Page 93 of Snag
And my essence as a teenager wouldn’t even have been a whisper of the power I now hold. That I’m still struggling to hold.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Reck snaps. “I wouldn’t hurt Presh. And … I won’t hurt you.”
“You can’t hurt me,” I say automatically, stiffly.
“Can’t I?” he says coldly. “Your soul-bound mates might be the only beings capable of —” He cuts himself off, grimacing. And dropping his gaze.
“Maybe that’s why …” My eyesight suddenly goes hazy at the edges. My fingers twitch, subconsciously curling into a two-finger hold. As if by mulling through all the revelations from the last twenty-four hours, I’m suddenly and involuntarily drafting the threads of the past through my fingers, trying to untangle them. Or maybe trying to properly ply them together into one unified whole? Ready to be rewoven into the fabric of the universe —
“What are you doing?” Reck asks sharply.
I refocus on him. “What?”
He shakes his head, grinding his teeth. “ ‘Maybe that’swhy …’ what?” He asks the question as if it’s been pulled from him against his will.
“Why my aunt rejected her soul-bound mates after Oso murdered Ward.”
Reck blinks. All of his pretense and masks fall away. Just for a moment.
I don’t make him wait for clarification. “The three half-brothers, Oso, Ward, and Ari, were soul bound to my aunt. After Oso killed Ward, my aunt severed her other bonds. But maybe that wasn’t a punishment. Maybe that was self-preservation.”
“What the fuck …” Reck wraps his left hand across his forehead and rubs both of his temples. Then he exhales harshly. “That doesn’t change the present.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“We need to go now,” he says, reverting to his Authority persona even though none of what he’s doing, nothing he has been doing with or without his agents, is sanctioned. Especially any interaction with me, the Conduit. “Just you and me. Bellamy is threatening DeVille, and then Presh, if anyone else comes with us.”
I reach for the handle of the passenger door without further hesitation.
The universe tugs at me — hard and away from the vehicle, away from Reck.
Muta twists on my extended arm, taking his bushmaster form in an instant. Seriously heavy and completely pissed — over being abruptly awoken, I presume — he twines up my arm, over my shoulder, and around my neck.
“I don’t have the black box disabled yet,” Coda says over the speakers. “Should I loop in Rought?”
“Not yet,” Reck says, answering for me. His gaze is riveted to Muta.
The death god trapped in the form of a huge snake rears partially up off my shoulder, hissing when this display of dominance results in his head getting covered in my hair. He looks ridiculous, like he’s wearing a wig.
I see Reck’s lip twitch as he suppresses a smile.
Unfortunately, those annoyingly full lips thin as the Authority Reck personality takes over again. “Bellamy was clear about the sequence of events that need to happen now. Give us a fifteen-minute head start.”
“Bellamy’s schedule …” I say. “And why would Presh voluntarily leave the property? What is Bellamy holding over her?”
“Nothing,” Reck snaps.
“Nothing,” Coda says over the phone, oddly agreeable. “Not according to the text messages.”
“Just her soft fucking heart,” Reck mutters. “And the promise of a sister.”
“And an inference that Bellamy needs help,” Coda says dryly. “To escape the Cataclysm’s clutches.”
“Same thing,” Reck huffs.
“Redemption …” I murmur. My stomach anxiously churns as I recall the tail end of my conversation with Presh.
“What?” Reck snaps.
