Betrayer, page 3
part #3 of The Shining Ones Series
The way he studied me made my breath catch. “And yet I can feel that it is different even if you cannot admit it to yourself.” His low voice had a sadness to it that hurt my heart.
I tried a softer approach this time. “I’m here with you. Even if I entertained your idea, it’s impossible, as you know, as long as your soul is in me. Normal human things like relationships and children are no longer an option for me. Why would I create a family knowing that they’d always be in danger from me? That aside, this is where I want to be. With you.”
Adam visibly winced. Perhaps my words had, in fact, hit too close to home, which hadn’t been my intention at all.
“I am sorry for what I have inflicted on your life,” he said quietly. “I cannot take back what has been done, but I will promise to spend your lifetime trying to make amends for it. It is all that I can do, and I shall.”
Grunting, I got up from my end of the sofa, pushing Daisy aside to her chagrin, and strode over to the armchair next to Adam, sitting down. I didn’t mince words this time as I gently shook his knee. “I’m not sorry you saved my life—twice, I might add. I’m not sorry you’re here with me. The time for regret is over. This is my life now, and I’ve made my peace with it. You need to make peace with that, too. We’ve got to get on the same page if we’re to have any chance of surviving this, and I won’t accept that we won’t survive this.”
Adam’s gaze softened as he placed his hand on top of mine and squeezed. “You became wise when I was not looking. I am not sorry for being here with you either. Whatever happens, it was all worth it.”
“Good,” I said, patting his knee before withdrawing my hand. While I would’ve preferred to have been in his lap showing him how not sorry I was for being with him, we had bigger issues to discuss. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I was going to give it my best shot.
I sat forward in my chair, giving him my full attention. “Now that we have that out of the way, we need to talk about things you are going to be resistant to. I need for you to let go of this protectiveness, even if just a little, because there are things I need to know. Without Arthur here to guide me, I need you to open up and work with me.”
Adam pulled back from me, his expression suddenly serious, but I carried on. “Before he was condemned to the Dark Helix, Jeremiah said a bunch of things that don’t make any sense to me.” Adam tried to interject, but I waved away his interruption. “No, let me finish. I thought Jeremiah was the monster in this situation—he did, after all, kill all those girls—but what sticks with me is he kept saying he was doing it in spite of Lucien Morningstar, which means he was working against Lucien’s plan. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”
Adam pinched the bridge of his nose, his angst back in full force, but it couldn’t be helped. I wanted answers and he should want them, too. He gave me a quick shrug. “I do not know where Jeremiah’s loyalty lies. I would never have suspected he would have betrayed me, yet he did, even at the expense of his own life.” Jeremiah’s attempt on my life felt like a betrayal to Adam, yet Jeremiah clearly hadn’t seen it that way.
I shook my head. “But don’t you see? That makes no sense. What was the upshot for him? He had to betray you and he lost his life trying to kill me.”
Adam still couldn’t see the flaw in his logic. “No one could have foreseen Arthur using the device. Had I known, I would never have left it in his care,” he replied. The dismay on my face must’ve been clear as day because Adam reached for my hand and cradled it between his own. “Not because he used it on Jeremiah, my love. It is the consequence of activating the device itself. Jeremiah brought about his own destruction. I cannot fault Arthur for that.”
“I understand, but that’s not my point.” I shook my head and grasped for the right words. “Jeremiah loved you with a devotion that bordered on disturbing. You weren’t there when he came to the trailer. Or when he tortured me. His loyalty to you was beyond comparison, and he felt just in his actions. He wasn’t stupid, Adam. He knew what he was doing and he felt righteous in doing it. What is Lucien up to that Jeremiah would risk his wrath by getting in the way?”
“I do not know,” said Adam, frustrated. “Lucien and I are hardly on speaking terms, as you know. I would kill him before I spoke to him again.”
