“Julia and I go first. We’ll wait for you in the hallway. Carlin and Meredith, walk toward the women’s room in a minute. Drew, place an order, and when they turn to give it to the chef, you follow.”
Drew’s eyes were uncharacteristically sharp. “You’re not our leader.”
“Neither are you,” Meredith snapped. “Sounds good,” she told Cayne. “We’ll be right behind you.”
As Julia and Cayne turned, Julia saw the staff’s eyes follow them and knew Cayne had been right. They needed an exit plan, because an entire table of people flocking to ‘the bathroom’ at one time was bound to draw the staff’s suspicions. Which would be bad if Adam and his crew turned up with questions.
Cayne must have been one move ahead of her, because rather than simply walk toward the hallway, he pushed her gently into the wall at the back of the main room, put his hot mouth on her neck, and ground his body into hers.
As Julia’s pulse pounded, lightning-fast and heady, he clutched her hair and swept her boneless body through the doorway, moving in the direction of escape.
CHAPTER TWO
For the past five days, every time the subject of The One arose, Julia would chant inside her head:
It’s from “The Matrix”. It’s from “The Matrix”. It isn’t real. It isn’t real
.
Real or not, she wasn’t accepting that
she
was The One. Edan said her headache had been caused by The Three? Edan also had a thing for chamber music and Angeline Jolie. What did Edan know?
But it was difficult to pretend that Edan was wrong about the whole thing when she did things like sprint down the service hall with Cayne, whose eyes darted back and forth, wary and wide. The worry on his handsome face was palpable, filling the hallway, climbing inside of her, pushing the air out of her.
She’d felt that primal urgency before—too many times since she’d seen Samyaza hovering in the smoke above her house in Memphis. It was fight or flight, and as her All-Stars pounded the cement floor, she realized they were fleeing. Because Cayne couldn’t take Adam and whoever else? No way.
Because an encounter with them was too risky.
For
her.
Why else were Adam and Co. here, she asked herself as she ran. Not for Cayne. Maybe for Drew, Meredith, and Carlin, too; they were all Candidates. But she was the only one who’d passed out from a mysterious headache. And the fear sweat popping up all over her body, the churning in her gut that was more than a feeling—well, shouldn’t she listen to it?
Their pursuers had traveled all this way after a devastating attack that killed their friends and destroyed the glass pyramid for a reason: The One. The truth of it sliced through her.
The sound of strained huffing snapped her head around and tightened Cayne’s grip on her hand, but it was only Meredith and Carlin. Mer’s Swiss trench coat and Carlin’s bouncing curls brought a movie-like quality to the scene, but Julia couldn’t deny the reality of their situation anymore.
Regardless of whether she was actually The One, the Chosen thought she was. And if they got the chance, they would take her.
“Drew coming?” Cayne’s words were sharp and fast as they neared the glass door. Shops were on the other side, hopefully busy.
“Yep,” Meredith puffed. “Right back there.”
“How will we find Edan?” Carlin asked. Julia was surprised to hear the waver in her voice.
“He’ll park right in front of the hotel,” Cayne said, slowing as they reached the door at the hall’s end. He stepped directly in front of Julia, peered out a small, snow-dusted window at the crowd of coat-clad, bag-laden shoppers, and cracked the door open.
“That’s our place,” he said, pointing to a dramatic-looking hotel with pillars, columns, and arched windows—a neo-classical building, if Julia remembered correctly from her art class. It was across the street and down, maybe 200 yards away.
Cayne’s gaze flew over Julia’s shoulder before she even heard Drew approaching; as he neared, she heard him huffing, holding his side like he hadn’t taken PhysEd a day in his preppy boy life.
Drew’s face was serious and unhappy as he glanced out at the icy street. “This is a risk,” he warned.
“So is staying,” Meredith said.
Drew shrugged. “Do what you want,” he said, his eyes on Cayne.
“We’ll go,” Cayne said simply; he’d gotten good at hiding his annoyance with Drew, if he felt any. “If they get too close, I’ll fly with Julia. I won’t go far. Just enough to lead them past you. Assuming they are actually after
her
.” His eyes flicked to Julia’s, where they softened a fraction. “That’s the worst case scenario,” he told her gently.
