It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.
—John Adams
31
The queen was at my side within seconds, arms waving. I had no idea what she was doing. A blink later, a jagged blue bolt struck the ground right outside the French doors. I was blinded for an instant. Afterward, my vision was blocked by the shadowy afterburn. I blinked frantically, hearing scuffling and voices. The chief yelling. Her Majesty yelling back.
“Mum.” It was Damen’s voice.
He was here.
To kill me.
My fiancé.
“I haven’t done anything to anyone,” I said, still blinking my eyes to try to clear them. Someone was tugging on my arm—the chief?—but I fought her. “Why would she want me dead?”
“It’s her command. I must obey.” Damen’s voice was low and full of regret.
Still blinking, I looked him in the eye. “Can’t you fight it somehow, Damen? Please, can’t you try?”
“Sloan, we’re leaving. Now.” Once again, the chief tried to drag me away.
“Please, Damen. Fight it. For me. If you love me, you’ll fight it.”
His hands curled into fists. His jaw tensed. “I’ve tried, Sloan. Believe me, I’ve tried. That’s why it took me this long to get here.”
The chief yanked harder, and I nearly fell. “Sloan, if I must, I’ll handcuff you and drag you out of here.” She meant every word. I knew it, but I wasn’t going to leave. No, I needed to stay, to help Damen. Maybe it would come to a point where it would be his life or mine. But it wasn’t there yet.
“Can’t you change her mind?” I threw out, inching toward the door to appease the chief.
“I tried that too, warned her that you’re not the only one who’s on her trail. She thinks if I kill you, then stop killing for a while, the investigation will be called off.”
“Not a chance,” the chief said.
“I tried to tell her that. She doesn’t trust me. She knows I was lying earlier.”
“Call her, we’ll tell her ourselves,” the chief suggested.
“I can’t do that. It might reveal her identity. As it turns out, I’m unable to do anything that could threaten her safety. That’s why your friend failed to follow me.”
I felt myself scowling. “It was worth a try, I guess.”
“It was.” Damen’s expression was so dark—his eyes so clouded—my heart was breaking. “I didn’t want it to come to this.”
“I know, Damen.”
“Come with me, Sloan. Right now.” The chief was pretty much shoving me through the door, and I wasn’t doing much to stop her.
However, while I was walking toward the waiting limo, my mind was racing. Jumbled thoughts bounced around in my head like atoms in an overheated nuclear reactor core:
If only I can figure out who
she
is. If only.
I thought about our case up to this point, the girls we’d interviewed. The girls who’d died. I was missing something. That
something
was the key.
If only I had more time . . .
Standing framed in the doorway, Damen lifted his hands. I couldn’t miss the anguish I saw in his eyes. “Sloan, I don’t want to do this.”
His mother mirrored his position. She scurried in front of me, hands flat, chest high. “Son, you know what I’m about to do.”
Damen nodded. “I do.”
“I love you, son.”
“I love you too.”
“What? What are you going to do? What’s happening?” I asked as the chief shoved me aside. “Chief, there’s nothing you can do. If he releases a bolt, it’s going to strike you, or it’s going to strike me.”
“Better if it’s me,” she said.
“No.” Now I was the one doing the pushing. But the chief was strong and she was determined. She wouldn’t move out of the way.
“You’re safe,” the queen said. “He’s going to discharge a stream of electricity. I’ve opened a connection between us. Like a circuit. It’ll circle the charge back to him.”
“Will that stop him?” I asked.
“Eventually—though it’ll likely kill him.”
No!
My knees softened and I nearly went down. The chief caught me before I hit the ground. “Oh, God, isn’t there another way?” I asked as I forced myself back to my feet. Damn it, I wasn’t going to fall to the ground and wail like a little baby. I was going to think this through. I was going to solve this problem, just like I had every other problem I’d ever faced. “Tell me what to do!”
“Figure out who she is. That’s the only way,” Damen said. His hands started glowing, little visible arcs of white static jumping off his fingertips. “Sloan, this wasn’t what I wanted for us.”
A sob tore up my throat. I clapped my hand over my mouth. Frozen. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I wanted to do something, to save him somehow. But what could I do? I couldn’t stop electricity. And I couldn’t change the fact that he was under the control of someone else. Right?
Right?
All you can do is what you do best. Think, Sloan, think!
My brain started piecing together all the clues: the marks on the girls, the names of the girls, the conversations I had with Megan and with Derik and with Jia.
The marks. Little marks. Pairs of burns.
The note
Your dead.
That handwriting. It was Derik’s.
The profile: intelligent, respected, well liked.
She’d faked the attack.
To throw us off.
Figuring it was “do or die,” I said, “She’s Jia.”
His fingers curled into fists. His lips clamped together.
This was it. Either he’d die or I would. I couldn’t hold back. “That’s who it is, isn’t it?”
The chief had her phone out, dialing before I’d taken my next breath. “Thomas, head to Jia Wu’s house. She’s the unsub.”
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I yelled, hoping he could hear me.
He was glowing all over now; a blue-white aura surrounded his whole body. He lifted his hands higher and a shower of sparks jumped from his fingertips. “It doesn’t matter if you know. It’s too late. I have to carry out her command.”
“Can’t you wait? If JT brings her here—”
“Waiting puts her at risk. I can’t do that.” He was shaking now, trembling from head to toe. He was fighting it. I could see it in his face. I had to keep him talking—that seemed to be helping.
“What if . . . What if your mother brings her here? She’s powerful. Surely, she can snap her fingers or something, and get her here.”
