Missed Fortunes: Crosses 6

Twinned
Book 2: Missed Fortunes

Crosses 6

[ Previous | First | Next ]

Kit’s waiting outside the building when Carolyn arrives for their lunch session with Pawel. There’s a faint sheen on his forehead, as if he’s run across campus to get there. “Lab sucked,” he says, holding open the door for her.

“Sucked because things went wrong, or it was just a struggle to get out on time?” Carolyn asks. The crowds are gone, fled into classrooms in time for noon, while Kit and Carolyn have been struggling to get to Pawel’s promptly on Wednesdays. She can smell Chinese food from somewhere, and she hopes that’s their lunch. Her stomach whines.

“It was a longer lab than we had time for, the slides were murky, and my partner is an idiot.” Kit wears an unhappy scowl. “He doesn’t like to wait and pay attention to anything, which means we did one part of the lab three times before we could get it right.”

“Can you switch partners?”

“Probably not.” Kit pauses, his hand where the knob for Pawel’s door should be. It’s slightly open, voices coming from the inside.

“Is your family all right?” Pawel asks.

“Mom is.” Drea’s voice, thin and tight. “Dad’s… he’s Dad. I’m not sure he’s ever going to be exactly all right again. He’s been off-balance since Orson died.”

Carolyn nudges the door open, steps past Kit. “Drea?”

Pawel blinks at them, a cardboard take-out pint in his hand, chopsticks sticking out. “Come on in, grab food. We might not get much done today. Did you find partners?” He holds up one hand before they can answer. “Yes/no question, no details needed yet.”

“Yes,” Carolyn and Kit say in tandem.

“Good.” Pawel motions to Drea and Alaric, who stand tight together, Alaric’s arm around his sister’s shoulder. “Go on.”

“He was as good as feral,” Alaric says quietly, voice rough. “Our mother had to forcibly call him back from the wolf. He’s been spending more and more time as the wolf in particular; this is not behavior for Clan as young as he is.”

“And usually when Clan get old, they don’t get dangerous. Dad’s hallucinating,” Drea says flatly. “There wasn’t any sign of someone being there. Mom said the place smelled like dust and death, same as always. He claimed that someone had been there. If there was, I don’t know how they got in or out, and they didn’t leave enough of a scent for mom to detect.”

“The place reeks,” Alaric mutters. “She might not have noticed.”

“You have a point.”

Kit nudges the door closed, pushes the one free chair to Carolyn before finding a place where he can lean against a bookcase. Carolyn shakes her head, ignoring the chair.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Dad smelled magic and an intruder in this old abandoned house on our property,” Drea explains, hands moving as she speaks. “Mom said it was the middle of the night and he woke up from a sound sleep, turned into a wolf before he was out of the bed, and raced off. She followed him, but by the time she got there, he was alone, tearing the place apart with his teeth.”

“It’s the old Berman place,” Alaric says, which means nothing to Carolyn. She looks to Kit, who looks back at her and shrugs his confusion. “It’s where we took the shadow we caught. So he could interrogate it, and it’s where he lost it.”

“Oh.”

“The family that owned it disappeared years ago,” Drea adds. She rubs at her skin, as if she’s trying to scratch something off. “It does stink like death and decay.”

“The shadow loved it,” Pawel murmurs, writing something down. “But then, it is a death stalker.”

“Dad thought maybe it came back,” Drea says quietly. “Mom thinks he’s losing his mind. I think she’s afraid she’s going to lose him to the wolf.”

“He’s a wolf,” Carolyn echoes softly. Because she remembers the teeth, the sheer anger. She could imagine it ripping through the countertop, pulling up floorboards to get to her. She could easily imagine it tearing an entire house apart after she disappeared. She looks at the palms of her hand, the almost invisible remnants of scrapes still there. “I had this really weird dream about a wolf the other night?”

Pawel’s gaze snaps to her. “You did?” He gestures at the chair, and when she doesn’t sit, he points again. “Tell me about it.”

She’s aware of their eyes on her, aware that she never mentioned this to Drea or Kit, who probably both wonder why she kept it to herself. But it was easier to forget it, put it aside and let it go. Heather and Nikita are already too interested in it as it is.

“I’d had a rough night—the cards weren’t really working for me.” She doesn’t look at Kit for that. “So the cards were on my mind when I went to sleep. I was frustrated and confused, and I knew I still needed to get my work done for this project, so that’s why it was right there for the dream. And it started out with the Tower crumbling.”

