Hell or High Water (Gemini Book 3) (21 page)

With my thumb and finger, I shoved the plastic cap off the needle tipping the syringe full of Propofol. I slammed it into her exposed thigh, readjusted my grip and depressed the plunger.

“Jump into me,” I ordered in my best co-alpha voice. “Or this is goodbye.”

Harlow began relaxing muscle by muscle, her chin dropping to her chest. Only Charybdis’s will kept her upright. For a span of several heartbeats, I thought he would stick it out, cling to her until I had no choice but to deliver Harlow to the conclave and let them figure out how to extract the crazed fae living inside her.

Unseen force punched me in the chest, and I gasped, all the air I had sucked in expelled on a scream of shock. I bolted upright, arms flailing, and Harlow crumpled in a tangle of limbs.

“Let me in,”
an alien voice hissed on the periphery of my thoughts.
“You invited me. I am here.”

“No.”
His was not the warm caress of the pack bond. His invasion turned my veins to ice, glazing my brain in hoarfrost until he gained a toehold in my shivering psyche. Was this what he had done to the others? This frigid paralysis? How cruel that the only treatment up to this point had been further sedation. What a special hell that must be for his surviving victims.
“You don’t get me too.”

Needles of ice skewered my mind, ripping it to shreds. Tattered remnants of my careful plan fluttered out the window of my thoughts into an arctic storm I had no hope of surviving.
It hurts
, became my mantra.
Make it stop
, my prayer.

I was forgetting something. The plan.
Remember the plan.
There was something…

“Surrender to me,”
he screamed, crystal fissures crackling, exposing the raw core of my tender mind.

Fear of the water abandoned me on that first brutal assault. Now the gently lapping waves offered me comfort. All I had to do was reach their embrace before he took full control of me and swam for the shore to escape capture yet again.

I couldn’t let that happen. Not after what he had confided. All those deaths, those ghosts, howled for justice, and once upon a time I had worn a badge, hadn’t I?

Gripping the boat’s edge, I hauled myself to my feet.

“No.”
His horrified screech raked nails down the blackboard of my mind.
“Stop this. I command you.”

Already his strength suffused my fingers, making them harder to pry up one by one until I stood tall in the boat. The urge to wave farewell to those watching from the safety of the shoreline was strong, but I wasn’t about to blast up a signal flare now.

Head pounding, I jumped.

“No.”
Charybdis flung himself against my skull, but the bars of his cage held strong.
“Stop.”

Water shot up my nose. I didn’t fight it, I embraced it. I couldn’t rescue myself without saving Charybdis too, and I had come too far for that. The fizzle of bubbles rushed from my lungs to tickle my cheeks. Pressure filled my ears with the sound of my frantic heartbeat, muting the vitriol my parasite spewed.

“Cam?”

A shocked laugh teased my eyes open onto darkness. Moonlit waters folded over my head while grim depths swirled around my toes. Caught somewhere in the middle drifted a familiar ghost.

Blonde hair floated around her head as she cocked it at me. “What are you doing down here?”

Gone was the sallow child of my nightmares. This Lori appeared healthy, a glowing reflection of her adult self. The nightgown that had haunted me for so long had been replaced by a shorts and camisole set in baby pink, an outfit I must remember from her closet.

Serenity ebbed from her, encapsulating me, my own struggles forgotten. Charybdis scurried to the far reaches of my consciousness, a cockroach exposed to light. Lori drifted forward, following the same ebb and flow as me, embracing me in arms that were both solid and warm.

“You have to take better care of yourself.”

I held on tight, squeezing until she chuckled, so damn glad not to be alone.

“You did it.” Her form splintered, shattering into a million fragments. “We’re free.”

The vise clamping my brain eased enough she might have been right.

“I love you.” Her fractured voice faded.

I love you too
, I thought, before the tension in my body burst like a bubble.

No, that’s not right. Magic exploded from me, an atom bomb detonating, leaving me in the eye of a great and terrible storm.

I
jackknifed in bed
, bolting upright on a gasp that sucked antiseptic air into my lungs. Lakes were many things, but chemically sanitized they were not. Or, you know, oxygen-producing. Afraid of what I might find on the other side, I opened my eyelids…onto a hospital room.

“She’s awake,” Graeson whispered at my elbow. I hadn’t even seen him there. He shot to his feet and leaned over the bed. “Sweetheart?”

I smiled at him. I’m pretty sure I did. I couldn’t feel my face.

Turning his head, he bellowed louder, “She’s awake.”

