Games of Zeus 02- Silent Echoes (36 page)

She intended to live.

“We need to go, Tanner.” Taylor yelled it while stepping back.

A crack above had them both ducking. If the roof fell, she knew she wouldn’t be able to save either of them.

“Now.”

Fire touched Tanner’s feet. He held his spot as if tempting her to let it burn him.

She trod backward. “Please, Tanner. This isn’t the way. We can be together—”

He crossed his arms. “Only in the next life.”

“Please, Tanner. Please!” Beams fell to the ground in the hallway. Another minute and they’d take them both.
I’m so sorry, Ian. I’m just so sorry.

No more than five feet separated Taylor from Tanner. Her inner conscience refused to let her budge, as if she’d have to die for him rather than save herself and risk his life.

She closed her eyes.

The snap from above came before she could even move. A beam crashed as Taylor ducked, her hands still outspread.

Tanner’s scream barely reached her through the roaring of the fire. She jumped backward, her circle staying with her as more of the roof caved.

Go!

Her body failed to respond to her mind’s command.

Go, Taylor. Go! Ian needs you.

Jolted from her stupor, Taylor spun, barreling forward in the hope of an escape. Like when under water, she barely registered which way faced up or out. She kept her hands splayed before her, calling to the little bit of still-surrounding air, and jumped.

• • •

Taylor’s screams broke as she fell to the grass on the front lawn. She refused to look back, expecting to see a fireball in human form racing after her. Instead, two fire trucks raced into her driveway. They stopped at the edge of the lawn, crews jumping out as the wheels finished rolling.

Ian!
Taylor wanted to call out, but rawness took hold of her throat as exhaustion plagued her body. She’d never used so much power of the wind for her own benefit. Never. Not even when Tanner had tested her.

Taylor stared through dry eyes as the fire raged. She pushed up from the ground as water sprayed into the air and something grabbed hold of her arm. She pulled, tried to roll, but it held tight.

“Taylor!”

She gasped and struggled to get away, unable to see, think or hear anything beyond what her memories filled her with and of seeing Tanner swallowed by flames.

He’d known all along. He’d only had to wait for her to fall in love. For her to give herself to John. To Ian.

John hadn’t killed her. He’d loved her.

“Taylor, it’s Ian.” His voice registered somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind.

I should have listened to you, Ian. Trusted your gut.

He’d died. John. Ian. Over and over because there were three.

Three.

“Taylor, baby. Come on.”

The entire story weighed on Taylor’s shoulders like the destruction of Joyce’s house.

She could have saved them all.

She should have.

Her head wobbled against a soft surface. Hands grasped her arms, and with a touch to her lips, she blinked her eyes open.

Ian.

Ian.

Ian.

She burst into a fit of tears. He pulled her into his lap as she let every bit of emotion through. Hiccups of sound continued until she no longer listened to herself.

Ian rubbed up and down her back, holding her tight and leaving her to the expulsion of her sorrows—to a lifetime, or three, of death at the hands of a man who claimed to love her.

“Tanner … bones … Ian.” She gasped for air between each word.

Water sprayed overtop, hitting her house from above like a beautiful rain shower and sending a stream of crystal through the inky sky. The roof had collapsed. Windows no longer existed. If there had ever been a front door, no one would have known. The orangey-red glow grew and abated.

Had it been only weeks before that her life had been normal, routine and unencumbered?

Ian lifted her from the ground. She snuggled into his shoulder, bracing herself against another onslaught of waterworks and the smell of flesh burning in the biggest bonfire she’d ever seen.

“You’re okay,” Ian said. “We’re both okay.” Her body jostled as he walked.

“This way!” An unrecognizable voice snuck its way in. “Let’s get some oxygen here!”

More bumping. More movement. She stayed in Ian’s arms as they reached an ambulance, and a mask fit over her nose and mouth while a heavy blanket lay across her body.

“Were you in that fire, ma’am?” The EMT snapped on blue gloves as he grabbed stuff from behind him. “And you, sir?” His hand reached out toward Ian. “You’ve got a nice bump there.”

Taylor tilted up, catching sight of the knot and trickle of blood from Ian’s temple. She reached, but he pulled her in tighter.

“Wasn’t … inside.” Relaxed back in Ian’s arms, she stared out at her home, her eyes attempting closure with each passing second.

