Fractured (31 page)

Michael raised his head, sweat dripping from the fat folds on his forehead. He held up my shoes. “Titanium coating and tips for the heels. Weaponized sexiness,
gugu
.” He winked at me, leaving a few drops of perspiration clinging to his lashes.

I strode forward and took the shiny-heeled shoes from his hands. “Cool. So basically, I should try not to step on anyone’s foot unless I want to sever some toes?”

He grinned. “Bravo, lovely. You got it in one.”

I braced my palm on the edge of his table and slipped the shoes onto my feet. When I straightened, Malachi was watching me. “You’ll need to practice with those. They’ll be heavier than your regular shoes, and you want to make sure you don’t turn your ankle. I’ll get more dummies down here for tomorrow so that you can work on it.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I waited, wondering if maybe he would say more, hoping he might comment on how I looked, but after a few seconds of watching him fiddle with his tie, it was obvious that wasn’t going to happen.

Not wanting to make a fool of myself, I carefully slid my shoes off and walked toward the stairs. Jim hopped off the bottom step and strode forward to bump fists with Michael, and then immediately started arguing with him about how many knives he could conceal in his vest and still be able to slow dance with Tegan.

Malachi brushed his fingers against my arm as I passed, and then immediately drew back when I turned to him. “Are you sure about this?” he asked me. “You are wearing so much … less than Jim and I.” He glanced down at my shoes. “And your footgear—”

“You don’t think I can handle myself?”

He gave me a warning look. “I
know
you can handle yourself. But you are at an automatic disadvantage because you are wearing what appears to be underclothes and little more.”

“
Underclothes?
You think I look cheap or something? What do you think Laney will be wearing, Malachi? Has she modeled it for you?”

He raked a hand through his hair and looked over my shoulder at the forge. “She is irrelevant to this conversation.”

“Except she can wear nice dresses, but I can’t?” I pictured Laney, her pale, skinny arms and bony shoulders, her slender hips and long legs. She’d wear something designer, something made for her. She’d look like she stepped from the pages of a catalog. I looked down at myself and saw the truth. I was never meant to wear dresses. I was meant to wear fucking
armor
. The only thing right about this stupid outfit was the lethal blades strapped to my thighs. My heart hammering, I whipped two of them from their sheaths and struck like a snake, whirling before he could get his guard up. In a fraction of a second, I ducked to avoid his grasping hand and drove him back into the wall with my shoulder.

My seriously toned, decidedly non-bony shoulder.

Malachi’s gaze traveled slowly from one knife, the blade of which was less than an inch from his throat, to the other, the tip of which was positioned at an upward angle between his legs. Something dark and dangerous stirred in his eyes, a look that startled me in its familiarity—he’d looked at me this way the day he’d kissed me on the training mat. Fragile hope mixed with the boiling anger in my chest, stealing my breath, riveting my eyes to his face.

So I got to watch while his expression smoothed into a blank mask. “Was that necessary?” he asked.

I retreated as quickly as I’d attacked, my cheeks hot as Michael’s forge. My fists were clenched so hard over my knives that my knuckles felt like they were about to splinter.

No, it wasn’t necessary.

And if I didn’t get out of here, I was going to do it again.

Malachi reached out to touch my arm again, but I jerked away. He sighed. “Lela, please—”

“I’m going to get changed for patrol.” Without looking at him again, I ran up the stairs.

TWENTY-NINE

IAN HAD BEEN RIGHT
—petit fours kicked ass.

When he’d called on the morning of prom, I’d already been up for hours, practicing with my knives, knowing today would probably bring the biggest fight of my life, one I hoped wouldn’t end with my soul being ripped from my body. I’d been so close to saying no to him, but then realized this might be my last chance to just … have
fun
. Simple, easy fun. So there we were, walking out of this boutique bakery in Barrington with our mouths full.

He unlocked his SUV and opened the door for me; then he handed me the flat box containing a dozen more of the beautiful little iced cakes. “What you expected?”

“Better.”

He shut my door and went around to the driver’s side. He gave me a nervous glance as he fastened his seat belt. “Which part?”

“All of it.” I looked away from him, focusing on my hands clutching the ribbon-wrapped box.

