The Rising King (19 page)

It’s been my experience that forcing Mom to do anything she doesn’t want to do doesn’t work. But she’s tipsy and I luck out. I touch Mom’s temple and tell her to rest. The next moment she’s sound asleep. I glare at Leo. “I said look for it, not tear through everything.”

“Yeah, ’cause looking for something that doesn’t exist is easy.”

“The magic exists.”

“Not in here. I used that spell and nothing. Not even a little bit of something.”

I say the spell I taught Leo and Mom moans, her face grows pinched, and her hand instantly goes to the necklace. I ease her hand away and slip the necklace off. It dangles from my fingers and the fading light hits the amber stone, filling the room with a golden glow. “It’s here.”

“That?” He looks unimpressed. “It’s not much.”

“It’s with her always, she said so herself, and Grandma gave it to her. Get this. I’m pretty sure she embedded Baun’s hair in it.”

“That’s not disturbing,” he says in a voice that clearly states otherwise.

“She was a teenager.” I don’t know why I’m making excuses for her now.

Leo’s smile stretches across his face. “Hey, we’ve got it.” He holds up his hand for a high five and I don’t disappoint him. “That means we can go.”

I put the necklace in my pocket and look at Mom. “We have it, but we’re not done. I can’t leave Mom here. I promised Grandma I’d bring her back.”

“Bro.” The surprise mixed with horror that one small word held had me cringing. Leo let out a soft, low whistle. “That is not a good promise. I don’t see her letting you do that.”

“No kidding.”

Criminal Minds

We rush to get the car packed. I still have no idea how I’m going to get Mom to come with us. Leo hauls the last of the bags down to the car and I pace back and forth, racking my brain for an idea. She won’t fall for the illusion again. Kera said once a person knows about the trick, it’s not reliable.

Out of ideas, the crazy notion I should just leave her back at that rathole I found her in pops into my head. Let her get chewed up by the promises that never materialize and the new influx of men who will use her then treat her like she’s yesterday’s leftovers.

The thought twists my gut. I look at her bedroom door and sigh. I can’t do that. She’s my mom. She’ll never win any mother-of-the-year awards. In fact, she has no maternal instincts that I’ve ever seen, but she’s all I’ve ever had in this life, and I can’t let her fade into the neon lights and do nothing to stop it.

Leo slams into the room, a huge grin on his face. “I know how to get her out of here.”

“How?”

“Did you know the private elevator goes all the way down to a subterranean parking lot?”

“I didn’t know you knew what ‘subterranean’ meant.”

“Bro, don’t get me started on the wonders of the creatures who live underground. They’re fascinating, and we haven’t even begun to realize the potential they pose for medical science.”

“Fascinating, really dude…” I say, but totally don’t mean it. “So they have a garage under this building?”

“Sweet, right? I just parked the car outside the elevator. Two steps and we’re in and on our way.”

I can’t believe our luck. “Why didn’t we know about this earlier?”

“The regular concierge is on vacation—” He suddenly stops, eyes narrow, head tilts to the side. “Where does a guy from Vegas go to vacay? I mean,
this
is party city. Anywhere else would seem dull.” He shakes his head and gets back on track. “Anyway, his fill-in didn’t think to inform us of the perk. He said most Woodies want to get their faces out there so he didn’t think the information was relevant.”

The compression on my chest eases. “Then we’re good to go?”

“Everything is neat and tidy and waiting for us.”

We’re ready. But then there’s Mom.

“She won’t play nice.” It’s a warning he probably already knows, but I feel the need to say it.

He rubs his shoulder where she lobbed the pineapple at him. “But this time we’re ready for her. Let’s do this.”

Now that we have the magic, he’s as anxious as I am to leave. I go into her room and shake her shoulder. She slowly blinks and stares up at me. “Dylan?” She rubs at her eyes, smearing her makeup, inadvertently creating the look of a strung-out crackhead. “What’s going on?”

“We’re leaving.” I swing her legs over the mattress, take her hands in mine, and pull her to her feet. Her footing is wobbly, but she manages to stay upright.

She puts her hand to her head and winces. “I’ve got a killer headache.”

“I can help with that.” Leo races to the bar and comes back with two aspirin and a shot of whiskey. I start to protest, but he bumps me out of the way and holds them out to her.

Mom’s not one to refuse a drink. She downs it along with the pills, and then hands the glass back. Her eyes are bloodshot, tiny slivers of their former selves, as she looks at me. “Where are we going?”

