Marked (26 page)

We
were only on the second story, but that was still enough to
discourage me from taking in the view. My nervousness around heights
wasn't bad enough to qualify as a fear, but I wasn't on a first-name
basis with heights or anything.

"Sit
here and make your calls and then we'll go back to the RV."

Alec
gave me a smile. "I really don't know what I would have done
without you, Adri. Thank you for holding everything together and
thank you for coming in after me when…you know."

We
most definitely didn't want word of Dream Stealer's attacks on Alec
to get out. Dom and James already knew, but there wasn't any question
but that we could count on them to keep our secrets. The new
bodyguards were another matter entirely though and the fact that Alec
had come so close to slipping up and saying something he shouldn't
around them told me that he was even worse off than I'd realized.

I
needed to get him home, preferably as soon as possible. If I could
have, I would have stopped him from turning on his phone—he
wasn't mentally in a state fit for entering into any more high-stakes
negotiations—but I knew he wouldn't stand for that. I was
extremely worried about what he might let slip on the next call he
made, but by the same measure he was right that we needed to make
sure that one of our people wasn't in trouble somewhere waiting on us
for help.

"Turn
on your phone and check your messages, Alec. We need to get out of
here."

"Yes,
ma'am."

I
rolled my eyes at his subservient expression, but honestly it was
reassuring to know that the same old Alec was still there underneath
all of the exhaustion. Despite everything that he'd been through,
Dream Stealer hadn't managed to break him.

Alec
took a deep breath and then powered on his phone. I knew there was no
way the Coun'hij was going to have people in place to come after us
for at least a little while, but I still tensed up. Based on how
jumpy our bodyguards were acting, I wasn't the only one who was
nervous about what might happen next.

As
a general rule Alec didn't skimp on his tools and his phone was a
tool—maybe not in the same way that Isaac's phone was a tool,
but it was still a necessary tool. I knew that Alec had paid a pretty
penny for this particular device, but even top-of-the-line,
not-yet-available-to-the-public phones take time to boot up and the
seconds that passed by as Alec waited for it to become usable seemed
to drag on forever.

It
finally finished powering on and then Alec dialed his voicemail. A
few seconds later he frowned and pulled the phone away from his ear
so that he could key in some numbers. I pulled myself away from my
obsessive scanning of our surroundings long enough to ask him what
was wrong.

"I'm
not sure. My voicemail isn't working."

"What
does that mean? Why wouldn't it work?"

"It
could mean that I screwed things up when I tried to clone the sim
card, or it could just be some kind of automated security feature
that was tripped because it's been so long since I've logged in."

"But
if that was the case you would just be able to re-enter your PIN,
right?"

"Yeah,
except I just tried to enter it twice and it's not working."

"You
mean someone changed it?"

"Maybe,
or maybe I don't remember it."

"Well,
we know that isn't the case. You've got the best memory out of anyone
I know. You basically never forget anything."

Alec
looked at our new bodyguards for a second before responding. "I…I
don't feel like myself. It's like I'm trying to reach through a brown
haze to get at my memories. I'm not sure I'm as unscathed after
everything that's happened as I would have hoped."

I
felt like I'd been punched in the gut, but I knew I had to be strong
for Alec's sake. He'd spent years trying to mold himself into the
kind of leader who would have a chance of standing off his pack's
enemies. He depended on his memory and intellect as much as he
depended on his strength and speed when it came to keeping the people
around him alive.

Even
after his power had manifested, Alec had spent agonizing hours
worried that he might not be capable of beating the Coun'hij and
saving all of us. The idea that he might be somehow less than he was
before had to be absolutely terrifying for him—even more
terrifying than it was for me.

I
shook my head. "You didn't forget it. Somebody changed it. Maybe
the Coun'hij hacked into your voicemail because they figured that was
a perfect way to spy on us."