Two nurses decked out in vibrant yellow scrubs with black seams running down the sides burst into the room and began checking my vitals. Dr. Wayne strolled in on their heels, hands shoved into his pockets. Exhaustion cast dark shadows under his bloodshot eyes, and his bedside manner left me wishing my vocal cords were online.

“You can turn down the drip,” he instructed Banana One. To Banana Two, he said, “Get her a cup of ice chips and a pitcher of water. She’ll need it if she wants to talk.”

The good doctor pulled out a pen. “Camille…”

“No.” Graeson stepped between us. “She doesn’t need to hear this now.”

“Believe me when I say the last thing I want to drop in the lap of a trauma patient is more trauma,” he argued, “but not telling her doesn’t make the threat any less real.”

The growl leaving my mate’s throat lacked heat, meaning he agreed on some level. He just didn’t want to admit it, even to himself.

Doing my best with the saliva I had, I forced out, “Charybdis?”

“Shh.” Graeson covered my hand with his. “The nurses will be back in a minute.”

On cue, Banana Two arrived with the promised drink. She stuck a bendy straw in a small Styrofoam cup and poured water to the top line before passing it to Graeson. I’d meant to reach for it, but my hands weren’t working all that well. Had I been sedated too? Just in case?

Graeson removed a plastic bottle from his pocket and squirted a few drops of berry flavor enhancer into the cup, stirred and then held it, positioning the straw at my lips while I drank.

“I have distressing news to share,” Dr. Wayne resumed in a calm voice.

I hit the bottom and indicated I wanted more, which Graeson was happy to provide.

“We’ll talk to her.” New voices entered the fray. Mom spoke again. “It’s our place.”

Finding strength to twitch my fingers, I got the message across to Graeson, and he set the cup aside and hauled me into his lap, tubes and all.

Dad lumbered in behind her, and they stood on the side of the bed opposite Graeson.

I did my best to curl tighter against his side. “What’s…wrong?”

“What you did was a very brave thing,” Dad soothed. “Your mother and I are so proud of you, and we’re so grateful the gods returned you to us.”

When he stalled out, Mom took over for him. “You died, honey. You drowned.” She ducked her head. “It wasn’t for long.” Pride filled her gaze when she looked to Graeson. “Your mate had the forethought to bring a doctor with their team, just in case.” She must have meant Abram. “He was able to revive you within minutes.”

Minutes.

I had been dead for…whole minutes.

“Charybdis is gone” was my first coherent thought after that. Why that merited an intervention, I had no idea.

“Yes,” Graeson rumbled, forcing another cup of flavored water into my hand. “He is.”

“The plan worked?” I sipped and sipped until my straw made sucking noises.

“
A
plan worked,” he confirmed. “Not
the
plan, the one I approved before letting you out of my sight.”

“Cord,” my father warned. “Now is not the time.”

“You’re right.” He reined in his wolf before his eyes did more than flicker with a promise of gold. “I apologize.”

“I don’t understand.” The drugs keeping my brain hazy refused to connect the dots for me. “What happened?”

“The plan,” he grumbled just shy of a growl, “was to get Harlow isolated in the boat on the lake, wake her up and then force Charybdis to take you as his avatar.” Metal groaned where his fingers left indentions in the bed’s chrome railing. “You theorized that you could metabolize him, the same way your body responds to all foreign magic, and we decided it was worth a shot if the right conditions could be met. Thierry was instructed to tranquilize you after one hour unless you showed signs of distress, so we could reclaim you and evaluate your success.”

Bits of what he said sank in and tickled distant memories. Whoever had dreamed up that plan, it was a good one from where I was sitting—laying.

“Except you showed signs of distress,” he continued, “and before Thierry could take a shot, you hit the water.”

That must be the drowning part. Still, I had survived. I was here, sitting and talking to them. By some miracle, I had full use of my faculties. Maybe. It was hard to tell with the drugs pumping feel-good vibes into me.

“What am I missing?” I looked to Graeson for answers, but his solemn gaze rested on my parents.

“Lori passed yesterday,” Mom said quietly.

Adrenaline dumped in my veins, and the comforting shroud of medicine evaporated. I pushed away from Graeson and sat upright in bed, gaze darting from face to face. “No.” I jabbed a finger at the IV pole. “That is messing with my head. You’re not here. You’re not real. None of this is real. I died. I’m dead. This is—I don’t know what this is, but Lori is alive. I saw her.” A sob burst from me. “She’s
alive
.”

Graeson attempted to wrap his arms around me, but I shoved him away. I didn’t want comfort. I didn’t deserve comfort. Not from him, not from my parents, not from anyone. Hadn’t my specialness in life been derived from being the Gemini who survived as an individual? Hadn’t I been treated as different because of my perceived immunity to the curse of our species? Except I hadn’t ever been special or different. Lori had been there, anchoring me the whole time.

