Chapter Eleven Aria
Chapter Eleven
Aria
I shivered as I sat with two of the car’s vents pumping in my direction, trying to thaw what had gone cold inside me. It felt as if I’d been frozen from the inside out.
Seeing Peter murdered.
Remembering where I’d heard the name Ambrose before. That thread that had dangled in the periphery of my mind finally knitting into awareness.
But getting the confirmation that he had actually been married to Abigail was what had made me feel as if ice had formed around every organ inside me, a flood of bitter cold rushing from my spirit and spreading out to saturate every cell of my body.
A tremor rolled through me, and Pax turned his vent my way, too. Concern radiated from him as he put the car in reverse, then pulled back out onto the road.
“How is it possible?” I blinked as he made a right. “He was born in 1863. This is beyond—”
I clipped off, not able to process it, let alone voice it.
Pax looked through his side mirror as he hit the freeway before he glanced my way. Apprehension scored deep grooves into his forehead. “So, what, this fucker is immortal?”
His jaw clenched when he said it, and his tattooed hands covered with the vapor of Faydor flexed on the steering wheel.
Another shiver rolled through me at the thought. Uncertainty weaved a path through my senses. “He was born. You and I both saw him walking here, in the flesh. He has to be human.”
“A human who’s more than a hundred and fifty years old?” Speculation suffused the words. “A human who was able to drag you from Faydor and into a whole different plane? One none of us has ever known?”
Each instance he issued was like a stake being driven into the validity of Ambrose being human.
I tried to swallow around the unrest that quivered inside me. It had been hard enough trying to accept who I was. My fate. So many misunderstandings surrounding it.
And now it felt as if I was floundering through a brand-new world. A world in which all of us had been given a death sentence.
“And he told me he was the one who sent the Ghorl,” I added on a breathy wheeze, trying to piece together the clues we had.
A harsh puff of air escaped Pax’s nose, and he roughed a hand through his shock of white hair.
“He took on the face of that little girl we thought was a Laven,” he started to reason.
“Maybe he’s taken on the face of Abigail’s husband.
Maybe he’s bred of Kreed, some kind of Kruen that we’ve never encountered before, and his taking on the identity of a human is the only way he can be here. Hell, maybe he is Kreed.”
I choked on the idea.
We’d all be dead then. But ultimately, wasn’t he what we were up against?
Reaching across the center console, Pax curled a warm palm over the top of my thigh. “Fuck. Didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just throwing out ideas. Trying to figure out what the hell is going on here. We don’t have any proof of anything.”
Doubt furled out of me on a small laugh. “You can’t upset me more than I already am, and you know you can’t tiptoe around me. Figuring this out together is the only way we’re going to survive.”
I shifted to look at him fully, determination in my voice. “And I think confronting him head-on is the only way we’re going to get proof of what he is. The only way we’re going to be able to get answers. The only way we’re going to be able to stop him.”
A roll of dread left him on a heavy exhalation. “And what exactly are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we need to pick a spot and stay there for a little while. Let him come to us.”
“Aria . . .”
“I already told you I’m not running this time, Pax. I’m here to fight, no matter what that looks like.”
“It goes against every fiber of my being . . . thinking about putting you in the line of fire. You want to confront him, and the only thing I want to do is hide you from him.”
“I’m already in the crosshairs, and there’s no way to get out of them.
I just need to figure out how I’m going to fight my way through it.
I can’t sit around and allow something like what happened this morning to happen to any more of our Laven family.
You and I both know Nathan didn’t fall down those steps on his own, Pax, and we know William wasn’t responsible for OD’ing.
And then Peter . . . we had direct access to that Ghorl’s thoughts. We know.”
The question no longer lingered.
It was plucking us off, one by one.
“I have to do everything in my power to end this sooner, because if he continues, I’m not sure how many of us will have a later.”
It was late afternoon when we carried our bags up the stairs at a motel in a suburb of Indianapolis. The chill of Fort Wayne had followed us here, the winter in full force, the wind a blustery gale that cut all the way to the bone.
Darkness loomed on the horizon, ready to swallow the gray sky as the last vestiges of the sun melted away.
“Cold as fuck,” Pax grumbled as we came to stand in front of Room 251. This motel had a key card that slid into the lock, and it gave when he ran it through. The orange door drifted open to a room that was decent compared to some of the other places we’d stayed.
A king bed sat against the left wall, and a flat-screen was mounted on the opposite. A larger round table was beneath the window, and the dressing area and sink were situated on the far wall outside the bathroom.
The decor was a bit dated, but the room was clean.
“Movin’ up in the world.” Another grunt from Pax as he dropped his duffel to the floor before he slipped inside and did his routine check.
