Chapter 48
Forty-Eight
Elodie
I’ve been much more naked with this man before, but I’ve never felt as exposed as I do right now. Every pinkish mark etched into my skin prickles with the awareness of Salvatore’s gaze—and those of my other three matches.
Cole’s voice has roughened. “Those don’t look like the scars on your back. Some of them—did somebody draw those into you?”
Byron speaks more quietly, but there’s a ragged quality to the hush. “You’ve been keeping those scars covered. You didn’t want us seeing them, even after— What are they from, Elodie? Was the attack in your old world worse than you said?”
I wish it was that simple. My lips part, but no words form on my tongue. A burn creeps into the back of my eyes.
Salvatore unzips his own hoodie and wraps it around my shoulders, as if he can ward off the chill that’s still mostly coming from inside me.
His gaze sweeps over the mottled lines on my chest again, and the fury in his gaze flares hotter.
“You don’t need to hide anything from us, Elodie.
We’ll deal with whatever we need to. Who did this to you? ”
A few possible lies flit through my head, but each only makes me queasier.
I’ve hated every lie I already told. And now the last horrible pieces of my past are colliding all around me…
How long could I really keep this secret anyway? I managed for three years with my original matches because they saw me as a fragile victim, because they were afraid to push me after my loss.
And because I never felt comfortable enough with any of them to slip up the way I just did with Salvatore.
I hug his hoodie around me, my fingers tightening against the thought of revealing the violence I’ve dealt out. But I let him look after me for a reason, didn’t I?
The four men around me have made their own mistakes and hurt me in little ways… but when push has come to shove, they’ve always had my back. When I told them the biggest regret of my life, they rallied around me rather than discarding me—even Cole.
They’re working so hard to be the best matches I could ask for.
What kind of mate am I to them if I lie right to their faces?
I lift my gaze, tamping down on the urge to cringe away from the furor in Salvatore’s expression. “I did it to me.”
His eyebrows draw together, confusion watering down the intensity of his anger. “You—what?”
Asher’s gentle voice wraps around me from where he’s standing beyond Salvatore’s shoulder. “Why don’t you tell us about it, Elodie?”
As steady and calm when he asked me to lay out my plan for tonight. Trusting me just as much as I want to trust them.
The tears spill over before I can catch them. I suck in a hitch of breath and swipe at my eyes, and Salvatore wraps his arms right around me with a protective growl.
“Whatever it is, we can handle it,” he promises into my hair.
“We just want to understand,” Byron adds.
Cole makes a disgruntled sound. “Shouldn’t we let her sit down and give her a little space to decide what she wants to say?”
Salvatore lifts his head to aim a scowl at the older guy, but he guides me over to the sofa. As I sink onto the middle cushion, still clutching his hoodie around me, he and Byron flank me. Asher takes the adjacent armchair, and Cole looms over us all like a stern sentinel.
They wait silently, but I can feel Salvatore’s impatience for answers like a hum in the air. I can’t exactly back out of answering now.
Maybe I never should have tried to avoid the questions in the first place, even if Uncle Nik had never reappeared. Even if it never mattered in any way other than the rot of regret eating away at me.
I bring one hand to my chest, to the scars I can only feel as faint ripples in my skin. “I made these. I— It’s a long story.”
Cole’s tone has softened, as if he’s been taking pointers from his brother. “We have time. If you’re ready to tell us.”
I brush away a last fleeting tear and draw my posture straighter. “There was more to the night I was attacked, when the other Asher died. But it isn’t about the person who attacked me.”
“Someone else was there?” Salvatore demands.
Byron scowls at him. “Give her a chance to talk.”
I smile weakly, summoning the right words.
“I told you before that the other versions of you didn’t know about my glim or that it killed Asher.
You would have known if no one had intervened—I was so confused and horrified, and my shirt was all torn and bloodstained even though the wounds were gone…
But while I was freaking out and trying to bring Asher back, a man came over and said he’d help me. He said he was my uncle.”
Byron frowns. “I thought your dad only had a sister.”
“He does. Uncle Nik said he was my mom’s brother.
That he’d found out about me and been watching me out of concern, and seen what happened, and that he could get me through it.
Make sure the other matches marked on my palm wouldn’t consider me a murderer, that the police wouldn’t accuse me of wrongdoing.
That no one would even have to know how awful my power was. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Of course you wanted to believe someone could help you,” Asher says.
“And he did.” I force a tight smile. “He gave me a jacket to cover my wrecked clothes and coached me on what to say. He stayed with me as a supposed witness who just happened to stumble on the scene, after he called the police and after the three of you found me… And everyone believed him. I hardly had to talk. A teenage girl who’s just seen her match murdered in front of her—nobody can blame her for being pretty much incoherent. ”
I drop my hand and look around at the men listening to the truth now.
“I didn’t like lying about it. I felt so guilty every day afterward.
But admitting what really happened and that I covered it up felt so much worse than if you—the other versions of you—had found out to begin with… And Uncle Nik stayed in touch.”
Salvatore bares his teeth. “Big surprise. He was a prick too, wasn’t he?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe he was just doing his best in what seemed like a horrible situation to him too.”
