Eternal Echoes, Emblem of Eternity Trilogy Book 2 (35 page)

He glared at me. “You may be right, but that doesn’t mean I like him any more than I did before, or that I ever will. There’s a part of you kept only for him that I’ll never have.”

I was seething. “There are
many
parts of me you’ll never have. You don’t own me. How many times do I need to remind you of that? You have a place in my life and my heart, but so do a lot of people, including Emil. Don’t assume you’re all there is, and don’t
ever
ask me to give up someone who means a lot to me. If you do, it’s the quickest way to lose me.”

For the first time ever, Alex seemed speechless. I took advantage of the silence. “Listen, Alexander, if you really want me to be with you, you need to stop trying to tell me what to do. You think you’re protecting me. You’re not. Instead, you’re trying to control me and make me second guess my choices. I’m a smart woman and I trust myself. Our relationship won’t get to the point you want it to unless you learn to trust me, too.

“You constantly manipulate our relationship by making decisions that affect both of us without consulting me. We can either make choices together, or I won’t be with you.” I was so angry, I could hardly contain myself. I knew what I wanted to say and knew just as certainly it would send Alex over the edge, but I had to be true to myself. “If this is how you acted the first time I had to decide between you and Emil, no wonder I chose him.”

I knew Alex would be mad, but I wasn’t prepared for him to shatter the chair he’d been sitting on with his bare hands. Afterward, he stood, strangely calm for a full minute, the blood rushing to his face. He crossed the room in two long strides. He leaned over me, muscles rippling, his imposing frame a heavy shadow over mine, and simply said, “We
will
discuss this. Later.” Then he walked out the door.

I decided to watch a movie to get my mind off Alex’s stage five pissy fit. I was on my second hot chocolate, and halfway through the movie, when I heard a familiar knock. Emil smiled as I opened the door. “Hey, beautiful.”

I smiled back at the compliment, and because I was happy to see a face that wasn’t annoyed with me eighty percent of the time.

Emil came in the house. He saw the paused movie and snacks on the table before noticing the chair remnants in the dining area. “What happened here?”

“Temper tantrum.”

“Yours?”

“Do I look like I could break that chair?”

“You have been taking karate.”

“We haven’t covered chair chopping yet.”

He grinned. “Alex, then?” I nodded. “What was he mad about?”

“What isn’t he mad about?”

“Good point.”

I thought I better give him some background, though, in case Alex took it out on Emil the next time they saw each other. “I had a flashback while he was here. It wasn’t a flashback about him. He got pissed.”

“Ah.”

“He’ll probably be pissed at you by proxy. Just a warning.”

Emil smiled. “Thanks.”

I noted that Emil didn’t press me for details about my flashback, even though I’d implied he was the memory’s star.

He disappeared into the kitchen. “Do you want anything?” he asked.

“No, thanks.”

He came back holding a can of Pepsi. “Where’s Tate?” he asked, looking around. “He was supposed to be with you until I came back.”

“
World of Warcraft
tournament on campus.”

Emil rolled his eyes. “He wouldn’t have made a very good protector.”

“I doubt he’s very motivated. He’s convinced I’m Callista. He thinks people need protecting from me, not the other way around.” I shifted the topic. “What did you do today?”

“I was checking the information Tate gave us about Callista not being seen for over five hundred years.”

I leaned forward in anticipation. “And?”

Emil put his can down on the coffee table. “Tate was right.”

I blew out a breath, discouraged.

“It doesn’t mean you’re Callista, Evie. We’re still looking at options. We’ll keep looking until we figure it out.”

I nodded, staring out the window but seeing nothing as I absently drank my hot chocolate.

Emil’s phone buzzed. He got a worried look on his face. “What is it?” I asked.

“Alex. He says there’s a problem. I need to go to his house.”

I nodded, slipping my shoes on and grabbing my coat.

“Are you coming with?”

Considering how Alex and I had left things earlier this afternoon, I wasn’t sure I should, but I wasn’t being left out of yet another conversation. “Yep.”

Emil nodded once in acknowledgment. “Okay. You might want to bring a stun gun, just in case.”

I widened my eyes. “Would that work on him?”

Emil laughed as we walked out the door.

Alex’s text to Emil had said to meet him in the den. I followed Emil inside. Alex was standing by his sideboard. He nodded to Emil, but froze for a few seconds when he saw me.

“Evie,” Alex said, his voice low.

“Hey, Thor.” I said back, noticing we weren’t alone. “I hope you’ve been shopping for my replacement chair.”

I could practically see Alex’s blood pressure rising.

“Hey, Simon,” I said. “Nice to see you again.”

He nodded. “You too.”

Tate was also there. “Did you lose your
WoW
tournament?” I asked.

“No,” Tate said, a little annoyed. “I got a text from Alex, so I had to leave.”

Huh. Everyone had gotten a text but me. I hoped that was because Alex was still fuming at me for the flashbacks I couldn’t control, not because he was leaving me out of the loop again.

“What’s going on?” Emil asked. “Your text seemed urgent.”

Alex motioned for us to sit down. Emil and I both sat across from Simon on one of Alex’s ridiculously elegant leather couches. “Simon wanted to talk to
us
.” The way he said “us” gave me the distinct impression I hadn’t been invited.

Emil turned to Simon. “Is something wrong? Is there another situation with the Rebels?”

Simon pushed his hands down his thighs like he was uncomfortable. “Well, something weird has been happening. A few things, actually. Have you noticed more Daevos members than usual in Colorado lately? Specifically Gunnison?”