“Set aside vengeance for a moment and think about it.” He was being obtuse for such a super smart supernatural being. “Jeremiah tried to kill me. He was trying to thwart Lucien’s plans—remember, he said he acted in spite of what Lucien wanted, so maybe Lucien isn’t trying to kill me. Maybe I’m not a part of this at all.”
It was only a glimmer of hope, but I held onto to it desperately. Things weren’t adding up, and I didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that there was something happening that neither one of us was privy to. We were missing something, and the assumptions we’d made up to this point might’ve pointed us in the wrong direction. What if I’d only been the target of Jeremiah’s vendetta? What if Lucien wasn’t concerned with me at all?
My logic made Adam pause. His stillness was almost unnatural, but I sat patiently and waited for him to make the same connections. It didn’t take long. Abruptly, he dropped my hand and rose from the couch, disturbing Daisy. She opened one eye and watched as he began pacing on the other side of the coffee table. With a deep sigh, she shut it again.
“I can see why you would think that,” Adam began, his stride bringing him to a stop in front of me. “I have wondered myself why Jeremiah was insistent he was not in league with Lucien, but now I am not so sure.”
“Why?” I asked.
He crouched down next to my chair, his gaze leveled at me. “Because Jeremiah also said I did not choose you, that you were already chosen for me. As if I had been manipulated into being here. I ended up in Tybee because Gabriel ordered me here. If that is the case, then it also implicates my sister, which does not sit well with me.”
My mouth went dry. Adam had never said who’d sent him to our small island, only that he was sent to retrieve the deus ex machina. And his sister Gabriel was a member of the Council of Four, the highest ranking group of Elohim in Elizium. The news was a shock.
“Do you think Gabriel would collude with Lucien against you?” I asked quietly. It was the question I didn’t want to ask, but I asked it nonetheless.
Adam moved his hand to my leg, his eyes looking up at me in earnest. “No, I do not. Whatever Gabriel may be, she would never put herself in a compromising situation like that. Her career is much more important than petty jealousies or would-be conspiracies.”
“It doesn’t make sense.” Disconcerted, I reached out and caressed his cheek, the stubble under my fingers scratchy but not unpleasant. “What are we missing? Jeremiah tries to kill me in spite of Lucien, Gabriel sends you here to retrieve the artefact, but Jeremiah contends that our meeting was already fated. And still no sign of Lucien, if he is the mastermind behind it all.”
“I do not know,” replied Adam with a small smile. “But we will find out soon enough, Poesy. One way or another, the truth will find us, I am certain of that.”
3
The next day at the restaurant was slow, given that Rockfish was opening in three days. I was in the middle of slotting the last of the printed-out menus into their linen covers when a warm breeze wafted its away across the restaurant, the puff of air picking at the exposed edges of the remaining menus. Looking up, I watched as Haylee Jane marched in through the front door, her full mouth set in a grim line.
“Um, hey. What’s going on?” I asked. Leaving the rest of the menus stacked on the podium, I scooted around the hostess station toward the door.
Haylee stomped the rest of the way into the restaurant, her dreads swishing with each agitated step, her emerald eyes stormy like the Caribbean Sea in the middle of a squall. She was still dressed in her Paddy’s uniform, her apron still tied around her waist.
Whatever it was, Haylee Jane was pissed. I wouldn’t miss that look anywhere.
“I’m done with that crazy man,” Haylee announced to the whole restaurant, throwing her hands up in the air, her long, dangly earrings clanging like angry wind chimes.
“Please tell me you didn’t just have a fight with Stevie,” I replied, rushing to her side.
Haylee Jane was my best girlfriend—we’d been friends since childhood. I didn’t see her as much since I’d been fired from Paddy’s, and lately, all my time had been spent at the new restaurant or with Adam. But not being at Paddy’s meant I no longer served as a buffer between Stevie and Haylee Jane’s temper. If what Birdie had said about Stevie being on the warpath was even halfway true then this could be really bad.
“Girl, it wasn’t no fight, it was a god damn throw down. That man had it comin’, I swear, Poe. He’s been ridin’ everybody’s ass for days now.” Haylee stood with her hands on hips, her head wobbling all over the place like she was possessed.