He squeezed her hand, and they filed through the door, out into the flurry of snowflakes, the noise of the crowd and the never-ceasing motion of the city more menacing now that they had seen the other Chosen.
What was so horrifying about Adam, Julia wondered as Cayne led her briskly past two women wearing wooly scarves, around a child making a fussy face, beside a man tossing back an espresso. Meredith was going to tell her, back in the dish room at the compound, but then he’d shown up. Could he read minds? Or tell when someone was thinking about him?
Someone shrieked, and Julia nearly came out of her sweaty skin. She clutched Cayne’s arm,
so
not smooth, and glanced over her shoulder, past Mer, Carlin, and Drew, to where a woman was being tickled by her boyfriend. She shrieked again, and Julia flinched as she turned back around.
“We’re doing fine,” Cayne murmured near her hair.
Her gaze swept the street, the lanes crowded with snow-topped buses and trolleys and taxis; she combed the damp brick sidewalk, searching for Adam’s black hair, for an angry aura. Yikes—she shouldn’t be looking at auras.
Julia put her hand over her heart and tried to slow her racing pulse. She focused on the hotel’s hunter green pavilion, sheltering a half-circle driveway.
Almost there
.
The massive, stately building was swarming with staff; they wore green and gold livery and darted about a row of taxis, limousines, and compact cars, shuffling luggage onto carts, helping guests out of their cars, taking keys for valet parking.
Julia breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth as she checked every face she saw. What if one of those was Adam’s? What if he somehow managed to capture her?
When they reached the grassy edge of the hotel’s lawn, about ten yards from the pavilion, the crowd thickened and Cayne’s arm went around her waist. “Keep your eyes open for Edan, in a van.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
Then Meredith gasped, and Julia whirled to find Carlin levitating a foot off the ground. She was waving her arms in tiny circles like a baby bird that hadn’t learned how to fly, and her eyes were wide and panicked.
Drew grabbed her shoulders and pushed her down, but it looked like someone trying to hold a float underwater. Then Mer glanced out toward the street, and her face went ashen. Before Julia could see what was going on, Cayne swept her up and dashed toward the line of parked cars, now just a stone’s throw in front of them.
Near the far end of the line, Edan was hanging out the driver’s side window of a narrow van, waving them forward. Julia wasn’t getting in it without her friends. She lifted her head, straining to look over Cayne’s shoulder, and saw that a scuffle had broken out on the sidewalk behind them. One of the hotel staff was waving his arms around, trying to prevent someone from pushing themselves under the pavilion—
Holy shit. Dizzy! She backhanded the lanky hotel staffer with surprising strength, and Adam and Thierry
fanned out behind her, scanning the crowd. Almost immediately they spotted Carlin, a heap of curly brown hair and billowing white suede floating above the sidewalk—probably suffering from the Dizzy treatment.
Adam’s gaze passed over Dizzy. He stepped toward Julia and Cayne, and Julia’s stomach flipped. His face was a mask of fury as he stretched out his arm…and suddenly Drew was there, and he was rushing Cayne, leaping at Julia, and then just as suddenly he was crumpling to the ground.
Holy crap, he dropped like a freakin’ fly!
That was Julia’s last coherent thought before everything seemed to get stuck on fast-forward. Cayne lunged to the right, toward the hotel and away from Dizzy and Adam, and Meredith and Carlin’s voices rose behind them in a cacophony of panic.
Julia twisted in Cayne’s grasp. “
No
, Cayne! TURN AROUND!”
But he tightened his grip on her, using his next few steps to cover more distance before swinging back toward Edan’s van, which was maneuvering between two cars to get in the very front of the line, where he could speed away.
Out of nowhere came Dizzy’s power, an egg scrambler in Julia’s sober brain, and everything went topsy turvy.
Her body stiffened then sagged as she fought against the invasion. She felt Cayne’s arms shifting her weight and sensed that he was still running. The screeching of tires sliced through a confetti of colors, textures, and dimensions, and Julia heard Meredith’s cry at the same moment she inhaled what tasted like a mouthful of exhaust.
Then—thank Jesus—Edan’s low voice.
From behind a waving curtain of what looked like black velvet: “Edan…” It was Meredith, and she sounded ill. Julia heard her huff, then saw a bleary white form staggering across a sky of grass. “EDAN, GO GET DREW!”
