Redemption (14 page)

Her eyes opened and she turned her head to look at him, her dark hair fanned around her face. “You said there were seven of us. There’s eight.”

He froze in his panic, sorting through the implications of what her pregnancy meant. While he’d been excited at the thought of having a baby before, now was the worst possible timing. “Are you sure?”

Her eyebrows rose as her mouth twisted into a sarcastic grimace.

After hiding the confirmation of her last pregnancy for so long, he was surprised she told him this time. But then, she could no longer hide this one.

What did it mean for her ability to fight for her life? At least before, when her nausea had been an early warning sign of danger, it disappeared when the Cavallo showed up. Now it was bound to hit her at any time, making her vulnerable. Could she train hard enough without harming the baby? Did it even matter? Without Emma, the baby couldn’t survive. And Emma couldn’t survive if she didn’t train.

As much as he hated to admit it, Emma was Will’s primary concern. The baby would have to come third, after Jake. He only hoped she survived so the baby did too.

Her dark brown eyes watched him, her mouth pinched into a tight line as she waited for his reaction.

No matter what he thought or felt, she needed his reassurance. He pulled her against his chest, his arms tight around her back. “It’s going to be okay.”

Her face buried in his shoulder, she said, “No, it’s not. I’m tired of pretending it is. No matter what happens this won’t turn out
okay
.”

Will grasped her shoulders and eased her back to look into her face. “I’ll make sure you, Jake, and the baby are okay.”

“Will, we know I’m not strong enough to win this.”

He released her, gripping the steering wheel and looking out the window at the passing traffic. “That’s why we’re going back to the desert. So you can practice. Maybe we can rework the way you get your power.”

“It’s taken me weeks to get to this point. You’ve surpassed me in days.” She rested her cheek on his shoulder as her hand rubbed his arm. “You’re right. We need a plan for the battle and for after it’s done. But we need to consider all the factors. We need to be realistic.”

He shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

“We don’t have to do it right now, but before it all begins, I’d like to know you have a viable plan. You can even have a Plan B and C. I just need to know before…” She sighed, her body sinking into his. “I just need to know.”

Chapter Ten

Jake woke to light streaming in his window as Antonia parted the curtains. He was groggy from staying up so late playing with the shadows.

“Get up,
corazoncito
,” Antonia said, moving to the side of his bed. “
Señor
Aiden says we are going on a trip.”

The last time Jake went on a trip, he saw Mommy. But then Aiden made her go away. Jake’s excitement faded. “Where?”

“He didn’t say, only that you must hurry and dress.”

Jake didn’t want to leave. What if the shadows didn’t go with him? He looked down at the gauze wrapped around his arm.

Antonia’s gaze followed his. “I will bandage your arm for you.”

“No!” Jake shouted, then took a deep breath. “I mean it’s not that bad and it sticks so I like to take it off myself.”

Antonia frowned. “I must look at it,
corazoncito
.
Señor
Aiden said it was a bad burn.”

“It’s not really. I’ll let you look at it tomorrow.”

She clicked her tongue as she handed him a pile of clothes and pushed him toward the bathroom. “I would like to see for myself. I’ll be careful not to hurt you.”

Jake shut the door behind him and locked it.

“
Señor
Jake!”

“I’m already naked!” Jake shouted. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

He heard her mumbling Spanish as she walked away, probably asking God to bless his soul like she did many times a day.

Jake didn’t need her god to bless his soul. He’d already been blessed.

When he was sure she had really left, he unwrapped the thick padding of gauze and studied the inside of his arm. The burn was really gone. If Aiden found out, he’d want to know how. And if Jake told him, Aiden would discover what the shadows had put on Jake’s chest.

A symbol.

Jake’s arm had been completely healed by the time he got back to the house after his meeting with the shadow figure. He knew Aiden had done something to stop Jake’s fast-healing ability, so that the burn would heal at a normal rate. Not wanting to defy Aiden’s expectations, Jake had pretended the burn was still there. It had been easy to find bandages and wrap his arm himself, but Antonia had caught an earful from Aiden the next day for not dressing Jake’s wound. Jake had almost jumped to her defense until he remembered what happened to his first nanny when he’d defended her. Now Jake watched in silence when Aiden disciplined the staff.

Maybe that would change soon.

The real surprise was under Jake’s shirt. His chest had been swollen and red the first day, but it had gone away to reveal the symbol from his dream—two circles, overlapping in the center and making a weird-looking, sideways eight.

Mommy had marks on her back and Jake had given Will his mark of The Chosen One, but now Jake had a mark of his own and it made him happy.

Except Aiden couldn’t know anything about it.

Aiden would be furious if he found out Jake had talked to the shadows, let alone accepted their
gift
. The fact that Marcus had encouraged him to befriend the shadows was proof enough. He needed to keep his mark hidden as long as possible and although Antonia would never get him in trouble on purpose, if she knew about it, there was no way she could keep it from Aiden. Jake had been practicing hiding her thoughts when Aiden was around, but Jake couldn’t be sure it actually worked. He couldn’t take the chance.

Jake liked Antonia. Since he couldn’t have Mommy, Antonia was the next best thing. Jake didn’t want anything to happen to her, a fact he kept buried deep in his mind so Aiden wouldn’t use it to punish him. He had to hide the mark on his chest from Antonia. Thankfully, he didn’t have much longer to hide it.

Jake knew that time was running out. Raphael had come back last night. Jake had snuck down to hear them talking in the living room. Even though he couldn’t hear everything, he’d figured out that Raphael was frustrated because he couldn’t find Mommy and Will.

