The Enemy Within (Daughters of the People Series Book 3) (23 page)

He covered her
hand with his, felt it warm against his skin. “I love her so much.”

“I know.” She
turned her hand over and threaded her fingers through his. “I know you do. She
loves you, too, you know.”

He shook his
head and let his hand slide away, afraid to hold on to any hope where Indigo’s
feelings were concerned. “No, but it’s ok. Someday she will.”

“What a pair the
two of you are. You’re afraid to look into her heart and she’s worried she’s
not good enough for you. Honestly, what am I going to do with you?” She sat
back with a smile that made him nervous. That was her devious smile, the one
she wore when she was up to something, and it sent a chill of unease down his
spine. “Do you know where she is right now?”

“Walking the
halls, trying to find some peace, if she’s got any sense in her,” he retorted.

“The Oracle.”

He sat straight
up and grimaced at the tug in his ribs. “You’re kidding.”

“It shouldn’t be
a difficult walk for you.” She stood and gathered her purse and coat together.
“Your father’s expecting me at home. I’ll have a nice lunch waiting for the two
of you when Dr. Phillips releases you tomorrow.”

He held his
cheek up for a kiss and said goodbye while a quiet buzz grew in his head and
his heart beat double-time in his chest.

Indigo had gone
to see the Oracle.

Daughters went
to see the Oracle all the time, to read to her, to bring her gifts, but there
were two times when the sleeping woman was always visited: When a Daughter
submitted her will to a man and became mortal, and when she married. Usually,
those two occasions happened at the same time.

His heart sank.
Of course. Indigo was only visiting to tell the Oracle she’d married. Dammit,
she still could’ve waited for him, even if she didn’t love him. It was
traditional for the couple to present themselves together. He ignored the stab
of hurt to his heart and focused on the irritation instead. What was she
thinking, doing an end run around him and making such an important visit
without him?

He scooted off
the bed and eased onto his feet. Indigo might not love him, but she needed to
understand that they were in this together. His wife needed an object lesson on
that score. There was no better time than the present to give her one.

It was a quick
trip to the next floor. Indigo used the time to clear her mind. Traditionally,
couples approached the Oracle with news of a happy event, but from time to
time, Daughters went there alone for counsel.

The Oracle never
spoke, save when she’d awakened the previous month. It was the solitude, the
time for reflection in the presence of a woman who was thought to be one of
their oldest Daughters that drew people to her. It was for this that she’d
allowed Rebecca to persuade her to leave Bobby. Indigo was in dire need of time
to sort her mind out.

She hadn’t had
the nerve to tell Bobby of her love. He would accept it, not as his due but as
the natural course of their relationship, and he would be happy. She just
wasn’t ready yet to share it with him. As deep as her feelings ran, they were
still new, fragile. She wanted to hold on to them a little longer, treasure the
love for the rarity it was.

She could tell
him tonight
,
she thought, and immediately reconsidered. No, not while he was still in
hospital. It had been hard enough to resist him when it was his heart alone
involved. Now that hers was, too, she had a feeling he would try to charm her
right out of her clothes and into the hospital bed with him, where they would
do many things other than rest.

She smoothed her
ponytail back and firmed her lips against a smile. If she told him she loved
him, he would want to… How had Hiro put it? Oh, yes.
Watch a lot of Godzilla
.

A laugh left her
before she could stop it. She put a hand to her mouth and looked around before
remembering that she was alone. No one had seen her being silly.

The elevator
dinged and Indigo stepped out into the silence. The ICU was on this floor,
though she doubted a long-term care patient like the Oracle would be there.
Maybe in a private room?

She followed the
signs to the nurse’s desk and found it empty. Odd. Weren’t there always
supposed to be nurses on duty, especially here?

She tapped her
fingers against the laminated countertop, racking her brain for another
solution. The Oracle never went anywhere without at least two Handmaidens
guarding her.
Find the Handmaidens, find the Oracle
, she thought, and
set out to do just that.

The soft clack
of her shoes against the floor echoed eerily in the empty hallways. Indigo
bypassed the ICU, searching for a private room instead, but after circling the
floor and encountering not one living soul, her sense of wrong blossomed into
unease. She slipped her shoes off and hid them behind the desk, then pulled her
Keltec from its holster at her ankle. It wasn’t much and she probably wouldn’t
need it, but better out and unnecessary than holstered and needed.

