Chapter 17 #2
Every cell in my body stings with outrage now. “By doing what? Abandoning me in the human world?”
“She didn’t know for sure that your mother was pregnant, Elle,” Dorian grumbles.
“She could’ve checked a few months down the line, don’t you think?
I mean, it does take a whole nine months to make a baby.
” Although aware that only Tarian or the mine can end an Atlantean’s life, I can’t help but ask, “Was she hoping that the woman who gave birth to me would end up bleeding me to death?”
No one says anything.
I get to my feet, nails biting into my palms. “Why do you all keep protecting that woman?”
Before anyone can stop me, I’m streaking through the living room and into my kitchen.
“Elle, wait!” Mom calls out. “Come back. Sweetheart, wait.”
With magic, I fling my front door wide and punch the elevator’s call button. And then I put up a wall to keep her from charging after me.
“Electra!” My mother’s palms are lifted and pressing against my barrier.
Before she can tear through it with magic, I spin, fury roiling through me. “Why didn’t she check, Mom? Why?”
“She was eighteen, trying to make her marriage work. Besides, you know how humans are around influential, rich—”
“Stop making excuses for her. Stop protecting her!”
“Electra, honey…”
The force of my barrier bursts outward, blasting her bangs clear of her wet eyes.
“If she had suspicions, she should’ve checked. But I guess that would’ve required a conscience, and Ines is short on that.” I don’t cry, but oh, how I seethe…
The instant the elevator dings, I get in. When I reach the lobby, I turn my cell phone off and hand it to Jorge—Liz’s daytime replacement. “Ran out of juice. Can you keep it here until I come back?”
“Would you like me to charge it?” he asks.
“No.” And then I’m out the door and sprinting through the streets of Boston.
I’m not trying to run away from my present or outrun my past. I’m only trying to put order in my mind before I say or do anything that will cost me my family’s love.
I run—first aimlessly, then with purpose. An hour later, I’m standing at the reception desk of Cillian’s gym, asking the woman where I can find him.
“He’s not due in until two.”
“Call him,” I command her, my eyes aglow. “And pass me the phone.”
She does as I ask. Every dial tone feels like a gong marking the passage of time—and not in seconds but in years. When I get his voicemail, I almost crush the receptionist’s cell.
Would he have answered had my name lit up his screen? I suddenly regret having left my phone back in my building, but I hadn’t wanted my family to track me.
“Where’s the employee parking lot?” I ask.
“Take a right and then another right and you’ll see the entrance of a lot. It’s one floor down.”
“Forget you ever saw me.”
As I follow her directions, I wonder if it’s too much to hope for that he’s hanging out in his car. And then I wonder why Cillian’s the person I’m seeking out.
Because he’s not an Atlantean, my mind supplies before my heart can twist my impulse to find him into something else.
When I spot the faux-wood station wagon sticking halfway out of a parking spot, I assume I caught Cillian mid-departure. Until I realize the reason his car is parked so poorly—there’s a small camper behind it.
So this is where he sleeps… Here I pictured him unrolling a cot on the Volvo’s backseat.
I peer through the car’s windows only to find it empty, then circle to the door of the camper and knock. No one comes out. Since there are no windows to peer through, I try the handle. Locked.
Before I can let my moral compass intervene, I use magic to unlock the camper and step inside. The bed must be a pull-out, because the space contains only a tiny banquette, a screw-in table, and a door that leads to a pocket-sized bathroom with a showerhead over the toilet.
Guilt suddenly overwhelms me, and I backtrack. I might’ve unlocked the camper to see if Cillian was there, but exploring it is a clear invasion of privacy. I step out just as a sedan pulls into the spot beside the camper.
A hugely muscled man with a bald head unfolds himself from the diminutive vehicle—one of Cillian’s fellow coaches. What was his name again? Ah, yes…
Carlos looks me up and down, eyebrows arrowing low.
“I was looking for Cillian,” I tell him. Goddess knows why I don’t just wipe his mind like I did the last time we met. “You know where I could find him?”
He tilts his head to the side, as though a new angle might help him place me. “How’d you get into his camper?”
“He gave me a key.” I tap my pants pocket.
“You must be something special ’cause he never lets anyone inside. We have bets going with the other coaches that he’s hiding a dead body in there.”
“No dead bodies. Or live ones.”
“Huh. So, are you, like, his girlfriend?” Carlos asks at the same time I say, “Have any clue where I could find him?”
He shrugs. “Could’ve gone to someone’s house to ‘teach a private.’ The guy’s annoyingly popular with the ladies. Which—if you’re the girlfriend—is probably not something you wanted to hear.”
“Why did you air quote teach a private?”
He hefts up a brow. “Because I have two outside clients of my own, and they expect a little more when I stretch them.”
I go cold, like the heat got yanked out of me. Even though the contract I have with Cillian is only verbal, if he’s screwing other women, then…
“Look, maybe it’s just my clients who expect more. Maybe he only teaches his to dance, or do burpees, or whatever.” He rubs his jaw, as though nervous he might’ve put his foot in his mouth.
“Forget you saw a woman come out of Cillian’s trailer. Forget we had this conversation. Leave without turning around.”
He obeys my compulsion, marching away, leaving his car door gaping. I snap it shut with a flick of magic, agitation stacking on top of anger. So much for seeking solace with my fake boyfriend.
I want to find Cillian even more now. I set aside my guilt and step back into his camper in the hopes of finding a notepad with his clients’ names and phone numbers.
I end up finding a terracotta statue of palms pressed in prayer, a few changes of clothes—mostly sportswear—a camp stove, some cooking utensils, a survival guide, and several creased cookbooks.
I flip through the guide to the dog-eared passage on wound care. Did he get this book after juvie? Before?
I crack open the cookbooks next, my attention sticking to the title page and the loopy handwritten dedication on one of them.
Reevey,
This present is as much for you as it is for me, since I expect you to make every recipe in this book for me.
Love always,
Quinn ?
The corners are bent, the pages pockmarked with oil. I frown as I thumb through what must be another one of his bargain-bin finds, because who the hell are Quinn and Reevey otherwise? Relatives? And what sort of name is Reevey? A man’s, a woman’s, a nickname?
As I take the stairs back to street level, my mind skips from one scenario to the next, and back again. Here I’d come to rant about Ines, but instead picked up a fresh set of problems.
“Where are you, Cillian Lowry?” I grumble to the cloudless summer sky.
If only my magic could help me track people.