Slip Song (Devany Miller Series) (12 page)

I tipped my head. “Huh?”

Liam said, “You know, ‘Kids, Jasper is going to be your new dad.’”

I laughed before I could stop myself. “What? What on Earth gave you that idea?”

“
He’s not your friend,” Bethy said. “We’ve never met him before.”

“
And he stares at you when you aren’t looking,” Liam said. He stirred his straw around and around, dislodging the plastic dome from his cup. “I like him okay. But no way can he take over for Dad.”

His voice was low and held a lot of pain. I sighed. “Guys, he’s not a boyfriend, not a romantic interest. He’s just not. He’s a friend. Just like Arsinua.”

“Another person we’ve never met,” Liam said, almost under his breath as he glowered at a nearby table. The family, made up of a dad, mom, and kids, chattered happily over their meals.

“
I had a lot of friends in high school and college you’ve never met. Arsinua and Jasper just happened to be able to come for your dad’s funeral.”

“
Fine. Whatever.” Liam capped his straw with a finger and lifted it from his cup, sucking the ice cream out of the bottom.

“
I’m sorry. I know you are both having a hard time. I wish I could make things better. I wish I could take away the hurt.” I rubbed at my collarbone, trying to rid myself of the pain burning underneath it. Sadness wasn’t just an emotional pain.

“
So why are we here? Not just shakes.” Bethy slurped again, running her straw around the bottom of her cup.

“
Not just shakes.” My stomach twisted. I tried a calming breath but it didn’t seem to abate the acid boiling inside me. “I have something I have to do to keep us safe. It means I’m going to have to leave as soon as the funeral is over.” I shut my eyes for a moment. “I want to give you guys the chance to choose who you’ll stay with while I’m gone.”

“
Are you going after the people who killed Dad?” Bethy’s whisper made me cringe.

I popped the lid off my cup and fished for the cherry that had sunk into the chocolate and whipped cream. When I didn’t answer, Bethy shoved at my arm with her hand. “Mom.”

“No.” Shit. I hadn’t thought this through. I hadn’t taken the time to come up with something that would’ve made sense, that would’ve made my leaving a little easier to bear. I wracked my brain but came up blank. “No. This trip isn’t about your dad.”

“
Then what is it about?” Liam’s face was paler than usual. “What could be so important you have to leave us right now?”

I had planned to tell Travis and Ann the truth about everything when my brother arrived. Could I tell my children the same? Should I? When they’d been kidnapped by the same people who had killed their father, Ravana had wiped their memories of the event. It hadn’t been out of the kindness of her heart, either, but to screw with their heads more when she’d put a look alike in my place. They didn’t remember any of it, though I suspected the trauma came out in the frequent nightmares they’d both had since. Would telling them bring those memories back? Shit. Double and triple shit.

“It’s complicated.”

“
It’s stupid. I can’t believe you’d leave us.”

“
Liam,” I said, then stopped. He was right. But I had to. Otherwise one of my spawn would find his or her soul and I’d end up leaving them permanently. “I’m sorry.”

“
Yeah, you keep saying that.”

“
She’s trying to give us a choice. Right Mom? That’s why you’re telling us. Because you want us to choose where we stay? I want to stay at Amy’s house.”

I slipped my arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “You’re right about me wanting you to have a choice. Your grandma and grandpa Miller would let you stay with them. Travis might be able to stick around for awhile. Then there’s Grandpa Morgan.” My dad might be reclusive since Mom died, but I knew he had a soft spot for Liam and Bethy. He would make room for them in the mountains.

“Grandpa Morgan? He’d let us stay with him in his cabin?” The harshness in Liam’s voice eased at this question. He liked being out in nature and some of his favorite books involved kids being lost out in the wilderness, being forced to fend for themselves.

“
Yes. I haven’t heard from him yet but I expect him to call soon.”

“
Cool.”

“
I don’t want to go to Colorado. I want to stay here.” Bethy’s lip jutted out, her eyes welling.

“
Pumpkin, I know it’s hard. If there was a way I could just stay I would. But I have to go take care of some things. Important things.”

“
More important than our family?”

I kissed the top of her head. “Not more important. But urgent. Necessary. Do you think I’d leave you if there was any other way to stay? I’ve tried to figure out a way to stay and have things come out okay but I just don’t see how.”

“What things? Why can’t you tell us?” Liam leaned on the table, his eyes solemn and wise. “Is there a chance you might not come back?”

“
Of course I’ll come back,” I said before I could stop myself. There was a very real chance I could be killed. I didn’t know how to fulfill the bargain with the fleshcrawler queen. If I screwed it up, she could kill me or my spawn could kill me. Hell, the Theleoni might show up and kill me, just to top off the day. “Of course I will. I have to.”

Liam sunk down in his seat, fighting back tears. He turned toward the window to hide them from the curious two-year-old staring at him from across the aisle. Bethy crushed her cup between her hands, spattering the last dregs of ice cream onto the table and her skin. 

“Uncle Travis will be here. Ann will be here. Grandma Alice and Grandpa Bill. Grandpa Morgan.”

Bethy leaned against me, still ripping at the cup with her fingers. “But they aren’t you and daddy.”

“I know baby. I’m sorry. So sorry.” I briefly, fiercely wished Lucy was still here, that I hadn’t shoved Arsinua’s soul into her body. Lucy could have stayed with the kids, changing her appearance to look like me, taking my memories and making them her own. They wouldn’t have had to know I left.

“
How long will you be gone?” Liam’s voice was rough with unshed tears.

“
I don’t know. If things go well, not long.” I refused to think about all the things that could go wrong. The list was too long.