“All clear, Princess,” he said when he returned, and he swung the door open wide and grabbed his bag and took mine from me. He turned and dumped them both onto the foot of the bed.
I stepped inside and carefully turned the two locks on the door.
I may have wanted to draw Ambrose here, but I wanted to do it on my terms.
I just wasn’t entirely sure how to make that happen. It was like he was right there, dancing along the fringes, taunting and provoking. Lording over those he had under his control.
It was that control I needed to shatter.
The heater under the window pumped, and a tremor rolled through me as the cold clashed with the heat.
“It’s warm in here, at least,” Pax mumbled as he unzipped his duffel and pulled out his toiletry bag. He kept his attention down as he dug around, and there was something in his demeanor that was off.
Unsettled.
Not that we weren’t always on edge. But I could feel it. The strain that pulled right beneath the surface.
I’d felt it grow with every mile we’d traveled today.
“What’s wrong?” I asked his back, my chest stretching tight in worry.
It wasn’t as if there weren’t a million things that were wrong.
But this was new.
Something that had emerged in the aftermath of what we’d seen and learned earlier today.
Pax hesitated, clearly not wanting to let me in.
“If there’s something going on, you need to let me know. You can’t keep me in the dark. There’s enough of it already, isn’t there?”
On a sigh, Pax stopped riffling through his bag and his head drooped between his shoulders.
“About out of money. I’m going to have to hunt. Track down some fuckin’ monster who has plenty of it for all the wrong reasons and relieve him of it. That, and relieve the world of his burden.”
He stayed that way for the longest time before he slowly turned to me.
Ferocity fueled the lilt of his chin, white fire in the flames of his eyes, though there was the slightest smudge of guilt that underscored it. That part of him that believed he wasn’t good enough for me. That he was bad in some way. That he’d taint me.
“Then we go find him,” I told him.
Simply.
Because I also understood his calling. Why he did the things he did.
A gush of rejection puffed out of him, and he let go of a caustic laugh. “Absolutely fuckin’ not. There is no we to it.”
The words were shards, scorn directed at himself.
I lifted my own chin in challenge. “I thought you said we were in this together?”
In a flash, Pax crossed the room, and he had my face framed in his hands before I could process the movement.
“You think I would ever want to subject you to that, Aria? What you have to witness is bad enough—the barbarity both here and in Faydor. But for you to see it coming from my own hands?” His face pinched in disgust. “When it isn’t done to protect you? When it’s done out of my own selfishness?”
“Out of your own selfishness?” Disbelief gusted from my lungs.
“Do you think I don’t know why you really do it?
Do you think I don’t know this is another way that you protect the innocent?
That you’re giving your entire life to stopping the evils that run rampant in this world?
Both while awake and asleep? You think I would ever judge you? ”
He dropped his forehead to mine. “I can’t stand the thought of you seeing me like that, Aria. With bloodstained hands.”
My forehead shook against his, and I clutched on to him as I whispered, “All of our hands are bloodstained. In some way. You’re the one who told me that what is important right now is my survival . . . And if this is part of what it takes for that survival, then so be it.”
He tightened his hold on my face. “No, Aria. Not this. Please don’t ask it of me. Stay here and keep the doors locked. I hate leaving you, but it’s so much more dangerous out there than it is in here. I’m going to leave my gun on the table. Do not hesitate to use it. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
With that, he tore himself away, and he pulled his gun from where he had it tucked inside his jacket. Metal clanked against the wood as he set it down; then he pulled a large knife from his duffel and tucked that into its spot.
Anxiety rolled through me. The thought of him out there, on his own—every part of me rejected the idea of it. This misconception that he was supposed to take on more of the burden. That he had to protect me from the things he thought I shouldn’t be exposed to.
We should have long since passed that.
“Pax,” I said, trying to break through to him, but one second later, he stood in front of me again.
His hot hands burned on my cheeks as he begged, “Please, just stay here, Aria. Please.”
Then he moved around me and worked through the locks. He scanned the area before he looked back at me with some sort of apology written in his expression, then fully stepped out and let the door drift shut behind him.
Hurt blistered through me, and a puff of incredulity escaped my mouth.
I began to pace, fingers twining in agitation.
Was that what he thought? What our partnership meant? What our relationship meant? That he could keep me out of the parts he didn’t want me to see?
Only, I could see. Our connection was too great for his insecurities to shield it.
I didn’t need to close my eyes to feel it.
Because an hour later, a sense was there, infiltrating my spirit. A sense that swelled inside me on a rising tide. A warning that he was in trouble. It invaded my mind with visions of darkness. The darkness he’d just stepped into.