Sighing, I reached out and rubbed her arm before tugging on her hand. “Come on, come sit.”
She didn’t resist, and we made our way over to a table and took a seat. Haylee practically collapsed in her chair, causing me to raise an eyebrow before declaring, “Okay, spill it.”
The ruckus hadn’t even been a big one, not for the likes of Haylee and Stevie. He’d asked her to stay an extra shift because Katie yet again wasn’t up to working by herself, and Haylee had complied graciously, which was saying a lot for Haylee. At the end of the shift, the till had been short—again, most likely due to Katie, but Haylee had gotten the brunt of Stevie’s wrath, his opinion being that Haylee should’ve kept a better eye on Katie. That’d been the final straw.
“So how bad is it, really?” I asked, sizing up Haylee over the table. She slouched in her chair, her arms crossed, gazing out the window.
“I quit,” she huffed.
“Haylee Jane!”
She leveled her gaze at me and shrugged. “Girl, you weren’t there. It ain’t the same since you left. I’m done with that man.”
Leaning forward on the table, I rested my head in my hands, trying to figure out what to say next. Haylee couldn’t be without a paycheck any more than I could, and she’d been at Paddy’s for years now, mostly because Stevie had tolerated her volatile temper. Would another bar owner hire her, especially after she’d walked out on Stevie and left him in the lurch? It didn’t bear thinking about.
“So what are you going to do?” I asked, sighing.
“I don’t know,” replied Haylee. She was twirling a dread around her finger, her hair mocha brown against her light skin. As I’d expected, she hadn’t thought it through.
I straightened back up in my chair. Joe was going to kill me. But there was no help for it.
“Come work here with me,” I said suddenly.
Haylee’s hand stilled, her green eyes going wide before she shook her head. She recrossed her arms. “Uh-uh, Poe. I’m not gettin’ in between you and Joe. I appreciate the offer and all, but you ain’t even asked him. If you’re tryin’ to make up with your daddy, then this ain’t the way to go about it.”
But my mind was already made up. I missed her. I missed my old life. Haylee was a great waitress, and she was loyal. Temper aside, Haylee would do whatever she had to to make things work, and that was something we were going to need, beyond my own selfish reasons. No, it was a great idea.
I grinned at Haylee, clapping my hands together. She rolled her eyes, but her shoulders had visibly relaxed. She was trying to put on a good front for me, but I knew she wanted to be here. “It’s a great idea and you know it. Let me worry about Joe. Just say yes.”
She only paused for a few seconds before nodding, her green eyes alight with humor. “Fine, I’ll come work with your crazy ass.” Haylee’s infectious smile held a glint of naughtiness I knew all too well.
“What?” I asked.
“Wait until Stevie finds out,” she said, rising from her seat.
“Yeah, don’t be rubbing it in his face, Haylee,” I replied, getting up, too.
“Girl, you know me. I’m the queen of decorum.” Her grin was positively evil now.
I snorted and made my way around to her side of the table to walk her to the door, giving her a quick hug, which she promptly wiggled out of. “Keep telling yourself that. Maybe some of it will rub off one day and actually be true,” I said.
“Girl, you know it.” Haylee winked at me as she walked out the door.
The thought of having Haylee at Rockfish made me extremely happy. But there was also the part about telling Joe. As he walked out of the back and into the dining room, it was now or never. He was in a good mood. We were just about on schedule for opening.
“Who was that?” asked Joe as he glanced up from the paperwork he was holding in his hand.
Joe was dressed in his standard flannel shirt and jeans, a pair of reading glasses pushed up on top of his salt-and-pepper hair. My dad was a bear of a man, broad-chested and tall, but not quite as tall as Adam. Back in the day, I’ve could’ve imagined him being a star football player if I didn’t already know he’d been a fisherman’s son. He still tanned better than me, and the wrinkles around his eyes were weathered from being outside for so many years on boats. His brown eyes held mine.
