Chapter 47
Forty-Seven
Elodie
Ican’t imagine what the officers make of the scene when they first emerge around us. There’s a woman lying injured on the ground with Asher pointing his sword at her and two other men looming.
I heave myself to my feet, heart thudding painfully hard, groping for the right words.
Byron finds them first. He takes a small step back and raises his hands appeasingly. “I’m Byron Worth. We were stopping this woman from attacking our classmate—our match. She dragged Elodie Devine into the woods and tried to murder her.”
He puts careful emphasis on his own last name and mine, even haltingly delivers the correction of me from acquaintance to match at exactly the right cadence for someone who’s only just found out.
All those years of putting the “right” face forward with his classmates, his teachers, even his family have left him quite the actor when he needs to be.
Tentative feet pad toward us from the spot where Byron’s lightning toppled two trees. The girl we most recently rescued hugs herself, her eyes wide. “I saw it. He’s telling the truth. That woman grabbed Elodie and was trying to hurt her.”
Four officers have appeared now, all of them sporting the pin with the swirling logo that marks them as part of the lucent division. All four pairs of eyes veer to me.
I let myself sway on my feet the way I already want to.
My body may have healed itself, but it’s still been sliced and battered more than once tonight.
Blood has seeped through my hoodie all the way to my undershirt, sticking the fabric to my skin.
A twinge runs through the ankle my attacker fractured just minutes ago.
I probably don’t need the display of vulnerability. Recognition has flickered across the officers’ faces. I think I recognize one of them too, from the interviews after my poisoning.
“Elodie Devine,” the female officer repeats. “You’ve had a hard time of it the past couple of months.” As her weapon drops to aim at the woman on the ground instead, she glances at one of her colleagues. “Maybe we’ve found our poisoner too.”
My voice comes out with a bit of a rasp. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Or at least she knows who did it. It wasn’t just her. The instructors who organized the training exercise here… Both of them attacked me too.”
Salvatore draws his massive frame even taller. “Worth fried one of the fuckers before he could do Elodie in, but you can chat up the other once he wakes up. He’s stuck in a clay cage back that way.” He waves his weapon vaguely in the direction we came from.
One of the officers blinks at that remark, maybe recognizing the mafia heir as well, but his gaze drops to the woman on the ground. “Got anything to say for yourself?”
Gwyn unclamps her lips just long enough to say, “Not without a lawyer.”
She can see she’s beat. I don’t know what the investigation will reveal next, but it’s no longer in my hands. The police can take it from here.
As the officers order her to roll onto her stomach, relief washes through me.
When I start to sag, Asher catches me with an arm around my back, his other hand still gripping the sword Salvatore made him.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “You all right?”
A sound that’s part giggle, part sob catches in my throat and dissipates. “Now I am.”
The police click handcuffs around Gwyn’s wrists with a thrum of an enchantment that’ll contain any magic she might try to use. She threw a lot of power at me, but she looks small now as the officers haul her to her feet. Her body must be aching from the injuries that rebounded off me back to her.
She wobbles, one ankle twisted at an unnatural angle. “I can’t walk.”
Two officers flank her, each gripping one arm. “We’ll get you there.”
A thrum of ephemera wraps around her.
The female officer turns to me. “We’ll need to ask all of you a lot of questions about exactly what went down tonight.”
Byron takes charge again with a regal nod. “Of course. We want to see these criminals brought to justice and make sure Elodie is finally safe.”
As we tramp back to the path, more officers lope past us along with several plain-clothed but alert figures I suspect are part of the local void patrols. Hopefully they can clean up the rest of the mess quickly—and without anyone getting more hurt.
The whole way to the north end of the park, Byron lays out his account of the attacks in his assured tone. Even when the officers interject questions, Salvatore manages to keep his mouth shut, though I notice his jaw clenching a couple of times.
We all know it’ll come across better for the guy from the respectable family to do the talking.
One cop asks me a few things directly, and I answer as best as I can without sounding suspicious. No, I don’t know who that woman is. No, I don’t know why our instructors would have wanted to hurt me.
