There had been a few fresh slices of homemade bread sealed in the kitchen pantry, and Luc and I ended up turning our burgers into bread tacos. They hit the spot.
So did half of the second burger I ended up sharing with Luc.
I kept expecting Zoe to show up, but she didn’t, and when I asked where she might be, all Luc said was, “I believe she is with Grayson.”
Despite the fact I wasn’t entirely sure Grayson was at all familiar with emotions like empathy or compassion, I knew Kent’s loss had hit him hard, and I hoped Zoe was able to comfort him …
Without causing him physical harm.
Luc didn’t head over to Daemon’s when we finished cleaning up after our late lunch like I’d thought he might. Not that I was complaining. The idea of being alone in this stranger’s house with only my own head for company wasn’t exactly something I was looking forward to. He ended up coaxing me into the bedroom and into the bed, his arms settling around me and holding me close to his side, my cheek resting on his chest. Thoughts of the strange light I’d seen in the city fell into the background as we talked about what we’d learned from Eaton.
It was while we were lying there and there was a lull as I stared at Diesel, the pet rock Luc had given me, that I asked something that had taken up residency in the back of my mind ever since we’d left Eaton’s. “What do you think the Daedalus would’ve done if you hadn’t accepted me when Paris brought me to you? Like, if it didn’t work, would they have kept finding people to put in your path?”
“What?”
I wrinkled my nose against his chest. “I know it’s random, but Eaton made it sound like you and I meeting was planned from the beginning.”
He was quiet for a bit. “I don’t know how that would be possible, and it’s not that I doubt their ability to orchestrate some screwed-up things, but how would they have played a role in you running away?”
“And you not knowing about it,” I added.
“Well, there was some stuff about you that I didn’t know. You were still loud then, but you rarely thought about your father or what made you run, and I didn’t push.” His chest rose with a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter what they would’ve done if I’d turned you away. I didn’t. The rest is history.”
“I know there’s no point dwelling on it, but it’s just—I don’t know. It’s a big what-if.”
“What-ifs are the STDs of the mind,” he said, squeezing me when I laughed. “Seriously. They’re pointless, and they end with you wanting to take a wire brush to your brain. Don’t waste your time there.”
I sighed. “You’re right.”
“I always am.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s annoying when you are.” I smiled when he huffed, and then he changed the subject.
Somewhere after discussing if Luc could take out an army of Trojans and me suggesting he could take the threat a bit more seriously, I must’ve fallen asleep.
Because I was suddenly back in the woods outside of Atlanta, surrounded by masked men with guns, but it wasn’t raining this time, and there was no sound.
Nothing.
Heart racing, I looked around the small clearing at the men who did not move and did not breathe. They were frozen, arms outstretched and fingers on triggers of guns aimed at me.
“This is a dream,” I said into the eerie silence. “I just need to wake up. I need—”
“Only me.”
My heart stuttered at the voice echoing above me and in me, coming from nowhere and everywhere. A voice that wasn’t mine. A voice I now recognized.
Jason Dasher.
Spinning around, I searched the trees and the shadows they cast, only seeing more men with guns—men I knew I’d already killed.
“Only me,” he repeated.
I whirled, crying out as a flare of pain lanced the back of my skull before easing off.
“My opinions.” His voice echoed through the forest, through me and my own thoughts. Every muscle tensed in my body as my hands curled into fists at my sides.
“My needs. My demands.” His tone steady, oddly pleasant. “My opinions. My needs. My demands. Only I matter, your maker. Do not ever disappoint me.”
“Never,” many voices whispered back, a legion of them, and mine was one of them.
Pressure clamped down on my chest, squeezing and twisting. I started to speak, but my mouth was so dry it was dust as the masked men shattered into glimmering, golden ash.
A man appeared between two heavy trees, nothing more than a shadow, but I knew it was Jason. He was pulling himself out from the recesses of my subconscious, where years of memories had been buried.
My maker.
“No,” I bit out, hands spasming as my skin flashed hot and then cold. “You’re not my maker.”
“I pulled you from the grasp of death and gave you life.” His voice was fingers crawling inside my mind. I could feel them slipping over me, searching for a way in. “What would that make me if not your maker?”
“Nothing.” Each breath was too heavy. “It makes you nothing.”
“Do not disappoint me,” he said as if I hadn’t spoken. “Not when I have such beautiful plans for you, Nadia.”
The sound of my name, my real name, was a bomb exploding deep within my mind, shattering open the locks and bursting open sealed doors.
Energy poured out of me, crackling through the forest and filling the air with static. Power filled the damp, musty space, licking over my skin and raising the hairs at the nape of my neck. The air warped—no, it was the trees doing the warping.
Groaning under the weight of the energy, the seams of the sky above stretched. Fine cracks formed, and a dusting of snow drifted to my bare feet. In the back of my mind, I knew this wasn’t right. The sky couldn’t crack. The dream and the reality flashed back and forth. I was standing in a forest, and then I was on my back, in a bed, and then the hard ground was rattling under my feet. My gaze flicked up to where he stood. Fury funneled into me, a whipping, whirling storm. I wanted to kill this man, to take back everything he’d stolen and to stop him from taking any more. Every cell in my body focused on him. I needed to kill him, because all those still tightly shrouded memories were expanding and shuddering, and they filled my mouth with the taste of blood and terror, of humiliation and the throat-clogging dirtiness of defeat and hopelessness. Those repressed memories screamed in rage and pulsed with uncontrollable hatred for every dark and soul-destroying deed the most hidden parts of my subconscious remembered even if I couldn’t. They choked and smothered me, squeezing so tight until they crowded out every good feeling or thought I’d ever had and only they remained.
I hated him.
I hated myself.
I hated all of it.
The air heated, and at any moment I expected the trunks of old trees and the coiled shrubs to combust. The forest would ignite like a matchbox if that happened, taking everything in it in a fury of flames. Or the trees would simply cave in, burying us under the rubble of bark, dirt, and rock. Wind whipped through the trees, lifting my hair off my shoulders.
“That’s it,” he said, that voice of his still in my head, still digging in, and then I was no longer in the forest, but in a room. White walls. White light. A man standing before me. Fitted, plain white shirt. Dark, olive-green trousers. Brown hair dotted with gray.