She checked the
ICU first and found only one patient, an elderly gentleman who was very much
alive, judging by the beeps and whirs of all the machinery he was hooked up to.
She checked the other rooms one by one, easing each door open and peeking in
before clearing it. The first two rooms were empty, so she moved to the next
one down the hall.

She pushed the
door to the third room open and scanned it. Unlike the other two rooms, this
one’s bathroom door was closed. She checked the handle, turned it easily, and
opened it on three nurses sitting in the tiny space, bound and gagged. Two were
out cold, and had been put that way with a hard right hook, if the bruises on
their jaws were any indication. The third, a young brunette, eyed Indigo warily
above her gag.

“Indigo Dupree,”
she whispered. “I’ll cut you loose if you promise not to try anything.”

The other woman
nodded. Indigo placed the Keltec on the floor outside the bathroom’s entrance,
pulled out her pocket knife, and gently sawed through the gauze wrapped around
the nurse’s head and across her mouth.

“Thanks,” the
nurse whispered when Indigo was finished pulling it away. She wiggled around
and offered her bound hands to Indigo, and rubbed her wrists when they were
loose. “Are you the cavalry?”

“Hardly.” Indigo
set her pocket knife to the bindings around the nurse’s ankles, then carefully
began cutting through the gauze securing the other two nurses. “My fiancé’s
downstairs, waiting out some busted ribs. I decided to take a break and come up
here to visit someone special. Who did this to you?”

“You did, I
thought,” the nurse said. “And then it hit me that if you’d done this, you
wouldn’t come back for us, not to set us free.”

Indigo rubbed
the back of her wrist against her forehead. India.
Sweet Goddess
. There
was only one thing her sister would want on this floor. “Can you walk?”

“Sure. What do
you need?”

“Call down to
the next floor and tell Rebecca Upton that India Furia is after the Oracle.”

“I know Director
Upton.” The nurse shrugged at Indigo’s curious look. “You work here long
enough, you get to know the regulars.”

Indigo bit the
inside of her cheek to stifle a laugh. Regulars, indeed. “Will you be ok?”

“Yeah, I know
what to do. Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

Indigo retrieved
her gun and padded out of the room into the hallway, peering up and down it before
she entered, then resumed her search for the Oracle.

After checking
several empty rooms, she pushed open the last door at the end of the hallway
and found India standing over the Oracle, a sharp, long-bladed knife in her
hand. Indigo propped the door open and cursed under her breath. The Handmaidens
were nowhere in sight. What had her sister done with them?

“She’s
beautiful,” India said without looking up. “I didn’t think she would be.”

“Step away,
India. Please.” Indigo raised her gun with one hand and aimed the barrel at her
sister’s chest. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Don’t you?”
India flipped the knife in her hand, tapped the blade against her thigh. “I
tried to kill Bobby.”

“You did a piss
poor job.” Indigo inhaled sharply, barely reining in her growing anger. “You
should never have taken him.”

“It was the
perfect plan. Bobby for the Oracle. The Son for the woman whose death might
ensure that no more Sons would be born. What could go wrong?” The last words
were said so softly they were barely audible. India reached out a hand and
gently smoothed it across the Oracle’s forehead. “I told her about Hiro.”

Indigo’s grip on
the gun faltered. “You’ve submitted?”

India’s laugh
held equal parts humor and bitterness. “No.”

“Then what?”

“I realized I
could love him someday, if things were different. If I had less of a duty and
more of a heart.”

“You have plenty
of heart, India,” Indigo said gently. “It’s just not always in the right
place.”

“Is it not,
kaetyrm?” India turned to face Indigo, her face twisted with anger. “Did I not
love you enough?”

“Of course. I
know you love me.”

“Is that why you
turned on me, when that man hit you?” India reared back and hit the headboard
of the Oracle’s bed with enough force to crack it, jarring the comatose woman.
“Is that why you left me?”

Indigo shook her
head, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“He whipped you
and I couldn’t stop him. Over and over again he hit you. I tried to get him to
quit, to make him stop, and I failed.” India threw her head back and screamed
her rage into the empty air. When she stopped, her chest heaved with more
emotion than Indigo ever remembered seeing her sister demonstrate. “You
left
me that day, Indigo, left me alone with Mámá, and she hated me for not stopping
him.”

“No, India. No,”
Indigo said as shock hit her. “That’s not what happened. It was nothing, a few
hits from a whip. I healed.”

India shook her
head. The tears streaking down her face glinted in the light spilling from the
hallway. “You don’t remember what it was like before, how close we were. Like
two halves of one person. After, you were never the same and I was lost. I
needed
you.”

