Lost Energy (25 page)

Every time we passed a window, the
acrid smells and faint sounds of agonizing screams tore at my heart. Cara slaughtered
next to her child raced through my head. The thought almost changed my mind. I
did want to save them, all of them, but no way would I be any good if I didn't
leave for the night. Farren, I'm sure, felt the same. My reasoning was selfish,
but I stuck to that excuse, replaying it inside my head until it rang with
truth.

By the time we made it to the thick
door leading outside, relief made me giddy. A few more steps, and–

Static.

"Where're you going?"

FORGIVENESS

Z
ander's voice poured into my ears
like ice water. The urge to jab him in the throat and run almost won over being
mature.

"If you say a word, I'll take
you out. Swear to Christ." Okay, mature might have been a stretch, but
hysteria causing my voice to sound like a soprano also skewed my better
judgment.

"Damn, Lena." Farren elbowed
my side and grinned.

Zander looked as though I killed
his dog. "I-I won't say anything. Just be careful, okay?" He turned
in the opposite direction, head bent and kicking an imaginary can down the
hall.

Really? Not even a fuck you? I felt
like an even bigger shit. Swallowing the crazy, I jogged after him. "Zander,
wait."

When he stopped, he didn't bother
turning around. I had to circle to the front of him and lift his chin to meet
my eyes. "I'm sorry. God," I ran a hand through my tangled hair,
getting fingers caught in knots, "I've had to say that a lot lately."

His face, so deceptively adorable,
made the guilt fester. "You don't have to be sorry, Lena. Not with me."

Ugh! Didn't that make the guilt
happy?

"Yes, yeah, I do. It's… I need
to see him."

He smiled that same smile that
melted my heart in the past–and maybe a little now, too. "Always knew
Him
would come between us."

When he used my name for Tarek
before I knew he was more than a dream, tears threatened. Memories whipped
through my mind. Again, simpler times flashed through my brain, when I was just
a girl and he was just a boy. I wrapped my arms around his neck.

His fingers kneaded my back, taking
the tension and hysteria away. He let go and wiped the tears from my cheeks. "Don't
be long, or Wilma will blow a gasket. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't
want to be on her bad side."

I laughed even though the tears still
came. Man, I'd cried more in the past few days than I had the last six months. "Yeah,
I'm sure everyone will know I'm missing when she starts throwing stuff."

"I'll make sure to duck."

I smiled. "Good plan."

Then he did the unthinkable.

Zander leaned in and kissed me–and
I let him. His lips were soft, almost imagined when they found mine, but the
brief touch reached a tiny place in my heart. "Hurry back."

I nodded, tingling spreading to my
fingertips. "I will."

He brushed my cheek and continued
down the hall, never looking back.

∞
∞ ∞

Hail smacked our bodies as soon as
the portal dropped us close to the castle. The sky, so dark it blocked our
path, kept beating us with precipitation, the golf-ball-sized ice bombs
stinging my back, knocking me to the ground. As Farren bent to help me, his
face twisted in a pained grimace, the door swung open. Tarek hauled me up and
kept me in his arms, the ice hitting him going unnoticed.

Farren barged past us when we didn't
move to get away from the storm. "You guys can get beat up all you want. I
got stuff to do."

Tarek didn't even acknowledge him.
He held me with trembling arms and cupped the back of my head as he turned to
protect me from the ice. The storm ricocheted off the stone walls, piercing my
eardrums. Still Tarek didn't seem to notice, holding us there, letting the
storm attack him.

I stood on my tiptoes and found his
ear. "You need to calm down. The ice, it's gonna kill someone."

He buried his face in my neck and
breathed in deep. The storm let up, though the pelting ice still smacked hard
against his back.

One thing left to do–my favorite
thing.

I pulled away far enough to capture
his lips with mine.

There
was the fire. The blood-heating
kind that proved exactly who held my heart. When his tongue pushed past my
lips, and the kiss deepened until I swore even my toes melted, the deadly ice
disappeared with a whimper. The sky transformed to its normal silver-gray–the
same intense gray as his eyes.

His shaky hands pushed through my
hair, the kiss going on forever.

Forever was never long enough.

When we came up for air, I finally
noticed the bags circling his beautiful eyes. Guilt waltzed back into my
conscience, jumping around and getting cozy. I did this to him. Not only did I
do this to him, I put my family in danger because of stupid jealousy.

That didn't help alleviate seeing
green, though. I still had to share him with a ghost.

Damn. Maybe it was time I learned
how to share.

"What I said… I didn't mean it."
I held his cheeks, hoping he'd see down to my soul. "How could she not
love you? And, I'm so sorry for… I let anger at her–my jealousy–hurt you.
Christ, I put Farren in danger because of it, too. I should've never left. I've
seen what real devastation is," Cara's face swam in my mind, "and
what I did… So stupid."

He grabbed my hands and kissed each
fingertip, saying nothing. His face, pale and sunken, made me want to crawl
inside him and attack the pain. The pain my words caused.

"I-I understand why she did
what she did. I don't like how she did it, but I get it. I do. She…she tried to
do the impossible and lost. Lost everything. Lost you."

He leaned in, touching his forehead
to mine, holding my hands to his chest. "You were right, Lena."

