The King(159)

So many ways to finish that for the female, given what was going on: Are you … suicidal? Are you … taking a break between wailing sessions? Are you … pregnant, too?
“Oh, yup, fine. Yeah, just fine. Yup.”
Two could play at the deflection game.
“Well, I’m just heading upstairs. To go to bed. To have a shower, and go to bed.” As Layla started taking off her parka, her smile was about as genuine as Courtney Stodden’s. “I’ll see you at … well, later. I’ll see you later. Bye. Bye for now!”
The Chosen took to that stairwell like she was being chased, even though there was no one behind her.
As Beth returned to the kitchen, she felt bad that she didn’t follow through on the female’s obvious distress, but the sad truth was, she had so much on her plate … there wasn’t room left for anyone else’s drama-burger with a side of brain-fry.
Back at the sink, she peeled another carrot. Cut it in half and turned it around to—
The solution came to her with such clarity, she nearly sliced the pad of her finger off.
Putting down the knife, she picked up the two halves … and held them together, finding the puzzle fit that made them seem as if they were one.
Then she deliberately separated them. Reunited them. Separated them.
In both incarnations … the halves were still carrot.
Throwing the pieces on the counter, she took off at a dead run.
It was a fat round hedge that saved them both.
As Xcor materialized in the front yard of his suburban abode, he had to take a moment to collect himself—even though the sun was threatening in the east.
Talk about close calls … he’d barely gotten Layla back in time. And even the now, he was not sure he had succeeded.
But he had done his best.
Once it had become obvious that she suffered the same disorientation as he in the mist, he had taken her hand and started her up the hill. He did not ask her for confirmation that the Brotherhood’s hidden compound was in fact at the top—for that information, he relied on the same principles that had constructed his far more appropriate lair back in the Old Country.
The higher the position, the more defensible it was.
Hustling her as fast as he could, he had ended up running them straight into a twenty-foot-tall stuccoed retaining wall—a very good sign that they were close to her homestead. The problem was, she’d been too turned about to dematerialize over the damn thing.
Confronted by the choice of right or left, he’d been well aware that upon his decision rested her safety.
On so many levels.
He’d been well aware that even if he could construct a suitable shelter for them, something capable of shielding them both from the sunlight all day long, her absence would be noted and questioned when she returned at the following sunset. How she would be able to present answers that would not complicate her life irreparably, he did not know.
He had picked to the right—on the theory that he wanted to do right by her, and therefore, that was the direction he would take.
When they’d found that well-trimmed, well-cared-for little bush … and then a number of its identical siblings, it was clear they were on the trail of the main house. He did not take her all the way. He went far enough to find the first planting bed, and then had released her hand and hissed at her to go—go fast.
He, too, was out of time.
Xcor had watched her hustle forth for only a moment, and then she was lost into the mist, not even the sounds of her footfalls reaching his ears anymore.
It was as if she had disappeared forever.
And as much as a part of him had been tempted to sit and let the sun take him, he had forced himself away, triangling downward until he had tripped over, quite literally, a ploughed drive.
Although he’d only been able to see five feet afore him, the level surface provided him with an opportunity for alacrity unparalleled by the uneven ground. He had run flat-out, gravity in his favor, his only concern that someone would come barreling up the mountain and see him in their headlights.
That had not come to pass. He had made it to the leveling-off part and had eventually broken free of the misted, scrambled landscape.
The sense of dread he’d first experienced upon penetration stuck with him, however. What if Layla hadn’t made it inside in time? What if someone had found her and questioned her? What if …
He had checked his phone to no avail and then been forced to close his eyes, concentrate, and pray that he had enough remaining strength and focus to ghost himself away.
The only thing that had made disappearing possible was that he couldn’t die not knowing what had happened to her.
Taking out his phone once again, he had some errant hope that she had called and he hadn’t heard the ring in his escape down the mountain. Alas … no.