Chapter 21
They were on the road again in under ten minutes.
The curse knew where they were going, knew they would be headed to the one spot they could finally end this all.
Of course the curse wasn’t an object in an apartment—it was something keeping her tied to this world… and the only object that did that was the portal.
But then what the fuck was this whole thing with Chase?
He was being controlled by the curse? But now differently than he was before the portal cracked and the other was destroyed?
Nothing about Vega’s curse had ever been concrete, but it would be nice not to have so many unanswered questions.
The snow had let up enough to allow the roads to be cleared over the last several hours, so their little stop hadn’t been a complete waste.
The burgers he’d bought from the diner were cold, but they scarfed them down anyway. “Food kind of tastes like nothing here,” Bridger admitted, wiping his hands on a thin paper napkin.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Was the burger from a crummy diner in the middle of nowhere not up to your elite standards?” She cut him a glance as she drove.
They were still about a day out from the portal, give or take, with stopping to refuel. Vega wouldn’t be able to drive twenty-four hours straight, not on what little sleep she was working with, and she’d refused to let Bridger help—not that he’d want to right now anyway.
He was nearing that stage of exhaustion where everything started to slow down. The food hit him, and he felt like he’d be a goner if he sat and did nothing.
Glancing behind his shoulder, Bridger noted the space he had to work with. “I’m assuming you’re not going to want to stop at any more roadside motels?”
Vega answered with an exaggerated shake of her head. “I think one was enough for this trip. I probably won’t sleep anymo—” Her head turned to glance at Bridger when the car beeped about his unbuckled seatbelt. “What are you doing?”
Bridger crawled his big ass over the center console and into the backseat.
There wasn’t the most room for an almost six-and-a-half-foot man, but he’d consider himself lucky after seeing some of the smaller vehicles pass by.
“There’s got to be a way to pull these seats down, right?
” he asked, starting to slip his hands between the seats, feeling for a lever or handle of some sort.
“Why?” she asked, throwing her eyes up at the rearview mirror to glimpse at what he was doing.
“Do you always have to ask so many questions?” Bridger stopped, staring at her with an expression that said, Chill the fuck out.
“We don’t need the backseat for anything, so it might as well be a bed for when you’re tired enough to sleep.
” He pointed to the road. “Focus, Caelum.” Bridger saw her eyes roll before returning to the highway.
He really didn’t want to end up in another ditch.
“When was the last time you slept?” she asked, passing a slow-moving car.
“The plane,” Bridger told her, still trying to find a way these seats came down.
As if Vega could sense his agitation, she said, “Check behind each seat. There might be a little handle that brings the seat forward, but you need to be on the opposite side so it can fold down.”
Doing exactly that, Bridger reached across the seat, found a handle, and half the backseat folded in on itself slowly.
“Wooooow,” he marveled with sarcasm. “Fancyyyyy.” He let the second-row seats down next.
Bridger heard a puff of air leave Vega’s mouth, trying to suppress a laugh.
They used to laugh together all the time. Vega had once been his best fucking friend. At one point in their lives, Vega was the only person who’d ever shown him it was okay to want something you weren’t supposed to.
Her laugh pulled him into the past, and he wanted to hear it again. And again. And again…
Leaning against the back corner of the SUV, Bridger sat diagonally and still wouldn’t have enough room to stretch out, but at least Vega would fit comfortably. “Do you remember when we ran into each other in Demuto the week after we met?”
Vega’s eyes returned to the rearview mirror. “How could I forget? It was the worst blizzard Demuto had seen in a century, and we all got stuck in the theater overnight.” She hadn’t mastered her control of the weather yet, and a storm that size would have been too big for her even now.
Bridger had spent the night getting to know Vega and Arlet, listening to them laugh until they cried. They had an inside joke for every day of the year.
If he hadn’t fallen in love with Vega the night he met her, he would have that night.
Khort had pretended to sleep until the girls dogpiled him and forced him to join in on the conversation. It was the night he realized Khort was in love with Vega too.
A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. It filled Bridger with a happiness he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time listening to Vega recall the details of their love story. It had ended, but that didn’t make it any less real.
