“Are you going to let them win?”
My fingers curl toward my palms with the urge to throw my fists at someone. The horrible, yawning hopelessness that came over me when Aunt Daphne admitted I’m stuck in this reality has caught fire, and the flames crackle through my veins.
It’s her fault, yes. But beyond anyone else, I should blame the prick who murdered my double and now is trying to murder me.
If that asshole hadn’t offed Other Elodie, Daphne would never have summoned me in the first place. Whoever they are, they ruined two lives with one slam of a car.
I lost everything I had because of them.
No way in Mictlan am I letting them get away with it.
My gaze skims over a photo of the alley by the dance club, another of the side of The Eclipse, my jotted names of potentially involved parties.
The recent poisoning attempt narrows things down quite a bit, doesn’t it?
Whoever slipped the toxin into my soup, however they managed it, wasatthe academy. Why would anyone who wasn’t supposed to be on the campus risk getting caught when they must know I’ve been roaming around at least one other place where it’d be easier to attack me?
It had to be a crime of opportunity. If the killer was going to be there anyway, the cafeteria is the perfect spot, because there are so many other people to blend in with, so many other potential suspects.
And the only people at Luminary who’ve figured into my investigations at all are Grady Tadros and his friends.
Maybe there’s some other secretive figure I haven’t even noticed yet. That’s fine. With the right trap, I’ll either prove Grady’s group is involved or eliminate them as suspects and move on to another gambit.
I know where to focus my attention instead of roving all over the city looking for clues. In that one way, the poisoning was a gift.
Pieces of a plan start to drift together in my head. Images swim up with it.
If I was working on this mission at home, my Salvatore would be cracking his knuckles with his fierce grin and asking, “Where do you need me?”
My Byron would be sorting through the evidence himself, trying to make sure I haven’t missed anything that could put me in more danger.
My Cole would be watching over my shoulder, his voice grim but firm. “If this is what you feel you’ve got to do… Just be smart about it.”
My throat closes up all over again. I gulp a breath and end up choking on a whimper.
Turning away from the materials of my investigation, I drop my face into my hands. Tears leak out, seeping between my fingers and across the skin where my bond mark once blazed.
I swipe my eyes against my sleeve and clasp my hands together. My thumb rubs over my now-empty palm, over and over, as if it can summon the lines of the mark back out of my skin.
I’ve held on this long by picturing the day Daphne would send me back to my matches. Without that… what comes after I catch my murderer, if I do?
What’ll happen to me? To the men I loved, never knowing how or why I disappeared?
I suck in the crisp, faintly jasmine-scented air of the bedroom that’s not really mine. With my exhalation, I gather all the ephemera I can reach from the rows of clothes and shoes, from the walls and floor, from the furniture beyond the doorway—from the whole damned house.
Squeezing my eyes tighter shut, I cast my mind out into the abyss I imagine exists beyond this world. The liminal space between realities that Daphne dragged me through to bring me here.
Somewhere out there, the matches I left behind still exist. They’ll go on existing, living, building a new future for themselves, even without me there.
Even if that knowledge is like a dagger digging into my gut.
I visualize each of their faces with the affection that would warm their expressions. Summon memories of the gentle touches and the fond words that kept me going through all the horrors I faced back home.
Then I project my inner voice as far and loud as I can in the closest thing to a direction I have.
I’m so sorry. I’ve been pulled so far away there doesn’t seem to be any way to come back. I miss you horribly. I’d do anything to get back to you. I just don’t know how.
I’m sure it’s only in my head just like the responses I imagined to my plotting, but I’d swear a ghost of a hand rests on my shoulder. Byron leans close, his low cool voice washing over me.
