Shades of Memory Read online

  But I could, if I were there.

  Everybody leaves behind a unique trail of energy wherever they go. As a tracer, I can see it. I can even see nulled trace, which most tracers can’t. In fact, I can do a lot of things most tracers can’t. Or I could before I overloaded my magic channels saving Price and escaping afterward. In the two weeks since, I’d recovered a lot. I figured I was maybe at sixty to seventy percent of normal. I probably couldn’t go jumping into the spirit world or do any major magic tricks, but I didn’t need to. Right now, I only had to locate Gregg, and looking at trace didn’t hurt that much. It wasn’t just for Price. I owed the bastard. Plus, finding him meant taking my family out of the line of fire. For the moment, anyhow.

  At my words, Price flinched like I’d punched him in the gut. His face went gray. I held myself still, just barely. God, but I wanted to wrap myself around him and hold him tight. But even if he’d stay in the same room with me, he wouldn’t risk letting me touch him. Not after last time, when a simple kiss had turned into a roof-ripping storm. Luckily, Jamie and Leo had still been here and used their metal magic to fix it.

  Price’s newly rediscovered talent was immense. And seriously scary. He could control wind and air. But it seemed like he was always wrestling for control of it. He was terrified it would get away from him and cause a disaster. When he was a little kid, he’d been kidnapped, and that’s when his power first flared up. He’d knocked half a mountain down, destroying villages and killing who knows how many people. After that, he’d blocked his talent and his memories of it. Until the FBI had tortured him, he didn’t even know he had a talent.

  “Christ, Riley! Don’t you think I’d be turning Diamond City upside down to find him if I didn’t think I’d end up wiping it off the map in the process?”

  “Then let me try to help you—” That’s all I got out before he cut me off.

  “I won’t risk hurting you.”

  “And I get no say? That’s not going to work for me. I’m a grown-up. I get to make my own damned choices.”

  He glared, his jaw jutting stubbornly. “Not this one. This one’s mine.”

  “What if you never find enough control? Where does that leave us?” My chest ached with unshed tears, but I kept my voice even. He didn’t need to know how scared I was of losing him. It already felt like he was halfway out the door.

  Anger flushed his cheeks red and glittered in his eyes. “It leaves you alive. That’s all that matters.”

  It wasn’t, but he wasn’t going to listen. My stomach tightened into a ball of lead. I only had one card left to play. It would piss him off. No, it would devastate him.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to force him. I didn’t want to push him where he didn’t want to go, even for his own good. Who was I kidding? What right did I have to tell him or anybody else what was good for them? I didn’t even know what was good for me most of the time. But the cold hard truth was that if I wasn’t doing any good here, I needed to go back to the city. Without him. I could help there, and here I was useless.

  I let go of a long breath and squared my shoulders, opening my eyes. I gave a decisive nod. I could do this. I opened my mouth, and my phone buzzed in my pocket. Saved by the bell. I grabbed for it. I checked the caller ID. My best friend, Patti. Her diner served as my unofficial office, so people came there or called when they needed me.

  “What’s going on?”

  “How are you?”

  “Good.”

  Silence. “I see you’re still a crappy liar. Are you going to tell me about it?”

  I made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. I glanced at Price and then turned and went back through the kitchen and up the stairs, out of earshot. “Things here are rough.” Understatement of the century.

  “How’s Price?”

  Frustrated. Obnoxious. Frustrating. “Dammit, Patti, I don’t know what to do. Every time I try to get within ten feet of him, he takes off like his ass is on fire, afraid to hurt me. How long can we keep doing this?” I gritted my teeth and took a breath. “Never mind. I’ll figure it out somehow. How are things there?”

  “A young couple came in a little while ago. Names are Emily and Luis. They were pretty flipped out. They’ve got a missing teenager and need you to find her for them. Said you knew them.”

  I didn’t even think about my reply or what Price would say. Emily and Luis had risked their own lives to save mine the night that Touray was captured. If not for them, I’d be locked up somewhere and Price would still be in prison. I owed them, and I wasn’t going to let them down.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  After freeing Price, I’d overloaded my magic so bad that just tracing hurt. I’d only tried something more demanding once, and that had dropped me like a sack of onions. I’d stayed unconscious for a good hour. Luckily, Price didn’t know about that little hiccup. But I could trace, and that’s what they needed from me.

  “I’m sure.”

  “What about Price?”

  Now that was a problem. I’d been about to threaten him with leaving in the hopes that his worry for me would convince him to let me help him, but I’d never meant to go through with it. Now I had no choice.

  “He’ll understand.”

  She snorted. “Right. Good luck with that.”

  “I’ll call you when I’m coming into the city. Can you let Emily and Luis know I’ll meet with them later tonight at the diner?”

  “I can.”

  “Okay, then—”

  “What the fuck was that?” Patti’s voice turned razor sharp.

  “What? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. Ground shook and it sounds like a bomb went off. I’ll get back to you.”

  She cut the call before I could ask anything else. For a second I froze, uncertain what to do. Then I shook myself. Whatever had happened, I could find out on the way back. Right now I had to tell Price I was leaving and get on the road.

  I sent a quick text to Taylor, Leo, and Jamie to make sure they were all right, and then went to confront the lion in his den. Again.

  I started back downstairs, then veered off toward our bedroom. Well, my bedroom, because Price refused to share it with me. I wasn’t dressed for outside. Hopefully, by the time I was, I’d have figured out how to break my news to him.