I swallowed nervously. “Um, that was Haylee Jane.”
“Oh yeah, how’s she doing?” he asked. My dad dropped his paperwork onto the bar and made his way over to me to give me a hug.
“Um, well, not so great unfortunately,” I replied as I squeezed him back.
My dad pulled away, his big hands resting lightly on my arms, and allowed his gaze to settle on my face. “Why? What happened?”
This was so awkward for me. I felt like I was a twelve-year-old about to tell my dad I’d made out with a boy, except he’d never been there for that part of my life. I didn’t want him to be mad at me. I cared what he thought for the first time in a long time.
“Can you sit down?” I asked, biting my lip.
“Okay,” he replied warily. He pulled out a metal chair and sat down at the closest table. I did, too, keeping my nervous smile plastered on my face.
His look said it all. He thought I was in trouble. And I quite possibly was, but not for the reasons that were probably flying through his head. “It’s not like that. Haylee had a fight with Stevie and quit. I offered her a job here.”
There was a long pause.
“Say something. Are you mad at me? You’re allowed to be mad,” I said with a quiver in my voice.
Joe sighed and shook his head. “I’m not mad, Poe, but it would’ve been good if we’d discussed it. I was planning on hiring another waitress anyhow, so I guess it saves me some work.” He gave me a small smile.
I launched myself at my dad, almost knocking him out of his chair. I couldn’t squeeze him tightly enough. It’d been wrong to hire Haylee without his input. “I’m so selfish,” I croaked as he wrapped his arms back around me and gave me a kiss on the top of my head.
“You’re passionate, Poe, not selfish. You were trying to help Haylee out. I just hope that impulsiveness doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass someday.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, holding onto him. “I couldn’t help it.”
“I know,” he replied with sudden seriousness. “Just be careful. I’m not kidding when I say that rash decision-making of yours may get you in trouble one of these days.”
In the end, my dad would be closer to the truth than he could ever know.
***
Rockfish’s opening turned out to be a success, and it was late by the time Haylee and I finished up. There’d been a quick drink with my dad and the kitchen staff before we could go anywhere, and even though the restaurant wasn’t large, the amount of cleanup after the customers left was still staggering, But it wasn’t all bad. We’d cleared seven grand. It was a healthy start. The challenge would be keeping the numbers that high, but for the time being, we were doing well, which meant Haylee and I had reason to go out to celebrate.
Not that my angsty angel boyfriend was making it any easier. A public crowd was his worst nightmare. The Achilles’ heel of Adam’s power was that he couldn’t manipulate a situation if there were a bunch of people standing around to watch it happen. Every pair of eyes rapidly reduced the possibility of a favorable outcome, and that meant he wouldn’t be able to protect me. With the question of the Elohim still outstanding, he didn’t like that one bit.
Adam sat next to me at the table, staring into his scotch. He occasionally glanced up from his drink to make polite small talk, but his body thrummed with tension I could almost feel. Working my way through my vodka and soda, I sat watching Haylee and Andre. What I hadn’t realized all those months ago was that Andre, the drummer from Birdie’s band, really did have a thing for Haylee. Watching it play out was like viewing something from a nature show, and Haylee was loving every minute of it. Thankfully, Birdie and Katie arrived with the bass player from the Robotic Overlords.
“Thank you, baby Jesus. I’m glad you finally showed up,” I said.
“What’s that all about then?” asked Birdie, taking a seat across from me and Adam. He waved his hand over in Haylee’s direction as she sat flirting with Andre.
“That, my friend, is the exotic mating ritual of the elusive species known as Haylee Jane.” Andre’s attention was firmly rooted on Haylee Jane as she tossed her dreads back, her sunny smile turned to full wattage.
“No way,” said Birdie, shaking his head, his eyes wide.
“Oh, yes way,” I replied, knocking my drink back. Adam gave me a sideways look of disapproval, but I ignored it. “That’s nothing. The show’s been going over an hour now.”
