Page 28 of City of Love

Gideon had seen that too, and she was right. He ground his teeth at the thought of her being in such jeopardy while out of his reach.

“Okay, granted. But in all of your very long twenty-some years,” he said with a hint of sarcasm, bringing a harrumph from Lexi, “you’ve never had us—Vik, Alana, me, and others from my world. Our abilities are a tool you’ve never had at your disposal before. Even if I have to help you from afar.”

“Maybe.”

But her thoughts betrayed her frustration. She was more scared about the visions than she was willing to voice, and she was thinking that a hero stuck in another dimension was really no hero at all.

“Lexi, I know you’re afraid. But you must believe me when I tell you it’s already brilliantly clear to me that you are far more powerful than you realize. And though only time will tell whether I can be that hero standing right beside you, I promise, I will prove to you this: you are already your own heroine.”

Tears pooled in her eyes. Tears he knew to be borne not just of lingering fear and emotional overload—she was, after all, receiving all of his thoughts and emotions too—but of hope, and for the first time in her life, the experience of being respected. If nothing else, he could give her that.

He shook his head. The weight of their joint emotions was severing whatever connection tethered them. “Lexi?” His own voice sounded distant, and her answer as if shouted from the moon. When he reached out to her again, she was gone.

CHAPTER 11

Two days later, still reeling from the encounter with Lexi, Gideon now had the grim task of pulling the sheet over a dead woman’s face, her beautiful brown eyes now permanently closed to the world. He lifted his gaze to the sunlight shining behind pale curtains in the half-timbered room. Soft sobbing and the occasional piercing wail filled the home around him, but the space between him and the deceased cut the others off like a tiny little pocket universe of quiet.

He paused before covering her, offering a silent apology. Tears had drawn a salty map of pain on her now cold and ashen cheeks. The sweat coating his own body from hours of delicate work trying to save her life had gone equally cold. Gideon shivered and pulled the linen over her head.

A warm hand on his shoulder turned his attention back to the living. “My friend, I thank you for all you’ve done for Cassandra and I.” Roberto Blackwing nodded toward the woman lying motionless on the bed before pulling Gideon up into an embrace.

Releasing the solid hug, Gideon surveyed his friend’s familiar face. A mixture of Southern European and Native American, Roberto’s tanned skin and jet-black hair were offset by the slightest gray at the temples and a few creases around his eyes, signs of aging that had not existed earlier today. He’d looked more Gideon’s age before they’d attempted to transition Cassandra to their universe. Attempted, and failed, fatally.

Gideon shook his head, forcing his words out in a hoarse whisper. “You’re thanking me? Roberto, we have utterly failed you. I have utterly failed you.”

Roberto and Cassandra met over a year ago when, as a prominent sculptor from World Two, she’d begun regular crossings to their dimension. As their relationship grew and the four-hour visits became untenable, they’d begun researching a way for her to permanently stay in their universe. A physician himself, Roberto investigated the difficult process that had been used a few times at other portals over the last couple of years. Those other attempts had succeeded. Cassandra’s had not.

“Failed me?” Roberto placed his palms on Gideon’s shoulders. His eyes were rimmed in red, but his posture straight and strong. “Never. You and everyone else here today spent the last five hours fighting for her life. Fighting for my love. You gave everything you could, and no one is to blame but fickle fate herself.”

Gideon shook his head. “Not fate. We make choices, we have options. We could have … we shouldn’t have…” There was always a right choice and a wrong choice. Success or failure based on one’s decisions and actions. And it was clearer to him every moment that the portal had been the wrong choice, and the responsibility lay squarely on his shoulders. If he’d never opened it to crossing, Cassandra wouldn’t be lying under a goddamn shroud.

Roberto led him to a bench where they sat, and Gideon hated that somehow the tables had turned, and he was now the one being comforted. “Yes, we do indeed make choices, Gideon, but they are based on the cards fate has dealt us. We don’t have that total control you are always seeking, my friend. It is an illusion.”

Roberto picked up a miniature framed drawing of Cassandra from a table next to the bench. His trembling hands belied his calm voice. “Cassandra would tell you there was no other choice for us here, and even now, though my heart is battered and torn, I would agree with her. If you’re fated to be with someone, no matter the risk, you must try. No regrets. Risk it all for love. It’s the most important thing.”

Roberto dropped his head, tears releasing as he clenched the frame, his body shaking. Gideon squeezed his friend’s shoulder, noting the depth of his love for Cassandra and the pain he now suffered. He refused to agree with Roberto’s view. There was always a choice. Choosing correctly kept the pain away. That’s what it meant to be in control.

He spared one last glance at the shape of the woman lying under the sheets and took his leave.

He’d never do that to a woman he loved.

He’d never do that to himself.

CHAPTER 12

Lexi sat in a booth across from Matthew and Margot, eyeing a menu, her head full of worry but her mouth watering for lobster mac ‘n cheese. The trendy restaurant looked like a 1960’s diner but had a martini list and dinner menu that was thoroughly twenty-first century. It also happened to be located catty-corner from Taco Shots, which somehow made her feel that much closer to Gideon.

For the past several days since her visit to his world, she’d been preoccupied with the notion of a parallel universe—the idea that Gideon could be standing right next to her, separated by the thinnest of veils, and yet for all practical purposes he didn’t exist at all. Excited by these ideas, and agitated by them, she chomped at the bit to go back. She was also in a constant state of low-grade panic and high-level alert because of her most recent visions. A classic hot mess.

The waitress stepped up, her arms in full sleeve tattoos and her lips in a hot pink smile. “You guys know what you want?”

Lexi studied the menu. That fancy-ass lobster mac didn’t come cheap, and her mom was right, she needed to start counting pennies. Hell, she needed a new life plan if she wanted to avoid moving in with her parents, her rapidly thinning bank account almost as frightening as her latest visions. Almost. Why the hell was she sitting here as if her only concern in life was whether or not the artichoke appetizer was gluten free?

Margot tapped a fire engine red fingernail on Lexi’s menu. “It’s on me, by the way. You know I’ve got your back until you line up your next gig.”

As usual, her best friend was there with the net, never letting her fall too far. Margot understood the true meaning of the word poor. It meant fear. It meant hunger. And for Margot, it meant your father walking out, leaving your mother with three kids, two jobs, and dinners consisting of a bouillon cube dropped in a cup of hot water.

She and Margot had met during Lexi’s senior year at the University of Pennsylvania. After a particularly insistent rash of visions, Lexi found herself involuntarily admitted for observation at the campus hospital. She’d had no idea what was going on, her parents were out of the country on vacation, and she had few friends, not one she could call in this situation. She was freaked out, scared to death, and becoming more agitated by the minute, which was only going to ramp up the situation. She’d curled into a fetal position and begun crying when she felt someone sit on the bed.

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