Chapter 39
Thirty-Nine
Elodie
Dad knocks before his voice carries through my bedroom door. “How are you doing, sunshine?”
I snap out of my reverie and poke my head through the walk-in closet’s doorway so he’ll hear me better. “Okay. Just—just looking over those papers from school.”
“Don’t work yourself too hard. Do you think you’ll be up to eating dinner in an hour or so?”
The last thing I’m interested in right now is food, but I can’t tell him what’s actually on my mind. And I don’t want to worry him. “Sure! Sounds good.”
Thinking well does require fuel, after all.
He’s probably glad that I’m no longer wallowing in bed, even if he doesn’t know what I’m really doing. Even if he doesn’t know why I was wallowing in the first place.
I scoot back to the spot where I laid out my objects of interest on the smooth floorboards. Leaning against the frame next to a rack of Other Elodie’s dresses, I consider the tablet with her notes and photos, my own photos on her phone, and the list I’ve scrawled of my discoveries so far.
My pulse kicks up a notch with a vigor I hadn’t known I could still feel. Not until Cole first jolted it into gear with his parting comments this afternoon.
“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, was at the 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.
We know you’d never leave us on purpose. We can handle whatever we have to. You just worry about keeping yourself alive and well, Precious. That’s what matters most.
Fresh tears prick at my eyes. They will handle it, won’t they? It’ll be a lot easier without an outcast match dragging them down.
Byron might reconcile with his family. Salvatore might too, on his own terms now that he’s proven he can survive without them.
And Cole won’t have the living reminder of his brother’s death shoved in his face every day anymore.
The words my former professor might say wrap around me next, gruff and intent. I don’t regret the years I had with you. I won’t. So don’t you go regretting them either.
Would he say that if he knew just how much I have to regret?
But he won’t know. None of them will ever find out what my glim really was and how much I destroyed with it.
Is it sick that I’m a little bit relieved by that fact?
There’s nothing wrong with being a little psycho, a chroí, Salvatore pipes up, striking an aggressive pose. You know I’d rain down a whole lot of insanity on all the fuckers there if I could, right?
I swipe at my eyes, a bittersweet smile tugging at the corners of my lips. Of course I do.
My imaginary version of him softens and teases his fingers down the side of my face. And you know how much I love you. That’s never going to change.
It will, though. The feelings will fade in my absence. Have their marks faded too, or did that only happen to me because other versions of them existed here to interfere with my original connections?
Will fate grant the men I love new matches? Or will they simply find other women who spark other kinds of joy in them without any magical intervention?
The thought twists the dagger deeper, but I can’t protest. I don’t want them to be alone, no matter how alone I am.
Be happy, I call out to them with my last burst of mental energy. Move on. Don’t lose any more than you already have waiting for me.
That’s the most loving gift I can give them now, if they heard or felt any scrap of my message.
I inhale shakily and wipe my cheeks again.
Maybe my life isn’t totally over. Maybe Daphne is wrong.
I spent years scouring every book on mythology and paranormal phenomena in my reach, obsessing over any bit of lore that might help me control—or eradicate—my glim. I could switch my focus to cross-dimensional travel. Dig up every shred of possibility I can.
The memory of my aunt’s wrenchingly apologetic face comes back to me, and I shove it away. She might have missed something.
But I have a more immediate problem to tackle if I want to do my digging without fending off lurking murderers at the same time.
Squaring my shoulders, I return to my notes.
The conversation with my matches might have been nothing more than a self-imposed illusion, but both my mind and my chest feel lighter. As I pick up my pen, the details of the course I started to envision race together with exhilarating force.
Yes. And then… Oh, that’ll draw them out.
A sharper smile crosses my face with a sense of triumph that’s tart but satisfying.
I didn’t expect Other Elodie’s problems to be so complicated… but her enemy could never have anticipated just how prepared I am for a deadly struggle.
No more wandering and waiting around. Our next confrontation will be on my terms.
And when it’s over, they’ll regret ever coming for me.