Never once during our meetings had I considered the ramifications of what might happen to her if I failed or what the cost of my success might be. I hadn’t planned to go out in that boat on a suicide run, but I had been so caught up in the notion of vengeance that I left my sister unprotected.

Lori was dead.

It was my fault.

All this time I’d spent hunting monsters, never understanding I was one.

“Get out,” I whispered, curling into myself.
“Get. Out.”

I counted the drips in the IV line until Banana One took pity on me and returned me to oblivion.

T
he irony was not lost
on me that the next time I woke was to a private suite at Edelweiss. Days slipped past in a drugged haze that took the edge off, so I didn’t mind much. I spent hours in therapy each afternoon, dealing with my grief and my guilt, and I didn’t mind that either. I was kept high in the beginning to lessen the mind-searing agony of my brain forging fresh neural pathways to erase the overrides Charybdis bored into my gray matter. Life became eat, get shrunk, get medicated, wander around in a daze, sleep and repeat.

The monotony didn’t bother me. Until the day it did.

A month into my stay I experienced an epiphany brought on by a single question at group.

Would you be this hard on Harlow if she had done what you did to save her?

Harlow occupied a room down the hall from me. She hadn’t spoken since she was retrieved from the boat, even though I sat with her every weekend in the visitation lounge. But she was alive, and once or twice a week she slept through the night without waking the entire ward with her screams.

The answer, after much deliberation, was no. Harlow’s suffering made it easy to forgive hypothetical her.

The crack in my reasoning spread wider when the shrink followed up with a question equally profound.

Is your suffering any less that you can forgive her and not yourself?

I had endured what few, if any, Gemini survived, and fate had repaid me by twisting my life around until I was truly what I had believed myself to be since that night on the beach.

Alone.

The pack bond had saved my life, the psychic feedback of all those minds nourished my soul. Even after what I had cost him, Graeson paid me visits on Sundays and played donor. When his attempts at conversation met with silence, he accepted I wasn’t ready to talk and started spending his hour reading
Bunnicula
to me. I almost cracked a smile once or twice, but my lips had weighed too much to haul up the edges at the time.

At night I reflected on what I could l remember of that last fleeting glimpse I’d caught of Lori. Her next-to-last words replayed in a loop in my head.
We’re free
, she’d said. Hanging on to life by my fingernails, I’d thought she meant free from Charybdis. Figment of my imagination or not, now I wasn’t sure that’s what she meant.

Why would I picture her in those clothes? Pick those words as her last? Unless I hadn’t. Was it crazy to believe it might have been real? Looking around, this was the place to be if I had lost my marbles.
Unless I hadn’t.
Had some tendril of the bond Lori and I shared stretched out to find me one last time before it snapped for good? What if her words—
we’re free
—meant she was too?

I am alive.

I kept circling back to what a miracle that was in so many ways. I made a choice. I decided it wasn’t enough to live, I wanted to be
alive
. Ghosts might haunt me the rest of my days, but I would lay each one to rest as best I could by continuing the work I had begun with the conclave, and by greeting each day with a blessing that I was here to witness it. I might not deserve a second chance—or was this my third?—but I wanted one.

Recovery went quicker after that. Three weeks after my epiphany, I cleared the psych eval necessary for release. Something told me they had been waiting on me to make up my mind all along.

Funny how the simple, defiant act of deciding to live manifests the will to survive.

Today was my final day at Edelweiss. Blue sky stretched for miles on the other side of my window, an omen if I ever saw one. I had no idea who to expect downstairs, no clue who would take me home or where that home might be. I hadn’t worked up the nerve to speak to anyone from the outside since I was admitted, leaving the choice of escort up to my doctors. That had been a mistake, granting a window of opportunity for paranoia and those old feelings of unworthiness to creep in. Graeson hadn’t visited this week. He hadn’t read to me. Had he finally given up? Right here at the end? Was fate that cruel? Yes. Yes, she was. What awaited me downstairs might be a shuttle bus to the nearest town and an empty hotel room reserved in my name for all I knew.

“Are you ready, Ms. Ellis?” a curvy nurse with a pin-tight bun greeted me.

As I ever will be.
“Yes.”

She held open the door, and I crossed the room to her, hesitating inside what had become my sanctuary. Crossing the threshold meant re-entering real life. As certain as I was that was what I wanted, I still paused before my foot hit the tile in the hall.

“You’re doing fine,” she assured me. “Everything has been handled. All that’s left is for you to sign out at the desk.”

