Rafe had offered hundreds of times to keep Willow and her mom safe, but what could he really do? Lauren and my father were connected. She wouldn’t leave him even if he was causing her harm. And Willow would never leave her mother. So that was that.
Not to mention Skye was a goddamn firecracker. My father was often delusional, but if he believed for one second he could control anything about Skye…
I shook my head as if that would rid my mind of the dark thoughts. Giving my father any amount of thought was a one-way ticket to anger and confusion.
I’d managed to walk the entirety of the beachfront during mywallowing. I paused in front of a little shell shop, eyeing some of the trinkets in the window. I hadn’t bought any in a while. And Rafe broke one in my office just a few weeks ago. Surely that meant I could get another to replace it?
A small trickle of awareness brushed up against my spine, and I paused for a moment, glancing around. No one was close to me, or even looking at me, but one of my ominous feelings was teasing at the edge of my stomach.
There was a Telepath nearby, a strong one, and it wasn’t Skye or Rafe. They didn’t give me this feeling of foreboding. This feeling was similar to what I’d felt at that protest with Rafe. But just like then, I couldn’t find the source.
What a waste of an affinity.
I turned back to the storefront, distracted by a polished clamshell. The inside was a beautiful, bright pearl finish that reminded me of Skye’s eyes. It wasn’t terribly expensive, and it came with a little stand. Just as I was fishing out my phone to take a look at my bank account, the door swung open, and out stepped my worst fucking nightmare.
Regina Wilson.
The woman responsible for the Gulf Capitol Massacre.
ThisGulf Capitol.
Whatthe fuckwas she doing here?
There wasno wayshe was here, in the islands, casually strolling down the beachfront with a few shopping bags.
For a moment, I tried to tell myself I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing. I was hallucinating somehow. Maybe I was back in my father’s office while he tried ‘testing’ me, spinning complex illusions meant to freak me out.
But no. There was a slight bite to the breeze today, the most of winter the islands would see, and it stung my cheek.
My father had never been able to mimic the weather in his illusions. That was what anchored me to reality.
I stared, dumbfounded.
Regina was smiling, and she wasn’t unattractive. Her bushy red hair was dimmed, having been dyed a more demure auburn, with her curls pulled into a poofy ponytail at the back of her head. She didn’t wearmuch makeup, her freckles on full display, but her piercing emerald-green eyes still stood out against her pale features.
She looked right at me, then her eyes flitted elsewhere.
She…
She…didn’t recognize me?
Zephyr wasn’t wrong. I looked just like my father.Howdid she not recognize me?
Andhow the fuckwas shehere?!
I glanced around quickly, trying to see if anyone else noticed her, but no one reacted. She brushed right past me, still with a smile. She was on the arm of an older man, with sharp features and piercing pale eyes. He looked at me for just a moment, his eyes assessing me slightly before she pulled his attention toward another shop.
They came to a stop in front of a décor shop, where he relaxed against the wall with his hands in his pockets while she slipped inside. The man didn’t glance at me again. He seemed familiar, somehow, but I couldn’t place him. Maybe he was one of those dickheads always at the galas Rafe used to drag me to?
I blinked several times, still not quite believing what I was seeing.
I knew Wilson was missing from Azore Penitentiary, Rafe had told me as much during first term. He’d been right to suspect she was behind the weather events, I realized.
Holy shit.
I reached for my pocket, fumbling for my phone so I could call him.
I needed him here,now.