I take another breath. “He said my glim could help the whole world. That there were so many more evil people out there, even worse than the person who attacked me—monsters who were hurting all kinds of innocents—and I had the power to stop them. I could take them down without anyone having a clue who was responsible.”
As I pause, understanding dawns across the faces around me.
Cole’s expression has gone rigid. “He turned you into an assassin?”
I wince at the word. “Basically. He gave me lessons for several months in stealth and misdirection and that sort of thing… and then he started sending me on missions. He’d give me a target and I’d get into place, and then I’d…
well, I’d essentially kill myself and aim my glim at the person he wanted dead. ”
Heavy silence settles over the room. I stare at my knees, fresh tears starting to well up.
Then Salvatore grasps my hand with a squeeze I can’t take as anything other than reassuring. “That fucking asshole. That’s what left the scars? You actually…”
He looks so sick at the thought that I don’t wait for him to try to finish the sentence.
“Typically, it was poison. One of the usual ones is the same kind that ended up in my soup—I probably wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t recognized the flavor.
But occasionally we needed a different tactic.
” I touch the thin, straight scars over my heart. “I’d stab myself.”
Salvatore’s grip on my fingers tightens.
Byron rests his hand on my shoulder, tentatively and then with a stroke of his thumb when I don’t pull away. “And the others? Those symbols…”
A choked laugh bursts out of me. “I hated it. My glim and the missions I was carrying out with it, knowing I was killing people even if they were awful… What I wanted most was for my power to be gone, or at least to have it so under control I’d never have to worry about hurting anyone accidentally again.
I tried everything I could think of, including carving symbols of warding and banishing from different cultures right into me.
Obviously, none of it made a difference. ”
Asher’s throat works. “You… you literally tried to cut your glim out of your body?”
My head droops. “Something like that. I can’t stand the thought that if I’m hurt at the wrong moment, I could hurt one of you, or someone else I care about, and I can’t shut it down…”
“It’s not your fault,” Byron says fiercely.
He catches my chin and turns my head so I meet his gaze.
Vehemence blazes in his eyes. “You didn’t decide the power fate gave you.
You tried to make the most of a horrible situation, while the people around you couldn’t see you were in trouble or took advantage of you.
You were only seventeen. I can’t imagine what I’d do in the same circumstances. ”
“Fucking right.” Salvatore slides his arm around me as if to anchor me in place. “And you’re out of that mess now. You’re here with us. You’re away from that scalder of an uncle and his shitty manipulations. That’s what matters.”
Even Cole inclines his head. His stance is taut, but I don’t hear any recrimination in the words he offers.
“We told you we’re in this together. I think we all meant that.
I know I did, no matter how much I’ve fucked up before.
And we’ll keep being here until you completely believe you can count on us. ”
A flutter passes through my chest, chasing away the worst of the guilt weighing on me.
That day when I told them who I really was and where I’d come from, I wondered if fate sent me here because these men needed me more than my original matches did.
Now I can’t help thinking it must be at least as much that I needed them.
The last admission slips out of me so much easier.
“I do believe it. Which is why I have to tell you—the reason I seemed so upset when we left the park—I saw Uncle Nik across the street, watching what was going on. He was with the woman from the Luminary maintenance staff who warned me about tonight. I don’t know what that means or whether he’s been paying attention to me in this reality…
but I feel like that can’t mean anything good. ”
Asher’s brow knits. “If he’s friendly with the person who warned you, at least it doesn’t sound like he’s on the side of the group trying to kill you.”
I nod. “I don’t think he is. He— The reason I knew where to spy on Gwyn— I recognized her in Salvatore’s video. She was the first target he gave me. In my old reality, he wanted her dead.”
Salvatore makes a scoffing sound. “Who can tell what’s what with these snuffers? But if he’s got his sights on Elodie so he can use her, he’s not getting what he wants.”
Cole folds his arms over his chest, his chin coming up at a defiant angle.
“I think we need to find out exactly how he’s involved.
The sooner the better, before you end up in even more danger.
He’s responding to this huge incident at the park right now…
Elodie, you must know a fair bit about the version of him from your original world.
Some of that has probably stayed the same.
Can you say where he usually worked or anything like that? ”
I shake my head. “We met different places each time… I don’t think he had specific ties to any of the locations. He didn’t want me knowing very much about him because of the missions he was having me do.”
Salvatore huffs. “Who here’s the best at seeking spells, then? We go back to the park, pick up his trail from the spot where Elodie saw him.”
What are the chances that Nik is still there? I wouldn’t be able to trace his route from that spot based on ephemera alone, especially if he got into a vehicle, and I’m way more familiar with his presence than any of my matches.
Salvatore’s question niggles at my mind. “There is…”
When I hesitate, Byron squeezes my shoulder. “What are you thinking, Elodie?”
Part of me still balks, but it’s the only way I can see us having much hope of tracking down Uncle Nik while he’s still reacting to tonight’s events.
She did say she wanted to help, didn’t she?
My mouth twists into a wry half-smile. “I do know someone whose glim is finding things—and who’s powerful enough to trace a person all the way across multiple universes. Why don’t I give her a call?”