Chapter 6
Cillian
We’re into the fourth song when Electra finally emerges from the hallway that connects the loft’s bedrooms to the open space living area.
The only reason I know where the hallway leads is because I once escorted Mrs. Murphy to her bed after she sprained her ankle during one of her first dance lessons. I quickly realized her ankle was fine, and that the old lady was looking for a different sort of care. One I wasn’t willing to give.
To avoid ruining my carefully hatched plan of easing myself into the Atlanteans’ world, I’d let her down kindly by telling her that I was seeing someone, but that I was flattered. Both lies. The attention of someone close to the Atlanteans didn’t flatter me; it disgusted me.
“Joining us?” I ask Electra as I lead Fiona, Lisa, and Calanthe in a grapevine sequence to the sound of a Latin tune.
“Nope.” She heads straight for the coffee machine and pours herself a mug.
Note to self: she doesn’t hate coffee.
Since Electra has bound her black hair into a ponytail, her runes are on full display. To think that most of the world believes them made of ink. When she turns, our eyes meet. I hold her stare, since nothing is shadier than averting one’s attention when caught.
She perches on one of the tan suede counter stools and watches, assessing me with those penetrating eyes of hers, tracking my footwork and the way I cue.
Her scrutiny feels uncomfortably intense, surgical almost. I reassure myself that, although she has the power to move things without touching them—like the rest of her kind—she doesn’t have the power to lift thoughts.
Tarian apparently does, though. He can do a great many things that others cannot. Save for Calanthe. From what I was told during my refresher course on all things Atlantean, the fabled mine gave Tarian’s fiancée more runes, and therefore more power than the others. I’m just not sure what they are.
“Come join us, Elle!” Lisa attempts to coax Electra off her seat, but the girl is as stubborn as Cash, the rescue Pitbull Mom gave me after Dad died.
God, how I loved that mutt. So loyal. So smart. Such a fighter. Even after Trenton ran him over with his truck, Cash had clung to life. The memory of his trembling, broken body makes my fingers itch with the need to sink a bullet inside my stepbrother’s skull.
Soon, the asshole would die. Soon, my best friend would be able to get her true revenge and rid the world of my evil stepbrother.
Calanthe suddenly bursts out laughing, which snaps my attention back to the here and now. She’s surprisingly easygoing and genuinely kind, which begs the question of why she’s engaged to a monster.
Because he’s rich?
Because he’s controlling like Trenton?
Because he’s a snake-charmer like Hudson?
“Where have you been hiding those moves, Fi?” Electra’s quip earns her a radiant smile and an exaggerated hip roll from Mrs. Murphy that results in a ragged inhale and a litany of blimeys.
She flattens her palm on the base of her spine. “I think I pulled me back.”
I stride toward her and seize her elbow, then lead her to the L-shaped sofa in the corner.
If I could let on that I’m aware of Atlantean powers, I’d ask why she didn’t get runes, yet clearly knows all they can do.
After all, she’s traveled to Atlantis. Told me that herself—leaving out the magical mine-part.
As I help her sit, I feel Electra’s gaze wander over me. What does she see in the light of day? A regrettable decision or a true candidate for her affection?
I slept poorly last night, trying to come up with a viable solution to keep her interested in me beyond the dinner date she’s agreed to.
Quinn swears it doesn’t take much to make someone fall for you—just well-timed attention and interest in the other’s life. According to her, what takes effort is keeping the love alive.
I wouldn’t know. All I’ve ever had were hookups.
After my front-row seat to what love did to Quinn and my mother, lasting attachments held no appeal for me. I’d choose death of the body over death of the heart any day.
A pair of toned legs in black leggings appears next to where I’m crouching.
I look up to find Electra standing over me, an ice pack in hand.
The sports buff in me can’t help noticing how toned she is.
The red-blooded male in me can’t help imagining how those legs would feel wrapped around my waist, bare and unrestrained.
“And this is why you’ll never find me on a dance floor,” Electra says, sliding the ice pack under Mrs. Murphy’s back. “It’s hazardous.”
I don’t miss how she lets her palms linger against Fiona’s skin, or how her eyes take on a preternatural glow. Before Electra can catch me eyeing her, I go back to observing her physique and her choice of attire—a cropped maroon sweatshirt that reveals a sliver of lean, tanned stomach.
Electra makes me think of Quinn’s clay statues—the ones that don’t reflect light but drink it in, leaving them with a velvety sheen.