A police officer approached the back of the ambulance. “Ma’am.”

“Can this wait?” Ian asked.

“No, sorry. We just need to know … was there anyone else in the house?” The slight hesitation suggested he already knew the answer.

Ian’s hold tightened.

“A … friend. T—Andy … George. He …” Fresh tears sprung to her eyes. “… kill himself. I tried …” She sucked in air. “… stop him.” Even the small lie tore at her soul.

The police officer took off, flagging down a fireman. They surrounded the house, but their heads hung low. Taylor understood. No way would Tanner have survived.

His shot into the oven had exploded the fumes. The flames would have stolen her oxygen—her air. As realization dawned, she closed her eyes. He’d have won again if she hadn’t tried to save Tanner. The game would have ended as well but never restarted.

For the first time in four lives, she’d won.

• • •

Ian kept his arm around Taylor as the EMTs released her to his care. He’d declined any support, explaining that he’d fallen when the house exploded, but had asked that Taylor’s neck be bandaged where a small scratch had bled. Fire crews continued to work the flames, with peaks of red reaching into the sky and retreating several times, while the group stood and watched.

“You want to go home?” Ian cringed as soon as he asked. “I mean, to—”

She nodded. “I know what you mean.”

“Should we tell your folks?”

“Mama likes her beauty sleep.”

He carried Taylor to the truck, lifted her into the cab and ran a hand along her arm, noting the singed hairs. Watching the woman he loved stand in the middle of a raging inferno couldn’t have been scarier. His heart hadn’t stopped racing until the moment she’d run out, and he’d splayed his hands along her functioning and very alive body.

Around to the driver’s seat, he began the trek to take her away from her nightmare.

She leaned into him, his arm wrapped around her. “I tried to save—I could have—I just—I failed.”

He took her slowed speech to be a reflection of using the wind so heavily. “Are you kidding me?” He drove onto Tripp and Lexi’s road. “This isn’t on you. This is on a fucking maniac of a Greek god. Running us off track with varying stories, no consistency and no way to prepare. The whole situation has Zeus written all over it.”

A jerk of her shoulders came as she said, “He didn’t know everything, either, Ian. How is this fair to him?”

Ian drove them into Lexi and Tripp’s driveway and stopped the engine. He turned to her and stared into her eyes. “Why do you care about him?”

She closed her lids but reopened them. “Because it’s not right, and I think it’s all my fault. I’m the only one with the tattoo. I did give myself to him. And, as Mama is my witness, that ties me to him. I should have—”

Ian palmed his forehead. “I can’t believe this. The guy tries to kill you, and you think it’s your fault. I’m going to need therapy.”

A small laugh-cry escaped Taylor.

Ian’s lips curved. “What?”

“I’m the one with issues, and you need therapy?”

“Yes. It’s going to take years for me to learn how to make you not believe this is your fault.” Ian held out a finger. “He did this, not you. Not me. Not you to me. Not you to him.
He
killed you three times. And … do you realize what happened to him tonight is everything that happened to you at once? He died in a fire, crushed under wood, and if you add in the water from the fire trucks … he kinda drowned, too.”

“I tried to get him to come out with me.” Her lids fell again. “I tried to make him understand.” Taylor blinked glassy eyes at Ian.

He leaned his forehead to hers, took her hands in his and scratched at his ring finger. “I know, babe, but there’s nothing you could have done to convince him.”

“Why would Zeus torture people like this?”

“Have you ever read about the stuff he did? Or any of the Greek gods for that matter? Lexi and Tripp got off easy.” Ian laid his lips against the top of Taylor’s head and heaved a sigh. “All the good Greek stories are tragedies.”

“And ours? Are we a tragedy?”

“You asked me before if I thought the game was over, and I didn’t, but now I do. It makes sense to have three people—a triangle.” He tapped his own temple. “That’s a game. One that crosses the ages, too. And in them, two people usually win. But no matter what, one always loses.”

“But, he didn’t have to die!” Tears fell in great sobs.

Ian wrapped his arms around her. “I know, but in all good Greek tragedies, someone dies. It’s like fulfillment for the players and … the creators.”

“What do you mean?”