Raphael had shouted at Aiden about having a little over a week until the end. Aiden mumbled something to make Raphael stop shouting, but Jake still felt Raphael’s anger rippling into the hall. Leaning against the door frame, Jake let a smile lift the corners of his mouth. He was glad Raphael was mad. Jake hated Raphael and someday he’d kill Raphael for what he’d done to Mommy. Sometimes when Jake practiced, he pretended he was fighting Raphael.

The other times he pretended it was Will.

Will was harder. Jake mostly liked him. Will had been nice to Jake, teaching him how to play the peg game and buying him a book. But most of all Will loved Mommy almost as much as Jake did. While that should have made Jake happy, the mark on his chest turned icy with jealousy instead. Part of Jake had changed since the shadow had given him his gift. Everything was darker and cold. So cold his insides sometimes burned, like the walk-in freezer in one of the restaurants Mommy had worked at once.

“
Señor
Jake!” Antonia stood outside his door, pounding on the wood. “I have a key and I will open this door if you do not do it yourself.”

“I’m naked!”

“I have cared for other little boys. You have nothing I have not seen before.”

Jake traced the circles on his chest before lowering his pajama shirt and wrapping his arm with clean gauze.

The door opened and Antonia’s face peered in the crack. “I thought you said you were naked. You are still in your pajamas.”

“I put them back on.”

She scowled, then shook her head. “You are hiding something from me, probably what’s under that bandage. I would check right now, but your
abuelo
is in a hurry to leave.” Her hand reached into her pocket, her rosary beads clinking. “We do not want to make him angry.”

If they were late, Aiden would blame it on her. “I’ll hurry, Antonia.”

She kissed his head. “You are a good boy.” Her hand ruffled his hair then she turned to leave.

Fear squeezed Jake’s lungs, making it difficult to breathe. Antonia didn’t know what was under his bandage, but she knew he was hiding something.

It didn’t matter if she knew his secret or not. The fact she knew he kept a secret meant that Antonia wasn’t safe.

***

It has become a daily ritual. After she and Will drove for hours, they checked into a motel and Emma searched the news channels. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for. Signs that the world was in chaos? Signs that it wasn’t?

Even though she was exhausted, she felt stronger. Her nausea had lessened and to her relief, Will rarely acknowledged the pregnancy, focusing on her training instead. He was relentless, pushing her harder than she’d ever been pushed before. She had made progress—but whether or not it was enough remained to be seen.

They’d tried sparring, but their joining must have triggered a protective failsafe that kept them from harming one another. Whenever they tried, their power faded, which worried her. They still didn’t know what would happen if one of them died. Did the other die too?

But what worried her most about their joining failsafe was that it meant they couldn’t kill one another in the final battle. If the final three were she, Will, and Jake, then Jake would have to kill one of them to end the game. Not an acceptable alternative.

She had to trust Will to come up with something, but whenever she quizzed Will about his plan he refused to tell her, although he swore he was working on one.

Alex Warren’s smiling face appeared on TV. “And now in political news, Senator Phillip Warren’s son is back on the campaign trail.”

Will looked up from his laptop. “What the hell?”

Turning up the sound, Emma scooted next to Will.

“The younger Warren has several stops planned in the Midwest. Alex Warren will attend a function in Cincinnati tomorrow morning and then move to St. Louis for a fundraiser dinner tomorrow night.”

Leaning over the keyboard, Will’s mouth pursed. “We’re going to St. Louis.”

“
What
?”

“Alex has the book and we need it.”

“Will, there’s nothing in the book.”

Will kept his eyes on the computer screen. “There wasn’t the last time we looked, but there might be today. That thing changes to reflect the most current rules and we need it.”

“Will—”

His head jerked up, his eyes hard. “You said you wanted a plan. Do you still want one?”

She did, but his tone suggested otherwise. “Yes.”

“The first part of our plan is to go to St. Louis, steal the book, and kill Alex.”

The blood rushed to her feet, leaving her light headed. “Kill Alex?”

“We should have done it the morning he found us in California. It would save us this aggravation.”

“I don’t know if I can kill him.”

“Then
I’ll
kill him, but we need the experience of fighting him. I still think he’s the weakest so he’ll be good practice.” He typed on the laptop keyboard. “It’s a fifteen-hour drive and the political dinner is at seven. It’s almost three o’clock now. We have plenty of time if we drive straight through and it’ll give us a chance to check out the hotel.”

She stood up, lifting her hand to her forehead. “You’re serious?”

His eyes were cold and calculated. “You really thought I wasn’t?”

This Will scared her. She’d seen a glimpse of him in Colorado when the Cavallo had sent men to kill her while they hid in the cabin in the woods. But he did this for her and the baby and for Jake. That had to mean something, didn’t it? And in the end, Alex would try to kill them too.

But wasn’t most evil birthed from justification?

This was a game with only two winners and it was inevitable that Emma would bloody her hands. She’d never do it to save herself, and she wasn’t sure she’d even do it for the baby. Emma felt a mixture of horror and self-recrimination about that, but there were only two people who could compel her to throw herself into the mire of perversion. She knew less than a week ago that she’d lose her soul in the process of saving them. But it was one thing to know it was coming and another to actually do it.

“So do you want to leave now?”

“I need to do some research first.”

She flipped channels hoping to find something to take her mind off the situation, but only came across soap operas and talk shows. Closing her eyes in frustration, she reached out to Jake, surprised that she actually felt something when she concentrated. He was worried and scared.

“Okay, I think I have something.”

Will jolted her back to the present.

“When we get to St. Louis, we’ll canvass the area where he’s staying. His schedule shows that he’s spending the night at the Crescent Hotel, although from what I’ve gathered, schedule changes on the campaign trail aren’t that uncommon. That means we’ll have to keep a close eye on his itinerary. In a perfect world, we’d draw him away from the city, but I don’t see how that’s going to happen since he’s back in the public eye.”