“I was always
there, India.” Indigo dropped the hand holding the gun, numb. All that rage,
building for a century and a half inside her sister’s heart, and she could’ve
stopped it, if she’d only known. “Tell me what to do to make it right.”

“Leave him.”
India stepped forward, her hand raised in a silent plea. “Come away with me,
tonight, and we can leave all of this behind us. It’ll be just like it was when
we were kids, you and me, together like sisters should be.”

“I can’t,”
Indigo whispered. “He’s my heart, India. You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Your heart. A
man is more important to you than your own sister?” India sneered as her hand
dropped. “I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”

“Don’t push me
on this,” Indigo warned. “I’ll defend him to the death if I have to.”

“You and your
duty.” India stepped back, moving slowly until she stood at the Oracle’s side
again. “I have my duty as well, kaetyrm.”

She raised the
knife high above her head. Indigo brought the Keltec up and squeezed hard
against the trigger, firing into the wall above India’s head.

“Step back,
India.” Indigo lowered the gun, pointing it at her twin’s torso. “Next time, I
won’t aim for the wall.”

India frowned
with visible disbelief, though she held the knife steady. “You would really
kill me over this?”

Indigo met her
sister’s gaze calmly. “If you force me to.”

“Sister.”
Emotion flickered across India’s face, softening it. “I won’t blame you for
it.”

She raised the
knife and bore down on it, and Indigo fired just as strong arms came around
her, knocking her aim off. India cried out and clutched at her arm, her eyes
wide in a face that had gone pale.

Indigo noticed
her sister’s wound and reaction only peripherally as she struggled to regain
control of the Keltec and wrest herself away from whoever was holding her. She
jabbed an elbow back, connected solidly, and froze when a low male hiss sounded
in her ear.

“Bobby?” she
asked and pivoted her head toward him.

“Easy with the
elbow there, Indi.” He shifted to hold her arms in a firm grip. “Give me the
gun, sweetheart, and I’ll let you go.”

Indigo shrugged
to loosen his hold. “She’s trying to kill the Oracle.”

“I can see that.
Now give me the gun.”

“No. She’s
crossed the line this time, Bobby.” Indigo squirmed in his embrace, searching
for a weakness in his hold outside of his ribs. “If I don’t kill her, she’ll
keep trying and eventually, she’ll really hurt someone.”

“You’re not killing
her. Indigo, listen to me.” He squeezed his arms until she stopped struggling
and lost her breath. “If you kill her, you’ll never be the same. I can’t let
you do that. Please, Indi. I know how much you love her.”

Indigo hauled in
a breath as emotion welled up, love for her sister and for the man beside her;
regret over the past and the many wounds that could never be healed; and sorrow
for the hand she’d had in turning her sister into the angry, bitter woman she’d
become.

A tear slipped
from the corner of her eye and then another, and she sniffed them back before
they overwhelmed her. Her arms went limp and she let Bobby take the Keltec from
her hand. He was right. She couldn’t kill India, even knowing what her sister
would do if left unchecked. In spite of all their differences, the love between
them was too great. Bobby had known that, reminding her over and over, and had
understood their bond much better than anyone else, even their mother.

Indigo turned
her back on India and clung to Bobby, intending to tell him how very much she loved
him. A sudden dizziness filled her head and her vision dimmed. She gasped as a
huge, invisible weight pressed upon her, threatening to crush her and then
lifted just as quickly, leaving her shaken. From a distance, she heard India
call her name. Bobby caught her close to him and cupped her face with one hand.
His lips moved, though she couldn’t make out his words, and then her eyes
rolled back in her head, sparks flashed through her brain, and her body jerked so
hard she slipped from Bobby’s grip and dropped with a hard thud to the cold,
tile floor.

* * *

Bobby dropped
into a crouch beside Indigo and patted her face gently, trying to rouse her.
India scrambled across the room and skidded to a stop, kneeling on her sister’s
other side.

“Is she ok?” she
said in a tight voice. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.”
Bobby checked Indigo’s pulse and sagged with relief at the steady beat. Color
had bled from her skin, turning it a shade paler than the floor, and she was as
cold as ice under his fingers. “One minute I was trying to convince her not to
kill you and the next she passed out.”

India dropped
onto her bottom and covered her eyes with her hands. “She’s submitted.”

Bobby did a
double take. “No, can’t be. She doesn’t love me, not yet.”