His mother flicked her gaze to me. “I could do that. She’d be standing right there in a blink. But if I did, I’d have to break the circuit between myself and Damen. You’d be vulnerable. And my son knows that. The instant the circuit is broken, he can—will—strike.”
My gaze snapped to his. Would he really do that? Or could he resist? “Well?”
His eyes were full of anguish. “She’s right.”
“Can you fight it? It’s not going to take long. Seconds.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” His head fell back. “Sloan!” he cried out.
I glanced at the queen, then turned back to Damen. “If you can resist for only a moment, we might be able to save your life.”
“Help me,” he growled.
“I want to try.”
I locked gazes with Damen. Took a few deep breaths. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
I took one last breath. And before I had the chance to second-guess myself, I yelled, “Do it!” I did not break eye contact with him.
Time seemed to slow down; I concentrated so hard. Damen’s eyes glowed silver. He raised his flattened hands, slowly moving them in place in front of his body. Little bolts of electricity arced from his fingertips. The sizzling white sparks floated there, in front of his hands, as more leapt from his fingertips. They moved closer to each other until they joined, forming a small ball in the air. More sparks joined the ball, and more; the shimmering ball grew oh-so-slowly in front of him.
How much time had passed? Ten seconds? Twenty? A hundred?
The ball was growing larger. Baseball-sized. Softball. Bigger. Soccer. Its hum was louder. The crackle of static over an
AM
radio station.
“Do it!” someone screamed.
I knew that voice.
“What are you waiting for? You must do as I say,” Jia commanded.
Damen’s bizarre silver gaze didn’t leave mine. I concentrated hard on keeping the connection between us. “What do I do?” I yelled. “How do I stop her?”
“You must break their bond,” the queen said.
“How?”
“I’m losing control,” Damen said, his voice weak. The glow in his eyes amped up. Hundreds of mini lightning bolts jumped from his fingers.
“Sloan, I can complete the circuit,” the queen said.
“No.”
“Do it, Mother. Do it now,” Damen muttered. He was losing the battle. Losing, but
hadn’t lost.
“No! Call him off, Jia!” I yelled.
“Fuck you.”
“Mum. Sloan!”
Without taking my gaze from Damen’s, I said, “Call him off, Jia, or I’ll make sure you spend your every remaining moment in a living hell.”
“You’ll be dead. You won’t be doing anything.”
“You’ve lost. Too many people know,” the chief told her.
“You can’t kill us all. Haven’t you done enough? Haven’t you hurt enough people?”
“Where’s your humanity? Your heart? Your conscience, Jia?” I demanded. “Are you going to let hatred and vengeance consume you?”
“Mother!” Damen screamed. The ball was the diameter of a beach ball now. “Can’t hold it.”
The queen put up her hands. “I love you, my son.”
“What’s she doing?” Jia shrieked.
“Killing him,” I said, sobbing. “Damen!”
“No!” Jia shouted. “You can’t!”
Her reaction shocked me. “What’s wrong?”
“If he dies, so does she,” the queen told us.
“Then you’ve got nothing to lose, Jia. Call him off,” the chief said.
“Stop! I command you.” Jia turned to the chief and started crying. She covered her face with her hands. The chief wasted no time, grabbing her hands, shoving them behind her back so she could handcuff her.
“Don’t say a word. Nothing. Got it?” the chief told her.
Still crying, Jia nodded.
The ball in front of Damen fizzled, but it didn’t vanish.
“What’s happening?” I asked. I wanted to run to him, to throw myself into his arms, but not with that ball of energy there.
“Mother, do it.” Damen’s shoulders slumped. His gaze left mine, jerking to the queen.
“Damen, my son, no. Why?”
I started trembling. What was he doing? What the hell was he doing?
“Just . . . do it.” His head dropped.
“No!” I ran to him, stopping directly in front of the buzzing, zapping ball of lightning. “I won’t let you.”
“It’s better this way.” His gaze met mine, and I knew his mind had been made up. “Nobody can use me to hurt anyone else again.”
“What about Jia? If you let your mother do this, she’ll die too.”
“She doesn’t have to. That’s her choice. If she releases me, she won’t die.”
I swung around. “Release him. Save yourself.”
Jia’s gaze jerked to Damen, to his mother, to me, then back to Damen again.
“Kill them all!”
Damen swung his arms in an arc and the ball shot at me so fast that it looked like a white blur. Then it zoomed around me, slammed into him, and exploded.
He collapsed to the ground.
It was done.
The
impundulu
was free.
Jia was next. She slowly sank, like an inflated doll losing its air.
It was done.
We had stopped the killer.
It was my turn to collapse.
It was done.
My heart was broken, my soul shattered.
Time passed in a blur after that. Somehow I ended up back at Mom and Dad’s house; somehow JT ended up there with me, holding my hands, a silent, strong presence. A friend. Katie was there too, sitting next to him, a box of tissues on her knees.
“How did Damen become tied up with Jia?” I asked, pulling a tissue from the box. I dabbed my burning eyes. “I don’t see where the connection came from or understand how she was able to find out about his . . . vulnerability. Or how to use it to her advantage.”
“The BPD searched his home,” JT told me. “They found some schoolbooks, some notes with the name ‘Fridrik Sylver’ on them. Damen lived close to Fitzgerald. We think one of his brothers was living with him, attending Fitzgerald. That brother met Jia Wu through the tutoring program. The BPD also found some letters at Wu’s house. From Hollerbach. And from Fridrik Sylver. They both were in love with her. I’m guessing Fridrik told her about his brother for some reason.”