“Wow, you really love her,” Natalie says. I open my eyes and look over at her. She is watching me, but I know that she’s using her magic to feel my emotions. I look toward the stairs as I nod. I do. I know that Ryanne said that she loved me, but I know that she is still worried about hurting everyone. She still won’t let herself get too close to me. I haven’t even kissed her since the night I told her that she’s my soulmate. “What’s it like knowing?”
Emma and Natalie both lean a little closer to me, anticipating my response. They’re such girls… “It’s amazing. Scary. I don’t even know. I’ve known about it a lot longer than Ryanne has and have been able to come to terms with it, but knowing that she accepted me…” I shake my head. I can feel everyone watching. “It’s hard to put into words. It’s like standing atop of a large cliff. You realize that staying on the ground would be the safest option, but you want the thrill of the fall. When you are on the ground you don’t have to worry about getting hurt, which is what I was going through before. Now, I’m falling, and it’s an amazing feeling, but I don’t know the outcome yet. I could crash land at the bottom or sprout wings and fly. Amazing and scary.”
The girls both sigh and lean back. “Great, look what you did,” David says to me. “Fill their heads with all that metaphoric romantic stuff.” I laugh and turn away from him, listening for Ryanne’s playing, but it has stopped. Why did she stop playing?
“I’ll be right back,” I say as I walk up the stairs. Why did she stop playing? I walk down the end of the hallway and into the music room. Empty. She isn’t in here, so where would she go? I walk out and go into our room. Also empty. Before I even enter Emma and Natalie’s room, I know it is also empty.
I check all the remaining rooms upstairs before going back downstairs again. “Is Ryanne down here?” I ask.
They all shake their heads at me. I glance around the room. Someone is missing. Tom’s already in his room, so it’s not him. I scan the room again.
Larkin.
I curse and look up toward the ceiling. “Where’s Larkin?”
“He’s right...” Emma starts but stops. Larkin isn’t sitting where he was earlier. I don’t know when he left, but he’s gone and so is Ryanne.
“Ryanne’s missing, and Larkin’s gone.” I sit down and try to control my anger. Just when I am starting to trust Larkin, he does something like this. Every time Ryanne disappears, she ends up hurt. Now, she’s missing, and we have no idea where she is, no idea what’s happening to her, and no idea if she needs help. Natalie scoots over to me and puts a hand on my arm. I don’t know what she is doing, but I start to calm down. I don’t want to kill Larkin anymore, just strangle him. My anger slowly subsides until worry is all that remains. I thank Natalie. I wonder if her power could help calm Ryanne if she ever loses control again…
“Where do you think they are?” Emma asks.
“I have absolutely no idea.”
*****
Taking my hands off the piano keys, I slowly open my eyes and look down at the piano. I do love playing music. Hearing a squeak behind me, I jump backward and face whoever is there. Larkin? I take a deep breath to steady my rapidly beating heart and get out of my defensive stance. “What are you doing here?”
“I need you to come with me,” he says as he starts closing the distance between us.
“Go where?” Without answering, he grabs my arm and blinks us out of the room. When we land, I am pulled to the ground. Lying flat on my stomach on the damp earth, I peek between a couple of bushes and see the all too familiar building in front of me.
“Are you freaking serious? Dravin’s compound? Why did I need to come here?” I whisper hoarsely at him. He knows what has happened to me every single time I’ve been here. “We already know that Natasha is working for Dravin.”
“You need information, and I have a way to get it, but I need you to meet someone first.”
“Who?”
“Kyril Xavier. He’s been giving me little pieces of information here and there. Nothing has been too helpful so far, but he wanted to meet you.” At the sound of the metal door opening, I shift to see if I can see who is coming, but Larkin puts a hand out to stop me.
“Stay down. When Kyril gets over here, put a shield up.”
“You know Colton’s going to be very angry when we get back.”
“Oh, I know.”
“I bet he’s going to hit you.”
“I bet he won’t. He doesn’t like me much, but he knows that you do. So he won’t do it because it’ll anger you.”