He twisted the key in the ignition and pulled out of the lot, heading south past quaint shops and treelined walkways. “Up for a hike?”

“Sure,” I murmured, glad we would be doing something active, something that would keep me moving.

Ian brushed the tips of his fingers along the top of the box while he kept his eyes on the road. “Did you notice?”

I watched his tanned hand, keeping my own very still. “Notice what?”

He smiled. “The way nobody looked at you cross-eyed. The way your money was just as good as anyone else’s.”

I shifted in my seat so that my back was to the window. “Are you suggesting,” I said slowly, “that my feelings about not belonging in Barrington were wrong?”

He shrugged. “I’m only saying that if you give people a chance, they might not disappoint you
all
the time.”

I fiddled with the gold-and-red ribbon, suddenly wishing for an escape route. The dark shape on my forearm caught my eye again. Nadia’s face. She and I had come from different places, too, and like Ian, it hadn’t mattered to her, either. I’d dreamed of her last night, of walking with her by a clear stream, of hearing her laugh, watching her grin as the silver scales of fish caught the light of the summer sun. I’d wanted to ask her how she was, but found I didn’t have a voice, didn’t have words. Or maybe words were unnecessary. She was past that kind of thing, deep within a peace so
full
that there was no room for anything else. When I’d gasped myself awake, the envy almost choked me.

After letting me drift in my thoughts for a good long while, Ian pulled over. “Come on. We’re here.”

I looked around, and thought of Nadia again. “The Cliff Walk?” We were at the place I’d died. And come back to life.

“I’ve got a few favorite spots. I think we’re early enough to avoid the wedding picture crowd.”

He hopped out of the car, and together we picked our way along the rocky start of the trail, leading to the path along the ledges overhanging the ocean. My heart skittered with the memories of the night I’d followed this trail straight over the edge.

Ian led the way past that high, shrub-covered hill, to a spot where the rocks became boulders and the sun sent diamond shards of light off the surface of the ocean. He climbed up on one and sat down, and I joined him, leaning my head back to feel the late-spring sun on my face.

“Have you been here before?”

“I came here with Nadia a few times. She loved this place, too.”

“Damn. I was hoping I’d be the first to bring you here.”

I glanced over at him, startled to see real disappointment there. “Why is that important?”

He chuckled and shook his head. The breeze blew his shaggy brown hair away from his face, letting me watch as his expression changed from smiling to serious. “If I ask you something, Lela, will you promise to tell me the truth?”

My heart dropped into my stomach. “You have a way with the ominous, you know that?” His green eyes met mine, and they pulled the words right out of me. “All right,” I said, my voice choked.

He leaned forward very slowly, his gaze sliding from my eyes to my mouth. The heat of it caught me completely by surprise. His playful, nervous mask had dropped away, revealing a hunger that crackled along my skin and made me shiver.

“Hanging out with you is the only time I don’t think about everything that’s happened,” he said. “I could talk to you for hours, and I could stare at you for longer than that. But no matter how much I do, I can’t figure one thing out.” His face was inches from mine. I could smell the strawberry filling on his breath. “Do I have a real shot here?”

And then his lips were on mine, warm and soft and sweet, paralyzing me. His hand slipped around the back of my neck and held me while he slid closer, blocking out the sun. And my heart … it ached. Because this was everything I could have hoped for, everything I might have wanted in a moment like this. Because he was missing
nothing
.

But I was.

I laid my palm on his chest, over his heart. And gently pushed.

Ian pulled away, and when I saw the hurt in his expression, I closed my eyes. “Okay,” he said quietly. “At least I know. So will you answer another question for me?”

I nodded.

“Is it me? Or is it that I’m not him?”

My eyes flew open. “Does it matter?”

He rubbed his chest, right over the spot where my hand had been a second earlier. “Yeah, actually.”

What the hell. “It’s not you. This would have been different if—”

“If Malachi Sokol hadn’t decided Warwick High was the perfect place for him to experience American culture,” he said bitterly. “That dude’s timing
sucks
.” He stared out across the water. “Or maybe mine does.”

I drew my knees to my chest. “Ian, I—”

“No. You’ve done me a favor. Don’t worry about it.”

“A favor?”