The streetlamps along the road that borders the park come into view beyond the last of the trees. The officers escorting my attacker hustle onward to one of the parked cruisers, but the woman who’s done most of the questioning slows beside us.
“I think it’s best if you come back to the station. I’m sure the captain will want to go over everything in more detail—”
The mention of “captain” brings a flash of memory: Captain Ross lunging at me with a swing of his knife meant to gouge my throat right out.
I flinch involuntarily, and Byron’s expression tightens.
He interrupts smoothly, as if he’s being perfectly courteous even when cutting her off. “Can’t that wait until the morning? Elodie’s had an awful night—and we’ve just sparked our match. I think we could all use some time to gather ourselves and process everything that’s happened.”
A wave of elation washes over me as the implications fully sink in.
We don’t have to hide our bond anymore. Everyone will know now.
If that knowledge sets a jolt of terror jittering through my veins too, well, I’ll take both as long as I also have these men.
The officer glances between us as if she’d forgotten that part of our story, which maybe she had amid the murder and mayhem. Her stance tenses, but all lucents know how overwhelming a match is when it’s first sparked, especially if you’re unprepared.
And I doubt she wants to piss off the Devine family or the Worths.
“I suppose I know where to find you,” she says slowly.
Salvatore can’t keep quiet any longer. He tucks his hand around my elbow. “We’ll make sure she gets home safe.”
His tone doesn’t leave room for argument. My pulse stutters at the thought of what he might do if the officer protests, but at the same moment, her radio crackles.
Her hushed discussion with the person on the other end sends her racing back into the depths of the park. I spot another void patrol group hurrying after her from a van that’s just pulled up at the side of the road.
My fingers close around empty air. I handed Ross’s knife over to the officers as evidence.
I glance behind us. “Should we keep helping against the voids?”
Salvatore gives a huff and nudges me onward. “Worth had the right idea. You’ve done enough fighting tonight, Elodie. We got some people out of that mess, and the people who’re supposed to be doing the protecting are here now.”
Even Asher nods. “They have more training than I do. And you’ve got to be exhausted.”
He isn’t wrong about that. I swipe at my weary eyes, letting Salvatore guide me along, and then shield my gaze from a sudden flash of light.
Eager voices carry from along the northern road.
“There’s a few of the students now!”
“Hey, would you tell us what happened to you here tonight?”
A couple of news crews have gathered near the corner. I guess the police presence caught their attention no matter how discreet the lucent division would have tried to be.
“Hell, no.” Salvatore tugs me away from the cameras. “They’re almost as bad as the voids.”
As we dodge the reporters, a tall, lean form draws up alongside us. Cole casts his gray gaze toward me, his face solemn in the sallow artificial glow. “None of you are hurt? They caught her?”
A trace of a smile crosses my lips. “The cops already took Gwyn away in handcuffs. We’re going to give more detailed statements in the morning.”
“She’s cooked,” Salvatore declares. “Jovak too. Between the two of them, the police had better follow the trail to the rest of this sick bunch. Maybe I’ll get my associates to do some of the digging for them, just to make sure.”
For once, the professor doesn’t grimace at the reference to Salvatore’s criminal colleagues. “I can make that easier for you. I managed to pick up these on my way over…”
As we cross the street, finally leaving the park behind, he hands each of us the phones Captain Ross confiscated at the start of the exercise.
I tuck mine into my hoodie and prod Salvatore with my elbow. “But we can worry about that in—”
My gaze slides down the street and snags on a patch of storefront that sends a wobble through my nerves. I narrow my eyes, the comment I was making forgotten.
I could swear there’s something familiar about…
The ephemera draped across that spot shifts, and I catch a glimpse of a figure so unexpected I trip over my feet.
As Salvatore steadies me, I keep staring, even after the magical barrier muddles my view again.
There were actually two of them, huddled in the shadows between the reach of the streetlamps, peering at the activity at the park. And I recognized both.
