But I couldn't make Bria understand that, any more than I'd been able to make Donovan realize the same thing back in Ashland. Maybe they didn't want to understand. Hell, maybe they just couldn't understand. Despite everything they'd seen on the job, Donovan and Bria still wanted to believe in the good in people, whereas my faith in the inherent decency of others had been shattered a long time ago. Maybe they were right and I was wrong, but I couldn't let go of my cynicism, any more than they could relinquish their hope.
Stalemate, once again.
"I'm going to bed," Bria muttered. "You coming?"
"In a little while."
Bria stalked back inside the suite without another word. I heard her moving around, switching off lights, turning down the covers, and even brushing her teeth before shutting the bedroom door behind her, but I made no move to follow her. Better to let her cool off.
Instead, I stayed outside for a long time, listening to the endless ebb and flow of the ocean and wishing the soft waves could carry my worries and fears out to sea with them, never to be heard from again.
Chapter 7
Eventually, the lights around the pool dimmed, the band packed up their instruments, and the bar closed down. The swimmers, dancers, and other stragglers went back inside the hotel to finish their nights with a shower, a fresh drink, and perhaps a quick f**k or two in their soft, comfortable beds.
I stepped back inside the suite, closing and locking the glass doors behind me. Before I went to bed, I walked through the suite, familiarizing myself with the locations of everything from the light switches to the coffee tables to the butcher's block full of knives on the kitchen counter.
Given what had happened earlier at the Sea Breeze, there were things I would do now if I were Randall Dekes, things that were best taken care of in the dark of the night, and I wanted to be prepared just in case the vampire or his men decided to act accordingly. Paranoid? Perhaps. But I hadn't lived this long by not being ready for the bad guys when they decided to come calling.
The last thing I did was open the front door and ease my head outside. There was no one in the long, wide hallway, although someone had left a large brass luggage cart next to the elevator. I stepped out and studied the wall that fronted the suite. The Blue Sands was made out of solid white stone, but instead of plastering over the stacks of bricks, the designers had left many of the interior walls rough and exposed, giving the hotel an elegant but sturdy air.
I leaned forward and ran my fingers across the rough stone, listening once again to the sunbaked murmurs and whispers of the waves. Then I reached for my Stone magic. For a moment, I relished the cool flow of magic running through my veins before focusing and pushing the power up into my hand. A silver light flickered on the end of my index finger, hissing like a small blowtorch. I used the magic to trace a series of runes into the stone around the door. Small, tight, spiral curls - the symbol for protection. The curls shimmered with the silver glow of my magic before sinking into the stone wall and disappearing from sight.
In addition to using runes to identify themselves and their interests, elementals could also imbue the symbols with magic, get that power to spark to life, and make the runes perform certain functions. Elemental magic was great for creating everything from bombs to magical trip wires to alarms. Now, if someone tried to force his way inside the suite tonight, my magic would trigger the hidden runes, and the stones would shriek out a warning to me - one that would be loud enough to wake me from the deepest, deadest sleep.
Satisfied, I went back into the suite and shut and locked the door behind me. Then I crawled into bed, closed my eyes, and waited for the dreams to come.
Ever since Fletcher's murder several months ago, I'd been plagued by vivid, vivid dreams - nightmares, really. But the twisted thing was that the images that haunted me weren't really dreams at all, but instead flashes of my past, memories I desperately wanted to forget.
Mostly, the memories had to do with all the horrible things that had happened the night Mab had murdered my mother and older sister. Watching them die, reliving the Fire elemental's torture, hearing Bria scream, lashing out with my Ice and Stone magic, collapsing our mansion, thinking that I'd accidentally killed Bria with my power, that she'd been crushed to death by the falling stones of our house.
But ever since I'd killed Mab, the dreams had changed, offering me other glimpses into my past, letting me remember other horrors I'd endured, other trials I'd faced by design, chance, choice, or something else. Like tonight . . .
"I don't understand," I said. "Why did we come all the way out here?"
Here was deep in the forests high above Ashland, since the city was located in the woodsy corner of the world where Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina met in the Appalachian Mountains. Early this morning, Fletcher had roused me out of bed, handed me a backpack of supplies, ushered me out to the car, and started driving north. I'd fallen asleep and had only woken up when Fletcher stopped the car at the base of what he called Bone Mountain, a large, ominous-looking peak whose craggy ridges seemed to stretch all the way up to the gray clouds that darkened the sky. That had been several hours ago, and we'd been hiking up the mountain ever since.
I had no idea where we were or how far we'd come, but I didn't mind the long trek. I enjoyed walking through the forest, listening to the sound of the wind whistling through the trees and watching rabbits and chipmunks dart through the thick underbrush. Most of all, I liked being with Fletcher, just the two of us, without Finn lurking around, glaring at me and making snide comments whenever he thought his dad wouldn't hear him. Finn didn't like me much, and the feeling was definitely mutual. I thought he was a spoiled brat who took his father for granted.
Fletcher looked at me. His green eyes were as bright as the leaves on the spring trees, while his walnut-colored hair blended in with the rest of the landscape, despite the silver threads that glinted here and there in his thick locks. He wore his usual blue work clothes, along with a pair of sturdy boots, and carried a backpack that was even bigger and heavier than mine.
"I told you. We're looking for wild strawberries. Ain't nothing better than wild strawberry preserves on a hot buttermilk biscuit. I'll get Jo-Jo to teach you how to make them both."
He swung the tin pail he'd brought along, as if to confirm his story. "Come on. It's not too much farther now to the strawberry patch."
He set off through the trees, and I fell in step behind him, taking care to watch where I was going so I wouldn't trip on a rock or put my foot in a hole hidden by leaves.