“The Tarot card,” Pawel murmurs, writing something down.

Carolyn nods. “The card, yeah. And I was falling, then I caught a deck of cards, and I pulled one out, and it was the Wheel of Fortune, and I ended up on a Ferris Wheel. And when I thought that was going to break apart, I pulled another card, and I ended up in this old abandoned farmhouse.” Her stomach rumbles, but she ignores the bag of food waiting for them to dig in. “I was looking around and it was creepy. Snowing outside, wind whistling, cold. I heard a wolf howling, and I wanted to get away. I was terrified, and I couldn’t go anywhere, and I was panicking. So I went back and pulled another card and it wasn’t a Tarot card at all. It was a picture of my room back in PHU. Which is when the wolf—and it was a giant wolf—burst through the door and came at me. I fell back, dropped the little bit of light I’d managed to conjure, and then it was like I fell through the card and fell off my bed and landed next to it on my hands and knees. I woke Heather up.”

“That’s a hell of a dream.” Pawel never stops writing, never looks up. But the others are all watching her. Staring at her.

Carolyn curls her fingers around the scrapes on her palm. “It was just a weird dream. A coincidence.”

“Mm.” Pawel looks over at Alaric and Drea. “Can I contact your mother? I’d like to talk to her about Theobald’s condition. I’m concerned that he’s been getting worse since he was in contact with the shadowwalker.”

Alaric’s watching Carolyn. She bites her lip; his nostrils flare and she looks away, crossing her arms.

“Yeah, you’ve got her number already, right?” Drea says. “She’s probably not going to be thrilled about talking to a Mage, but she’s worried about Dad, too. I can hear it in her voice. She’ll be more interested in him being sane than in worried about how magic’s going to corrupt her life.”

Pawel scratches notes furiously. Carolyn feels like she shouldn’t be here, but she can’t move since she hasn’t been dismissed yet. Even though her meeting hasn’t really begun, either.

“Heather? Thorne?” Pawel asks, pulling over another piece of paper to write on it.

“Yes,” Carolyn responds, Kit’s response slightly slower this time, as if he had to think about the answer.

“We’ll meet tomorrow.” Pawel nudges the bag of delivery closer to Carolyn and Kit. “Take the lunch. Go eat and get to your classes. I need to call Alia. Be prepared to go over the outline of the rituals you’ve prepared.” He pauses, stares at a point into the distance. “The outlines you’ve prepared for the rituals you’re considering,” he corrects himself. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. There’s plenty of time for your work.” He only gives them a moment before he waves at the door. “Go. Please.”

Kit grabs for the bag, hoists it and is out the door quickly. “There are tables and chairs in the lobby. We can eat there. You guys can join us.”

“You went there.” Alaric grips Carolyn’s hand, twists it to look at her palm. She tries to pull away and he lets her go. “Sorry.”

“It’s not possible,” Carolyn tells him, because no matter how she tries to twist it in her mind, it keeps coming up the same way. “It’s just not possible. I’m not a teleporter. I’ve never done anything like that before—not the dream, not the potential reality of it.”

She follows after Kit because she knows she needs to eat, and he has food. She’s not really hungry, and a part of her just wants to escape from Alaric’s scrutiny.

“You can eat with us,” Kit says. “Because I want to keep talking about this.”

“I don’t.” Carolyn’s voice is quiet, but she knows Drea hears her by the way Drea threads her arm through Carolyn’s and tucks in close.

“I know,” Drea whispers, leaning her head against Carolyn’s briefly. “But I think maybe we have to. Because of the shadows.”

They pull two couches close to one low table, then spread the food out. Kit glances at his watch, and Carolyn checks hers as well. They’ve got thirty minutes before Kit has to be halfway across campus and sitting in a lecture.

“I’ll be late. This is more important.” Kit squeezes her hand. “Okay?”

Alaric pulls paper plates out of the bag, along with chopsticks and forks. They all make their plates, and for a moment, they’re silent while eating. It gives Carolyn time to go over it all in her head, try to deal with the idea that if the dream was real, she might have gone to Drea’s home. “I’d know if I could see it,” she says slowly, gesturing with lo mein at the end of her chopsticks.

