Blakeshire (Insight #9)(38)
“Me either.” I reached for his arm, ignoring the stabbing feeling in the air. “Do you have any free time today?”
“Whatever time you need, birthday girl.”
“Just another day. Listen. I have to go somewhere with Drake, but I wanted to know if you could do some digging for me so when we get back I would know which way to go.”
“Where are you going?” he asked harshly, not cool with my vague, ‘I’ve got plans’ statement.
“I don’t know; like, a date or something.”
A perplexed grin spread across his face as his deep green eyes gave me a once over. “A date. Maddie has a date.”
“Madison.”
“Fine. Your gift from me is not giving you hell about this.”
“You like him?” I questioned absentmindedly.
His smile faded. “It’s never mattered what I or anyone else thought, Maddie. You know what makes you happy.”
“Could have fooled me when it came to Britain, or anyone else for that matter.”
“We were just reacting to you. We can see the wall you put up and say what you can’t.”
I let out a deep breath. “Yeah, I do that.”
Out of habit, his pupils expanded, taking in what he could see around me. I was sure he saw my nightmare when I felt his emotion shift to panic, then submit to rage. “What the hell?”
“I don’t know. But I know it all connects. I have this gut feeling that I have to go back to my beginning.”
“Like, first life?”
“Yeah, maybe. It has to do with that palace. The saltwater, the ink, the octopus. All of it. Can you start to dig into that? Like maybe talk to that Alamos dude and see what he remembers or figure out why anyone would die that way, if there is water in that palace, if it has salt in it.”
“Should I be writing this down?”
“That is just the start. I think something jacked me up the first time I died and caused all of this strife. I just don’t know what.”
“You have been around these people too long—first death?”
“Whatever, Mr. ‘A wall was knocked down in my head.’”
“Yeah, but wait, chill for a second—you think you lived and died in Esterious?”
“You think you lived and died in Italy, so what if I died in a different dimension?” I gripped his arm. “Listen. It is no secret that something sinister wants Drake and Willow to be together, but I think that started long before a few months ago, before this life. I think they set him up to cross her path.”
He sighed as he closed his eyes. “Maddie.”
“Don’t ‘Maddie’ me.”
“Yeah, I’m going to ‘Maddie’ you. You’re looking for a reason that he quote-un-quote cheated on you in a past life and was fooled in this one. Who cares? It doesn’t matter. Move forward.”
“Look, I know you think that I’m being jealous or vindictive, but I’m not. I think they did this to us, and the only way to stop them is to figure out what they did. It plays into something bigger, like massive. Like New World Order kinda stuff.”
“Who is ‘they’? Charlie and Draven already have the weapon that will end Xavier, or at least a plan to get to that point. Landen and Willow have more than halfway found a way to kill that Donalt jerk. I really think you are just exhausted. You need sleep. Sleep without wicked dreams.”
“I slept for, like, twenty-four hours. That is not it. I told you I had my own. And you know what? If I’m right, you might have your own, too.”
“My own what?”
“Evil Master Escort to end.”
That made him laugh, but once he saw that I was not amused, he ceased his laughter. “I’m all for fair, Maddie, but I’m not raising my hand to have my very own evil to kill. At some point, I would like to have a normal life.”
“Nothing will ever be normal about our lives. And like it or not, you are haunted by something. You don’t want to help me, that’s cool. I get it. But what if or when we figure out mine—figure out how they all connect—we figure out how to beat this.”
“Last time I talked to you, you told me we had to go our separate ways. Now look, see how your mind is messing with you?”
“I still think that. But you know what? You are still here. And if you are here, I’m putting you to work. So either go figure out that stuff or go and figure out why every time a female gets anywhere near you, the air fills with needles. Oh, and while a violin plays in the air why you sleep.”
He turned white as a ghost. “You hear that, too?”
“Not now, but I did before. That is jacked up. You’re haunted.”
“Not haunted,” he muttered as I felt grief emerge in his emotions.
My eyes moved rapidly across his image. “You’re grieving.”
As soon as I said that, I saw a flash of light out of the corner of my eye. Aden jumped back, seeing it, too.
“It stopped,” he said with an ache in his voice.
“Why are you grieving?” I asked, knowing he had no reason to feel that way. Even when I focused on him and saw the flashes of his perception, I couldn’t find a reason for that deep, horrid emotion.
“Just feel…empty.”