The tech, unblinking, shook her head.
“Because I choose love again. And no gossip or naysayer-certainly no ass hole-is going to keep me from love.”
The tech slumped, leaning back on her haunches. “You’re so right.”
“Yes I am.” Suzanne put a hand on the woman’s leg. Only she could bond with another woman under such circumstances. I’d have rolled my eyes were it not for the force of her words. “True love never dies. Even when it’s gone, its memory keeps you safe.”
Even the loftiest job can’t keep you saf… .
Asshole, I thought again. Though the officer was right about one thing. “Love can’t keep you from getting sideswiped by a bus. Like tonight.”
We’d almost lost Cher.
Suzanne turned back to me, the knowledge stark in her eyes. She finally nodded. “But it isn’t love that’s dangerous. Every life gets sideswiped at one time or another. Sometimes more than once. The question is, what do you do after that? Build something new out of the shrapnel…or just stay safe?”
The now-sniffling tech put her hands on me again, and I squirmed, suddenly tired of being touched. Having lone wolfed it for years after the attack on my life, I still got twitchy with too many people around me, too many hands on my body, even if they were soft and reassuring and supportive. I simply fared better emotionally when my knuckles were wrapped and I was punching something heavy. Having something to beat against loosened tension inside of me, enabling me to drop my worries behind like fallen foes until I was the last woman standing. I shut my eyes, mentally sparring.
Double jab. I am not weak.
One-two-three. I keep myself safe.
Push for space, front kick…take out a fucking kidney. I protect my friends too.
But I was weak. I was not safe. And Cher and Suzanne were not safe around me. Mackie now knew what they looked and smelled like. If he thought I really cared for them, he’d use them to get to me.
I sat up quickly, ripping off the cuff, and pushing the tech’s hands away.
“I have to go,” I whispered, clamoring from the ambulance, tears cutting through the words. I added something about Cher and the hospital, though I had to stay away from her too. Especially now.
Head lowered so my hair hid my face, I picked up my pace, ignoring the EMT’s calls, the watchful cops, and the rubberneckers snapping photos and video to upload to YouTube. Look what I saw on my Vegas Vacation.
“Olivia! Wait!” Suzanne rushed to catch up, her mouth already open in protest. Yet whatever she saw in my face had her mouth moving soundlessly before she managed, “Do you have a ride?”
I jerked my head curbside, where Kevin waited. My driver had practically arrived before I’d hung up the phone. After all, I was Olivia Archer.
Suzanne’s lips pursed, and I could tell she wanted to say more, but at last there was only a teary smile of her own, and a final hug enveloping me in her custom perfume and soap and shampoo. All signature Suzanne. Then her phone trilled from within her handbag, and she untangled herself with a sob.
“Arun-” she was already saying as she lifted it, hands shaking, to her ear. I turned away to give us both privacy, but glanced over my shoulder once. She was curled around that phone like it was a lifeline, arms wrapped around her slim body as if holding herself up. But she wasn’t keeping herself upright, I thought as I turned away. It was Arun. Because she chose him, and love.
And they chose her.
Suzanne may have been right about true love never dying. I didn’t think so, but the things I didn’t know had turned out to be more varied than I’d ever imagined. Still, her determination to hang onto love-and Cher’s Disneyfied dream of it-didn’t match up to my own experience. I couldn’t put my faith in a fairy tale. Sure, I believed in the wicked witch and the fire-breathing dragon parts, but the happily-ever-after? True love?
I scoffed, and pushed the thought away.
Misgivings about love aside, there were a shitload of other things I didn’t understand, all of them more pressing than finding some elusive Prince Charming. For example, who had removed the lock on this side of Midheaven, letting out Mackie and Tripp, and effectively any rogue who still had enough willpower and soul energy to attempt the crossing?
What was this “cell” Tripp was entering-a place to keep him safe? Surely not another lockup. And could I be safe there too? Because how the fuck was I going to dodge a homicidal agent with a soul-stealing knife when my own protection was skin-thin?
“I could use a fairy godmother about right now,” I muttered, and I didn’t mean a rogue Shadow agent fond of shit-kickers and strange cigarettes. Even had I agreed to help Harlan Tripp, he was no match for Sleepy Mac. He’d already been wounded, didn’t seem to have a conduit, and besides, I’d seen the fear in his eyes when he mentioned Mackie.
Cautiously, almost furtively, I reached into my pocket and fingered the phone Warren had given me. I’d been able to count on him and the troop to cover my back in the past, but Mackie had ruled over agents like him in Midheaven. The strongest agent of Light I’d ever known was over there now, though hoping Hunter Lorenzo would rescue me was as reasonable as believing in fairy tales about princes on noble steeds.
Because Hunter hadn’t come after me. And with Mackie and Tripp’s disappearance, he had to know the entry between the two worlds was open…and my life was in danger. His girlfriend-no, his wife, I remembered belatedly and bitterly-had sent Sleepy Mac.
And that brought me to Solange. Ah, beautiful Solange. I sighed, thinking of Midheaven’s queen bee. Sola, Hunter called her. Other women adorned themselves in clothing to entice, makeup to enhance, baubles to catch the eye. But Solange was the adornment and enhancement and enticement of her world. Her appearance was a private thing, a bottle you’d found and rubbed. The answer to anything you could wish. At least, that’s how she appeared there .
But she’d originally been a Shadow agent, also from the Vegas valley, escaping to Midheaven a few years earlier for some unknown infraction against the Tulpa. She and a man named Jaden Jacks had met here, unwisely beginning an affair that was a paranormal mixing of oil and water. When Warren discovered it, he forced J.J. into a new identity-Hunter Lorenzo-and ordered him to forget the Shadow he loved.
Except he never did. Hunter spent years searching for Solange. He donned a new cover identity and kept it from Warren. And sought her even after we became lovers.
As for my would-be rival, all I knew was this: Solange was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, but it was a beauty gained by raping the souls of others. She used alchemy, magic, and a uniquely savage mean streak to turn those valuable bits into gems, which she then strung into a recreation of the night sky. So beneath her soft, inviting exterior was a beast as vicious as a rabid hellhound, and that was the type of woman who thrived over there. In short, Solange made Mackie look like a pet rock.
And Hunter was in love with her.
So I’d helped him get to her. As hard as it was-and it’d been as acute as being struck with Mackie’s blade- what else could I do? Even learning of his past-discovering I hadn’t known him at all-I’d wanted good things for him. Besides, Warren had thrown him from the troop, essentially declaring paranormal jihad on his ass, so there wasn’t anything left for him here anymore.
There was you.
I shook my head, stopping when the smoky feeling hit me again, though I was grateful to note it was marginally less. No, Warren had been clear on the terms of Hunter’s banishment. If he’d stayed, Hunter would have been a rogue agent, driven from the city to live somewhere not yet populated enough to warrant a troop. If he remained in Las Vegas, or tried to contact any of his former allies, then the people he’d been raised with in the sanctuary of Light would kill him. So, either way he was an outcast. At least in Midheaven he’d have the love he’d so long searched for.