“Yeah. It’s been killing me, wondering if it was me. If I’m just not …” he sighed. “But you said this would have been different if he hadn’t shown up. Do you mean that?”

I squeezed my arms tighter around my legs. “I think … yeah.” It might have helped if I could have told him how I met Malachi, how he’d saved me, how he made me better than I was, and how he sacrificed a peace he’d earned with decades of suffering and service, all for me. How he was the first and only person who had ever told me he loved me. And even if that wasn’t true anymore, it had changed the shape of my heart and carved itself into the marrow of my bones. It had created a space in which my own feelings could grow, and they had, and that couldn’t be changed now, no matter how beautiful and good the boy in front of me was.

“He’s going to prom with Laney. I think they’re together.” His words were quiet but deadly.

“I know.” A thought occurred to me, vaulted into the front of my brain by the pain in his voice. “That’s not why I’m here, Ian, and it’s not why I said I’d go to prom with you. No matter what we do now, I need you to know that. I’m here because of you. And I never wanted to hurt you.”

“It’s okay. You love who you love.” His smile was laced with sadness. “We all do.”

“You’re amazing, Ian.” I meant it.

“That’s what all the ladies tell me.” He grinned in this devastating, fake-cocky way and snagged a petit four from the box.

I laughed and grabbed one for myself. The bittersweet chocolate provided an endorphin rush I badly needed. “So,” I said when I’d finally swallowed it. “What now?”

He leaned back and rested his elbows against the rough stone. “I drive you home, and I pick you up tonight, and then we have an awesome time at our senior prom.”

I frowned. “You still want to go?” I realized that I’d half-hoped this would get him to stay home. If I had to break his heart, I wanted to at least keep him safe.

He looked at me like I was crazy. “It’s senior prom. Party. After-party. You expect me to stay home and cry into a plate of spaghetti?”

“Okay, then.” I paused. “Hey, listen. I’ve heard some rumors. Nothing too specific. Only that there might be some party crashers.”

“Are you talking about those meth freaks who jumped us at the theater?” His gaze sharpened. “There’ll be security. They’ll only allow students in.”

I bit my lip. “Okay. Just, I don’t know. Be ready.”

He raised an eyebrow. “All right,” he said slowly. “Does Malachi know? ’Cause Laney’s been my friend since elementary school, and she’s a nice girl. She shouldn’t get mixed up—”

“Malachi would never let anything happen to her. And believe me, he can protect her. She’s probably safer than anyone.”

“And who’s going to protect you if anything goes down?” Ian sat up straight, brushing off his palms.

“I don’t need anyone to protect me, all right? Trust me on that one, too.”

He mumbled something under his breath, and then stood up and held out his hand to help me to my feet. “It’s after noon. I should get you home.”

I followed him back the way we had come, drawing slow, steady breaths of ocean air into my lungs and taking measured, sure-footed steps over wobbly rocks and loose gravel. Time to get ready for tonight … and maybe squeeze in another hour of knife practice, too. There was no way the Mazikin were getting my friends. I was just getting my head right when my phone buzzed with a text from Henry.

Tonight we won’t be so gentle
.

While I tried to make sense of the words, my phone buzzed again. It was a picture. A man, lying in a pool of blood, his face a pulpy, unrecognizable mess. But even so, I knew him by the scarecrow limbs, the thinning gray hair.

And the crossbow lying at his side.

THIRTY

“
STOP FIDGETING, FOR GOD
’
S
sake, Lela. Do you have ADHD or something?” Tegan was about to lose it on me. I’d arrived an hour late at her house, having spent the entire afternoon in an intense planning session with Malachi and Jim, waiting to hear word from Raphael.

Henry was in the hospital, under heavy police guard. The Mazikin had somehow figured out who he was, beaten him nearly to death, and called in the cops. We didn’t know if they’d possessed him before they dumped him. We didn’t know if he would survive. All we knew was that he was the prime suspect in the homeless murders, and in his head he carried all the necessary knowledge to bring the earthly Guard unit down. Raphael had gone in to do damage control, however he saw fit, but if Henry was a Mazikin now, one of us would have to put him down. That knowledge, along with my rage that they’d hurt one of my Guards, almost made me look forward to fighting them face-to-face. I wanted to hurt them. Especially Sil. I had no doubt he was responsible.