Map of Fates (28 page)

I looked around frantically. “The beach. That'd have to dilute it enough.”

We darted out into the sand, and I kicked off my heels. Within seconds, we were plunging into the freezing water, pushing against the waves crashing on the shore, the salt stinging my cuts and my gold dress waterlogged and heavy and dragging on me in a way that made me flash back to Greece. I pushed down the panic and heaved the knife as far as I could out to sea—hopefully it would sink before it cut some unsuspecting tourist, but even that would be less
dangerous than having it covered in our blood. Stellan threw Lydia into the surf, and I grabbed her, blinking salt water out of my eyes and rubbing at the traces of our blood on her hands.

“Just stop it,” she spat. We were about the same size, but she was strong, and it was only the crashing waves that put us on equal footing. “You think you're so good. You think you're not like us. You are. You just don't know it yet.”

A wave crashed higher, water spraying into my face. “Lydia—”

My sister's hair stuck to her face in dark tendrils. “Wait until you have something you care enough about to fight for it. Then you'll do whatever you have to. Then you'll understand.”

She looked at Stellan, washing off his own hands and arms in the waves, his white shirt glowing in the almost-f moon, and then wrenched away from me and threw herself into the sea. Stellan caught her with a sweep of his arm and held her, kicking.

I ducked under, scrubbing at myself. “Am I clean?” I held out my arms to let Stellan look at my neck, my chest, my arms in the moonlight. We both ignored my struggling sister under his arm.

“You're still bleeding, but I think the mixed blood is gone.”

The waves pushed us back into shore, and Stellan dumped Lydia in the sand. She scrambled to her feet, tripping over her sodden formal gown. “Where's Cole?” she demanded, and then we all saw Jack and Luc standing over a crumpled form in the sand.

Lydia ran toward them. “Cole!” she screamed. She threw herself into the sand beside her brother, who was still bleeding from his head.

“He'll be fine, Lydia. Stop screaming,” I said, and grabbed Jack's arm. “We have to get them out of here. Take them someplace where we can hold them until we figure out what to do.”

Before he could answer, a group of cars screeched to a halt on the street above, and at least a dozen people piled out.

Jack cursed. “Saxon security.”

My mouth went dry. The men were sprinting toward the beach.

“Here!” Lydia screamed. “Hurry!”

Stellan pulled out Cole's gun and faced the oncoming wave of people.

“No!” I said. “Everybody run. There are too many of them. Luc! Go!”

Jack nodded. Stellan pointed his gun down at the twins.

“No!” I said. “Don't.”

“Why not?” he growled. “We can't let them go. They're going to release a
plague.
”

Lydia put her hands up. “We won't,” she sobbed. “We're not stupid. Put down the gun, and we'll wait until our security gets here and talk—”

“You don't believe her, do you?” Stellan didn't drop his gun.

I didn't. But . . . “They don't have our blood. And they're still—” I cut off.
They're still my family,
I finished in my head. It sounded crazy, after everything, but it was true. “Please don't,” I said out loud.

Jack reached around me and grabbed Stellan's wrist. “Kill them, and the guards will kill you.”

“Please,” I begged.

Stellan's jaw clenched, but he finally dropped his arm. And then the three of us, plus Luc, were running. I looked back to see Lydia watching us silently. We held each other's eyes for a few seconds, and then the dark swallowed her.

A
couple days later, we were back in Paris.

I woke up in the bedroom of the apartment Jack and I had shared in Montmartre. My mom, who had been sleeping next to me, was already in the shower.

I stuck my head out into the living room. Jack was asleep on the couch. I watched him for a few seconds, the rise and fall of his hand on his stomach, his shirt pulled up a few inches, exposing the strange scars on his side that I still didn't know the meaning of. His dark hair, long enough now to be a little wavy, spread over the pillow.

He hadn't said anything more about our breakup, and I hadn't, either. I truly thought I'd lost him forever, and now I wasn't so sure. He trusted too blindly, too deeply, but so did I. I always thought I couldn't let anyone in, but it wasn't true. Over and over, I'd ripped my heart out and handed it to anyone who wanted me. I was finally internalizing that no one was worthy of that kind of blind trust, not even Jack. But maybe that didn't have to mean all or nothing.

Stellan hadn't brought up that night again, either, but there was no doubt that things were different between us. We knew now that
the union didn't mean we had to marry each other, but that suddenly didn't seem like a big deal. I'd finally realized what a steady presence he was in my life. He didn't trust anyone, but I had finally realized I could trust him—and maybe more than that.

For just a second, I let myself imagine a conversation I might have had someday with Lydia, if circumstances were different. A real sister talk, about love and lust and loss and confusion and how a person's supposed to understand it all. How I suddenly felt even more confused, and even more alone.

But maybe
alone
wasn't the worst thing. Maybe what I needed right now was to learn to trust
myself.

