Page 47 of Awry
Waiting forherto return.
He never faltered.He did shut up about it.About believing that she was somehow still alive, despite what we three had witnessed.Not that any of us actually talked about Zaya or that night.Internalizing despair is easier than facing it.We never even told our uncle the full story.Just enough of it to firmly pit brother against brother, to have a restraining order issued against our sperm donor in Reck’s name and mine.And because Rought was still underage, only seventeen, rushed proceedings to obtain full legal custody for his mother.
I’m going to lose Rought to … whatever this is.
Or I’m going to lose Reck.
I don’t need to have any awry powers to see that pending future.It’s right in front of me.And that incenses me all over again.If I ever paused to think about it, I would know that I choose anger because it’s easier.But I don’t pause.
I don’t want to feel so much.
So I’ll just feel this one thing and shut down everything else.
“She’s going to destroy us,” I say harshly.“Or, at least, finish the job Zaya Gage started thirteen years ago.Hell, even twenty fucking years ago.”
Rought scoffs.“When she was nine?That’s some long con, brother.”
I snarl, “Either she’s an impostor, or she is who she says she is and she’s been toying with us this entire time, faking her death, lying to us.Is that the kind of soul-fucking-bonded you want?Is that someone worthy of sharing the three of us?Someone worthy of tying our lives to?”
Rought looks at me then, still crouched by her bedside.He looks … sad, pitying.For me.
I walk away.
From that look, but also fromher.I need to breathe.I need to think.I need to finish cleaning up the mess Zaya fucking Gage has dumped in my lap.
And yeah, I need to remind Reck that getting the Authority involved is going to fuck things up even more.
Five
ZAYA
A sliverof salty sea breeze and sunlight filtering through gauzy curtains pulls me from a light sleep.I’ve been surfacing on and off for a couple of hours, but the fact that I can now sense someone with robust essence just beyond the exterior door informs me that my awry senses have at least somewhat reasserted themselves.Also, that I’m alone in the room — for now.
Delaying navigating the certain-to-be-complicated aftermath of the last couple of days a moment longer, I roll to my side and blearily note the items set on the bedside table.My phone, which I know without question I wouldn’t have placed beside me while I slept, and three squat bottles of potion mage healing brew.Two of the stoppered bottles are uncorked and empty, only remnants of the elixirs they’d contained clinging to their interiors.But liquid filling the third bottle glows an evanescent pink.
Curling my knees into my chest, I try to relax into the too-soft bed, tucking the lumpy pillow more firmly under my head and neck.But now that I’m awake, I’m aware of all the aches in my body.Deep joint aches that can be resolved only through movement.Also, I feel icky.And sticky.I’m swaddled in multiple layers of bedding, fully clothed in a tank top under a cashmere sweater, with my cashmere skirt now bundled up around my hips.It’s uncomfortably hot.I’m actually sweating a little, and I rarely sweat — mostly by choice if I can help it.
I shove the covers back, noting that someone has pulled the duvet off the second bed and piled it on top of me for some strange reason.Have I actually died again?I tend to lose time around traumatic deaths, then need to sleep heavily.And what death isn’t traumatic, really?It seriously screws with my body, my system.Even my recent memories, sometimes.
I sit up, huffing out a groan.Popping the stopper on the last mage brew — a revitalization elixir of some sort — I down it.It tastes like sweetened lemonade, which reminds me that all I want to be consuming is something thick, creamy, and chilled.Bonus points if it comes in chocolate or caramel, or even plain, delectable vanilla.
Yes, I want a milkshake.
Though ice cream will do.
But since that’s not a new craving or easily assuaged at the moment, I shove the thought away so I can deal with the problem perched right in front of me.
My phone.
And whoever has screwed around with it while I was recovering from my most recent death.
Instead of pressing my thumb to the built-in scanner or raising the phone to read my face — two things that can be, and no doubt were, done while I’m unconscious — I press my entire hand over the screen, then wait.If I were a mage or even a shifter, I could trigger the extra security measures built into the phone by triggering my power in some fashion.But since I can’t manipulate my own inherent essence in such a way, I need to wait until the phone picks up on … well, me.Just me.And everything I carry.
Though I have only the barest of understandings of how to tap into it, or even of what my new role in the world, in the universe, means for my daily life, I know I ammorethan I was even three weeks ago.
The phone vibrates with a slight acknowledgment.Then a small box for a passcode appears on the otherwise dark screen.I enter my newest one-time-use code.I’ll get another issued via a text message that will be wiped from existence after I read it.
Three red warnings pop up on the screen.The boxes are full of coded text that I don’t bother deciphering.I have no idea why Coda bothers providing that much detail, because it means nothing to me except that the phone’s security has been compromised.What little personal information was to be found on it has likely been downloaded, and tracking has been enabled.