Ian heaved a sigh. “In all the research I did about Tripp’s gift, I learned a lot about Greek tragedies. This, now that we know there are three, is like the perfect match to history. The timing is consistent with the performance dates. The plays were actually competitions between three playwrights, which at one point all had linked stories. And …” Ian chuckled at the memory of what he’d found so long ago. “They were always performed in the open air. Like tonight. What a coincidence, right?”

Taylor scratched at her finger. “I guess. I just hate that he—”

“I know, but, Taylor? We won. We
won
.”

She pressed the button on the overhead map light and held her finger up into it.

“What’s wrong—oh—wow!” Ian brought his into the same stream of illumination.

“Double wow,” Taylor said.

The blue of their tattoo-like rings darkened, the last connector etching itself into their skin.

Both of theirs.

“You know what?” Ian asked. “I’m just going to go with this and pretend it’s as normal as a sunrise on a cloudless day. Are you with me?”

Taylor’s gaze never faltered as she said, “Always.”

34

In the bright, early morning sunshine, the yellow caution tape surrounding the exterior of Taylor’s house gleamed. Ian stood at the edge of the makeshift barricade, staring at what used to be the floor. The outer siding had melted and curled onto itself, falling to the ground and shriveling up.

He’d been ogling the nearly flat structure for at least ten minutes while the Chief of Rune Fire walked Taylor and Riley around, confirming, with finger pointing, where the blaze started, how it spread and squashing eruptions they’d thought snuffed but relit like a set of joke birthday candles.

“Well, I think that’s it.” Greg held out his hand. “Except for this.”

Ian peered over Taylor’s shoulder. A simple square of velvet lay in his palm.

“It was in the middle of the kitchen.” He pressed fingers to his eyes. “I know you said your friend was in here, Taylor, but we find no evidence of him at all. Not even a bone fragment. There’s nothing, yet this little piece of fabric survived.”

“Isn’t that kinda odd?” Ian’s mind whirled with possibilities.

“May I keep it?” Taylor asked.

Greg dropped it onto her palm. “That’s the thing about fires. They take what they want. They don’t always take what you expect.”

Ian couldn’t have said it better.

“I assume you have arrangements to stay elsewhere?”

“I do, yes. Thanks,” Taylor said.

Emma said ‘everyone in town knows everything’. As soon as Taylor’s house burned, people from multiple neighborhoods came out, offering their help and consolation. Food arrived on platters, yet with nowhere to store it and Lexi’s weak stomach, it went to the downtown food kitchen as a donation.

“All righty then.” Greg tipped his hat. “Once the heat is gone, we’ll do a more thorough inspection, but I’m pretty sure we all already know what happened.” He laid his hand on Taylor’s shoulder. “Sorry you had to witness that, Taylor. Some people, though … you know, they just aren’t right in the mind, and their pain leeches into others in ways we think unspeakable.” He patted her again. “You’ll rebuild, right? We don’t want you to leave.”

The smallest of smiles breached Taylor’s serious expression. “Probably.” She shrugged, but her hand clenched.

Greg walked away.

Taylor and Ian stood, staring at the plot of land before them. Taylor heaved a sigh before she turned to Ian; her arms enveloped him and squeezed. “You were right.”

“Of course I was.”

She chuckled against him. “I couldn’t sleep last night.”

“I know. I was right next to you. Dreams again?”

She shook her head. “This time was because … well … I don’t want to rebuild here. I—I was actually thinking this ground should be sacred. It’s tied to too much out of this weird stuff, but how would I justify that to Mama and Daddy when they helped me with the down payment and—”

Ian’s lips stopped her flow. When their kiss slowed, he said, “You want a new house? I know just the person to ask.”

• • •

Taylor stared out the window as Ian drove them back to Lexi and Tripp’s. With their super-late arrival and super-early departure again, they hadn’t seen each other.

Lexi ran out, her arms encircling Taylor as she and Ian walked from the truck. “Oh, holy shit, Zeus needs to be smacked on his ass and put in a time out.”

“You’re not going to talk to your kid like that, are you?” Ian asked, a slight chuckle in his voice.

Lexi continued to hug Taylor as Tripp joined them on the porch. “Don’t ask her anything. She’ll either bite your head off or hug and kiss you.” His hands went to his crotch, covering it as if he’d learned his lesson the wrong way.