Ricochet Through Time (Echo Trilogy Book 3) (29 page)

Mari’s anti-At blade might have damaged my soul, but thanks to Nik, it didn’t kill me. I sat on the counter by the register, peering around the shop. It hadn’t been an actual, working shop in almost a year now. Maybe it was time to fix that.

At the prick of a needle gliding through my swollen, torn flesh, I sucked in a breath. “Jesus, Dom . . .” I looked down. That was a mistake, so I stared up at the ceiling instead. Him sewing up my stab wound was almost as bad the actual stabbing. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to handle much more of Dom’s gentle doctoring. “Is this really necessary? I mean, I’ll heal anyway . . .”

Dom gave the suture a tug, and I gasped. Stitch tied off, he glanced up at me with his dark, guarded eyes. “It is not necessary, no, but you will heal three times as fast this way.” He trimmed the thread, then went to work on the next suture. “Whatever comes next, we should all be at top strength.”

I focused on the doorway to the back room. The heavy strands of beads were drawn to one side and held back by a decorative hook in the wall. Nik was sitting at the table back there, staring straight ahead, eyes unseeing. It wasn’t the expression that he usually wore when his consciousness was turned inward, communing with Re. This was different. This was new . . . and really damn unsettling.

Mari was here, too, strange as it seemed, considering she was target numero uno just a few hours earlier. At the moment, she was in the bathroom tucked around the corner, cleaning off her tent city grime. She’d brought a duffel bag with her—clean clothes, she’d explained, plus a few odds and ends.

None of us were sure what was going to happen next with Mari, or with me, or with anything, really. The “rogues”—what she called the sheut-toting members of the Kin who’d gone AWOL after Carson broke Apep out of his original At prison—knew where she’d been hiding out, and that reality was enough to keep her away from the tent city and the rest of her people for now. Possibly indefinitely.

My eyes returned to Nik of their own volition. In my mind, I weighed the words he’d spoken earlier, the claims he’d made. He’d had my trust, and he’d shit it. But then he’d gone and saved my life. I wasn’t sure if that evened the score or not. I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t know if I could anymore.

“You have to understand,” he said, eyes wild and desperate as they switched from looking down at me to up at Dom in the rearview mirror and back. “I didn’t know this would happen. I never thought Re’s interest in you revolved around you dying.”

We were in the Lexus, Dom driving back to Capitol Hill and Mari sitting in the front passenger seat. I was in the backseat with Nik, my head on his lap and his wadded-up T-shirt pressed against my stab wound, just trying to move as little as possible. I stared up at Nik as he spoke, studying the changes in his expression, measuring the truth in his words.

“I swear, Kat, I didn’t know he wanted you to die.”

“But I didn’t die.” At least, not yet.

Nik looked down at me and brushed a few stray strands of hair from my face, his hands coming to rest on either side of my head, almost cradling me there in his lap. I’d never seen so much pain in his pale blue eyes, so much anger. So much
anything
. Indifference was his usual modus operandi, that and being a dick.

“He won’t shut up,” Nik said. “He just keeps shouting that you should be dead.” He swallowed roughly, then turned his head to look out the window. “I’ve felt him slipping—becoming more erratic . . . taking bigger risks. He used to share everything he learned in the At with me, but he rarely shares anything these days. I’ve been keeping him subdued with pain—he hates pain—but now . . .” He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “He’s screaming for me to fix it. To finish it . . .”

I stiffened. “To do
what
?”

Dom brought the car to a stop. He pushed open his door, got out, then yanked Nik’s door open. “Out. Switch seats with Mari.”

“I won’t do it,” Nik said. “I won’t hurt her.”

“But
he
might.” Dom’s voice brokered no arguing. And then there was his face . . .

“I’m in control.”

“Good,” Dom said. “Stay that way. And switch seats with Mari.”

Nik had been zoned out ever since.

“This is the last one,” Dom said, guiding the curved needle through my skin one last time.

