7. Chapter Seven #2
I also knew…that no matter what, I couldn’t let this opportunity slide. It wasn’t like I could suggest we talk somewhere else, somewhere private, later. Not when privacy was increasingly becoming a concept that only existed for me in my past.
“I’m willing to take that chance,” I said. “If you are.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
Was I?
Xander had me on lockdown for a reason. He wanted to keep me safe. And I had no doubt he had Connor on a leash. Yeah, Connor might make me “fucking regret” this conversation if he found out about it, but it wasn’t like he’d kill me. If they wanted me dead, I’d already be dead.
And what was Xander going to do? Kick me out? If he wanted me out, I would be out already.
Anything that wasn’t death or expulsion, I could handle.
They need you as much as you need them, I thought. No, I knew.
But why? That was the question. And the answer? That had to have something to do with the Lifewell.
“Tuesday, are you sure sure?” Lena asked.
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” I told her, surprised that my chest wasn’t literally swelling with hope.
I’m going to find out, Momma. Whatever you wanted me to find out. I’m going to find out for you.
“So, the Sovereign Vitae control the Seven Forces of Life, right?” Lena said.
I nodded politely while my every cell screamed, Tell me something you haven’t already told me!
“So the Lifewell is…well…” Every time she said the word “Lifewell,” she dropped to a barely audible whisper and glanced around. “You may already know this since you know about the Lifewell… It’s sort of a fountain?”
I had never in my life wanted to pop a bitch in the mouth so badly.
She was really going to give me the same bullshit Malcolm had?
“Let me guess. A fountain of energy?” I asked, gritting my teeth on every word. “And it’s under Whispering Ivy, and it’s dried up?”
God, she better be glad my window was boarded up, or I just might—
“I mean, if you’d call the Seven Forces of Life energy.
” She paused for air quotes around the last word.
“But no, the fountain…and I don’t know that it’s a fountain in the way we picture a fountain, but that’s as close of a description as I’ve come upon…
is very much not dried up. Supposedly. It’s sealed by the Vitae Sovereigns. ”
I exhaled, sitting back.
“Sealed,” I repeated, more to myself than her.
She nodded. “Because it contains the Seven Forces of Life within.”
Make it make sense.
I reached up and rubbed my temples, which had the first teasings of a migraine contained within.
Was Lena bullshitting me like Malcolm had done? Or was there actually truth buried in Malcolm’s bullshit?
“The Vitae Sovereigns want to retain control of the Seven Forces of Life instead of letting them flow freely, so they sealed the source away in what we know as the Lifewell so that they could mete out Abundance, Passion, Appreciation, Appetite, Rejuvenation, Dignity, and Indignation as they see fit.”
Was it my overactive imagination, or did she sound a bit like she was talking about her older sisters, who wouldn’t let her raid their closets with reckless abandon?
“And you said all of those…Forces of Life…are supposedly heightened here because…the Lifewell is underneath Whispering Ivy?” I asked. “So, it’s a proximity thing.”
“Supposedly.”
But what the hell did any of this have to do with me or my mom? I couldn’t ask her that, but there was something I could ask her.
“Okay, so Appreciation, Appetite… It’s all heightened here,” I said. “But…I’m not crazy that Passion is heightened above and beyond all the rest, right?”
She laughed. “For me, no, but your Passion problems might have a bit to do with the stud down the hall.”
She heaved a sigh. Tugging a strand of her red curls, she glanced around my room.
“Tuesday, this place is really the worst,” she said slowly, “and Connor may be hot AF, but he seems to be the worst, too. Do you want to live here?”
I shook my head. “I enrolled a week late. This was the only option.”
She gathered her things and stood. “Well, it isn’t anymore. I have a double and no roommate. Do you want to move in with me?”
My eyes welled with tears at being handed the ultimate Get Out of Jail Free card. And the tears spilled over when I realized Xander would never let me.
I wiped them away, pretending that I was scratching my cheek.
“You’d be just as safe with me as you are here. I could walk you everywhere. I may not be a big, hulking dude, but there’s safety in numbers,” she pointed out.
“I’d love to,” I said. “I’ll have to ask Dean Bennett, but—”
“Or,” she said, lifting an eyebrow, “you could skip that step and do the whole ‘ask for forgiveness later instead of permission now’ thing.”
God, I wanted to. Every cell in my body screamed at me to say yes.
Though I couldn’t trust anyone—and this thing with Lena could still all be a setup somehow, giving me enough rope to hang myself—I would much rather live with her than with the testosterone trio.
I glanced around. This room felt more like a tomb.
“I—” I snapped my teeth together, slicing off the rest of my sentence.
Footsteps.
Slow. Purposeful. Taunting.
The sound of a decision already made.
My stomach twisted, but I knew before I even looked.
Connor.
Of course.
He leaned in the doorway, his dark hair mussed, bare-chested, in a pair of low-slung gray sweatpants.
“All right,” he said, his voice oozing boredom. “Play date is over, ladies. Lena, I’ll see you out.”
Like he was my damn father.
I sprang to my feet and marched towards him. “Uh, you do not get to tell my company when—”
“It’s okay, Tuesday,” Lena said quickly, the shift in her voice subtle, but there. She felt it too—the cold fingers of control wrapping around this room, the drain of our feminine power. “I need to go anyway. I have a dorm room to clean. Just in case.”
She winked at me, but there was something behind it—something almost apologetic. Like she wasn’t sure if she’d just invited me into freedom or if she’d just signed my death warrant.
She stepped past Connor, and he didn’t even look at her. Didn’t move. Didn’t acknowledge her presence at all.
Just stayed right where he was, his body blocking the doorway, watching me.
I started after her, but he braced his hand on the frame.
Not holding me back.
Not physically stopping me.
Just reminding me I had nowhere to go.
Like a lock on a cage door.