Chapter 37
Electra
After Cillian leaves, I toss the sandwich, then creep back down the street toward the deli.
Using magic, I let myself into the padlocked vintage shop across the road. The one with an unhindered view of the deli facade and a partial view of the alley. I text Gael my exact location before settling into a pocket of darkness to keep watch.
The lights go off inside the eatery and turn on in the alley. Or rather, the beams on a pickup truck—I assume, Freddie’s. I squint against the glare, trying to make out if he’s alone in the vehicle.
It’s only once the truck turns the corner that I’m able to count the number of passengers. I snap a picture of them, then of the license plate, and then I pinch the picture until I’ve blown it up enough to see who rides with Freddie.
My forehead furrows because there are three people in that car, and the one in the backseat is most definitely not a pigeon-eating feline.
I add a filter that brightens the image enough for me to make out a young girl with long blonde hair and white skin. Why does she look familiar? Have I seen her in the unmasked Holy Hunter database?
I take a screenshot of her face and upload it to my chat with Dorian with the caption: Does she look familiar to you? Holy Hunter? When he doesn’t answer, I forward my query to Gael.
GAEL: Let me ask Alexander.
GAEL: We’re almost there, by the way.
I think he means at the airstrip until I spot a gleaming black Navigator turning into the darkened alley of the deli. I abandon my lookout and, keeping my face tucked low, I sprint toward the car.
Five Atlanteans pour out. I recognize Gael and his son, but not the others.
“Electra in the flesh,” Alexander chirrups.
“Let’s save the reunion for later, kids,” Gael says. “Alexander, you’re in charge of the shield. Try not to leave anyone out this time.”
His son’s expression shutters as he scoops his blond bob back. “Not my fault Georgia stepped out of bounds.”
“They drove off about twenty minutes ago.” I grip my gun as my blood-brother wraps us in a force field that should repel even the most direct hit. “No movement since.”
Gael tells the driver to get back in the car and play lookout, then sends a mammoth Atlantean by the name of Otto to the back door.
My grip on the gun tightens as Otto blows up the lock with a bolt of magic.
Gael might not be the perfect father, but he’s making my dream of hunting the Hunters come true.
I watch his profile in the obscurity, catching a small smile scooting across his lips.
Where my heart bangs with nerves, his clearly bangs with anticipation.
The back door’s hinges groan as Otto uses more magic to draw it open. When he takes a step inside, adrenaline thickens my blood.
What are we about—
An explosion throws me back. The world goes white, then black, tilts, spins. My skull cracks against pavement. Gray smoke fills the air, stinging my eyes and nose.
I blink until the brick facade of the building across the alley from the deli develops. I think I even spot a person in the apartment on the highest floor, but a sweep of my lashes later, and the dusty panes are empty.
“What part of: you’re in charge of the shield didn’t register?” Gael gripes.
“My shield is the reason we’re all in one piece,” Alexander mutters, rubbing the back of his skull.
“They knew we were coming,” someone else says.
Guilt swamps me. I might not have planned on going inside earlier, but the fact remains that I did. I take full responsibility for trailing Cillian inside. Full responsibility for the catastrophic turn of events.
By the time I manage to roll onto all fours, Gael is already on his feet. So are my brother and the other Atlanteans. Only Otto remains unmoving.
My eyeballs keep watering as I scan the ground for my gun, making it difficult to see much of anything. It doesn’t help that hot blood is dribbling from my brow into my left eye.
“This yours?” Alexander extends a gun my way. His face is streaked with soot, but otherwise bare of cuts.
I wipe my eye on the heel of my hand as I collect the gun and shakily stash it back inside my fanny pack. My ears buzz so hard it feels like my skull is loose and bumping around.
“Back to the car!” Gael barks, floating Otto into the trunk of the SUV.
Blood drips from several open gashes on the male’s body, painting the cement crimson. It causes me little relief to know that, even if the dirty bomb was laced with mine dust, his wounds will eventually seal.
Gael meets my stare. Remorse weighs so heavily on my lids that it tugs them low, tugs my whole face low.
I expect this’ll be the first and last mission I’m given.
“Mind if we head back to your place to clean up—and recover?” he asks.
I glance up, shocked he wants anything more to do with me, before remembering that he’s not from around here, so his options are limited. “Of course.”
Sirens fill the night as we file into the car. I glance at the brick building again, scanning its depths. I see no sign of life, no furniture, no light, no busybody onlooker with a camera phone.
On the street around us, though, people are filming.
Alexander flicks his fingers, sending phone after phone careening into the ground with such force that they shatter. Smart.
My half-brother’s cleverness only reinforces my sentiment of ineptitude.
Once we’re home, and Otto’s been set up in one of the guest rooms to heal, I head into the kitchen to make tea. I find Gael and Alexander huddled around a cell phone, watching the coverage of the incident on Mass Ave.
What’s left of the deli has been cordoned off as men in SWAT uniforms move about the scorched enclosure, on the lookout for more bombs.