“Bummer,” I said, voice strained. “I was just starting to enjoy it.”

Dom breathed out a laugh and paused, the needle having just passed all the way through me. He bowed his head, quiet for a long moment. When he finally looked up at me, raising his eyes to meet mine, my chest tightened. “I was so afraid—”

“Don’t,” I said, cutting him off. “Please, Dom. If you—you’ll make me cry, and I think that’ll hurt like a bitch.”

Dom smiled, softening his sharp features. “So . . . no more visits to the At for you.” Mari’s knife might not have killed me, and Nik may have saved me from certain nonexistence by binding all of the anti-At particles with regular At, but there would still be lasting side effects. The initial contact had severed my ba from the At—I would never again be able to ascend to that higher plane to watch time play out around me in the echoes. “How are you handling it?” Dom asked, tying off the final suture.

“Oh, you know . . .” I started to shrug, but cringed when the movement tugged on the stitches. “I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet.”

“I would imagine not.” Dom cleaned the wound one last time and bandaged me up. “Let me know when it begins to itch,” he said. “I’ll need to remove the stitches.”

I nodded, gingerly slipping off the counter.

The bathroom door opened just a few seconds after my feet touched the hardwood floor, and Mari came around the corner. She looked like an entirely different person—long, sleek black hair pulled back into a high ponytail, navy slacks, lilac blouse, and high-heeled pumps. This was a successful young businesswoman, not someone you’d find in a tent city inhabited by Seattle’s transient population.

She dumped her duffel bag by the wall behind the checkout counter and headed for the table in the back room. “I can’t possibly explain to you how good it feels to be clean.” She started scooting my mom’s violet armchair away from the table.

“Not that one,” I said, knowing it was rude and not caring. That was my mom’s chair. If anyone was going to sit there, it was me.

Mari glanced at me, eyebrows raised. “Oh, um . . .”

“The corner,” I said, pointing to a small padded chair tucked away there under a stack of books, twin to the one Nik occupied. Slowly, I made my way into the back room, Dom following behind me. I could practically feel him hovering. “Just move everything to the floor. It’s fine,” I told Mari. Clenching my teeth, I eased down into the violet armchair. I was surprised by how
right
I felt, sitting there.

Mari dragged the smaller chair to the table, then sat. “So . . . what next?” I didn’t know how old she was—that factoid hadn’t been in the videos with my mom. Based on the way she spoke, I’d have guessed she was on the younger side, but I couldn’t say for sure. After all, just look at Nik—he sounded as young and modern as me, most of the time, but he was old as dirt.

“I believe a free exchange of information might be the best way to proceed,” Dom suggested. He stood behind me, his hands resting on the top of the armchair.

I glanced up at him. “There’s another chair in the—”

He shook his head. “I’m fine standing.”

After Mari nodded, Dom and I started sharing all that had happened after my mom and Carson came to us on Bainbridge. So much talking—so many deep breaths—quickly became painful for me, and Dom took over completely.

“My God,” Mari whispered when Dom finished telling her about the day my mom was killed. “That’s insane . . .”

Eyebrows raised, I nodded my agreement.

Mari leaned forward in her chair, her forearms resting on the edge of the table and her hands clasped together. “I’m so sorry, Kat,” she said, eyes on me. “I really thought Genevieve . . .” She shook her head, her eyes downcast. “Perhaps it’s best if I start at the beginning.” She took a deep breath. “You see, Carson and I were involved.” She paused, looking back and forth between Dom and me like she was waiting for judgmental gasps and pointed fingers.

“We know,” Dom assured her. “Gen told us.”

I snorted softly. “And trust me, I understand.” A twisted sneer curled my lips. “I—Carson and I had a thing, once.”

Mari’s gaze locked with mine, and in that moment, something clicked between us. “I thought I loved him.” She made a choking noise. “I
did
love him, which is so much worse because it just proves how much of a fool I was.”