Thinking of Quinn’s art hurls me back to a day I’d give anything to forget—the day Trenton Caruso used his wife’s artwork as projectiles after I told him I wanted out of the organization.
Only one statuette had been spared—the one in my camper representing two palms pressed in prayer. Every time I stare at it, I’m reminded of Quinn and the choice she made to stay and marry my stepbrother instead of escaping with me.
As I rise from my crouch, I press my glasses up the bridge of my nose. During special ops—back when I was still working for my stepfather—I’d wear contact lenses. I’m reluctant to use them at the moment, worried that Gael or Ines or another Atlantean will recognize me.
Glasses might not alter a person’s facial features, but they do change a face. More than that, Quinn says they make me look innocuous, like some overly passionate college professor.
“Is the danceathon over?” I think Electra is asking me, but her gaze is on Calanthe, who’s guzzling water from one of those large adult sippy cups people tote around the gym.
Hers is white and reads “Mrs. Hades.” I wonder if the printer misspelled it or if it’s some inside joke.
“Afraid so. I need to get down to the shop for a cooking class.” Lisa turns down the music. “Thank you, Cillian. It was great fun. We must absolutely do it again.” She winds an arm around Electra’s waist and pulls her in for a side-hug. “And I’ll make sure this one attends next time.”
“Keep dreaming, Lisa,” Electra says a beat before nodding to the door. “I’ll walk you out.”
I expected a chat, so I’m not surprised by her offer. “I’ll grab my stuff.”
My belongings amount to a gym bag with a cap, a hoodie, my keys, and a wallet containing a fake license and a complimentary gym membership in my alias.
I pull the cap on backward, swing the bag over my shoulder, and trail Electra to the locked stairway leading to Bloom’s Blooms’ back office.
Instead of heading into the shop, we head into the teaching kitchen, where Jeneva is setting up the ingredients for the lavender shortbread Lisa had me sample when I arrived earlier. It was oddly delicious, like eating a butter cookie in the middle of a field of wildflowers.
I stroke the countertops with longing. Although I’ve learned to make the most of my camp stove, nothing beats a professional kitchen.
“Oh, hey, Cillian! I was just about to text you. The girls were super hyped when I told them about my idea,” Jeneva gushes. “So it’s a go.”
Electra halts in her tracks, making me draw to an abrupt stop. “What’s a go?” she asks, fishing out a pair of sunglasses from the thigh pocket of her leggings.
“My best friend’s bachelorette party.”
“Hmm.” That’s all Electra does—hums—until we’ve passed through the doorway leading to the customer parking lot. And then she pivots and says in a tone so flat it could hammer down a nail, “I didn’t realize you took side gigs as an adult entertainer.”
“I don’t.”
The air is muggy from the incessant drizzle needling Boston since daybreak, not a speck of sunshine in sight, yet Electra has brought out the sunglasses. I figure it’s a habit, like vampires venturing out only after dark.
“Jen wants to hire me for a two-hour Zumba session.”
Electra crosses her arms, propping up her breasts, which ends up straining the small white block letters printed into the maroon cotton. I hadn’t taken the time to read it earlier, but one glance has the corner of my mouth lifting: “Bad Bookish Bitch.”
“You like reading?” I make sure to hit the right pitch to sound ignorant.
Not only do I know Electra Serran is a bookworm, but I also know the types of books she favors—romance.
To say it shocked me the day I was given this piece of information about my target would be an understatement.
I’d observed Electra for weeks at that point and never would have pegged her as a happily-ever-after seeker.
“What did we agree to last night?” she asks, not bothering to answer my question.
I look at her mouth. Here I thought she’d been wearing lipstick at the gala, but the light of day reveals her lips are naturally berry-stained.
“I help you convince Malachi you’re taken, in exchange for which you grant me a date at the time and place of my choosing.”
Her cheek twitches—and not with a smile. “I seriously caved to that demand?”
“You seriously caved.”
“I guess it could be worse. Did we discuss a strategy?”
The summer heat teases the sharp tang of citrus off her skin, sending it curling upward.
“You said we’d do it in the morning,” I say.
“Okay. All right. Fine. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Electra,” I say calmly, “everything is fine.”
“How are you so chill about this?”
“Because I’ve been trying to work up the courage to ask you out for weeks.”
