Wild and Free (The Three #3)(158)

“I don’t sense that,” Ruby sniffed.

Poncho looked to her. “Auntie says you would, if you used the blood of the goat.”

Ruby curled her lip.

“Lilah, leave,” Abel ordered.

I turned my head to him. “Leave?”

He gave a short nod. “Leave. We need to talk to the witches and we can’t do that with you and the others here.”

“But—”

“Bao bei.” He leaned to me. “Take Leah and Sonia and go.”

I stared at him.

Then I muttered, “Oh, all right,” and let his hand go. “Sonia, Leah, let’s get outta here.”

We left the room and saw Jezza and Flo wandering down the hall toward it, taking their time, as if there wasn’t a world to save.

“In there,” Sonia told them.

They passed us and the door closed behind them.

“We have enough power to take over the world?”

That came from Leah.

“That’s what she said, but I don’t know what to do with that.”

That came from me.

“This is so frustrating,” Sonia snapped. “It’s like we have it all, we just don’t know what it is so we can use it.”

“Maybe we should stop karate chopping and I should test out my blue light,” I suggested. “You should work on talking to the animals,” I said to Sonia. “And you…” I turned to Leah. “Well, I don’t know about you. A vampire human?”

“I’m getting Lucien’s abilities,” Leah reminded me.

“Well, maybe you should try them out,” I replied. “Maybe there’s something there.”

“It’s a plan, a nebulous one, but it’s something,” Sonia said.

“Leah.”

We all turned to look down the hall and saw Lucien approaching.

He didn’t look happy.

“Darling,” she called, moving his way. “Is everything okay?”

“Breed was with the enemy,” he declared curtly, stopping close to her and putting a hand to her waist. “Are the men in there?”

“Uh…yes, but what did—?” she started but stopped when he bent in, touched his mouth to hers, and then walked straight to the door and through it, closing it behind him.

“You know, for three women who can take over the world, we don’t seem to get a lot of respect,” Leah grumbled.

“Then let’s earn it,” I replied and looked to Sonia. “Let’s go talk to bunnies.”

She grinned and hooked her arm through my elbow.

I hooked mine through Leah’s elbow.

And we went to go talk to bunnies.

*

I stood in living room two, thinking bad thoughts.

Thoughts of losing Abel.

Thoughts of him leaving me, whereabouts unknown.

Thoughts that made my stomach hollow, the emptiness edged in a dull pain.

Then I swung my arm out, finger pointing at the red Solo cup I put on the table there, and…

Nothing.

“Shit,” I muttered.

I tried something else, thinking of Abel with another woman.

When the pain became sharper, I lifted up both my hands and pushed them out toward the cup.

Nothing.

“Shit!” I fairly shouted.

“Little girl,” Dad started, “give it a rest. You been tryin’ that crap for an hour now and getting nothing. You’re doin’ your own head in.”

Frustrated, I glared at him.

“Yo, Lilah,” Moose called, lazing on a sofa with his head to the arm, hands linked behind his head, ankles crossed, and eyes closed. “When you take over the world, get me a mansion big enough I can ride my Harley in the front door,” he requested.

“Moose, I’m not taking over the world,” I told him.

“Shame,” he murmured. “Figure you’d do a better job runnin’ it than the *s who got it now.”

That probably wasn’t a bad guess, considering the world was on the brink of disaster.

“If you’re takin’ orders,” Jabber, sitting in an armchair with an open bag of potato chips in his lap, an open bottle of Bud at his side, put in. “I want one of those sisters, the ones in that reality show about bein’ famous for bein’ famous. I don’t care which, but the tall one is far from hard on the eyes.”

“Jabber, I’m not taking over the world,” I snapped.

“Okay, say you get famous,” he kept at it. “You might meet her at a party. You could put in a good word for me.”

“Jabber, open your senses and read my mood,” I hissed.

“Girl, known you since you was three,” he replied. “I can read your mood. But if I learned I got it in me to take over the world, I wouldn’t be staring at a red Solo cup and gettin’ pissy. I’d be layin’ plans.”

“Well, I’m not you,” I pointed out.

“Pity,” he muttered.

I turned to Dad.

He shrugged.

“Perhaps, Lilah, this ability cannot be honed,” Jian-Li suggested, sipping tea in the chair opposite Jabber. “Perhaps it only comes naturally. Abel has said it’s powerful and it was so when you didn’t even know you were using it.” She tipped her head to the side and her voice went gentle. “There’s much to be frustrated about, qīn ài de, therefore there’s no purpose to making yourself more frustrated.”