I shut the bedroom door.

Stellan, Elodie, and Luc had convinced the Dauphins they just happened to be at Cannes when everything happened, and they were back in Paris, Elodie's bullet wound starting to heal.

Last night, Colette had called us. Though the rest of Cannes had been canceled, Paris Fashion Week was just beginning. Madame Dauphin had gotten it postponed once, while she'd been pregnant, and she wasn't going to push it back again. They were just going to step up security and move forward, and Colette's friend and distant Dauphin cousin Emilia Deschamps was walking in the first show.

Through her, Colette had just learned that Lydia and Cole Saxon would be there as honored guests.

We'd tried to contact Lydia a few times since Cannes, but she hadn't answered. Neither had my father. They didn't have my blood and Stellan's, but they knew about the virus, and that was bad enough. Without me fulfilling the mandate, and without any other gain in power from the tomb, I wasn't sure what they'd do with that knowledge.

So we were going to confront them at the Fashion Week show. They wouldn't be expecting us, and we'd be ready to handle anything they might do. I hoped I could reason with them, and we could come to some semblance of a truce, especially because I still wasn't sure what I was going to do about the Circle. I was so recognizable now, it'd be hard to disappear. And even with my mom back, with it no longer a hypothetical, I wasn't sure I wanted to.

I put on the clothes Colette had sent over—a black beaded minidress, a military-inspired jacket, and chunky heels from the new collection we were seeing today. Then Jack and I—and my mom, who'd been with me every second since we'd gotten her back—made our way from Montmartre down to the Carrousel du Louvre, the mall right under the museum.

Colette and Luc met us out front, and Luc led us through mobs of paparazzi yelling not just Colette's name, but mine, too. The news had stopped reporting me as a suspect in Takumi's death, but that didn't stop the Circle from speculating about both that and Cannes. And it didn't stop the media and the world from realizing that the girl in the middle of the Eli Abraham tragedy was at the Cannes bombing and was also Colette LeGrand's new best friend.

Circle or not,
everyone
loved intrigue, especially when it involved famous people. And now the scandalous famous person was me.

We bypassed hordes of extremely thin girls in extremely strange clothing and made our way down the hall. Elie Saab. Miu Miu. Alexander McQueen. Chanel.

Colette led us to Emilia's show. There were probably only a hundred or so people here, but it was a tiny room, crowded and buzzing. We had seats in the front row, and I watched for my siblings.

Stellan and Jack were posted at the back of the room. If the twins
made any attempt to kidnap me or Stellan or steal our blood, they'd be taken down in a second.

But Lydia and Cole never showed up, and soon an electronic beat boomed out of the speakers in the ceiling, and a whole line of models in tweed pantsuits, or mirrored jackets with nothing under them, or boxy cocktail dresses like mine started parading down the catwalk. People lined both sides of the runway, snapping photos on their phones and taking notes and crowding in from the back to get a better look.

I watched the clothes, but I mostly watched the people. Making sure nothing happened. Wondering where the Saxons were.

After a bit, the line of models ended, and the last of them came to the end of the catwalk, made a sharp turn, and strutted back up, stopping along the back of the stage. A white-haired man with sunglasses stood in the center, waving. Behind him, a mob of women dressed in black passed out glasses of champagne—to him, to the models, to the people in the first few rows of the crowd, including us.

The white-haired man spoke to the crowd in French. They laughed, and then he switched to English. “And I'd like to extend a special welcome to our honored guest. Cole Saxon, your family's support has been invaluable to our brand this year.”

Cole appeared from backstage, smiling his smarmy fake smile. So
that's
where they were. But Lydia wasn't with him. I glanced to the back of the room and saw that Jack and Stellan had both noticed, too.

As one, the whole crowd raised their glasses of champagne in a toast, and I sipped mine without tasting it.

I didn't really want to negotiate with Cole. Lydia was the mastermind—it was her we needed to talk to. Or my father. But if creepy Cole was all we had—

And then a glass shattered, and a woman screamed.

I crouched low and yanked my mom and Colette down next to me. Jack and Stellan both rushed forward, along with people who must have been bodyguards for other guests.

One of the models at the front of the room gasped and screamed again, even louder. It took me a second to understand what she was looking at. Another model was on her knees. She was clutching at her throat, and as I watched, she looked up, bloody tears seeping from her eyes. She coughed twice more, violently, collapsed, and went still.

The whole room stared in shocked silence.

Two models down from her, another girl cried out, and when she took her hands from her eyes, there were streaks of crimson down her cheeks.

I met Stellan's horrified gaze, then Jack's. Elodie screeched to a halt behind them, her shirt loose to accommodate her bandages.

I didn't know how Cole had done it, but I knew what this had to be.

The virus.