She purses her lips, still unconvinced. Or so I think. “No kissing unless strictly necessary. No touching unless I initiate it. And if Malachi remains unconvinced, then our dinner date is canceled.”
“You control the script,” I say, dropping my bag on the hood of the Woody.
Although I’ve repaired and replaced everything in that car—from the battery to the radio to the windshield wipers—all Electra will see is its rusted bodywork and chipped faux wood. She won’t see how far it’s taken me or how safe it’s made me feel.
Once done evaluating my car, Electra starts on me, her gaze sweeping from my navy trucker hat to my prescription glasses to my high-tops.
Not for the first time, I kick myself for not taking a Sharpie to Quinn’s customization—at least to our initials. But the doodles on my shoes were the first thing she’d made after years of creative nothingness, and defacing them had felt sacrilegious.
Electra parts her mouth, probably to set down more ground rules, when the back door of Bloom’s Blooms swings wide and out steps the man of her dreams.
Though his gaze is shaded like hers, his lenses are so lightly tinted that I don’t miss the way his eyes shift from soft to harsh as they move from her to me.
For a split second, I consider the possibility that he took a shovel to my past and unearthed something about me. Something I took great care in covering up.
“Sorry I’m late,” he finally says. “Some people don’t know how to condense their thoughts.” Malachi tilts his head. “Is— What was your name again?”
“Cillian,” I reply, squaring my shoulders to appear intimidated, though the shit I’ve lived through beat that emotion out of me a long time ago.
“Is Cillian joining us on our run?” Malachi’s gaze moves over the chain poking out of my T-shirt, then over my high-tops.
He catalogs me like inventory, visibly finding each line item wanting. Good. That means he has no clue who I truly am.
“No. It’s just the two of us.” Electra berths her hand in mine, causing my palm to tingle and my breathing to glitch. “Unless you’ve invited others?”
“No.”
Her grip is unyielding, like some tactile form of lockjaw.
Is my father turning over in his grave at the sight of his only child holding hands with an Atlantean? His son, who never holds hands. Not with women who aren’t part of his family in any case.
The erratic thump of my heart deafens me to whatever Electra says next to Malachi.
The last time my fingers found themselves laced around another’s was on the night when death tried to claim Quinn.
I’d clutched her hand until her fever broke and her breathing evened out and heat kissed her icy skin.
I glance down at the fingers presently lodged in mine. The ones triggering my pulse. They’re slender, solid, tanned, hot. So hot that for a second, I think Electra must be pouring magic into me, but her runes and eyes don’t glow as is custom when the Atlanteans use their powers.
It’s one of the first facts they teach in the organization. For those of us born into it, we learn this before we learn to spell our names.
Electra pivots to face me. “Call me after class?”
My eyes dart to her lips that glisten with the faintest sheen of moisture, as though she’d licked them. Is she gearing up for a kiss?
The strain of anticipation tautens the tendons in my neck until I think they might snap if I so much as attempt to bow my head.
“Cillian?” Her lips move over my false name, stroking each syllable, each letter.
How would she make my real name sound? Like a secret or a curse?
The parking lot hums as we stand there, stare and fingers welded together. Her dark lenses do little to stifle the vibrancy of her irises—the brown one flashes like burnished copper, and the blue like translucent ice.
They make me think of her personality—a clash of soft and hard—as though in utero, her body couldn’t decide which way to lean.
As I map her face, a warm current licks my ribs, intensifying the noise around us.
I can hear the thud of car tires dipping into that pothole at the entrance of the lot, the clank of whisks brushing against the sides of bowls in the test kitchen, the pop of knuckles as Malachi says, “I’ll wait for you out front, Elle. ”
The instant he turns the corner, the electrifying weight of Electra’s hand and stare vanishes. I feel cold and drained, like an unplugged appliance.
She must have been using her magic. That’s the only explanation I can find for the abrupt dip. But how come it’s affecting me? Has my immunity to Atlantean compulsion weakened? Wasn’t our prenatal treatment supposed to be immutable?
She backs up. “Don’t catch feelings.”
That snaps me out of whatever trance she put me under.
“I make no promises,” I say, slipping back into character.
She stops backing up. “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
I pretend-frown, knowing full well what she meant by that. That if I do fall for her, she’ll compel me to stop or just resort to lobotomizing me.
Except she can’t make me do a damn thing.
Not that I’d ever fall for an Atlantean, no matter how pretty the monster’s mask.