The Lost Rainbow Mage: Complete Trilogy Edition, page 46
I pressed my forehead to the fabric of his shirt, inhaling his spicy scent. There was definitely something chemical about my attraction to him. I suddenly couldn’t get enough.
It was dangerous to let myself feel anything for him, but I couldn’t walk away either. I rested against him, content to simply stay there a while, and he caught onto my feelings as quickly as ever, wrapping an arm around my back and holding me in place, apparently content too.
twelve
Ireturned to bed and slipped between the covers, every single one of my thoughts tangled around in Coop. But the sheets were welcoming, and as I relaxed, I dozed a little.
“Meira?”
The small voice disturbed me.
“Meira, is it morning yet?”
I muffled my groan as I rolled over. It seemed as though I’d barely been back from the training room, but Greta was probably right. It was probably morning.
“I’m hungry.”
I muffled a second groan, but her words sparked a grumble from my own stomach. I was hungry as well.
“Are you washed and dressed?” My voice was scratchy with lack of sleep, and I didn’t even open my eyes as I spoke to her.
“Yes.”
That was it, then. Not even a chance of hitting the Greta snooze alarm. I groaned out loud as I opened my eyes and pushed myself into a sitting position, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed as I did so.
“Okay. Give me ten minutes and we can follow our noses to the dining room.” I hurried to the small bathroom attached to our bedroom and threw myself into the shower, hoping the water beating against my skin might wake me up and make me feel more human.
I almost didn’t want to shower. Coop’s scent still lingered on my skin and in my hair from where he had been pressed up against me.
Less than ten minutes later, I emerged to find Greta sitting on the bed, watching the bathroom door expectantly.
“Are you ready?” But I didn’t even need to ask the question.
She jumped up and walked to the door. “Let’s go, Meira.”
I took her hand and walked down the hallways toward the communal areas of the facility. It wasn’t as quiet now as it had been when I found Coop training, and we didn’t only need to rely on our noses and the scent of cooking.
We followed the sound of voices and chatter until we located the doorway of a dining room. For a moment I hesitated again, the horror of what had happened in the compound once more hitting me. It had been a room similar to this one where I had accidentally used my power to kill someone.
Coop stood from where he’d been sitting with a group of people. “Greta!” he called. “Are you hungry?”
She nodded. “Really hungry. Can I have breakfast?”
He laughed at the innocent question she’d asked while surrounded by all of these people eating breakfast. “I think that can probably be arranged. Do you like cereal?”
She nodded.
“Sausage?”
She nodded again.
“Bacon? Pancakes? Waffles? Eggs? Muffins?”
She nodded a third time, her eyes bright.
Coop shook his head, his eyes fake-sad. “Then I don’t think we can help you here. “We only have cereal, sausage, bacon, pancakes, waffles, eggs, and some muffins.”
Greta laughed. “That’s what I like, silly.”
Craven beckoned to Greta from over by a long table that was piled with the foods Coop had mentioned. “I’ve got you over here, Greta. Come and choose what you’d like to eat this morning.”
I bent low so only Greta could hear me. “Just a little of everything until you work out how hungry you are, right?”
She nodded. “But it all looks so good. Are you going to have something?”
My stomach grumbled again.
Her eyes widened. “Yes, you are.”
I laughed. “Want to make me a plate, too?”
“Don’t worry, Meira. I’ve got you.” She echoed Craven’s words, and I laughed.
“Great. Then we’ll find a table.”
I glanced toward Coop but didn’t meet his eye. Instead, I watched as a man I hadn’t met yet approached his table and bent to speak to him. The grin disappeared from Coop’s face as he listened to whatever the guy had to say.
Then he looked up and beckoned to me, although he seemed to grow impatient and stood and walked toward me instead. Gazes followed him as he approached me, but he didn’t seem to notice. I checked on Greta, who was excitedly piling food onto two plates.
“We’ve got a lead,” Coop murmured as he reached me.
I met his eyes. “A lead?” I was still thinking about sausage and eggs rather than processing his words.
“On Twain.”
Her name sent a shot of anxiety to lodge in my stomach, and I wasn’t even sure that sausage and eggs would sit in there anymore.
“We think we might have found her.” Coop took my elbow as he gently maneuvered me away from anyone who might overhear our conversation.
Craven looked up and saw what he was doing and started to take Greta to a different table. My breakfast went to the other table with them and disappointment was as strong as my anxiety. Maybe I could eat later.
“She’s actually so close by that it isn’t even funny.” He chuckled dryly. “We can be there in a couple of hours and check things out. See if the lead is a valid one. You up for that?”
I nodded slowly, unsure if I was or not. “What’s your plan, though?”
“Well, I thought maybe we could bring her back here with us. That way we can ask her all the questions we want to, and Lucian shouldn’t interrupt us, because if we’ve just found her, it would be prudent to assume that Lucian has as well.”
I shook my head this time. “No. We’re not kidnapping anyone and bringing them somewhere. We’re not part of Lucian’s baddie brigade or some sort of shady government organization.”
Coop’s mouth tightened, but I continued to speak.