We all took a minute to think about it.

“Now that you mention it,” Alex said, “yeah.”

I thought about Caleb’s Clan, and then Robert, Brian, and Hannah. Robert had said they felt pulled here for some reason.

“Do you know anything about it, Emil?” Simon asked. “Have more Daevos Clans been assigned to the area?”

Emil shook his head. “Not that I know of. But a Clan went missing in the area about five months ago. The Daevos said they might investigate, so I assumed the increase in Daevos was a result of that.”

Simon nodded and stood. “Well, I guess that answers one question, but not the biggest one.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked.

Simon shook his head, his hands folded across his chest as he walked over to get a drink from Alex’s sideboard. “For the last couple of months when we’ve taken Daevos souls, the souls’ memories have disappeared instead of being destroyed.”

Alex and Emil shared a glance. Both of them seemed concerned. I remembered when they’d taken the souls of Caleb’s Clan in the cave. The same thing had happened. The memories had vanished instead of exploding into dust. “Like Caleb’s Clan,” I said, realizing too late Simon might not know about that situation.

“Yeah,” Alex answered, his hands clenched into fists as if aching to hit something, “like Caleb’s Clan.”

Simon continued on like he knew what had happened with Caleb. I wondered if Alex had told him, or if he’d heard it through the cosmic grapevine like everyone else. “We’ve asked the Amaranthine about it,” Simon said, taking a drink, “but they don’t have answers either. No one knows why it’s happening.”

“That’s a problem,” Alex said.

Simon nodded as he sat back down. “And that’s not all.”

We all stared at him, expectantly.

“We’ve started to notice a pattern in areas where Trackers are missing.”

They had? I’d asked Alex if anyone was looking for correlations with the Trackers. I was glad Simon had been.

“Soon after a Tracker is taken in an area, people in the area have started to get sick.”

I jerked my head up. “Sick?”

“Yeah. People are in hospitals and no one knows what’s wrong. They thought it was mono or the flu at first, but the usual treatments aren’t working.”

My mind was racing. I thought back to the line I’d seen at the nurse’s office last month, the people sick at the ice cream shop, and everything Jas had said about people getting sick on campus. “Are their symptoms headaches, fatigue, and fevers?”

Simon stared before answering slowly, “Yeah.”

Alex interrupted me. “What’s going on, Evie? How do you know about this?”

“Because it’s been happening here since January,” I said.

Alex stared. “What’s the connection?”

I shrugged. “No idea. As far as I know, I’m the only Tracker here right now, and I’m not activated. I’m not making anyone sick; at least, I don’t think I am.” I looked to Alex and Emil to see if they’d been withholding more information and wanted to add anything. It didn’t seem they did.

“We don’t know what the hell you are,” Tate interrupted. “So I wouldn’t use you for the baseline measurement.”

I glared. That wasn’t information I wanted made public, even if it was to someone who seemed to be on our side like Simon.

“So we know there’s a correlation between the sickness and Trackers,” Emil said, moving the conversation on. “What is it?”

Everyone stared off in a different direction, contemplating possible connections. Sometimes, it just takes one tiny suggestion for the mind to spark an idea. My mind snapped to something Jas had said earlier today when she was talking to me about how she and Zach couldn’t get rid of the flu they had, and I’d joked they must keep giving it to each other. Like a puzzle suddenly coming together, everything made sense. All of the energy drinks I’d seen on campus—and in our fridge, the record number of sick people who kept missing class, the sickness that got worse after Valentine’s Day. I gasped, my eyes wide as I looked at Simon. “The people who are sick—do their symptoms get worse when their significant other is close?”

Simon stopped, his mind ticking back to the encounters he’d had with the sick people. “I hadn’t thought of it before, but now that you mention it, the worst cases do seem to be among couples. I could check to make sure.”

My breath hitched and everyone’s head swiveled in my direction. “Love,” I said.

“What?” Alex asked.

“I think the connection is love.” I thought about Jas stumbling in the College Center, and looking like she was going to be sick when Zach came to pick her up from Emil’s house. Her health always seemed worse when she was around Zach. “The people getting sick are all part of a couple.”

Emil nodded a few times like he was making connections. “There are different levels of love—friendship, romantic, soul mate—but they all have energy. If someone found a way to harness that and draw from the bonds, it could make people sick.” He paused, a worried frown creasing his face. “The person drawing from those bonds would have immense power.”

Alex leaned forward in his chair. “Who would do that?”

“The Daevos,” I offered. “Caleb said the Daevos wanted more power. Maybe he wasn’t the only one experimenting?”

Simon’s face was tight with anger. “Even more reason to take the Daevos out! Not only are they taking Trackers, they’re hurting the souls the Amaranthine Society is supposed to protect!”

Alex met Simon’s eyes and held them. “We don’t know it’s the Daevos for sure, yet.”

“How much more proof do you need?” Simon yelled.

Alex shook his head. “You can’t sentence every Daevos member, Simon. It could be one Clan, or even one person. We can’t execute them all, and it’s not our place to judge them. We need more information.”

“No—” Simon started.

Alex put his hand up to interrupt Simon. “If that’s what is really happening, I want a fight as much as you, Simon. But we need to know who to fight first.”

Simon was breathing fast, his anger pulsing a vein at his neck.

“Emil,” Alex said, stress evident in his tone, “can you find out if the Daevos have also noticed the sickness and Tracker link? And if disappearing memories has been happening when the Daevos take souls, too?”