The music kept playing, a wild electronic remix, and then it seemed to hit everyone at once. People screamed, jumping out of their chairs. A champagne flute shattered at my feet, spraying my legs with sticky liquid and bits of glass.

Someone a few seats down from me coughed and convulsed, her eyes the very definition of bloodshot, and then she collapsed—right into Jack and Stellan, who were pushing through the crowd in my direction. The white-haired man himself touched his face, then took off his sunglasses. Red tears were streaming down his cheeks.

I found Cole, making his way toward the door in the midst of the chaos. There was more than satisfaction on his face. There was pure,
horrifying elation. Between us, half a dozen people lay dead or dying, some of them with frantic loved ones sobbing over them.

“You guys!” I screamed, but Jack and Stellan were laying the dead girl on the floor and couldn't hear me through the terrified shrieks of the crowd.

I pushed toward Cole myself. “What did you do?” I screamed.

Cole raised the champagne glass he was still holding, a manic grin stretching across his face.

I suddenly understood. I looked back at Luc and Colette, Circle members, frozen with glasses of champagne still in their hands. “It's poisoned,” I yelled. Cole must have kept a little of our blood somehow, and a little was all it took.

Cole was disappearing out the door. “Jack!” I screamed again. “Stellan!” I didn't have a weapon on me, but somebody had to catch him. I even looked around for the injured Elodie. Finding none of them in the tidal wave of bodies, I was about to run after Cole myself when his eyes got wide. He grinned like he'd just seen something delightful.

I didn't really want to see what made him that happy, but I had to look.

There were plenty of people Cole could have been looking at, but my eyes found her immediately. My mother doubled over in a hacking cough.

Still, it took me a second to understand.

And then my whole world came apart.

“Mom!” I forgot all about Cole, and tripped over my own feet sprinting to her. I reached her just in time to catch her as she fell to her knees, coughing. She looked up, and red tears were forming in the corners of her eyes.

“Mom!” I screamed. “No! No no no!”

Just like with every other person who'd been infected, bloody tears started down her cheeks. It had taken a little longer, but there they were. Her eyes went wide, and she reached up to my face and tried to say something that ended in a choking cough. Then she went limp.

“No!” I shrieked again. I shook her. “Mom!”

Jack pushed me roughly out of the way and felt for a pulse. “CPR,” he said, and compressed her chest. I leaned over her, breathing into her lungs. My own mouth filled with the taste of her blood, my eyes with tears. Chest compressions, frantic. Another breath. More compressions, for minutes, hours, a lifetime. I could tell people were gathered around me, but I didn't care.

“Mom!” I sobbed.

Colette dropped to her knees, taking my mom's hand, staring at her soft, now-blank face. “I thought she wasn't Circle.”

“She's not!” I gave her another hysterical breath. “This shouldn't be happening! Maybe it's not the virus. Maybe it's something else. Call an ambulance!” I wiped the blood off my mother's face. “She's hurt. We have to stop the bleeding. She needs to go to the hospital. Call somebody!”

Hands came around mine, stopping them. “
Kuklachka,
” Stellan said gently. “She's gone.”

“No. No! She just needs help. She's going to be okay.” I looked around frantically. “Help! Somebody—”

Jack put two fingers to my mom's neck, waited a few seconds—then shook his head. With two gentle fingers, he closed her eyes.

It was like he'd opened mine.

I blinked a few times and realized what I was seeing. My mother. Lying there, motionless. Like every other person affected by this virus around the room. Not hurt. Dead.

I was exploding.

My heart, my brain, my insides exploded in a shower of red and blood and gore. Like a gunshot to Mr. Emerson's head. Like the blood all over my mom's face. Like flashbulbs and glass and billows of thick dark smoke. It exploded, expanded, took up every part of me. The world was ending. And I was screaming, screaming, so loud I couldn't hear myself, so loud it wasn't real, the world wasn't real, I wasn't real.

And then it all fell around me, hardened. Lava congealed into rock.

I stood up. Slowly, carefully, I took off my blood-covered studded jacket, leaving the remarkably clean dress underneath. I laid it over my mom's face—and then I turned around and walked away.

I vaguely heard voices, vaguely realized I'd been stopped, vaguely realized people were touching me. Someone was wrapping something around my shoulders. Someone else was cleaning my face with a napkin. They were talking, quietly.
What does it mean if she wasn't Circle? She must be and we just didn't know. Did anyone see where Cole went? No.

The voices faded from my head.

My mom was gone. Mr. Emerson was gone. My own family had killed them.

No.

Stellan had been right back in Paris, in the very beginning. The Saxons were my blood, and I couldn't change that. But they weren't my family.

“Where's Stellan?” I heard my own voice say.

He was right next to me. Jack was on my other side, and they both looked worried.

I could not possibly care less.

I turned to Stellan. “I'm going to stop them from doing this to anyone else.
We're
going to stop them.”