Alec
didn't just look tired now, he looked like someone who had just been
thrown into a world they didn't understand. "That doesn't make
sense, Adri. I can see them trying to hack into my mailbox—that's
part of the reason that I change my PIN so often—but if they
managed a successful hack like that they wouldn't change my PIN. It's
too easy for me to get it reset—all that would do is tip me off
to the fact that they were listening in."

"Fine,
I don't know the answer, but I know you aren't forgetting things."

Alec
still looked tired and lost, but he seemed to draw a measure of
strength from the fact that I needed him to be strong.

"Wishing
something was a certain way doesn't make it so, Adri. We have to face
the reality that is, even if it's not the reality we wish it was."

Alec
squared his shoulders as he spoke and I wondered how many times in
his life Alec had wanted to give up but forced himself to go on
because he knew someone else was depending on him. In a way that was
reassuring because it meant that Alec was still Alec, regardless of
what he might have lost, but in other ways it was still terrifying.

It
made me wonder. How would Alec Graves deal with a world where people
desperately needed him but he wasn't capable of making a difference?

"Maybe
we have to deal in the world as it is, Alec, but that doesn't mean
that you're right about this. There's another explanation—you'll
feel better once you've had a chance to catch up on your sleep."

"I
wish I had your faith in the world, Adri."

"It's
yours to borrow any time you need it, but it's not faith in the
world, it's faith in you."

Alec
turned and looked out the window—almost as though unable to
continue to meet my gaze. When he looked back at me something had
changed.

"Can
you please have everyone spread out? We're too conspicuous standing
this close together."

He
needed a moment, needed some privacy so he could have a chance to try
to pull himself back together.

"Okay,
Alec, I can do that. We'd better get moving back to the rest of our
group pretty soon though if we want to avoid problems."

"Thanks,
Adri. I'll be along pretty soon."

I
was pretty sure that the other four had already heard everything Alec
and I had said, but they all played along and pretended like they
didn't know it was coming when I asked them to move further back. A
few seconds later we were all back far enough that even the shape
shifters couldn't possibly overhear anything Alec might be saying.

Dominic
followed me over to a collection of swimsuits that I pretended to be
looking at while keeping an eye on Alec through the intervening racks
of clothing.

"May
I examine your arm, Adri?"

I
started to move my right arm in her direction, but stopped as I
realized that wasn't what she was asking for.

"Yeah,
go ahead."

"You
really can't feel anything?"

"Nope,
just a big old dead weight out on the end of my shoulder."

I
tried to keep my voice casual, tried to hide the pain of my most
recent loss in the fight against the Coun'hij, but I knew I wasn't
completely successful based on the sympathetic look Dominic gave me.

"Do
you remember what happened?"

I
looked around to make sure that the two new guys were far enough away
that they wouldn't be able to hear us. When I looked back at Alec he
had his phone up to his ear.

"Mostly.
Sometimes when my power throws me into someone else's dreams I don't
remember everything clearly, but I think I've got all of the high
points from last night. Dream Stealer's thumb claw went in about
right here and sliced me up pretty good. I guess he must have severed
the nerves that used to run down into my arm."

Dominic
shook her head in amazement. "I wouldn't have believed such a
thing if I hadn't been able to see it with my own eyes. To think that
you could be hurt so cruelly inside of a dream makes me not want to
ever close my eyes again."

"I
think you're safe. Dream Stealer did a lot worse to Alec before I
ever arrived, but it didn't result in any kind of lasting damage for
him. If Dream Stealer was capable of killing people in their dreams,
he would have done so a hundred times over already. I must just be
uniquely vulnerable because of my ability. It's probably no less than
I deserve."

I
fidgeted with a blue and green two-piece while Alec pulled his phone
away from his ear and input a number.

"I
don't blame you for what happened to me, Adri. Even if I did, I still
wouldn't want something like this to happen to you, but I really
don't blame you."

