Chapter Twenty-Four Aria
Chapter Twenty-Four
Aria
Relief blew through me on a gale force as I hugged Dani to me.
Fiercely.
So fiercely I thought I would break her in half. My tiny slip of a friend who was alive and breathing in my arms.
Whole and real and unharmed.
“Oh God, I was so worried.” It poured out of me as I struggled to get her closer.
Relishing the slosh of the blood that beat through her veins.
Her cropped, short hair, which was normally a shock of white in Tearsith and Faydor, was dyed a bright pink, and the ends stuck up and poked me in the face. I had to suppress the urge to weep into them.
“Aria?” Dani wheezed into my embrace, squeezing me back just as tight. “You came? I can’t believe this. I didn’t think to hope . . .”
Clutching her, I breathed out the terror I’d been holding in since I woke this morning. “I thought I was going to be too late. We tried to call, but it just kept ringing. I was so afraid.”
“What do you mean, ‘too late’? What is going on?” Except I thought she must have anticipated it, with the chill I felt sweep through her.
Or maybe all of us could feel the threat that loomed. Dark clouds that churned and spun. But I swore I could feel the tiniest speck of light in the center of the storm.
Hidden and trying to burst free.
I gathered myself enough to pull back so I could look down at my friend’s cherubic face. She had a giant scar slashed at an angle across the left side of her forehead, wore wire-rimmed glasses, and had her makeup done in a way that made her look like she might be a professional.
She was stunning and beautiful, and God . . .
Emotion gripped me, and I grabbed her by the cheeks, unable to stop myself from touching her.
Needing to feel the palpable, undeniable truth that we’d made it on time.
“I saw you . . .” My words were thick. “In Ambrose’s mind last night while I was in Faydor. He came here . . . to this house . . . in the middle of the day.”
Her pallid skin, which was covered in nearly as many tattoos as Pax’s, blanched further, and she nodded in understanding. “I guess he’s coming for all of us, isn’t he? We all know something has changed, even though I’d hoped somehow, in the middle of it, we’d all be safe.”
She breathed out a shaky sigh. “I’ve kept my doors triple-locked and the alarm on day and night. I wasn’t about to come outside. I nearly lost it when I heard the banging on my door, thinking it was the end. That I was trapped. But then I heard your voice, and I peeked out . . .”
Her tongue stroked out to wet her lips. “For a second, I thought I must be being deceived into thinking it was you. But it is . . . You’re here.”
“I’m here.”
“Ah . . . I see how it is. Already forgetting about me.” Pax’s voice was close to teasing, and I let her go and shifted around to look at him at the same time that Dani pushed out a tinkling laugh. Her gray eyes washed over him where he stood at the top of the steps, keeping guard.
They stared at each other for a beat.
Affection and disbelief clear.
For so long, each of us had been on our own. Never thinking we would meet another of our kind.
Forbidden to even think about it.
Isolated and alone.
And here we were, standing out in the light of day.
Together.
A moment later, a smirk hitched the edge of her mouth. “God, Pax, you’re freaking terrifying. What are you trying to do, scare people out of listening to the voices in their heads?”
He was still foreboding in Tearsith and Faydor, but none of his tattoos or scars were visible there. I’d been struck by his intensity the first time I’d seen him, too.
I choked on a laugh, and Pax scuffed out a chuckle as he roughed a tattooed hand through that shock of white hair.
“Flattered.” Sarcasm rolled off his tongue.
She widened appraising eyes. “You should be. Because you, my friend, are handsome as hell. No wonder our Aria here would shake in her boots every time you walked into Tearsith.”
“I wasn’t that obvious,” I defended myself. There was no stopping the smile that played across my mouth. The joy I felt at being here, at seeing her face in the waking world for the first time.
Dani sent me a withering look, mischief lining her voice.
“Oh, please. It was written all over you both. I’m surprised we didn’t catch you trying to sneak off past the boundaries or behind a tree, your pants down for all to see.
The number of times I’ve had to skip over and intervene before anyone else noticed Aria getting all hot and bothered was kind of ridiculous. ”
Softness flooded her as her gaze drifted between us. “But I’m glad to know we don’t have to do that anymore.” Lines furrowed her brow as the severity came rushing back. “Do you really believe it? That we’re safer together?”
She scanned the area as if she were searching for the danger that swelled in the distance.