One was the woman on the Luminary maintenance staff who warned me not to come here tonight. Even though her hair was loose, there was no mistaking the frizzy strands tumbling across her broad shoulders.
And the other’s bluntly chiseled features and deep-set eyes are carved into my memories from beyond this reality. His black hair was longer, veering past his ears into a short ponytail my version of him never wore, but otherwise he looked exactly the same.
What the fuck is Uncle Nik doing here, now?
“Elodie?”
Asher’s concerned voice cuts through my stupor. I jerk my gaze away, tamping down on the shiver that starts to wrack my body. Every inch of my skin has chilled as if I’ve seen a zombie rising from a grave.
My nerves keep jangling with the impression of my two realities colliding. I shake my head, not wanting to verify my panic, not wanting any of this. “I—I’m okay. Just shaken up.”
For more reasons than I’m willing to admit.
As Salvatore ushers me along with a protective arm, my head keeps spinning.
Why was Nik talking to that woman from the school? Is she an associate of his somehow?
Has he been keeping tabs on me—on Other Elodie before—all this time, and simply never made himself known?
How much does this version of him know about me? About my glim?
Is he going to come to me again, trying to rope me into his missions and his greater cause…?
I barely notice I’ve been eased into the back seat of a car until Salvatore is pulling into the underground parking garage at the condo building. I’m tucked between Byron and Asher, the former with his arm looped around mine and the latter holding himself a little stiffly.
Their joint warmth barely penetrates the panic that’s iced me over from the inside out.
As Salvatore parks, Cole twists in the passenger seat to study me, his eyes dark as thunderclouds. “Are you sure you’re not injured? Maybe we should have had a medical team check you out.”
A laugh that sounds hysterical to my own ears tumbles out of me. “I’m not. I can’t be. Remember?”
He doesn’t ask for another demonstration of my glim, but the furrows don’t smooth from his brow. He turns to Salvatore instead. “Is this really a good idea? We had to run out of here the last time—”
The mafia heir waves off our professor’s concern.
“I made out like I was just using the condo as a private hangout spot, and my parents bought it. Now I don’t have to hide that I’m with Elodie.
By tomorrow, everyone’ll know we’re her matches.
My families can’t complain about me taking care of my mate. ”
Given what I know of those families from my old reality, I suspect they could, and I suspect he knows that. But I’m too scattered to do anything other than wobble out of the car clutching Byron’s arm.
The men hustle me into the elevator. My stomach drops with its soaring ascent.
I swallow hard and close my eyes as if I can erase what I saw by the park that easily.
How long will it take before Nik approaches me, if he’s getting this close now? Can I just tell him no?
My uncle here has no leverage over me, no knowledge of what I might have done in some parallel universe. He can’t make me do anything.
Unless he knows more than I realize. There are other types of leverage he could have gained if he’s been watching me closely over the past several weeks…
Just past the condo’s threshold, Byron turns to me and rests both hands on my elbows. “You seem really out of sorts, Elodie. Did Gwyn say something to you when she grabbed you?”
I push my head to shake in denial. “No. I must just be tired.”
Salvatore grunts and reaches for the bottom of my hoodie. “Look at her, all roughed up. There’s blood all over. Let’s get our match cleaned up and comfortable.”
I raise my arms so he can pull the hoodie right off. He sucks in a breath just shy of a growl at the sight of the tee underneath. “It soaked right through. I hope most of it was theirs and not yours, a chroí.”
He grips the bottom of the shirt next, and I let him. Because my thoughts are a jumble and my mind woozy… and because I trust this man with my life.
I don’t register that he’s caught the base of my undershirt alongside the tee until both layers are peeling up, air wafting against the bare, blood-dappled skin around my bra.
A yelp escapes me. My arms jerk down instinctively, but Salvatore has already stripped the tops right off me.
He stares at my chest. My other matches fall silent as they follow his gaze.
My hands fly up to try to cover the scars that mottle my sternum and the upper swell of my breasts, but Salvatore catches my fingers. A feral smolder forms in his eyes that sears into his voice as well.
“What the fuck happened to you, mia amata?”