“Out.” I take her by the upper arm and steer her toward the door.

Leo runs ahead and has the elevator door open when we leave the room. She’s still half asleep, but she’s slowly waking up. She looks from my hand on her arm to me. “You can let go now.”

“I don’t think so.” When the doors close, I feel a sense of relief. We’re halfway there.

“Dylan.” She tries to yank away, but I won’t let her go. She tries to peel my fingers off one at a time and fails. The whine that follows grinds against my eardrums. “Let go. I mean it, Dylan. You and your creepy friend need to leave me alone.”

Leo looks at me all hurt. “I’m creepy? No one’s ever called me creepy before.”

“Ignore her. You’re fine. She’s just mad.”

“Damn right I’m mad.” She kicks out at my shins, but since she’s still in the pretty clothes and delicate sandals I gave her for our gambling excursion, all she does is hurt herself. She doubles over to grab her foot and looks up at me with tears in her eyes. “Look what you’ve done.”

I ignore her as the doors open to the garage level.

Leo moves out first to open the car door. I let my guard down for a half a second when I toss the keys to our room on the elevator floor. Mom jerks free. Screaming like her life is in danger, she rushes past the car. I give chase and snatch her up like a wrestler about to body-slam his opponent. I’m tempted to do it, too.

“Really?” I hiss in her ear as her arms and legs flail like a screaming I’m-your-biggest-fan at a Muse concert. She quickly becomes the biggest pain in my ass ever. It’s not easy, but I manage to toss her into the backseat and slam the door shut. When I look up, I see an older couple hovering near their car. The man is holding a cell phone, staring at us from across the garage.

Great. Leo’s got the Jeep going. I hop in, slam my hand on the dashboard, and yell, “Go, go, go!”

He peels out of the garage and onto the main casino drag. Mom tries to open the doors, but they won’t open. I yell at her to stay inside, that she’ll only hurt herself at the speed we’re going, but she doesn’t listen.

“Relax.” Leo looks at me. “I engaged the child lock feature before she got in.”

“Cool.” No magic required there.

I should’ve known she’s not a quitter. The next instant she grabs the back of Leo’s hair and pulls. He swerves to the left, then back to the right, almost colliding with another car. I toss the blanket we took from her ratty motel room over her, and knowing her aversion to the dark, it doesn’t take much time before she panics more from the blanket than trying to escape. When she’s able to toss off the blanket, I snarl, “You’re going to get us all killed if you do that again. Now settle down.”

“You’re kidnapping me!”

“I’m taking you home.”

“I don’t want to go, so that’s kidnapping. Don’t think I won’t fight you the whole way.”

I would be doing Grandma a favor if I left Mom in the middle of the desert barefoot and with no way out. But I can’t. If I don’t bring Mom home, Grandma will worry, and I’ll do anything to keep that from happening.

My frustration peaks and I let her have it. “For once in your sad, miserable, self-absorbed life, why don’t you think of someone else? Grandma loves you.” The words explode from my mouth. She presses her back into the seat like she’s trying to disappear into the cushion, but I don’t relent. “I know. It makes no sense, right? But she’s worried sick about you and if I have to drag you back by your hair so she can see you’re alive and well, I will.”

I turn around, and the car settles into a deep, uncomfortable quiet. Leo’s hands are glued to the steering wheel as he maneuvers through the evening traffic. The sun is going down, but there’s still plenty of light and plenty of Vegas we have to go through before we can claim success.

I breathe deeply and try to steady my furiously beating heart. No one pushes all my buttons the way Mom does.

After a few minutes I look back and see her hunched tightly against the door, her feet tucked close to her body, staring out the window as tears slowly roll down her cheeks. She slants a glance my way and quickly rubs her cheeks dry. I don’t look away like I usually do. I want her to know how disgusted I am with her.

She opens her mouth to say something, but then snaps it shut. Twice she does that before she finally says in a tiny defeated voice, “You think I never wanted to go home. I did. Every day. But there’s one thing I’ve learned. Once you massively screw up, it’s out there…forever. It hangs over your head for everyone to whisper about… That’s when I knew you can never go back.” She laughs, but it has the edge of hopelessness to it. She pushes her unruly curls away from her face and lets out a ragged sigh. “I’ve messed up so badly, even I don’t want to be around me. And you want me to subject my mother to that? I thought you loved her, because that’s why I’ve stayed away. I love her too much to show her how messed up I truly am.” She looks out the window again and says in a tight whisper, “Forgive me if I don’t thank you for this forced family reunion.”