“We think so . . . or at least, as Nols, we’re stronger together.”
“I can’t believe this.”
Wonder and confusion filled her spirit.
The things we’d been taught.
Commanded.
No doubt, it was hard for her to wrap her head around the changes. Unquestionably, it applied to all of us. The revealing of much that had been hidden. Truths that had been secreted and concealed.
But I also knew that meant there were complexities that only brought us more confusion from the lack of answers.
It was as if a crack had been made in the well that contained all that we knew. Uncertainties and doubts leaking out with the new freedoms we were discovering.
Freedoms we’d barely found.
Freedoms we had to stop from being stripped away.
The low hum of an engine echoed up the street, and everyone froze as we turned to watch a pickup truck pass.
A sharp edge cut into the mood, each of us wary of everything and everyone.
A collective sigh rippled out of us when it didn’t slow and drove by without incident.
“We should go inside,” Pax suggested.
“Oh my gosh, yes, come in.” Dani jumped into action, and she widened the door and gestured for us to enter. She shut it as soon as we passed, hurrying to engage three big locks and plugging a code into an alarm-system keypad on the wall.
I took in her space while she did.
The house was small and cute. Chaotic and cluttered.
Kind of like Dani.
The living room was crammed with an oversize, plush cream-colored couch that was pushed up against the left wall, decorated with a slew of throw pillows in every color.
A black cat with a white spot between its eyes was curled up on the back cushion, and it only lifted its head to peek at us in annoyance before it went back to its nap.
There was a coffee table with a bunch of books scattered across the top, and white shelves boasting a gorgeous collection of hardbacks were situated on the wall opposite the couch. A flat-screen television was built into the middle of it, the glass surrounded by a white frame.
On the far side of the house was a round table that sat beneath the bright light that flooded in through the windows set into double French doors that overlooked the backyard.
It looked like the kitchen was to the left of it, and just before the wall that separated the kitchen was a hall to the left.
“Your phone not working?” Pax asked.
Dani huffed. “I’ve been so nervous that when my sweet girl Pixie”—she gestured to the cat snoozing on the back of the couch—“jumped up onto the counter behind me in the kitchen yesterday, I screamed and basically launched it into the air like I was about to be murdered, which apparently I was, since you two are standing here. It completely shattered the screen when it hit the floor. I emailed my mom and asked her to get me a new one because there was no chance I was going out there by myself.”
“That’s a good call,” Pax said.
“Apparently so.” She exhaled a heavy breath; then her eyes went wide again. “How about some tea?”
“Sure,” I said.
She moved through the living room and disappeared into the kitchen.
Cabinet doors started banging, and I could hear the clatter of dishes.
“You’ll have to forgive me. I don’t get a whole lot of company,” she called, almost sounding flustered. “Okay, let’s be real—I get none except for my parents.”
I glanced at Pax, who had set our bags by the door and now was peering back out at the front yard around the edge of the drape to make sure we were in the clear. Turning back around, I edged through the living area and followed Dani’s path to the kitchen.
It was tiny, but bright and airy. Gossamer curtains bracketed a window over the sink that also overlooked the backyard.
The cabinets were old and painted white, the floor checkered black-and-white tiles.
There was a little jut out of the countertop that created a bar, separating the kitchen and dining area, and two stools were placed on this side of it.
She was already digging into the pantry when I stepped in. “What kind of tea do you like?” she asked.
“What do you have?”
She blew out a laugh. “Pretty much every kind. My mom gets me tea for every birthday since she doesn’t know what else to do with me.”
She pulled out a wooden box and lifted the lid to reveal a bunch of slotted spots stuffed with different tea packets. “Pick your poison.”
“Earl Grey?”
“Living on the edge,” she said with a grin. She moved to the sink, filled a kettle, and placed it on the stove.
“That’s pretty much been my motto of late,” I said.
She bit down on the inside of her cheek as if she was trying to halt the vision of it, speared by the reality of what had been happening while Pax and I had been on the run.
Then she turned toward me, the slight frenzy she’d been riding shifting to reverence. She blinked with her big, vibrant eyes. So big they seemed to take up half of her waifish face as she stared at me where I hovered at the end of the bar.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered, the words hitching in warmth. “That you came here because you were worried about me. Aria, that seems . . . dangerous and imprudent. God, what were you thinking?”