A few cautious steps later, I bumped into a man I hadn’t noticed, who appeared to have been caught peeping into the slender rectangle of glass that allowed nurses to observe patients at a glance. He was a stranger, but the room number was familiar. It was Harlow’s.

Pinpricks of discomfort radiated up the base of my neck as I saw myself reflected in his aviator shades. “Do I know you?”

“I don’t know.” He slid the frames on top of his head and peered at me with mercurial eyes reminiscent of a quicksilver whirlpool. “Do you?”

“No,” I decided, not sure I was telling myself the truth. “What are you doing outside Harlow’s room?”

“Harlow,” he echoed then flipped down his shades. “I’m one of the guards here at Edelweiss, ma’am. I’m just making my rounds is all.”

He set off whistling a tune, and I approached the window to check on her myself.

“You’re still welcome to visit her on the weekends,” the nurse informed me.

“Can I…?” I pressed my palm to the cool glass. “I don’t want Harlow to think I’m abandoning her.”

“I’ll break the rules this once, because you’re the only visitor that poor girl gets.” She jingled the keys at her hip as she searched out a particular one. “Make it quick, or we’ll both get in trouble.”

The nurse opened the door, and I eased inside the room identical to mine. A fragile young woman curled on her bed, facing the large window overlooking the largest fountain out front. Blonde hair so pale it was almost transparent fanned her pillow. The tail of her scrublike top had rucked up, exposing her bony spine.

“I’m leaving today.” I didn’t expect an answer. Harlow wasn’t ready to talk just yet, and I respected that. “Non-family visitation is on the weekends, so I’ll see you on Sunday.”

She didn’t move or speak to acknowledge me. She gazed forward, seeing but not seeing.

“If you need anything, you know how to find me.” I went to my knees beside her bed and rubbed soothing circles on her upper back. “When you’re ready to leave this place, you can come home with me. Or I can help you get back to your parents. Whatever you want.” I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Just get better, okay?”

The glitter of moisture gathering at the corners of her eyes was more response than I had expected.

“Ms. Ellis,” the nurse said, poking her head in the door, “we really have to get going.”

“Bye for now, Harlow.”

The nurse hustled me into the hall and secured the door behind us. Harlow missed my goodbye wave.

Labyrinthine twists meant to confuse patients worked well enough on me, even clearheaded, that I drew up with surprise when the nurse shoved through a set of swinging doors that fed into the lobby. I forced my head up and gaze out toward the open space lined with chairs for visiting family members.

It sat empty.

Heart stuck in my throat, I signed out with a brittle smile and turned to the nurse.

“You get to go home now.” She patted my cheek. “Be well, Camille. You deserve happiness.”

I murmured nonsensical syllables and made my way to the parking lot, expecting the shuttle bus to be waiting. I mentally prepared a pep talk to get me on the public transpo without sprouting leaks that might force the driver to question my readiness to rejoin society.

I hit the pavement as a deafening cheer rose across the lawn.

Struggling to comprehend the streamers hung from topiaries and the catering tables laden with food, I drifted under the portico in a daze. Dozens of smiling faces milled on the grass, Mom and Dad among them. Aunt Dot stood next to Theo, who sat in a wheelchair, Isaac gripping the handles. Dell waited behind them, eyes puffy, but her smile for me was ten miles wide. The rest of the pack flanked her, creating a wall of bodies. But the face I longed to see most was the one absent, and I couldn’t stop the rogue tear from wetting my cheek.

“One day you’re going to believe me when I say I love you.” Strong arms encircled me from behind. “That I will always love you.” Warm lips brushed my ear. “That not even death will keep you from me.”

More tears leaking down my face, I turned in Graeson’s arms. “How can you ever forgive me?”

Between therapy sessions, I had given interviews and called in yet another favor to make sure the transcripts reached my parents and Graeson. I wanted the truth out there, so that if I never had the courage to speak it again, they knew every last detail.

“For avenging my sister? For saving me from myself?” He cupped my face. “What is there to forgive?”

Throat gone tight, I buried my face against his chest and let him hold me until I almost believed I might not shatter after all.

More hands touched my shoulders, and I turned my head without lifting to see my parents.

“Hey, baby girl.” Mom smoothed my hair from my face. “I’m so glad to see you.”

I was a long way from healed, but I would get there. I couldn’t look into their faces and believe otherwise.

“Are we getting hugs or what?” Dad restrained himself, mostly, and half-pried me away from Graeson so he could wrap me in a bear hug that popped my spine. “That’s better.” He kissed the top of my head. “One day, when you’re ready, we’ll all sit down together and let you say anything you want.”