“I know you think you need her here, but as long as we know where she is, that’s the important part.”
He stood still for a moment. Finally, he nodded. “All right. I’ll see if I can convince her to come with us. Is that a good compromise.”
Greta ran up to me and offered me a piece of bacon.
I nodded as I chewed. “If she chooses to come with us, that’s different.”
He shrugged. “Then I’ll just tell her how much danger she’s in if she doesn’t come, and I’ll explain how we can help. That should be enough.” He looked me up and down. “But before we go anywhere, you need breakfast. I’ll get things ready and meet you in ten minutes.”
The idea of breakfast had cheered me again, but the deadline to eat it didn’t, and I hurried to join Greta at her table as Coop left the room.
Twelve minutes later, we were sitting in the car as it rolled away from Coop’s new hideout.
“I wonder why she’s important?” He asked the question and I lifted my shoulders in an automatic shrug.
“I have no idea. But like we said, if Lucian wants her, she must be really powerful.”
Coop nodded. “Then the sooner we get to her the better. He could already be on her trail. They could have taken her already.”
I shuddered at the idea that Lucian might kidnap someone else for his cause, and at the idea of what he might turn her into.
We arrived in front of a small house where half of the clapperboard needed repainting, and a crack was visible on the small porch.
“Is this the place?” It didn’t look like anywhere I’d want to live.
Coop nodded. “Yeah, it’s the intelligence we’ve received anyway.”
We’d discussed our cover story on the way over, but suddenly I wasn’t sure it would fit anymore. A newspaper series about interesting locals didn’t look like it would start here.
I opened my car door. “Let’s get this over with, then.”
Coop gave me a wry grin in return. “Don’t make it sound so bad. Aren’t you the least bit curious who it is that Lucian wants and why?”
My heart raced faster, and I pressed a hand to my chest. “Not really,” I murmured.
We approached the front door, picking our way down a neat path that had weeds sprouting at either side.
Coop knocked on the door, and we waited, my heart hammering in my chest.
“You okay? You look pale?” He took a gentle grasp of my elbow. “You don’t need to be scared.”
I shook my head. “I just don’t feel so great.”
“This will all be over soon.” He gave me a promise he couldn’t possibly know if he could keep, but I nodded quick agreement with him, anyway.
The words reassured both of us, and any reassurance—even fake—was welcome today.
He knocked again. “Come on, come on.” His impatient words were the only clue to his own anxiety.
Footsteps sounded on the other side of the door, then the sound of approximately five thousand locks being unfastened, and I raised an eyebrow. “She’s already security conscious,” I muttered.
When the door finally swung open, I gasped, and my heart seemed to freeze, no longer hammering but an ache spread throughout my body and my knees threatened to give way.
I looked into the face of a woman who looked just like me, and her eyes widened at the same time as mine.
She could have been my mirror image.
Coop recovered first.
“Good morning,” he greeted her, his hand already out. “We’re from the local paper and we’re doing a series about interesting locals.” He glanced between us. “But maybe that isn’t the story to tell here.”
Wordlessly, Twain backed away from the door, her arm out as though to invite us inside, although her finger shook as she pointed to a small sofa.
She looked at me then away again, sneaking continual glances at me as I sneaked them at her.
I caught Coop’s gaze. “What the…?” I only mouthed the question, but he gave a tiny shrug in response before he continued with his patter.
“Like I said, we’re writing features for the local paper on residents and their lives and achievements. Profiles, really.” Then he stepped forward and caught Twain’s arm. “Are you okay? You look very pale.”
“Just… Just…” She fluttered a hand toward her chest. “My heart. It’s beating very fast.”
“That could be shock.” Coop chuckled, but the sound was forced. “It’s not every day you meet your doppelgänger.”
Twain shook her head, but still didn’t say anything.
I leaned forward, trying to ignore the pain in my chest and the lack of breath in my lungs. “We’re Meira and Coop,” I said. “We’re here from the local paper. We’re doing profiles on people from around the town because we all have interesting stories to tell, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.” I was repeating Coop’s words, and I was babbling, but the silence from Twain was an aching void, and I needed to fill it.
She remained quiet at first, her face still pale, her eyes still round. Then she shook her head. “There’s nothing to write about me.” Her voice was flat. Monotone. “I haven’t done anything.”
But as I looked around, my breath caught once more. Her walls were filled with art. Charcoal pictures in bold slashes of black and gray.
“Did you do these?” I gestured around the room, and she nodded.
“No one wants to buy them, though.”
I could tell her about my art, or I could leave it, but this was already weird enough as it was. Perhaps Lucian had somehow seen Twain and gotten her confused with me. That was logical, at least. His hunt was a case of mistaken identity.
Right as I was about to launch into more babble, there was the squeal of wheels and brakes outside and I turned to look out of the window.
“Lucian,” I whispered. There were black SUVs outside, and I couldn’t think that they belonged to anyone else.
“Right.” Coop sprang from where he’d just perched on the edge of the seat of the sofa. “We need to get out of here. Have you got a back door?”
Twain nodded, suddenly mute again.
“Quickly,” he urged her. “You’re not safe here.”