“
Will you miss Christmas?” Bethy grabbed napkins off our tray and began scrubbing at her hands.

Christmas was two weeks away. “I don’t think so.”

Liam took an unsteady breath, then looked at me. “Do you swear you have to leave now? That there’s no other way?”

I thought through the troubles facing me. Facing all of us if I ignored them or chose not to deal with them. Finally I said, “I swear if there were any other way, I would do it rather than leave you two. I swear it.”

He reached across the table and took Bethy’s sticky hand. “Okay.”

“
It’s not okay,” Bethy said. “I don’t want you to go, Mommy.” She tried to pull her hand away from him but he held her tight.

“
We’ll be okay. Probably won’t even know you’re gone.” He gave her hand a little shake so she’d look at him. “Right Bethy?”

She sniffed. Stared at him, then turned her wide eyes to me and back to her brother. “Right,” she said, in a small voice.

“Thank you both. I can’t imagine having kids any more understanding and grown up than you two. This is a lot for you guys to take on and I’m so sorry you have to.”

“
We’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.” Liam let his sister go and grimaced. “I have to go wash my hands.” He slid out of the booth.

“
You want to stay up late and pick up Travis with me at the airport tonight?”

Bethy stuck a finger in her mouth to lick off the sweet. “Sure. Can I ride the escalators while we wait?”

I nodded. “I’ll ride them with you.”

She snorted. “Kay.” Another finger, then another. Gross but effective, I supposed. “I love you, Mom.”

“Love you too baby.”

-ELEVEN-

After riding the escalators at the airport for almost an hour, I was very glad to see my brother and get back in the car for home. Bethy fell asleep on the way and Travis carried her from the car to her room despite my protests. Liam hugged me a long time before he followed his sister up the stairs.

Guilt weighed me down. I slumped into a chair at the table and shut my eyes, wishing I could fast-forward through the next few weeks to the point where everything was okay again. I had to believe everything would be okay again. The alternative was too awful to contemplate.

Strong fingers gripped my shoulders and I let out a slow breath as my brother kneaded out the tension I’d been carrying since Tom’s murder. It was a long while before he stopped and I tipped my head back, opening my eyes to smile at him as I said, “Thank you, little brother.”

But it wasn’t Travis. Jasper sat down next to me. “You’re welcome.”

I shivered, feeling his touch all over again in a new way. “Sorry.” I rubbed my hands over the backs of my arms. “I appreciate it. I didn’t realize how tense I was.” Was it wrong to have liked his touch?
Liked
, liked?

“
What is your plan for me?”

I stared at him. “My plan?”

“To keep yourself safe from Ellison.”

Geez. Just what I needed. More troubles. “To keep him from killing you, you mean.”

He inclined his head, though he didn’t look worried, just expectant.

“
I haven’t thought about it. I’m sorry. Maybe once the funeral is over with and after I’ve renewed the pact with the fleshcrawler queen, I can concentrate on how to protect you.”

“
Perhaps you would put me into stasis with the rest of the souls.”

“
Stasis.” Sticking him in storage. I thought of the world losing a little bit of the goodness he could bring to it and sighed. “Is that something you want?”

A furrow appeared on his forehead. “Does it matter what I want?”

“Shouldn’t it? I mean, it’s your life.”

He spread his hands, his long, slender fingers drawing my attention. “I am a Skriven soul, stored in a vessel. What right do I have for wanting anything?”

Arsinua answered from the doorway, her voice dry. “She will insist you need freedom, and drag you to it kicking and screaming if she must.”

I turned to glare at her, only to see her smiling slightly at me. Mollified, I shifted as she settled on the floor near Jasper. “Since you’re both here, I wanted to run something by you before I talk with Ann and Travis.” I wasn’t sure how well Arsinua would take my idea. She had often, and with great fervor, shot down my ideas while she still resided in my head. Recent experience had told me she wasn’t any more cooperative. “I have to take care of things on Midia. Since no one knows a way to mitigate the time difference, I’m going to have to leave my kids.” My voice sounded calm when I said it, but my heart thudded hard against my ribs. I swallowed. “So, my plan is to take Ann and Travis both to the Slip. Briefly,” I said, holding up my hand to stop Arsinua’s protest, “So they know why I need to leave. So they truly understand the danger and what’s at stake.”

Arsinua’s hands plucked at the frayed hem of her jeans. I saw fear in the tremble of her fingers. “I think you’re correct. They need to know why you have to leave.”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Thank you.” Now the next part. “I want you to go with them when I leave. Or stay here, depending on what the kids decide they want to do.”

She tucked a strand of her curly hair behind her ear. “What about the pact with the fleshcrawler queen?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. If you can’t teach me what I need to know, I’ll just have to wing it and hope for the best. Maybe she can teach me how. Maybe she’ll do all the work and just borrow power from me.”

“I don’t think it’s wise to reveal your ignorance to that thing,” Arsinua said.

Jasper leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “How could you even reason with one? They are beasts.”

That’s right, he’d never met Nex. “Not only have I talked with them, I befriended the head of the king of fleshcrawlers.” Heh. That sounded downright epic when I said it out loud.

“
The,” he paused, testing it out on his tongue, “head?”

“
Someday I’ll have to introduce you to Nex.” I looked at Arsinua. “So I’d like you to stay and protect my family. If you will.”

She wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them tight to her chest. “Of course.”

“Thank you.” I heard my brother and Ann as they came down the stairs, talking. Ann curled up on the couch and Travis looked around the room before joining her. I made introductions and watched as his eyes lingered on Arsinua. After a few minutes of small talk, something I wasn’t very good at, silence fell over the room.