Infinityglass(66)

“How do you feel about that?” Emerson asked Hallie, in a soft voice.

“If we did it on purpose?” Emotions raced across Hallie’s face. “It doesn’t make me any different from her. She created me as a tool, and now my ticket out is using her as one?”

Teague had never treated Hallie like a mother should treat a daughter. Even the bedtime stories she’d told Hallie had an ulterior motive.

“She could help you with the rips. Maybe it would confuse them, like it did in the park. Maybe it would slow them down.” I pushed up off the couch. “You can’t expect me to choose between her comfort and yours. There’s no universe where this even comes close to a contest.”

“It’s not just about her comfort, or the rips. If she’s activated, she could heal the continuum. She could go in and not come out.”

“We don’t know if that’s even a valid answer to the problem,” I argued. “Are you just supposed to fight the rips by yourself when you could have help?”

“Help from her comes with a price. It always has, and that won’t change now.” Tears formed in her eyes.

When I reached out for her, she pulled away. “Hallie, think about this logically, please.”

“I can’t … I just … I have to think.” Hallie turned away from me and picked up her phone. “I have to make a call.”

And then she was gone.





Chapter 22

Hallie


The sliding glass door opened as soon as I hung up.

“Can I join you?” It was Kaleb.

“Sure.” I put down my phone and wiped my eyes before facing him. I figured the first place people would look was my studio, so I’d escaped to the pool.

“I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things,” he said.

“That’s worrisome. Have a seat.”

He sat down beside me on the concrete as I sized him up. The dimples, the baby blues, the body. If I’d seen him in the Quarter, cruising Bourbon three months ago, I’d have had him pressed up against the back corner of a bar in fifteen minutes or less. Now? Nothing.

He tried to stop a grin, but couldn’t manage it.

“Damn.” I turned eight shades of eggplant. “I forgot you could read minds.”

“Not minds. Emotions.” He reached out to swirl his hands in the water. “Water is actually one of the ways I tune them out. But I have to be submerged.”

“Well, go ahead and dive in, because I don’t want to know what you just got from me.”

“No need. I got the same thing you’d get from me. We could’ve done some serious damage together at some point and time. But we’re where we’re supposed to be.” He acknowledged it as a fact and moved on, with no hint of flirtation or inappropriateness, passing the douche test with flying colors. “You’re in love with Dune, or close at least. Have the two of you talked about it?”

There it was again, welling up like a spring. The fear of losing him. I shook my head.

“Don’t let this overwhelm you,” he admonished. “Nothing has happened. We can still beat it.”

I stared down at my bright pink toenails in the water. “I bet you’re a pain in the ass to be friends with.”

“One of the best things about my ability is my excellent BS meter.”

“I have one of those, too.” I grinned. “Probably not as good as yours.”

“There are people behind you who have your back.”

“That’s kind of new for me. My dad is overprotective, and my mom is just a sorry human altogether.”

“We can’t be responsible for the family life doles out to us. Jack Landers is my uncle.”

“Damn.”

“I heard you on the phone with your dad. Well”—he held up one finger—“that’s not true. I felt you on the phone with your dad. That’s why I came down.”

“Our relationship is … difficult.”

“My dad was dead.”

I jerked my head around. “Was?”

“He’s a time traveler. Explosions, continuum issues, search and rescue.”

“The Hourglass seems to have a special talent for … bouncing back from death.”

“True. But we’ve all had a rough year.” He pointed to the tiny scars from previous piercings in his nose and eyebrow. The studs in his ears remained. “There are even war wounds.”

I noticed the edges of a tattoo at his sleeve cuffs and collar. It made me think of Dune’s, and the feel of his skin. Kaleb caught me staring. “Dune and I went to the tattoo parlor at the same time.”

“I love his. I bet Lily likes yours.”