Epilogue #2
For excruciating minutes, the world is silent and so still that even the insects seem frozen midflight.
My lungs cramp. My molars too. Although no marrow-chilling scream or smoke shatters the night, I still don’t gratify my lungs with some much-needed oxygen.
“Gaea is fair, Reeve.” Electra’s reassurance doesn’t reassure me, and I met the goddess. What does reassure me is when she points out, “If her father’s hopped up on our blood, he probably survived.”
I finally…finally take a breath. It punches into my lungs like Gael’s blade punched into my throat.
“The lack of smoke…” I rasp. “That’s a good sign, right?”
“Cremation isn’t the only way Gaea ends lives.” The answer comes from behind me—from Tarian, who’s drawing nearer, hand in hand with Calanthe.
“You think we can get closer?” I whisper.
“We can try,” Electra says.
We manage two steps before we hit a wall.
Electra looks over her shoulder. “Are you doing that, Tarian?”
“Doing what?” he asks.
“There’s a barrier.” She gently raps her knuckles against it.
“No.”
“Do you know what’s happening inside?” My voice is so full of nerves that each word bounces off my vocal cords.
“Not yet,” he says.
Suddenly, a blue beam spears from the mine into the heavens. A moment later, I hear a voice.
A familiar, feminine voice.
My heart stops so violently that I choke on my inhale. “You hear her too, right?”
Electra sighs long and deep, like she, too, has been holding her breath. “I do.”
Two bodies darken the beam just as Quinn snipes, “Serves you right, you arrogant dickwad.”
She’s alive.
Quinn is alive.
She didn’t fabricate her escape.
“So does that mean Sullivan Hayes is dead or not?” I hear Calanthe murmur.
“It means that if he isn’t, it’s not for lack of trying.” Quinn turns toward us, and I can’t help but glance at her cheek. It’s still scarred.
My disappointment that Gaea didn’t fix her face turns to guilt.
She kept my best friend alive. That’s all that matters.
“Or it could be a deep-fake planted by my ex. Trent would be twisted enough to create and diffuse something like that.”
“You said something about it serving Mal right. What did you mean by that?” Electra asks.
“Shall we show them?” Quinn chirps, her tone smacking of false delight.
Malachi grunts.
“Aw, come on, Mal. They’re bound to see our matching tats soon enough.”
“Matching?” Electra breathes out.
My ears can’t pick apart if she sounds shocked, envious, or disappointed. She says I killed her crush on Malachi, but what if I only killed it temporarily?
Quinn steps closer, only her nails poking from her too-long sweater sleeves. “Not matching,” she says, tugging her left sleeve up. “Complementary. I’ve got half a rune; he’s got the other half.”
“Which rune?” Calanthe asks.
Malachi’s mouth twists as if the thought itself hurts. “Surge,” he mutters in Atlantean.
“What do you think it means?” Quinn asks.
I repeat the word for her in English. Quinn’s left cheek dimples with a smile that no longer reaches her right one. I’m not sure why she’s smiling—maybe nerves?
“Any chance you got an explanation from Gaea, Tar?” Malachi asks. “’Cause we didn’t get any instructions.”
“No,” Tarian says. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to test it out to see what it does.”
Calanthe peers up at Tarian.
“Are you sure she didn’t explain?” Malachi asks.
“Yes, Mal, I’m sure.”
“If they’re complementary, maybe you have to hold hands for whatever power she gave you to work,” Electra suggests.
Both Quinn and Malachi glare at her as though she’d suggested they cut off a limb.
Electra smiles. “Know what I think?”
“Whatever it is, it pleases you to no end, doesn’t it?” Malachi grumbles.
Her smile deepens, climbing into her gorgeous eyes. “I think she split a rune between the two of you to keep you from killing each other when we go hunting.”
Calanthe snort-laughs. “Knowing Gaea’s humor, I think Elle’s right.”
“Or maybe she gave me the other half because Quinn isn’t deserving of a full rune.”
Hayes flips Malachi a harsh smile and her middle finger. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to the food. Your dad’s an awesome cook, Elle.”
“Tell him!” Electra says as Quinn starts down the path back toward the Serrans’ home. “He’ll love it.”
Our compliments haven’t exactly made him warm up to us, but hopefully, in time, he’ll stop viewing us as the enemy.
Calanthe catches up to her while Tarian and Malachi follow a few paces behind, talking in low tones.
Before going after them, I twirl Electra to face me and scour her features.
She flattens her palms against my chest and smooths them up to my shoulders. “The rune won’t kill her.”
“What?”
“You seem distraught.” She slides her hands to my nape now, bending my head toward her. “Your best friend’s safe. And she didn’t lie to you.”
“I know. That’s not why…” I lick my lips. “Are you…? You’re not…?”
Fuck, why is this so hard to ask? Am I that scared of her answer?
Her eyebrows bend. “I’m not…?”
“Envious?”
A smile slants her mouth. “That we didn’t get complementary runes? Nope. I love your rune. I love that it keeps you safe.”
“So you’re not”—my lips screw into a sheepish grimace, and I let my gaze fall to the sandy soil beneath our feet—“jealous?”
Electra’s palms set on my jaw. “Look at me.”
I do.
“Reeve Rafferty, the only man I have a crush on, is the one standing in front of me.” She glances down our bodies. “In case you ever forget it, just check out the heels of your shoes.”
A frown creases my brow.
“Did you think I’d stopped at cleaning them up?” she asks, taking a step back so I can twist my ankles and check out the backs of my high-tops. “I let Quinn do the right shoe, because I sort of messed up the left one.”
As I stare at the new black ink, my throat lining swells with so much love that my next words come out all scraggly. “I am so fucking…‘Head over heels for my Atlantean.’”
“It’s cheesy as hell, I know. But it sounded like a good idea until I started customizing them, and then, well—”
I catch her mouth in a kiss.
Catch her waist in a hug.
Catch her heart—and keep it.