“That would be—”

“Difficult,” Drea cuts Alaric off. “It would be difficult, but not impossible. Right, Alaric?”

Alaric’s expression sours. He eats another bite of food before setting it aside. “Right,” he grumbles. “My family doesn’t like Mages. Which you know. And you’re a Mage, whether you think of yourself that way or not. You smell like it. You carry magic. Your predictive Talent is magic. And whatever you did to get yourself there in the first place was magic.”

“We’d need to make sure Mom kept Dad clear of the house,” Drea suggests.

“I’ll go with you,” Kit offers. “As long as it’s not Saturday. I have a date.”

“SigPsiEp is sponsoring the Saturday movie,” Carolyn points out. “So Drea and I couldn’t go then, either.”

“It’s not far, we could do a day trip on Sunday. If you think you’ll be up early enough,” Drea suggests. “We just need a car, and Alaric and I don’t have one. And Chris’s car isn’t big enough to get us all there.”

“I’ll ask Dax if he can borrow his mom’s van,” Alaric offers. “That’ll fit all four of us, plus Dax, no problem.”

“So we’re talking about bringing three Mages onto the property,” Drea muses.

Alaric huffs, jaw set. “And I’m going to distract him while you and Mom go out to the house with them,” he says, voice tight. “I’ve been talking to Dayton about our alliance. He’s not going to like anything I have to say, so he’ll spend the whole time yelling at me. I have a proposal from Trey and Joseph that should take an hour at least before he’s calmed down enough to be reasonable. That’s not even going into what Aly and Devon want to do.”

Carolyn’s phone dings, and she pulls it out on autopilot, touching the screen to open her email. She expects it to be something from the house, about the movie or another event. Or maybe something from a class.

She doesn’t expect to see the name Shawn Benedict.

She pauses, her thumb over the message, breath tight in her chest.

“What?” Alaric asks. “You’re panicking. No one’s going to let Theobald hurt you. He’s an ass, but I’ll keep him busy.”

“He’s our father, and he’s not that bad,” Drea says. “Or maybe he is, but we can keep him under control if Mom helps.”

“It’s not that.” Carolyn tilts the phone so Kit can see the name. He inhales roughly, and she touches the message to open it.

Caro—

Hey. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Sometimes it seems like we just graduated, other times it seems like a lifetime since we were sixteen. In a strange way, I miss those years, but I know I was an idiot then, so I’m sure you don’t miss that me.

I’m sorry. I said that a lot then, and I don’t know if I meant it at the time, but I do now. I was an asshole. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty.

I don’t know if you’ve heard from Delilah recently, but she’s seen some weird things happen, and so have I, and we were talking and your name came up. It looks like PHU is only a few hours drive after I pick her up, so we were thinking we could come out next week to talk to you.

Because I’m pretty sure you’re the only one besides us, and Samson, who’d have any chance at figuring out what’s going on.

Delilah says she’s sorry, too. I’m sure Samson would.

Tears spring to Carolyn’s eyes. She shaking, breath shuddering in her chest, and the screen blurs. She rubs at her eyes, takes the tissue that Drea offers, and tries to focus long enough to finish reading the message.

Delilah doesn’t have Tuesday afternoon classes, and I’m willing to skip mine, and my Wednesday morning class, so we can come out. It’s then or Thursday. I figured you wouldn’t want us to come out for a weekend.

Let me know what works for you.

—Shawn

Carolyn locks the phone by feel, drops it on the table and leans forward, elbows on her knees, head in her hands. Kit slides slower, his hand on her back in low circles as she gulps in breath, tears escaping in a ragged sob. When he tugs, she goes to him, curls in tight, presses her face against his shoulder as he continues to rub her back.

“What happened?” Drea asks, worry in her voice. “Is your family okay?”

“That was her ex,” Kit says flatly, and Carolyn closes her eyes.

“Relationships,” Alaric mutters.

Carolyn doesn’t want to see Shawn or Delilah. She doesn’t want to think about Samson. But after everything that’s happened in recent days, after all the upheaval, she has to wonder at the timing of his message. Because coincidence is one thing, but it’s all too possible that her dream and whatever Shawn wants have something to do with each other.

And no matter how much she’d like to see Shawn Benedict thrown from the Tower, she’s too kind to let someone hit the ground. She can’t refuse to help.

[ Previous | First | Next ]