Each attempt to pull in a breath was met with more resistance. She slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Her vision blurred and the last thing she heard was a whisper. “Don’t die.”
“Xavier.” His name was on her lips as she jolted awake. The practical side of her wanted nothing to do with him but a greater force beckoned her. Olive tried to resist the desperate tug on her veins and the rabbit’s pace of her heart. Blood rushed through her with a frenzy She should be leaving, hailing a cab to the airport.
Yet before she could stop herself, she was standing in front of his hotel room, fist poised to knock. She wasn’t impulsive and she didn’t chase asshole men, but there was an invisible tether between them and she needed to know why.
She didn’t have to knock. The latch clicked and the door opened.
Xavier smiled but his features were tight, stressed, his eyes red-rimmed, as if he were in pain. “I knew you’d come.”
“This enigma is driving me crazy. I’m having weird dreams and hallucinating or...I know this is all tied to you somehow and that damned scarab. If you know something, tell me because I’m about to lose my mind.”
“Come and sit.” His room seemed bigger than before, or maybe her perspective was just different, and boasted separate sleeping quarters. The couch was dark leather and squeaked when he sat on the edge. He patted the spot beside him.
She joined him but didn’t get too comfortable.
“I know you don’t like me,” he started.
“Actually, I do and it pisses me off. I can’t figure out why. You represent everything I despise.”
“I think you misjudge me.”
*
“This life hasn’t been kind to me. My daughter died from leukemia when she was six. I’ve been funding research since then.” He cleared his throat and licked his lips. “That was life changing.”
“What about her mother?”
“Marriages rarely survive that kind of trauma. We were exhausted and we both had wounds that couldn’t heal. Maybe because of each other. Every time I looked at her I saw Sara’s big brown eyes and it was like salt in a cut. I imagine every time she looked at me she saw the blond curls that she’d never comb or put up in a ponytail again. Whatever it was, it broke us. Losing Sara caused irreparable damage.”
Her snide comment about funneling money from kids with cancer burned inside her like bile rising in her throat. She was an asshole for assuming what she had.
“I’m sorry for what I said before.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“We need to take the scarab back. This storm, that guy you had kidnap me, this is all because of that scarab. We’ve angered the gods.” The terrible dreams of judgment and death gnawed at her.
“Olive, listen to me for a few minutes, okay?” His hair was disheveled, as if he’d been running his hand through it. “We’re not taking the scarab back.”
“But—”
“We’re not taking it back because we didn’t steal it.”
“No. We didn’t. I did.”
“It belongs to me. It’s mine. Do you understand?” Xavier stood then paced in front of her. He yanked at his tie until it was loose enough to pull free.
“I guess so.” What was that saying that possession was nine-tenths of the law? “But I just dreamed of my own murder at the hands of some kind of Egyptian bandit. What if that’s prophetic? A warning?”
“It’s not.”
“How do you know? God, I’m so confused.” Olive paced in front of the coffee table and stopped short when she saw the vase of blue lilies. She was certain they hadn’t been there earlier.
“Funeral flowers. Did you send that one to my room? Why would you do that? I feel like I should know but I don’t.” She balled her hands into fists and her nails dug into her palms.
“I had hoped it might make you remember.”
“Remember what?”
“This.” Xavier stood and walked to the dresser. He held up a square wooden box. The contents of the box were spilled onto the table.
Two heart scarabs. The one she’d stolen and another, smaller one carved out of the same obsidian. A gray feather settled between them. If the heart is lighter than the feather, you shall pass to the next life.
“Where did you get that one?” Olive pointed to the smaller one.
“I stole your heart once upon a time.” Xavier unbuttoned his shirt. He picked up the two relics then pulled her hand to the center of his chest, pressing the heart scarabs between her palm and his flesh. “Do you feel the frantic beat of my heart?”
Olive stared up at him as the thump-thump of his heart grew harder. The scarabs began to heat up. “Yes.”
The lights dimmed of their own volition. His heartbeat remained constant, but his image shifted and blurred and came back into focus.
She blinked. “What’s happening?”
“It’s finally coming to fruition.”
“What is?” she whispered.