Standing over the sink, she cut one free, got out a peeler, and made a neat little pile of bright orange strips in the stainless-steel belly. Quick rinse. Cut in the middle. Slice length-wise twice. And voilà, crudités.
Crunch. Munch. Swallow.
They were so fresh, they cracked every time she took a bite out of them, and the sweet, earthy taste was better than chocolate.
One more, she thought as she finished her last quarter. Except when she got to the end of number two, she thought … how about another.
As she worked her way through her third, she thought back to the Council’s proclamation. Her motivation for trying to do something was such a no-brainer. Even though her mother’s racial identity was not her fault, she still felt responsible for bringing the shit cart to Wrath’s front door.
If she could only figure out a way around this …
On the Council’s side, things were evidently moving ahead. An official swearing in of that Ichan guy had been scheduled—and Rehv had found out because, like an idiot, the Council’s secretary had failed to take him off their blast e-mail list.
That was taking place at midnight.
She glanced over at the double ovens. The blue digital clock read four fifty-four. So they had nineteen hours.
What the hell could be done in nineteen hours?
Turning back to her stash, she—
The sound of the security system announcing the opening and closing of an exterior door was a surprise. Frowning, she went out by the pantry, pushed through one of the flap doors that the staff used …
Layla was coming out of the library, looking like she’d been in a car accident: Her hair was windblown, her face white as a sheet, her hands up to her cheeks.
“Layla,” Beth called over. “Are you okay?”
The Chosen jumped so high she had to put both arms out to keep steady. “Oh! Oh—ah, yes. Yes, I am. I’m fine, just fine, yes. Thank you.” The female abruptly frowned. “And yourself? Are you…”
So many ways to finish that for the female, given what was going on: Are you … suicidal? Are you … taking a break between wailing sessions? Are you … pregnant, too?
“Oh, yup, fine. Yeah, just fine. Yup.”
Two could play at the deflection game.
“Well, I’m just heading upstairs. To go to bed. To have a shower, and go to bed.” As Layla started taking off her parka, her smile was about as genuine as Courtney Stodden’s. “I’ll see you at … well, later. I’ll see you later. Bye. Bye for now!”
The Chosen took to that stairwell like she was being chased, even though there was no one behind her.
As Beth returned to the kitchen, she felt bad that she didn’t follow through on the female’s obvious distress, but the sad truth was, she had so much on her plate … there wasn’t room left for anyone else’s drama-burger with a side of brain-fry.
Back at the sink, she peeled another carrot. Cut it in half and turned it around to—
The solution came to her with such clarity, she nearly sliced the pad of her finger off.
Putting down the knife, she picked up the two halves … and held them together, finding the puzzle fit that made them seem as if they were one.
Then she deliberately separated them. Reunited them. Separated them.
In both incarnations … the halves were still carrot.
Throwing the pieces on the counter, she took off at a dead run.
It was a fat round hedge that saved them both.
As Xcor materialized in the front yard of his suburban abode, he had to take a moment to collect himself—even though the sun was threatening in the east.
Talk about close calls … he’d barely gotten Layla back in time. And even the now, he was not sure he had succeeded.
But he had done his best.
Once it had become obvious that she suffered the same disorientation as he in the mist, he had taken her hand and started her up the hill. He did not ask her for confirmation that the Brotherhood’s hidden compound was in fact at the top—for that information, he relied on the same principles that had constructed his far more appropriate lair back in the Old Country.
The higher the position, the more defensible it was.
Hustling her as fast as he could, he had ended up running them straight into a twenty-foot-tall stuccoed retaining wall—a very good sign that they were close to her homestead. The problem was, she’d been too turned about to dematerialize over the damn thing.
Confronted by the choice of right or left, he’d been well aware that upon his decision rested her safety.
On so many levels.
He’d been well aware that even if he could construct a suitable shelter for them, something capable of shielding them both from the sunlight all day long, her absence would be noted and questioned when she returned at the following sunset. How she would be able to present answers that would not complicate her life irreparably, he did not know.
He had picked to the right—on the theory that he wanted to do right by her, and therefore, that was the direction he would take.
When they’d found that well-trimmed, well-cared-for little bush … and then a number of its identical siblings, it was clear they were on the trail of the main house. He did not take her all the way. He went far enough to find the first planting bed, and then had released her hand and hissed at her to go—go fast.
He, too, was out of time.
Xcor had watched her hustle forth for only a moment, and then she was lost into the mist, not even the sounds of her footfalls reaching his ears anymore.
It was as if she had disappeared forever.
And as much as a part of him had been tempted to sit and let the sun take him, he had forced himself away, triangling downward until he had tripped over, quite literally, a ploughed drive.
Although he’d only been able to see five feet afore him, the level surface provided him with an opportunity for alacrity unparalleled by the uneven ground. He had run flat-out, gravity in his favor, his only concern that someone would come barreling up the mountain and see him in their headlights.
That had not come to pass. He had made it to the leveling-off part and had eventually broken free of the misted, scrambled landscape.
The sense of dread he’d first experienced upon penetration stuck with him, however. What if Layla hadn’t made it inside in time? What if someone had found her and questioned her? What if …
He had checked his phone to no avail and then been forced to close his eyes, concentrate, and pray that he had enough remaining strength and focus to ghost himself away.
The only thing that had made disappearing possible was that he couldn’t die not knowing what had happened to her.
Taking out his phone once again, he had some errant hope that she had called and he hadn’t heard the ring in his escape down the mountain. Alas … no.
Stalking to the colonial’s front door, the faint glow in the sky made his skin prickle with warning and his eyes water—which ended as he burst into the house.
To a scene of abject debauchery.
The only thing that would have made it more complete would have been the presence of females. As it was, the air was spiced thick with rum and gin, crowded with hearty laughter, heavy with the kind of male aggression that surged after victory.
“You return!” Zypher called out. “He returns!”
The bellowing would have been loud enough to rouse the neighbors, if there had been any. As it was, it filled the house.
“And we have news,” Throe said with satisfaction mildly tinted with drunkenness. “The induction ceremony is at midnight this coming eve. In Ichan’s library hall. We have been invited, of course.”
The temptation to tell them to go in his stead appealed. But he kept his voice quiet. With naught but a nod, he disappeared upstairs.
Fortunately, his soldiers were used to him retreating into his own counsel—and let him go.
As he shut the bedroom door, the noise below was dimmed, not extinguished; however, he was accustomed to tuning out that group of males.
Going over to the bed, which was a mess of sheets and tangled blankets, he sat down, disarmed, and took out his cell. Cradling it in his hands, he stared at the screen.
There was no way to dial her: Whatever phone she’d used had a scrambled account.
Lying back and looking up at the ceiling, he knew an emptiness that was a revelation.
The idea that she could be dead and he didn’t know it hit him so deeply, he felt as if his personality had split in two.
Never to be united again.