“Love makes fools of us all,” Dom said.

“Maybe . . .” Mari let out a disparaging laugh. “Thinking about it—about
him
—makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Yep . . .
totally
understand,” I said.

Mari smiled at me. “Carson was Kin by birth, his true nature hidden in the At by several of our people, as is the way with all of us. He recruited Genevieve, suggested poisoning the Meswett’s sister as a way to prove her loyalty and worthiness to us—which we didn’t approve, by the way, but accepted as adequate proof after the fact. And because Carson knew you all, he became an integral part of our rushed mission to retrieve the Apep sphere.” Again, her focus switched back and forth between Dom and me. “Which I swear we never intended to open.”

Dom and I exchanged a glance. “Why go to all the trouble of stealing it, then?” he asked.

“Leverage—we were going to use it as a threat to get the Council to listen to us, but . . .” She sighed. “Our biggest mistake was putting Carson on duty guarding the Apep sphere. At shift change, some of the other guards reported seeing him talking to the sphere, but when questioned on the matter, he claimed he was dictating notes for a research project into a voice recorder.”

“He was talking to Apep,” I said, staring at Nik. He still wore that far-off, lost expression. “His sheut power made it so he could hear
through
the At.”

“As I suspected,” Mari said. “I don’t know whether it was his intention all along or if his conversations with Apep poisoned his mind, but Carson slowly built a circle of close ‘friends’ who, over time, withdrew from the mainstream Kin teachings. They . . . I’m not proud to admit it, but they really worked me over. They convinced me that my mom’s ways were too lax and inclusive—too passive—and that the tyranny of the Council of Seven could only be fought with violence. Unlike my mother, I didn’t want to work with the Council anymore. I had no interest in reforming them. I wanted to overthrow the Council completely.”

“Which is why
my
mom thought you killed Mei,” I said.

“I know, and I doubt the shame will ever leave me.” Mari hung her head. “She must’ve been so disappointed . . .”

I almost couldn’t believe how easy it was to relate to this woman—this Kin Nejerette—who I’d been dead set on destroying just a few hours earlier. I felt the urge to reach out to her, to pat her on the shoulder or even hug her. I suppressed it, leaning back in my chair. “Trust me, Mari, I can relate.”

A humorless laugh escaped from her, and slowly she raised her head. Her eyes were bloodshot, making the jade irises stand out that much more, but her jaw was tensed. She wasn’t about to blubber about all of her troubles. I admired her for that.

Mari took a deep breath, then continued her story. “We found the shards of the At sphere on the floor near where it had been stored.” Mari shook her head. “He must’ve wanted us to find them, or he would’ve returned them to the other side. He wanted us to know that not only was our leverage gone, but Apep was once again free to terrorize the world, and because of us, he had a damn powerful host.”

“And afterwards?” Dom asked. “You mentioned ‘rogues’—the ones who’ve since abandoned you, your people, and your cause. Were you referring to Carson’s trusted comrades?”

My focus shifted to Dom. He was slipping into interrogator mode. It was impossible to miss the transition after watching so many hours of recordings of him interviewing and questioning my mom. But when his eyes flicked my way, meeting mine for a moment, I blinked back to Mari.

She laughed under her breath. “As it turned out, Carson had a lot more friends than I’d known about. Nearly a fifth of my people vanished overnight, and I’ve been bleeding people steadily ever since.” She looked at me, her reddened eyes filled with hopelessness. “The Kin are down to about two-thirds of our original numbers, and it’s been sheer desperation and a whole lot of promises and compromise that’s kept even that number intact.” Her gaze slipped off me, unfocusing. “They don’t trust me anymore, not completely. And the rogues want me dead, because they think I betrayed Carson by not following him. There’s no way to win.”

“So they’re the ones who told us where to find you?” I asked, thinking back to that afternoon in Garrett’s studio—his
lair
. Had it really only been yesterday? It felt like years had passed between then and now. Like years, and like no time at all.