Not that I was surprised to see them. I wouldn’t be dusting if I didn’t think a mortal was responsible for the theft. The question was, were they Ian’s? I leaned forward, viewing the desk eye level, like they did on TV. Was there only one set of prints? Or more?
“Think, think,” I told myself, straightening, trying to see the larger view. Ian had been abducted the night Joaquin discovered my hidden identity, and there was a good possibility he’d questioned Ian instead of killing him, or before killing him, trying to find out how much the mortal knew about me, who my friends were. What my habits were.
I kept dusting. I wanted to see if the computer desk was the only thing touched by this intruder, or if they’d been looking for more. By the time I was done, most of Olivia’s bedroom was caked in the fine, silty particles…and I was in even more desperate need of that shower. But I couldn’t move. I stood paralyzed in the middle of the now snowy room, the sun outside beating down on the carpet and my feet while I shivered inside, and that due only in part to the air conditioning and my naked state.
Fingerprints surrounded me. They were everywhere, where they hadn’t been before, and standing back, trying to see the whole picture-where the intruder had gone first, what he’d been looking for, what he’d found-I began to pick up a trail, like a train of ants leading to the nest. I followed it to where the prints grew densest.
“No,” I whispered, lifting the keepsake box from my dresser, running my hands over the oiled wood interspersed with glossy mother-of-pearl. I took a moment to trace the ghostly remains of another’s fingers, then fumbled with the latch until I finally managed to wrench it open. “No,” I said again, but it was too late.
I staggered a bit and found the bed, dropping like the floor had come out from beneath me, like all the breath had left my body and I’d deflated to land there, a poor and pitiful excuse for the heroic woman I was supposed to be.
“Olivia!”
I heard it, knew it was my name, but I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t do anything but stare at the empty desk where Olivia’s computer used to be, where she’d so craftily ferreted out and stored her niece’s identity and location. And I let the box where I’d so lovingly, so meticulously, so stupidly kept all my letters to Ben fall to the floor.
“Olivia?”
The voice was closer, but it was swept away by the screams in my own head, driven back by the howls already ricocheting off the soft tissue, and the pleas I wanted to voice, if only there were someone around, up there, somewhere, to listen.
“God, you’re shivering.” The duvet was up, wrapped about my shoulders, then drawn in front of me, and finally I could focus. Hunter knelt before me, his face a mixture of worry and caution as he took in my nakedness, my room, my catatonic behavior.
“Hunter,” I said in someone else’s voice. “They know.”
“Know what?” he asked, repeating it when I only shook my head harder. “Know about what, Jo?” And the use of my own name, my real name, snapped me out of my suspended state. My face crumpled.
“Everything,” I said, and began to cry. “My daughter…on the computer. My lover…in the letters. Oh my God. Joaquin’s not coming after me. He doesn’t need to. He knows about them all.”
“Who?” he asked, insistently.
“Everyone,” I told him. Everyone who needed to stay hidden the most.
I didn’t stay catatonic for long. I was up, dressed, and ready to barge into Valhalla itself within the hour, except that Hunter wouldn’t let me. At first he tried reason, talking to me about controlling my emotions and timing and planning and a bunch of other stuff I didn’t give a shit about when I thought of Ben in Joaquin’s clutches. Or of the child that might be killed only because she happened, at one time, to be mine.
When reason didn’t work, he sat on me. He used that big, gorgeous body to hold me down while I raged; against Joaquin, against the Tulpa, and especially against him. I told him he was no better than them. I spit on him-stupid, as I was directly beneath him-and acted like a rabid, frothing bitch. I let my bones burn through my skin, not just revealing my Shadow self, but all the rage and hate and venom that I tried so hard to hide from those in the sanctuary.
Hunter merely anchored himself more firmly on my chest, taking in the sharp bones pushing against my flesh, my eyes as black as buffed coal, the hot iron blistering the air between us. “Don’t you get it, Jo?” he finally said. “I’ve never been afraid of your Shadow side.”
And the shock of that statement, the absurdity and frankness of it, and the fucking romance of being accepted in all my ugliness, had me breaking down all over again. My bones sank like quicksand beneath my skin and my black eyes were extinguished by fat tears. Anyone else might have let me up then, but Hunter knew better, and he sat it out, literally. And that’s how we spent the rest of the day. Until noon came and went. Until the sun fell from the sky. Until dusk crept over the valley again, and I finally slept the dreamless sleep of split realities.
30
“I’m sorry.”
My voice was raw and scratchy, and when I tried to clear it, I ended up coughing so hard that my gentle entry into waking hours was abruptly replaced by a scalded throat and violent headache.
“Here.”
The scent of warm peppermint washed over me, and I looked up to find Hunter standing at my bedside, a cup of steaming tea in his outstretched hand. Twelve hours earlier, I would’ve slapped it away, sending tea splattering against the cream-colored walls along with the perfume bottles, mirrors and knickknacks I’d already destined for the trash bin. Instead, as I looked around for the remnants of those things, I accepted the tea, and took a grateful sip.
“You cleaned up,” I said, as Hunter perched himself next to me. This gave me a clear view of myself in the cracked dresser mirror, and I winced at my multiple reflections. “Everything but me, I see.”
He leaned back, blocking my view. I met his steady gaze. “How’re you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been hit by a semi.”
He cocked one dark brow. “I can’t imagine why.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Really-”
“I heard you the first time,” he stopped me, though his voice wasn’t harsh like I expected. Or deserved. “And it’s okay.”
I sipped some more tea, letting the warmth spread through my chest, and out into my limbs, pooling in my ravaged fingertips. “Thank you.”
He lifted one large shoulder, shrugging off the gratitude. “Remember when we were in the boneyard? In Tekla’s thought maze?”
“Hunter-”
He smiled, bittersweet, and shook his head. “Not that part. Before that. The reason we were there. The purpose of the maze.”
I knew the answer-the hours spent under Tekla’s tutelage, breaking down walls, had been toward that purpose. “To get to the center without detection. As quickly as possible.”
“To use your sixth sense to reach that center,” he clarified, watching me closely. I faltered under that clear-eyed gaze. “To use clarity of mind and intention to reach your sixth sense.”
Yes, I knew that too. I closed my eyes and nodded. “And I had none of that yesterday. If I’d gone to Valhalla like that I’d have been dead before I hit the door.”
Hunter patted my leg, warming me further. When I finally opened my eyes again, he said, “The thing is, Jo, getting through that maze was only the first step. Creating barriers out of the ether was the ultimate goal. And do you know why?”
Because the most powerful being had been wrought into the world solely by the determination of a powerful mind. “Because if you know how to build them up, you know how to tear them down.”