I had no words for him… but I also knew that he didn’t need my words. He was right in what he said before: he pushed, and I let him in. It was the way we had always been. It was natural. I lifted my eyes back up to his face and released the careful barrier over my heart and emotions, softening against him with a sigh. His dark eyes flared, his body tightening against mine, and I could suddenly feel his attention on my lips. Just like that, I was lost; lost in need and relief and the feeling of home that didn’t quite make sense.
“Later,” he growled, reading it all on my face. “I need your phone.”
I fit a hand between us—pausing when his eyes narrowed—and grabbed the phone tucked into the waistband of my borrowed jeans. He lifted it from my fingers and backed off me, tossing it on the ground as he unlocked he car. I scrambled for the passenger seat, needing to have something solid beneath me before my legs collapsed. He slid into the driver’s seat, waiting for me to click on my seatbelt before skidding away from the curb. I pulled the little zip-lock bag out of my bra, where I had stashed it after figuring out that Sophia’s jeans didn’t have real pockets, and quickly swallowed the pill Jayden had given me. Silas didn’t ask about it. I wrapped my arms around my legs, hiding my face between my knees as we drove. I needed to focus. I needed to drive every panic-inducing thought from my mind until only a singular purpose remained.
Protect.
This wasn’t about revenge. This wasn’t about doing the right thing, or finding the right solution. Danny was a threat that couldn’t be allowed to grow. I could have found out his identity earlier, with persistence, and consequences… but I had always felt that knowing would lead to acting, and I was barely ready to face him as it was. I didn’t want Silas to be there, but I couldn’t chance his reaction to me running off on my own. He and Weston were the only variables that I considered dangerous in this situation, and if I got all of the variables together in one place, it might lend me a little more control.
“You can’t attack him,” I cautioned softly, my voice muffled by my knees. “You can’t touch him. I don’t know how you managed to lock him up in the first place, but he isn’t locked up anym—”
“Of course he is.” He spoke as though it should have been an obvious fact.
I jolted upright, my head whipping to the side. “What?”
“Their escape would have been an impossible task without help, and Danny knows you better than you think. He knows we’re coming to him. He hasn’t moved from the prison I put him in, despite Takeo trying to break him out.”
“Despite… Takeo… what?”
“Takeo is a traditional man from a traditional culture, and an even more traditional family. His father split from the Zev community in an attempt to deny his Atmá her second pair member. He wanted her all to himself, and he got her that way… but at a price. She was never allowed to use her power, she was never allowed to see the other member of her pair, and their entire family was expelled from Zev society. Takeo was raised under his father’s significant influence because he was born with a mark but not a power—indicating that he was a member of a pair himself. When he met Alice, she was already a member of the Klovoda. It would have been impossible for her to split from the Zevs to pursue a life with him, so he cut off communication with his family and followed her to America, where he was welcomed into the Zev fold. A year later, they stumbled across Adie. Takeo attempted to take her away as his father had taken his mother away, except that Alice refused to cooperate. He refuses to be in a romantic relationship with her anymore, but he’s still here.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s helping Danny.”
“Not necessarily, but he is.”
“Why would he do that? What does it accomplish?”
“They both believe that you should be stripped of your pairs. Takeo wants to accomplish it on you, so that he can repeat the same process on his own Atmá.”
“Oh my God… but he has Alice right now!”
“They’ll be long gone by the time we get there, but they’re the least of our problems right now.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I’m Silas.”
“That’s not a reason.”
He didn’t extrapolate, so I hid my face between my knees again, groaning softly. Weston and Danny needed to be our focus right now, especially if Takeo had said anything about my bond in front of Weston. I didn’t look up until we were parked directly outside the main house, so I wasn’t sure how Silas had managed to get past all of the guards. Maybe they all liked him better than Weston, or maybe they simply recognised his face and assumed that he was allowed inside. Maybe Weston hadn’t bothered to ward against him.
“Why did you kidnap Weston?” I asked, climbing out of the car and pulling my sleeves over my hands to ward off the chill in the air.
Silas glanced over at me, slamming the driver’s side door closed. “You turned yourself over to him; it was my only option. He would have found out about you, about what you are.”
“You should have left it. You should have left him. I had it under control.”