I continue to stare at her, but all I see is someone who’s given up, and I don’t like it. My whole life, she fought for everything she got. Not a day went by that she wasn’t working. She poured herself into every job, and sadly, into every man she hoped was “the one” but never was. I kind of hate myself right now. I turn around and shoot a glance at Leo. He shakes his head and keeps driving. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing anymore. The choices I’m making seem right, but maybe they aren’t.

Traffic thins and we find ourselves out of Las Vegas and in the desert speeding toward the west. The sun blinds me, just as the music we’re listening to drowns my thoughts. It isn’t until Leo pulls into a run-down motel called the Shadow of Death Sun Lodge that I take an interest in anything. “Nice name. I can’t understand why business is so slow.” I push my sarcasm aside and ask seriously, “Why are we stopping?”

“You don’t drive, and I’m beat, bro. Some of us require sleep.”

Damn. I keep forgetting he’s human. “Right, sorry.” I stretch, feeling every muscle in my body protest. “Where are we?”

“Death Valley. It’s been a long, exciting day. One I don’t wish to repeat anytime soon.”

I look around at the motel and the surrounding barren twenty-shades-of-ugly-brown landscape. “Everything is dead. Why would anyone want to come out here?”

“It’s quiet. No lights. You can see forever. And at night, when you look up, all you see are stars. Why wouldn’t you want to come out here?”

Mom pops her head between us. “I’m sweating just sitting here. Do you think they have a Coke machine?”

Leo turns and looks at her like she’s crazy and points to the dilapidated motel. “The lodge isn’t open.”

“Well, shit,” she says and slumps back, resting her head on the seat rest. “We’ll die of heatstroke.”

“No, we won’t. It’s abandoned, but it’s still standing.” I get out and Mom bangs on the back door. I open it and let her out. “Don’t run off. This isn’t a place to play hide-and-seek.”

“Are you kidding?” She leans against the car and fans herself with an empty bag of chips. “This place has Bates Motel written all over it.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of you falling into an old abandoned well, but you have a point.”

I tell Leo to stay with Mom while I go check out the area, because even when she says she won’t go anywhere, I’m not stupid enough to believe her. There’s a bunch of tumbleweeds near the entrance I kick out of my way. Once I get within the inner courtyard, it’s not much better. There’s a dried-up swimming pool and a few broken lawn chairs around it. I force one of the rooms open and find it trashed. Doesn’t matter. In minutes I’ve got the place looking five-star awesome with luxury items and air-conditioning. I step outside and whistle through my teeth, calling Leo and Mom.

Mom saunters over and hovers at the door. “Is it structurally sound?”

“Who knows, but be my guest and sleep in the car.”

She snorts and steps in. Throwing herself on the couch is as far as she gets. “Where’s the TV? We have cable, don’t we?” She looks around for the remote and when she doesn’t find one she pouts. “No TV. That sucks. God, I need a cold beer. Get me one, will you?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

She blinks back at me, 100 percent not kidding. “What?”

I look around at the opulence I created out of a disaster. Does she think everyone can do this? I shake my head and mutter as I go to the car. “Just when I was starting to feel sorry for her. Not so much now.”

I reach Leo and help him with the bags. “She wants cable and a beer. We’re here for a few hours. Tops.”

“You know, there are dysfunctional families, and then there’s your family. You hit the parental jackpot, my man.”

“Right?”

I direct Leo to another room that’s pretty much the same as Mom’s room with one exception. There’s a TV.

“Cable?” Leo asks with a smile.

“Satellite.” I point to the dish outside.

He turns it on and clicks through the channels, stopping on an evening news broadcast. “Hey, look. I think that’s us.” He turns it up.

I stop what I’m doing and stand beside him. The broadcaster sounds grave. “Ms. Addison Kennedy, an up-and-coming star in the indie film industry, is seen here in this video being forced into a green Jeep by her kidnappers. If seen, the authorities are adamant they are not to be approached. These men are presumed armed and dangerous.”

A close-up of me and then Leo is shown. The quality is grainy, but you can definitely tell it’s us.

“If anyone has any knowledge of their whereabouts, please call the hotline number listed on the screen.”

“They really think she’s a film star?” That was one killer illusion I created.

“Did you not hear what they said?” Leo puts his hands to his head. His dark skin turns a sickly tan. “Bro, we’re wanted criminals!”