"I
know you don't, Dom, but that's because you're too nice for your own
good. That just means that I have to make sure that
I
blame myself. You nearly died because I was pushing you so hard to
heal Alec. That isn't the kind of thing you should casually dismiss."

Dominic
stepped in front of me, momentarily blocking my view of Alec to make
sure that she had my full attention. "I'm not being casual about
anything right now, Adri. What happened wasn't your fault any more
than it was Alec's fault. You were the one who brought me back, but I
could have said no at any point along the way. The truth is that I
would have eventually tried to heal Alec even if you hadn't asked me
to."

"That's
nice of you to say, Dom, but we both know that I pushed you into
doing something you weren't ready for and it was only luck and
Donovan's skill that kept you here with us."

I
stepped to one side so I could see Alec and this time Dom didn't get
in my way. Instead she just sighed as she looked back down at my
paralyzed hand and arm.

"I
think I learned something from the experience, Adri. I've been trying
to heal things in the same manner as Mrs. Valencia got me to heal the
scar on my face. I've been trying to relax, but with Alec that wasn't
what I did. I tried to find the same peaceful, calm feeling that I
felt in New York, but this time there was so much riding on my
ability that when it wasn't working I got mad. I got so very mad that
something changed."

"What
do you mean, Dom?"

"I
mean I felt
something
inside of me. Maybe Mrs. Valencia wasn't all the way wrong. It was
like there was a still, cool pool of energy inside of me, but I
couldn't access it until I was feeling a strong emotion, something
powerful enough to make me move the boulder that normally keeps it
hidden out of the way."

I
tore my eyes away from Alec, who was running one of his hands through
his hair while talking into his phone, and finally saw the glimmer of
excitement that had been lurking in the back of Dom's eyes.

"I
know it sounds crazy, like I'm supposed to do two opposite things at
the same time, but in some ways it actually makes a lot of sense—it's
a better fit for when I healed everyone back at the estate at least.
I wasn't calm that time—maybe I seemed calm on the outside, but
I was so incredibly angry with the Coun'hij for sending people to
attack us, to burn down our home and kill our friends. I wanted to do
something to stop them."

"And
you did."

"But
that was the thing, Adri. I didn't think I could. I knew that I
wasn't fast or strong enough to fight them. I wanted to do something,
but I was at peace with the fact that I couldn't actually make a
difference."

"You're
right, that sounds pretty crazy."

"
Sí
,
but it worked and what I felt when I tried to heal Alec was very
similar to that, only…"

"Only
what, Dom?"

"Only
this time I can still feel the pool of energy inside of me. It was
gone when I first woke up and was so muddled, but it's been slowly
filling back up, drop by drop, and now I want to try and heal your
arm."

I
pulled away from her in shock. "No."

"Think
of it, Adri. You could have the use of your arm back. I know it
hasn't been very long yet, but surely you're already noticing how
much harder things are."

"Of
course I've noticed. If I let myself stop and think about anything
other than trying to stop the Coun'hij I would break down and cry.
Trust me, I've thought about how much my life is going to suck
because of this, but I'm not going to let you risk your life just so
I can tie my shoes without help."

"Adri…"

"No,
I'm not going to do it, Dom."

"Then
I will risk my life to remove Mallory, Addison and Andrew's scars. My
gift is too valuable to leave untapped and you can't forbid me from
trying to master it."

She
was right. There wasn't any way for me to compel her to never put her
life in jeopardy like that again, but I would have said it anyway and
risked ruining our friendship if Alec hadn't collapsed to the ground
right then.

I
hadn't been born with shape shifter strength and speed, but I'd been
watching Alec rather than looking outward, so I still made it to
Alec's side before anyone else.

"I
need to call Isaac."

Alec
was slumped against the wall, phone on the floor, apparently having
dropped out of fingers that no longer had the strength to hold it.
All I could think was that he was having complications with his
heart, that he hadn't healed as completely as he'd thought he had.