrambled for purchase before finding a solid place to land. “Send Poe. He can get to her quick.”
“Problem.” Kaleb scrubbed his hand across his chin. “Poe is missing, too.”
“Let me look for him.” Lily opened the atlas and searched. “Nothing. It’s not good, but it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s dead.”
“He could be in a veil. That would keep Lily from being able to find him.” Michael clapped a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Maybe he’s already trying to find Hallie. Hang tight. We’ll all go get dressed so we can head down to the wharf.”
“Dune.” Emerson appeared in the doorway, a blanket around her shoulders, tears in her eyes. “They found the head of security in the courtyard. He’s been shot and he’s on his way to the hospital. It doesn’t look good.”
My body went numb. Em was holding back. “What else?”
She crossed the room and put one hand on my arm. “It wasn’t just Teague. Jack. And he didn’t bother wiping Carl’s memory. He … as he was going into the ambulance, Carl told us that Teague shot Hallie. Twice.”
Emerson’s tears streaked down her cheeks as she held up a pair of toe shoes. They were splattered with blood.
“Meet me at the river.” I took off at a run, and stopped briefly at the door to look back at Lily. “Keep ahold of that atlas. I’ll call you for an update when I get there.”
Chapter 24
Hallie
I woke up as the sun rose, opening my eyes to find seagulls wheeling above me.
Two levels of windows, plus an observation deck. The paint was a graying white, and the blue and yellow trim was mostly peeled away. Dull wood, dingy brass, and the smell of dead fish. A riverboat, its shipshape days long past.
There was an echoing pain in my ankles that wouldn’t dull, even though the open wounds were healed. The irony that my mother had chosen my Achilles’ heels wasn’t lost on me.
Carl. She’d shot him. Who else had she hurt to get me here? Where was Dune?
Black, low-heeled boots echoed across the boat deck. Her apple red coat matched the color in her cheeks, and she should’ve painted a sunny picture. But the brightness in her eyes was menacing rather than cheerful.
“Hello, sunshine. Did you sleep well?”
“Bitch.” I flexed my feet and groaned. “They’ll find you.”
“They might. I’m aware of what Lily can do. But Dune’s the one you want, and he’s going to think twice about the river.”
“He’ll handle the water.” And if he couldn’t, his friends could.
“Doesn’t mean he’ll find us. We’re only hitching a ride.” She curled her lip at our dilapidated surroundings. “There’s a speedboat waiting a few miles away. Our next destination involves a lot of open water. It’s difficult to pinpoint a location when you’re always moving.”
I felt my anxiety expand beyond the tightness in my chest and spread to the very corners of the ship, weaving its way through the railings and the wood, catching in the paddles at the stern. There were men on the ship, a crew of them. She’d been planning this.
A man wearing a tailored suit stood behind her. Not part of the crew.
“Oh, where are my manners?” Mom actually clucked. “Let me formally introduce Jack Landers.”
Jack was so pale he was almost transparent. His eyes were dead in his face.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance.” His overconfident tone suggested that he was used to getting what he wanted, and his slick smile told me the rest. A woman in a dirty yellow coat stepped out from the shadows.
Her nail-bitten fingers worried the buttons—open and closed, open and closed, over and over again. She didn’t look at me, didn’t even acknowledge where she was standing. Her eyes w
ere vacant. Lost. She had to be strung out on something.
Jack ignored her and moved forward, leaning heavily on a cane, the smile growing wider. “I’ve waited a long time to meet you. I look forward to doing business with you.”
“I can’t say the same.” Growing up in New Orleans taught me not to do deals with the devil. It was always a bitch when he came to collect.
Jack studied me. “What have they told you about me, Hallie?”
“You manipulate people to get what you want.” I rolled to a sitting position, wincing when I tried to stand and couldn’t. My ankles weren’t ready, and I felt too vulnerable on the ground. “I’m guessing you’re responsible for whatever’s wrong with her.”
He looked at the woman beside him. “I haven’t done anything she didn’t ask me to do.”
“You steal memories, and she doesn’t look like she can remember her own name.” The woman stared vacantly in the direction of the shore. Flecks of spittle gathered at the corners of her mouth. “Did she ask for that?”
“She asked me to make life better for her, which involved erasing some things she wanted to forget. It took a while, since there were a lot of … situations to work through.” The two of them came closer. Her hair was short and unkempt, and she couldn’t focus on anything for more than a few seconds. “However, erasing you from the memories of your new friends shouldn’t be too difficult. Erasing all of them from your memory might be.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. If being erased resulted in the ruin of the woman standing in front of me, screw my aching ankles. It was time to start running. I tried standing again.
“You think they’re your friends, but they’ll forget you easily. They’re all so malleable.” Jack looked at my mother. “Does Hallie know Lily told us where to find the pendant? On Halloween, when I ‘borrowed’ her from the Hourglass.”
My chest tightened at the thought of Lily doing anything to help Jack or my mother. “What pendant?”
Jack answered for her. “Obviously, your mother never needed to search for the Infinityglass. But she did need the thing that allowed the Infinityglass to transfer abilities.”