“Listen to your dad, pumpkin.” Aunt Dot swatted my butt. “We’re all here for you, for whatever you need.” She stole me from Dad with a hard yank. “I’ll warn you now that if I hear you try and claim one ounce of blame, I will break off a switch and tap your calf every time you try.” Moisture pooled in her eyes. “You saved me. You saved my boys.” She let her tears fall against my cheek where they mingled with mine. “Your sister would be so proud of you.”

Once upon a time, I would have held on to my anger and railed against the knowledge Aunt Dot had kept Lori from me, but I understood now, and I was too grateful to be able to breathe in her rosewater scent to hold on to grudges.

“Save some for me.” Isaac caught me next, squeezing me tight, his burnt-metal scent as welcome as Aunt Dot’s had been. “You saved my bacon, coz.” He stared down into my face. “What Mom said about the switch? Just remember that when her arm gets tired, I’ll take over for her. Got it?”

I bobbed my head and spotted Theo over his shoulder. My least-favorite cousin made a
come here
gesture, and I went to stand beside him. He offered his hand as though he meant to shake mine, but I bent down and wrapped my arms around his neck.

“I love you, Cammie.” He brought his arms up to hold me. “I’m shit at showing it, but I do.”

“I love you too.” I grunted when slender arms caught me around the middle and hauled me backward.

“You love me too, right?” Dell rested her chin on my shoulder. “I’m nicer than Theo, and I smell better too.”

“I love you too, Dell.” I patted her flushed cheek, and my palm came away damp. “Are you all right?”

“Good as gold,” she assured me.

“Aunt Dot invited your parents to travel with her for a while.”
Graeson’s voice came to me as though from a great distance.
“Theo is returning to Orlando, but Isaac is going with them.”

Suddenly Dell’s tears made a lot more sense.

Nodding at Graeson, I let him know I had heard him. Between the lingering meds and an excess of emotion, I was too overwhelmed to zap him a mental response.

Beyond the tightknit group of my blood relatives, my chosen family dawdled in the grass.

“Well?” I flung my arms open wide. “What are you waiting for?”

They didn’t need a second invitation. My pack mates embraced me, and the nearness of their wolves drew my own aspect closer to the surface of my skin. I relished her presence. I had missed her. She radiated happiness, gleeful to be among kin. Moore and Zed and Job sniffed my hair. Abram attempted to examine me, but Nathalie swatted his shoulder.

“Hey, wait a minute.” I counted heads. “You’re all here except…” Bianca.

Graeson’s voice came from over my shoulder. “Bianca committed herself the day after you arrived.” His warmth beat at my back, and I leaned against him. “She doesn’t trust herself or her wolf. She doesn’t want the baby harmed, so she’s staying at Edelweiss in isolation until after she delivers.”

“I wanted a better ending for her,” I murmured.

“She had one,” Nathalie chimed in, sticking her fingers in her mouth and blasting out a shrill whistle. “Remember when I said I didn’t think Bianca had attacked Jensen?”

Wishful thinking, but I nodded.

“Well, it turns out she didn’t.” She jerked her hand toward someone out of my line of sight. “Oh come on,” she yelled. “There’s food waiting.”

From around the corner strolled the last person I expected to see today. Or ever again. “Aisha?”

Head down and eyes darting, she approached me. “Alpha.”

“I thought the drugs wore off,” I muttered more to myself than the others. “What are you doing here?”

“Apologizing if she doesn’t want to get kicked to the curb,” Nathalie said.

“I followed you from Villanow,” she grumbled. “I was pissed about Bessemer, and I wanted to take a chunk out of your hide.” Her chin lifted in defiance but began wilting immediately. “I watched you jog the night of the ceremony, but Cord never let you out of his sight.”

“I thought it was paranoia.” I cut a glance at Graeson. “I figured he had posted babysitters to watch me.”

He was all innocence when he said, “And let someone else enjoy that view for ten miles?”

Wrinkling her nose at him, Aisha continued, “I was hiding when you left with the others, waiting for you to come back, but then…” She studied her feet. “Bianca and Jensen were fine, all lovey-dovey and dopey-eyed for each other one minute. The next she started talking funny, real formal, and panting like she wanted to shift but couldn’t.” She shuddered. “Jensen was rubbing her back, and he just…snapped. He shifted and went straight for her jugular. She couldn’t defend herself, so I shifted, and we fought.” She cupped her elbows. “I killed him. She was in shock, I guess, and crawled to him. She was screaming at me and covered in blood.” She rocked back on her heels. “I ran, and I didn’t look back.”