“I wasn’t supposed to be in Demuto that night.
I was supposed to be at Meyer’s in Ardor.
Once a year, our families got together for what might have been the only normal family night, if you can call it that, we ever had.
Just all of us hanging out and our parents using it as an excuse to stir up some trouble for fun.
” The picture in his mind of those nights was so clear—clearer than it’d been in years.
He’d done too good of a job shielding out the person he’d once been.
“Anyway, I didn’t show, and I was supposed to go to some party with him that night.
I think that’s why he always kinda didn’t like you.
” Bridger chuckled. “Because I chose to go to Demuto, where I knew you were, on the off chance I’d happen to bump into you instead of being his wingman at some party I didn’t care to go to if you weren’t going to be there. ”
The sound of Vega’s laugh shot tendrils of warmth throughout his body—like she had a personal supply of endorphins to give away and she’d given them all to Bridger.
She talked through her fit of giggles. “Arlet and I always joked that we thought he might be secretly in love with you.”
Bridger barked a laugh. “Meyer, in love with me? I know I speak for both of us when I say I’d rather eat a bowl of rocks.
” Even if either of them were attracted to men, they were practically brothers.
“I chose to chase down a girl I’d just met over spending our favorite night of the year together.
I hurt his feelings, so in turn, he tried to hurt mine by not liking you.
” It hadn’t worked. “I always knew deep down he really liked you… He was just putting on an act for the sake of proving a point, and then everything happened, so he leaned into it and told himself it was real.” Just like me.
“Sometimes it’s easier to play pretend.”
Words Bridger hadn’t been expecting poured from Vega’s lips.
“He came to me in my last life… offered to help me try and break my curse if it meant saving you.” Vega focused on the road, both hands gripping the steering wheel.
“It was the reason I was in Schoenus the morning of the attack. I was looking for Meyer to help with my reset.”
Bridger’s shock made him freeze, unable to say anything at all.
Meyer had always been clear on his stance. He’d follow where his parents pointed.
Vega continued talking. “But then I ran into you instead. When the battle broke out and Meyer wouldn’t help me in front of everyone, I decided it was time to do something on my own for once—it was time to be my own god.”
He was truly blown away, questioning everything Meyer had said to him since Vega had come back in the last life.
His best friend had seen Bridger’s walls crumbling. He knew the shields were falling and the man Bridger had once been was starting to reemerge.
He might have even pushed him to get him there a little quicker.
Bridger didn’t know how long it’d been since either of them said anything when Vega spoke again. “Hey, Bridger…”
When he looked up, his eyes found hers in the mirror.
“Tell me something real.” Had this become their way of letting down their walls, if only for a second, to peek inside and see what was left of the person they had once loved?
Bridger took a moment, swallowing back the fear of being honest. “Deciding to come find you in Demuto was the best decision I’ve ever made.
I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t fallen in love with you.
I never would have had the courage to fight against what I knew was wrong.
” And that was what he’d done… It’s what he tried to continue to do.
It was just different now…
Bridger had never claimed to be perfect. He’d never pretended to know everything, but the one thing he was certain of was if he didn’t hold the position he held, things would be worse than anyone could imagine.
The air between them felt lighter than it had in almost four decades.
From the food, and the hum of the back tires, Bridger couldn’t stop the pull of sleep. He’d tried to fight it for as long as he could but lost, blackness dragging him inside the body of a memory—the one that might have been the moment everything changed.
The sharp piece of rock in his hand clipped against the stone wall.
Another day down.
422 days locked away, and no one had said a single word to him.
One year, one month, three weeks, and six days he’d been locked away with only one meal a day. One year, one month, three weeks, and six days of no contact with the outside world.
All he had was himself and the doubts in his head. The voices who told him he’d never get out of here—he’d never see Vega again.
Marlena hadn’t come by in over sixty days, and the last time she had, all she did was stare, provoking Bridger to scream whatever obscenities he could at her.
He reminded her every chance he got that he’d kill her—slit her throat, cut off her extremities one by one. Nothing shook her.