Chapter 18 #3
He did listen to her, though a part of him warred with her command.
She could see that in his eyes and his stiff movements as he laid down.
Jessup and Ryan fastened the cuffs to the bedposts while she continued to distract Kade.
The moment he realized he was immobile, he struggled, bucking against the mattress.
If she could bring him back to the memory of being here, maybe she could bring him back to her.
She walked up to him, looking at his beautiful face now filled with rage. “Kade, you remember being here, don’t you? You remember me.”
He looked at her, and she saw a glimmer of recognition. His mouth curved up in a smile.
Yes. He remembers!
“You’re the bitch who went on a rampage at the preschool. Who killed four children with your orbs,” he snarled. His fingers stretched, itching to use his deadly magick on her.
She stumbled back at the rage burning in his eyes. “No, Kade. I’m Violet. I’m…” Her voice broke.
Mia braved his rage, coming close to him. “You have to remember me, Kade. I’m your sister, damn it. You’re my hero, that knight on a white steed I looked up to when I had no one else. You lied to me about our father’s death, but I know you did it to protect me, and it’s all right. It’s…”
He looked right at Mia. “Mother, how could you leave your daughter alone? Now? You cowardly bitch.”
Mia let out a small cry and moved back. “He’s never going to come back,” she said, her voice full of tears. “This is what he’s going to be like, skipping from one memory to another, and maybe he’ll stop on one of me, or you, but then he’ll be gone again, and—”
She burst into tears, and Ryan pulled her into his arms, awkwardly patting her back. Violet was too caught up in the possibility of what Mia had said to be bothered by the fact that Ryan had never comforted her like that.
She turned back to Kade. The cut on his forehead had crusted blood on it. “The memories are there.”
“Some of them,” Mia said through her sobs. “We don’t even know if the ones that matter are still in there!”
Gods, the woman was melodramatic. Violet tuned her out, watching Kade struggle to free himself. If the memories were there…was there a way to knit them back together? She wasn’t going to give up on him.
She sat on the edge of the bed, leaning close to his face.
“Kade, you had orders to kill me, but you didn’t.
I attacked you, and we wrestled in the mud.
And…you liked it.” She laughed, though it sounded hollow.
“And later, we kissed. That was the best kiss I’d ever experienced, and… ” Her voice broke.
She wouldn’t talk about their lovemaking with everyone standing around.
Her fingers trailed down the dip in his chin.
“Remember that kiss, Kade.” She put her mouth on his, closed her eyes, and prayed.
His mouth moved against hers. She felt the sharp bite of his teeth and jerked back so hard she nearly fell off the bed.
“You can’t keep me here forever,” he said to her, his upper lip lifted in a snarl. “They’ll send other Vegas. They know I’m here.”
He was in another memory, living in a fragment of a life full of danger, of death and killing people. She put her fingers to her lip and looked. Blood.
“That’s enough, Vee,” Jessup said. “This is beyond what we can deal with. Maybe we can find someone who—”
“No.” She turned to the group. “Nobody can reach him like someone he knows.”
“He thinks I’m our mother!” Mia said, clutching her stomach. “How am I going to reach him when he obviously hates her?”
“He thought I was someone else, too.” She checked her lip. Still bleeding. “But we’re in there, Mia. And how he feels about us is in there as well.”
Mia tugged on her hair. “You have the best chance of reaching him, Violet. He obviously has deep feelings toward you, opening up like he did, and yet, he bit you!”
Her hopelessness seeped into Violet. Be level-headed.
“He listens to me.” She turned back to him. “Kade!”
He turned to her, confusion in his eyes.
It hit her then. His deeply rooted fantasy about a woman ordering him around.
Not a memory that could be shattered because it wasn’t a memory, other than a little teasing, but a fantasy.
And he’d felt enough of a connection with her to tell her.
Tears filled her eyes. Hope. “I can reach him.”
“How?” Mia asked, clearly not feeling it.
Violet took all of them in. “You have to leave me alone with him.”
“No way,” Jessup said. “I know you, Vee. You’ll soften up and release him. And he’ll kill you. He won’t mean to, but he will.”
She glanced at Kade. “Last time he felt in his gut that killing me was wrong. And I feel in my gut that this is the only way I can reach him, pull him back.”
Ryan said, “She’s got the look again—”
“Yeah, I see it.” Jessup furrowed his brows at her. When she thought he would argue further, he said, “Whistle if you need help.”
She smiled, full of gratitude that he trusted her. “I will.”
Mia turned her heavy gaze to Kade. Tears glazed her cheeks, and her mouth turned down in a frown. She had lost her mother and her father at such a young age. She looked like that young girl again. “Please save my brother.”
“I will,” Violet said again. Then words floated into her mind: Or I’ll die trying.