As we followed her toward the back house, knocking started at the front. Lucian had just changed our game plan. We had to take Twain back with us now or Lucian and his men would take her with them.
We no longer had a choice.
She didn’t have a choice.
And I’d never wanted to kidnap anyone.
thirteen
We crouched outside, Twain and me behind the dumpsters in a back alley, and Coop skulking around, trying to get visibility of what was going on inside the house. Every so often, I caught a glimpse of him, as I moved Twain and myself farther and farther back from her house, gathering as many shadows around us as I could, trying to stick to the darkest corners of the alley as we moved.
Thank goodness we were in one of the more rundown areas of town. There probably weren’t many areas we could skulk in some of the other places.
“Who are you really?” It was the first time Twain had spoken unprompted, but she kept it to a quiet whisper, even though we didn’t seem to be in earshot of any of the guys at her house.
Coop and I hadn’t discussed what to say regarding who we really were. We’d been too focused on a back story. Our cover. With hindsight, that had left us woefully unprepared. We’d failed to plan… So perhaps now we’d planned to fail.
For some reason, we hadn’t even seemed to consider that Lucian might be as close to Twain as we were, that maybe he had the exact same leads. Which, given all that we actually knew about Lucian and how militarily he seemed to run things, had been incredibly stupid.
It was as though I’d forgotten Kiran wasn’t running the commune in his airy fairy, peace and love, way anymore. I’d become swept up in the excitement of being on the trail of Twain and now…
I looked at her, viewing myself through that freaky mirror again. I wasn’t sure I’d choose to find her again if I’d known how closely she resembled me. What was that whole myth about meeting your doppelgänger meant you’d die? I shivered. I didn’t want to find out.
“We’re…” I hesitated. I couldn’t say too much. Coop was still taking the lead on all things like this.
It was his army. He had the knowledge needed to defeat Lucian. He had the people ready to do it. He hadn’t even really said what he needed me for yet. Currently, he was simply keeping Greta and me safe—and for that much, I was definitely grateful.
Even taking into account our mission back to the commune, I definitely felt safer with Coop than I had on the run when it was just Greta and me. At least I wasn’t solely responsible for her safety and continued survival anymore.
That weight had been lifted.
Twain was still watching me, and from the way she tensed her jaw, she was making the decision whether to fight me or take flight, and if she took off, I couldn’t guarantee I’d get her back or keep her from Lucian. I held my hands out in the universal gesture of I’ve got nothing to hide. “We’re friends.” I laughed quietly. “Actually, we came to try to prevent this. But we came too late by the looks of it.” I grimaced. Just a couple of hours earlier would have made all the difference, but perhaps intelligence only surfaced when it surfaced.
“Why do you look like me?” Her tone became more curious than defensive.
I shook my head. “I have no idea. That was a surprise to me, too. Accident of biology? I mean, fate must throw up similar characteristics more often than we know, right?”
“Similar?” She made a scoffing noise. “We could be twins.”
I inclined my head but I didn’t speak. I’d only ever been alone. No siblings, and certainly no twin.
“I really don’t know. I promise. I didn’t turn up at your door today expecting to see you looking just like me.” I glanced down the alley, trying to see Coop.
The sooner he came back, the better. I wasn’t sure how much more talking I could handle alone without spilling every last detail to her, and I was sure he wanted to handle that in much more controlled conditions—especially now it looked like we’d definitely be taking her back with us.
“I think you need to come with us to stay safe.” I watched her as I spoke. It was a risk.
If I’d heard those words, I would have taken off, no questions asked.
But Twain hadn’t already been taken twice.
“Stay safe from who?” She tilted her head. “Who are they?”
Well, shit. It was definitely one of those conversations I shouldn’t be having without Coop. If I talked about light mages and armies and Lucian… that would probably be everything I shouldn’t say.
“They’re bad men.” It sounded so cliché. And why should Twain believe my opinion of them? “I watched their leader kill my father.”
She gasped, and her mouth formed a small ‘o.’
“They kill people? But why are they here in my house? Why do they want me?”
“Oh, they don’t want to kill you.” That was supposed to have sounded reassuring, but it had really opened me up to a whole slew of questions I really couldn’t answer right now.
“Look, Coop can explain all of this so much better than I can. I promise we mean you no harm. If you can trust me just a little, can you wait until Coop gives us the all clear?” I looked around for him again.
She watched me for a moment and then nodded.
“Meira.” Coop’s voice came from close by, and I turned. “It looks like they’re leaving.”
I exhaled my relief and started to relax.
“Don’t drop the shadow,” Coop hissed. “Seven guys arrived and only five are leaving. They’ve left two of them behind. You need to stay here and hide. We can’t leave yet. I can’t get us to the car.”
He stepped closer and slid his cell phone from his pocket. “You gonna let me into your hiding spot?”
I half-smiled my reply and widened my shadow to include him as he brushed right up against me, standing shoulder to shoulder.
Twain still stood a little way apart from us, but I didn’t blame her. We’d arrived at her house with no warning, I looked just like I’d been separated from her at birth, and now we were insisting she hide in the alley with us.