“What did you find?” I think Gael’s asking me, until I spot a cell phone pinned to his ear. “Access to an underground parking lot… Search every building that connects to it. And dust the whole fuckin’ place.”
Alexander peers up at his father, lowering the sound of the news channel that’s just rehashing the same information on a loop.
“Yes the garage, too!” Gael’s bright-blue stare narrows. “You send all DNA matches my way—Hunter or not.”
“The picture of the girl I sent. Was it in the database?” I ask.
Alexander shakes his head. “No, but the system matched the shape of her nose and eyes to that Hunter chick Symeon brought to the island, so we assume they’re related. Good job on getting’ that shot.”
His praise eases a smidgeon of my guilt.
As he samples some of the veggies Cillian cooked earlier, I ask Gael, “How was your trip to Atlantis?”
My bio father rolls his neck. “Aggravatin’. Mind you, it’s cured me from tryin’ to win back Ines.”
At the mention of her name, Alexander mutters, “Fuckin’ glad to hear that.”
“No swearin’, Alexander.”
I’m struck by how fatherly that sounded. Perhaps my parents and Dorian have the wrong image of Gael.
“Sorry, Pops, but you’ve been idolizin’ that”—when Gael cuts his eyes to Alexander, the latter purses his mouth—“woman for far too long. It was unhealthy.”
I don’t know Alexander well, but I sense he and I are aligned on Ines’s character. “Is she planning on coming back to Boston?”
“Malachi’s tryin’ to convince her to, but I doubt it. Even though she doesn’t regret keepin’ you from me, she does regret what your mama—curse her wretched soul—did to you.”
I cross my arms. “I don’t plan on ever forgiving her.”
Gael reaches out and gives my shoulder a squeeze. “I don’t either.”
Guess grudge-holding runs in genes.
“Mothers are the worst,” Alexander says, in between a bite of the barley salad that’s also on the stovetop.
I feel a little awful that Cillian’s meal will probably be consumed without him, minus the uncooked fish. “Who’s your mom again?”
“Ariana’s oldest. Arabella,” Alexander replies.
“I take it you’re not close?”
“To Arabella?” His squeak, combined with the fact that he calls her by her first name, answers my question. “She never bled me for profit, so there’s that. But, otherwise, she’s mostly been absent from my life.” He takes another forkful of barley. “You’re a real good cook.”
“Can’t be credited for it. It’s all my boyfriend.” I find myself wishing I could invite Cillian over, but I don’t want him around so many Atlanteans.
After the fail that was tonight, I barely want him around me. He’d be safer away from my world, yet the idea of pushing him away and compelling him to forget me twists something deep inside my chest.
Alexander scoops out another huge bite. “Your boyfriend, huh? One of ours?”
I shake my head.
“Does he know about us?” Alexander asks.
“No.”
“He’s the boy I met the morning I came over, right?” Gael asks.
I nod.
“By the way, Pops, Grandma Ari said she’s flyin’ down to the ranch tomorrow.”
Grandma Ari… “Are you close with Ariana?”
“Closer than I am with Arabella.” Alexander’s jaw clenches. “But that ain’t such a feat when your mama only loves her real kids.”
“Did she say that to you? That you aren’t her real kid?”
“Sure did. On multiple occasions. It hurt a bit the first time, but now I just pity her for hatin’ me.”
“You’re awfully wise for someone so young.”
He smirks, and although his eyes are brown, his hair golden, and the frame of his face still rounded by youth, it feels like looking into a mirror.
“Do you think Ari will ever get her runes back?” I muse aloud.
“No one’s ever gotten them back before, so odds aren’t great.” Gael leans his hip against the island, right where Cillian and I…
I evict the image.
“How about you fly down to the ranch with us tomorrow?” Gael asks.
Dorian would hate it. My parents too. In spite of this, I’m very tempted to say yes. I cut my eyes toward Alexander to read whether he wants me there or not.
When he says, “You should come,” I decide to take Gael up on his offer.
Genuine happiness seizes the Atlantean’s face. Even though I’ve always felt wanted by the Serrans, being wanted by my bio father heals something in me. Makes me feel worthy.
I know what Calanthe would say—that I shouldn’t measure my worth through another’s eyes—but the little girl in me who was used and abused still reaches for that validation.
Alexander drags his fork back through the snap pea dish. “Is your boyfriend a chef?”
“No. Just a hobby.”
Gael’s phone lights up with Tarian’s name. “We got restaurants,” he reminds me before swiping right on the call and ambling away to chat with our overlord.
“What time’s the flight tomorrow?”
“We’ll probably leave once Otto comes to. Why?”
I tuck my cell phone into the pocket of the sheer windbreaker I threw on over my black tank top. “Because I want to go see my boyfriend before I leave.”
“You should invite him along. The cook we got back at the ranch could do with some lessons.”
“I’ll ask him,” I say, even though I won’t.
I don’t know Alexander or Gael well enough to host a human in their presence.
“See you later, sis.” Alexander smiles.
I smile back.
As I leave, I can’t help but think how lucky I am to have gotten not one but two brothers. Will I feel the same way about fathers soon?