And I spun back in time to see Warren fall backward without taking a step, the smoke reclaiming him and his shocked expression like an incinerator.
“Now you can live your dreams your way.”
I shook my head. “I’m confused.”
“Life is confusing. It’s also messy and has no reason outside that which you impart to it.” Before I could respond, she jerked her head. “Okay, what about her?”
Biting my lip, I eyed Tekla. I didn’t know. Olivia had said she was one of the people most directly influencing me now, but I didn’t see how. As far as I knew, she’d turned her back on me as wholly as the rest of the troop. I glanced up at Olivia. “Well, what does she have to say to me?”
“Hmm, no one has ever asked that before. Yet as it’s clearly a question that demands a true answer, I think it’ll do.” Olivia nodded, then turned back to Tekla. “Speak, traitor!”
I gaped, automatically taking a step back. I’d seen Tekla reduce a man to shards with her mind alone, and while I hated the way she’d gone along with Warren’s wishes, abandoning me, I still respected her. Even in a dream state. “Um, Olivia…”
But Tekla, normally so stoic and sure, began to weep. “Not everybody has abandoned you, Jo. Remember, you’re not the only one doing the best you can to survive in a hard world.”
And the wall of smoke loosened its fingers, reached forward and reclaimed her too.
“There…see? Even questions can reveal truths and provide peace.” Olivia then frowned. “And now for him.”
Hunter. I turned back and stared at him for a long while before speaking. It was easier when he wasn’t looking at me. He continued to gaze up at Olivia with that Lost Boy look, soulful and bad and repentant all at the same time.
“Your betrayal was the largest,” I told him evenly. “I let you into my heart and my body, and now I can’t get you out of my mind. So, please, be a man about it and remove yourself. Because you’ve hurt me enough, and I need to be free.”
That was it. I swallowed hard, proud of myself. I’d practiced so many variations of that speech-outraged, sad, defeated, and depressed-that when the simple truth came out- I loved you, you hurt me, and now you have to let me go-it was like a baptismal. I felt renewed. I turned to Olivia and smiled.
She smiled back, sweet and with tears moistening her eyes, before turning to Hunter. “You are a part of me now, and I will love you forever.”
A relieved smile overtook his face, and he faded like a ghost. I whirled on her. “I’m going to kill you!”
Olivia laughed merrily. “I believe I have the advantage here.”
“Ugh, God!” I pulled at my hair. “Olivia! What the fuck?”
She laughed some more. “Yep. That’s about as T-Rex brain as you can get.”
I lunged for her, and in my dreams, she evaded. I gave chase, wanting to shake her and yes, just touch her, but she sidestepped once she reached the wall studded with pagoda lanterns. I swerved, reached forward to brace myself against it, and instead fell right through it, to the sound of Olivia’s fading laughter, muted by a thickening wall of smoke.
I knew the difference between reality and a dream, of course. There wasn’t going to be any heart-to-hearts between me and my former troop mates, never mind Hunter, who was lost to Midheaven and another woman’s arms. Olivia was truly gone, her only message to me a flash of guilt whenever I caught her face staring back at me from the mirror. Some wistful dream wouldn’t change all of that.
It also wouldn’t change the fact that Sleepy Mac had crept over into my waking hours. I could no longer pretend he was locked securely in another world, slumped before a piano, and waiting for me to offer up the last third of my soul. He was here, after me, his soul blade already poised in my direction.
I quickly shut off the thought, my fear of Mackie strong enough to bloom into scent. Besides, it wasn’t thought that was needed now, but rote movement; robotic limbs, a cold heart, and a quiet mind.
Yet shutting down emotionally somehow seemed a step backward. Hadn’t I just gotten over relying only on myself? Hadn’t I worked hard to become a part of something larger than me, earning a place in a troop and proving they could trust me? Even before Olivia reappeared in my dreams, when I was rehabilitating in Xavier’s mansion, I’d decided no one was going to strip me of my hard-learned lessons. I was determined to drive forward on the twin turbines of belief and faith. I would live, I would love again, dammit, and find others to trust…but I would do it on my terms.
Meanwhile, I needed to put one foot in front of the other, and stay ahead of Mackie. Maybe a former ally, like Tekla, would help me. Maybe not. But my sister was waving at me from the other side of death, and Mackie had breached the barrier between my world and his. I didn’t need my T-Rex brain to tell me that Harlan Tripp was right. It was only a matter of time until Mackie found me again, and next time there might not be anyone standing between me and his blade. Next time I might not get away so easily.
After all, there were only so many ways to cheat the grave.
6
I had to return to the bus, of course. Or the “scene of the crime,” as Terry whispered when I came up beside him, not looking over as he mentioned he had been there, seen everything…and survived. I glanced at him askance, then realized he thought I was a spectator, and he’d positioned himself behind the yellow police tape for just this purpose. Prima donna.
But there was quite a crowd for him to play to. Even my cabbie was standing alongside his open door, smoking and gossiping and staring at the destroyed party bus now surrounded by the yellow tape and flashing sirens. It was an abnormal sight, even for Vegas.
A handful of ambulances made a U shape in the center of the street, back doors flung wide to administer aid to the lightly injured, which helped me feel momentarily protected. Mackie wouldn’t return as long as there were this many people milling about. He, like all agents, operated in the shadows.
“…not everyone else was so lucky.”
I glanced back at Terry as he closed his eyes, a tear slipping from beneath one tarred lash. The mesh of his shirt was torn, his eyeliner smeared, and the new piercing in his ear was bright pink against his sallow flesh. I bet Tripp hadn’t even sterilized the piercing gun before sticking a hole in the poor guy. For some reason, that made me feel sorry for him. I returned my gaze to the destroyed bus, its top peeled back like a tomato can. With a blade alone. I shivered.
“We are lucky.” I shook my head, but immediately regretted it. It was as if Tripp’s infective, tapering smoke had slid past my earlobes and into the fragile drums to clog my thoughts like swamp water. I raised a hand to my head. “Though my hearing feels funny.”
There was a gasp beside me, and I turned in time to watch Terry’s eyes widen. “Concussion!” he screamed, pointing at me.
Three EMTs surrounded me like bees on a hive. Great.
“The cowboy knocked her out as he carried her out of the bus,” Terry said as someone started feeling up my skull. “She shouldn’t even be standing here now!”
Well, that was true enough.
A female tech tugged me in the direction of the nearest ambulance, but I was practically bowled over halfway there.
“Suzanne.”
The bear hug tightened. “Oh, darlin’! Oh, dear! Oh, honey-are you okay?”
She punctuated each exclamation with a smacking kiss, but I managed to nod in the middle of the gentle mauling, which earned me more bracing hugs and heavily accented endearments. The female EMT, clearly used to such emotional displays, disentangled me from the distraught woman and her seemingly eighteen limbs, but when Suzanne pulled back, I noted the knots in her hair and circles under her eyes. She looked a decade older than when she’d trailed a bunch of disgruntled socialites off the bus.