"No, no, I–"

"Yes. She lost herself, a long
time before her death. I never wanted to admit it. She…she blocked me out,
barred me from her life, what she planned. But you…you're so different. So
passionate, never hiding anything. With you it's so raw, so real." He
smiled. "I need to learn to adjust to, ah, actual emotion. Anger. Pain. And
I'm more than willing because the way I love you–
you
–scares me. I like
it. A lot."

"Yeah?"

His dimples appeared, making all my
problems go away for a second. "Yes."

He bent to kiss me, and I reveled
in the explosion bursting in my heart. He loved me. Me. Now all I had to do was
deal with my own pettiness.

What the hell do you think you're
doing!

"
Ah!"
I bent
forward, Wilma's voice blaring like a bullhorn in my head.

"What? What is it?" Tarek
grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up.

"Wilma."

"Shit."

Get your ass back here! Are you
insane?

I clapped my hands over my ears as
if that would quiet her down. No such luck.

You're putting yourself and
everyone else in danger. If I have to come get you…

"Tarek, tell her…tell her to
knock it off."

He nodded and closed his eyes. His
facial expressions went from angry to contrite to plain wincing as he had a
conversation with her inside his head.

After what seemed like hours, one
more blast wrenched through my tender brain.
If you're not back before
everyone wakes, I'm coming to get you and it ain't gonna be pretty. These
people are looking to you as a leader, and you failed!

Oh, damn. Nothing like giving the
guilt party extra fuel to get it really rocking.

I cleared my throat and took my
hands from my ears, feeling like a glob of crap. "I have until morning."

He grabbed my hand, heading to the
cabin. "Then we should make the best of it."

"Wait. My mom."

Confusion clouded his eyes before
understanding made him smile. "Right. She's worried about you. Jake too."

"Yeah, I've been a shitty
daughter lately."

He switched directions, heading
toward our main room. "No, you've been busy. Big difference."

Once we made it into the room, a
roaring fire blazing to combat the now quiet hailstorm, Mom jumped from the
couch, yelling what sounded like my name. Jake followed, taking us in his arms.
Sandwiched in between Mom and Jake, I gave Shaina a nod, who returned it while
staying on the couch. She didn't look worried or scared, which confused me.
Belva and Farren were long gone, more than likely spending the stolen time in
one of the rooms upstairs.

After all the "I love yous"
and "everything will be fines," I sat next to Winston's girl. "You're
not scared?"

She smiled, making her pretty face
shine. I mean, the crazy weather Tarek's emotions created, her man about to go
into a battle, not to mention sitting on a sofa in an entirely different world,
and she grinned as if we were hanging out at a coffee shop discussing
Teen
Vogue
.

"Winston promised to come back
to me, and I believe him."

"Just like that, huh?"

"I have faith in my man. He'll
be back for me."

Wonder if she charged for optimism
lessons.

I hugged her, hoping that
positivity would rub off on me.

∞
∞ ∞

The walk to the cabin was silent
except for the moaning squid, who obviously were tired from weathering what
amounted to a tropical storm in the warm sticky part of Arcus. The forest's
weather the exact opposite of the hailstorm near the castle, but raged the same.
Christ, I hoped they'd have enough time to recuperate before Tarek bled the
lines. Belva's pink, squishy friends were important for the plan to work right.

I broke the silence, pointing up. "You
think they'll be ready?"

"I've been such an ass." His
face flushed as he opened the cabin door.

I pulled him in, kicking the door
shut. "It's not like being Arcus's Warden comes with an instruction
manual. You'll learn to control the place–even when I'm being a bitch."

He wrapped me into his arms, tugging
me close. "Now, that's no way to talk about the woman I love."

Woman.
Huh? Weird
.

"She
can
be a bitch
sometimes, especially in the morning." I reached to kiss the tip of his
nose before going to the stale granola stash.

His laugh followed me. "Well,
since I haven't been around you much during the morning, I'll take your word
for it."

My fingers froze, the granola
wrapper going unopened. Clarity sucked. He hadn't been around me much. Ever. In
the past five months, our conversations were all one-sided. I knew a ton about
him, but…not exactly the best way to get to know someone.

I swallowed, opening the wrapper
and breaking the bar into pieces, trying to find words. I faced him, his face
brighter, though the bags still lingered. Little things weighed on me. All those
tiny little things that made me the neurotic person I was.

Like how I had hated granola since
puking it up one night after a tough track practice.

"Hey, um, can I ask you a
question?"

His brightness dimmed. "Of
course."

Whatever
I asked, his emotional wellbeing came first. The squid probably wouldn't have been
able to take much more. But I had to ask one thing. Just one. "What's my
favorite color?" The question didn't matter. What mattered was his answer.

His shoulders relaxed and he took
the few steps to me, leaning down to touch his lips to mine. When he pulled
away, he said, "The color of sunset, deep orange with hints of gold."

Stunned, I smiled, smoothing his
silky hair from his eyes. "Yeah, it always reminds me that–"

"Tomorrow you can start over."

"How'd you know?"

He grinned.
Ah, dimples.
"Wilma."

"Huh?"

"What do you think we talked
about every time she came here?"

"Hmm, well..." Feeling a
little self-conscience, I looked down at his feet. "So you know
everything?"

He tilted my chin. "Every.
Single. Gory. Detail."

"Like wh-what?"

He smoothed a thumb across my lower
lip. "Like you cry every time you watch…ah…
E.T.
, I think she said?"