What was wrong with Drew? Julia couldn’t remember.
“This way…” That was Edan, sounding uncharacteristically gruff. “Into the van, Carlin. And shut the door.”
In a heartbeat, Julia’s head and her senses were clear again. She saw a flash of the van’s glossy black exterior before Cayne hoisted her inside, pulling her on top of his hard lap. He wrapped his arms around her, and Julia saw Meredith in the driver’s seat.
“Have your foot on the pedal,” Cayne said tightly.
“Will do, Cap’n.” Mer banged on the wheel, looking in the rear-view. “Move, Edan,
move
! Damnit!”
Julia turned around to see if she could spot Edan through the back window, but her view was blocked by Carlin, who was still levitating. She sat cross-legged a few inches above her chair—shaking and pale and not at all her usual feisty Carlin self.
“Finally!”
Julia’s eyes flicked to Meredith, and back to the rear window in time to see Edan dashing around the van, carrying huge, limp Drew over his shoulder. Still holding Julia, Cayne leaned forward and opened the front passenger’s door; Edan was climbing inside with Drew when a familiar, sharp-featured face appeared through the glass to Julia’s left: Thierry!
Carlin shrieked and Meredith hit the gas—which would have made a grand getaway except that a battered, blood-stained Dizzy had appeared in the street in front of them.
Meredith plowed over her, the big bump below the tires making Julia’s stomach roil.
In Edan’s lap, Drew stirred. “We see them again,” he whispered hoarsely, “by…some water.”
“Water?” Carlin, still hovering, with her eyes shut, made a noise of disgust and muttered something in Spanish. “Drew, this whole town is water. That doesn’t help at all!”
*
The beautiful buildings of Zurich sailed by like Tetris pieces gliding too quickly toward a pile-up. The four seats in the back of the van were arranged in a square, creating an around-the-campfire effect; Cayne helped Julia to the seat against the driver’s, giving her a view out the back, which she wanted.
He was overly fussy, even buckling her in, but she didn’t mind.
“Do you think I KILLED her?” Julia turned, a little dizzily, to find Meredith with one hand tugging at her straight, black hair, and the other one driving like an escaped convict.
“No,” Drew said. “I think that bitch has nine lives.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
“Then you might have,” Edan said.
“Don’t be a dick,” Drew growled.
Edan waved, like it was nothing. “You’re welcome, by the way. I was pretty amazing. And you’re not exactly light.”
More arguing. Julia was too overwhelmed to follow. The other Chosen really were there, and they really were after her. She shut her eyes and clenched her teeth and let the voices rise around her.
I hate her but I never wish death on… Like, The Three’s great-great-granddaughter? Would The Three be mad?! …What about this van …Off a politician’s chauffeur …We can always dream. …And rescue! Edan did save you… I couldn’t get off the ground for… Re-set the GPS? …Wings were out only for a second. …Quiet, people. Shut your traps.
That was Meredith. “Julia, are you okay?” She sounded urgent.
Julia made an effort to respond appropriately. “I’m fine. Just like everybody else.”
She couldn’t see Meredith’s face, but Carlin, who had climbed into shot gun at some point, was leaning into the back, and hers looked skeptical.
“Are you sure? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m sure.” …That if they didn’t stop talking to her, she was going to combust.
She forced herself to meet Cayne’s eyes; she’d planned to give him a reassuring smile, but when their gazes locked, his eyes were filled with such concern, she didn’t have the heart to be disingenuous. She pressed her lips together and thought about how much she loved him. He bumped her All-Star with the tip of his boot and leaned forward to cover her with the big, green military jacket he’d scored at the thrift.
People talked some more. There were details of the run-in at the hotel, and she tried to piece them together into a step-by-step account, but her brain just wasn’t with it. Instead she focused on making eye contact and taking deep breaths and following the conversation superficially.
“I hope you got her! She was a bitch,” Carlin was saying to Meredith.
Julia wished she was less zoned, because she wanted to console Meredith, who sounded totally miserable. “The police are probably looking for us. I’m a
murderer
.”
“Dizzy was a murderer,” Carlin said. “What you did was self-defense.”
“You protected Julia,” Cayne told Meredith, and Julia was proud of him for trying to make her feel better. To Edan, he said, “We need a new car. The police are most likely looking for this one.”