The Darkness in Dreams (Enforcer's Legacy, #1)(95)
“What do you see, Galaxy?”
“I see the sky, Grandma.”
“No, darling girl, you see the future. You just can’t see the details yet.”
Lexi refused to think of Christan. Instead, she worked her way through the past lives that she knew. Then she worked through a few more that were newly remembered. There had been a brief time around the Black Sea, another on the Mediterranean Coast. A girl who wore a purple veil laced with silver and ate oranges in the sun. All fleeting impressions, nothing specific, for which she was grateful.
She’d met each one, though, held them in her arms and cried for the young, naive women they’d been. She forgave them their fears and their selfishness. She allowed them to cry for the love they lost and she set each one of them free. All of them, except for Gaia, who remained her constant friend. And five-year-old Gemma, chasing butterflies in the sun.
On the fourth day of the new year, Arsen stood at the foot of her deck. A cold wind blew in from the ocean and icy mist clung to his hair. He didn’t approach her.
“How ya’ doing, Slick?” he asked quietly.
“Been better, Bucko.”
“So has he.”
“Don’t,” she whispered, gripping the door with a hand that felt too tight. “I can’t.”
“He loves you.”
“I know,” she choked, and turned to go back inside. Knew that Arsen hesitated, before he followed.
“We’ve been worried,” he said, closing the door. He remained where he was, though, giving her as much space as she needed. Lexi struggled against weeping as she tried to make the coffee.
“Marge has been good.” One shoulder lifted as she reached for two mugs. She’d realized they knew where she was the moment Marge found her. But having Arsen confirm it tore her heart apart. They’d been so patient, hoping she would come back. Her hand fumbled and she turned, leaned back against the counter. Looked at him sadly. “I know you don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand.”
“I met Three,” she said, watching the expression change on his face.
“We wondered.”
Her thin shoulders lifted as she tried to explain, as gently as she could. “He can’t recover what he’s lost. Neither of us can. I know about your war. I know Three needed Christan to be terrifying and she used me to do it. I thought I was saving him, Arsen, but I changed him when he didn’t want to be changed. Christan doesn’t realize it, but he’s a symbol now, bigger than what we tried to have.”
Arsen would have interrupted but Lexi carried on, squeezing down hard on her hands.
“She told me about the jungle, what she made him do, the eighteen days of dying. I know it destroyed him and my heart breaks. It wasn’t his fault. And it wasn’t his fault when Gemma died. It was her sin. But I remember the look on his face that night in Zurich when Six attacked me. I can’t do that to him, Arsen. I can’t ask him to watch me die again.”
“That’s a choice he should make, Slick. Don’t you remember how you felt when he made a choice for you?”
“I know why he did it. Why all the warriors committed to the Agreement. Three didn’t give anyone a choice then, and maybe that’s my point. She manipulates circumstances. Gives options. She says the choices are always his, but they aren’t, not really, because she sets up those circumstances with only one option, the one she wants. Now I’m ending her manipulations.”
“No, Slick, you don’t get off that easy. I won’t let you get off that easy.”
Lexi hated the trace of anger, wanted him to understand and knew that he didn’t. “You’re the brother of my heart, Arsen. I know you love him. I’m setting him free.”
“He doesn’t wish to be free.”
“Not now, maybe, but you know what I’m saying is true. They would always find a way to get to him through me. Three told me how she’s always used the girls—Renata was right when she said we were just a used thing, with no choice of our own. You wonder why Katerina is frightened every time she sees you? Maybe that’s why.” It was the cruelest thing she’d ever said to him, and it broke her heart to do it. But they all needed to understand the truth. “It was why they forced the Agreement in the first place, to take away the choice. He needs to move on with his life and he can’t do that with me.”
“You don’t need to do this.”
“Yes. I do.” He was so silent, so far away she couldn’t let him go without one more thing. “You’ll always be in my heart, Arsen.”
“Will he?”
“He needs to become that dragon again and make them tremble. All of them.”
“Slick—”
“Please… tell him that for me.” And it was all she could say before her throat closed and she was crying, standing in the middle of the kitchen with tears running down her cheeks.
Arsen pulled her into his arms. Carefully, and with tenderness, he stroked the pale hair from her forehead.
“I’ll tell him.”
Lexi first noticed him a week later, as she walked along the deserted footpath that followed the cliffs, high above the ocean. He was simply a presence that brushed against her skin, and she grew angry that he would come after everything she’d said. She pulled her jacket tighter around her throat, glaring into the shadows before she ran back to the cottage and slammed the door, sitting huddled in front of the fire for two hours before she felt capable of moving. She checked the locks on all the windows and doors, but couldn’t relax in the total dark, curled on the mattress in the guest bedroom. When night was at its darkest she dragged her blanket to the couch and threw more wood on the fire, left a light burning in the hall. She didn’t sleep, but neither did she dream, and things evened out in the end.