  I strode across to the spacious walk-in closet. Inside, I stripped off the comfortable fleece pants and tee shirt I’d worn to bed, exchanging them for clean underwear, a pair of jeans, and a long-sleeved henley. None of the clothes were actually mine. Jamie and Leo, who’d built the safe house, had stocked it with a variety of sizes in men’s and women’s clothing in case guests hadn’t had time to pack. I had definitely not had time, and even if I had, my stuff would still be somewhere back on the mountain near what used to be the FBI facility.

  I pulled on a pair of heavy wool socks, then grabbed a lightweight gray Patagonia jacket guaranteed to keep me warm down to minus thirty degrees, along with a pair of snow pants made of the same stuff.

  I returned to the bedroom. Price stood in the doorway. His body was tense, like he was burning for a fight. He probably was. Curls of air swirled restlessly around me. His control was slipping.

  “What are you doing?” He jammed his fists into his pockets.

  I hesitated. He was riding a knife edge between control and nuclear meltdown. Was I really going to push him off that edge? I had no choice.

  “Getting ready to head back to the city.”

  His face hardened, and his sapphire eyes turned nearly black. “That’s not funny.”

  “It’s not supposed to be. Patti called and Emily and Luis need me to trace a missing girl. You remember I told you about them. They were at that restaurant when I got
trapped by Savannah Morrell’s thugs. If not for them hiding me and helping me to escape, I’d be at her mercy right now.” I hesitated. “There’s something else. Just before Patti hung up, something happened. She said it sounded like a bomb went off.”

  His jaw worked. The slow curl of air around me quickened. He swallowed convulsively.

  I answered his protest before he unlocked his jaw to make it. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You don’t even know if the FBI is hunting you.”

  “The Marchont compound was wiped out, and Leo and Jamie shut down communications before anybody knew we were breaking in. Nobody knows it was us.”

  “They found your sister’s helicopter. Do you really think the entire Hollis clan disappearing at the same time doesn’t look suspicious? Then there’s your father. What’s to keep him from saying something? He’s got no reason to keep quiet.”

  My father. The man who’d messed with my brain and set bombs inside my head to kill me if I started trusting anybody like Price with the secrets of my talent. The bastard had abandoned me and the rest of the family ten years before and then popped back into our lives the night the FBI arrested Price. I still didn’t think it was a coincidence.

  “He’s got no reason to say anything,” I said, pretending I believed it.

  His brows rose, and he gave a harsh bark of laughter. “You don’t know that.”

  “And I can’t sit on my ass doing nothing because the world’s a scary place. Emily and Luis need me and I’m going to help them.” I scraped my teeth across my lower lip. “You can come with me.”

  “You know I can’t.” His voice was strangled.

  I nodded. I did understand. His time with the FBI had given him a serious case of PTSD. Well, the FBI and the recently recovered memories of when his bitch of a mother had taken him to South America at the ripe old age of three to exorcise the magic out of him. The result had been a lot of dead people and Price suppressing his magic and all memory of it. Now he fought bad guys in his dreams. That’s what had driven him out of our bedroom at first. One night he gave me a black eye and a couple of bruised ribs before he came out of it. He’d moved out that night.

  Of course I’d ignored him. We had heal-alls to fix the damage. No harm, no foul, and I could take a little pain. I’d suffered a lot worse.

  The next night I’d crawled into bed with him, which makes everything that happened after that my fault. At some point he realized someone was with him, and not expecting me, he went into a primal “stranger danger” mode. Caught up in his memories, fears, and hatreds, he hadn’t been responsible for what he did. And that was to suck the air out of my lungs with his magic and then seal up my nose and mouth so I couldn’t breathe.

  Luckily, he’d come to his senses before I died. Not before I passed out, though, and that had sent him spinning into overprotective land. Now he wouldn’t stay in the same room, much less touch me. Anytime we crossed the physical boundary, his magic broke his choke hold of control. The last time we’d kissed, all the furniture and windows in the room had ended up shattered. I told Price that was because he rocked my world. He was not amused.

  “It’s okay,” I said, which was a total lie, and we both knew it. It wasn’t okay for either of us, but that couldn’t be helped. It was time and past time for me to get back to Diamond City. Emily and Luis just provided a handy excuse to hit the road now.

  “Dammit, Riley—” Price snapped his teeth together, the muscles in his jaw flexing as he looked up at the ceiling. White dents bracketed his lips and nose. The air in the room tightened, coiling and knotting until it felt like it had to explode.

  “I should go,” I said finally, when he didn’t say anything more.

  He didn’t move.

  “Price, you have to get out of the way.”

  The words opened a yawning pit of black fear inside me. It felt too much like we were breaking up. But then, maybe we already had. I couldn’t help the resentment and bitterness that washed through me. It wasn’t fair, but the last two weeks with him constantly pushing me away felt like he didn’t care. Not enough. He feared hurting me. I got that. In the meantime, he was killing me, and he hadn’t even noticed.

  When he just kept standing there like a giant stump, I lost my temper. “What exactly do you want me to do? You won’t let me help you. Fine. Your choice, but you don’t get to tell me to stay here when I’m needed in Diamond City. Now, let me by. If I leave now, I should be able to make it home by early afternoon.”

  I held up a hand to stop him when he started to speak. “I know the spiel. This is when you say you aren’t willing to hurt me and blah, blah, blah, round and round and we come back to where we started. That horse has been beaten to a pulp. The poor carcass can’t take any more and frankly, I’m not feeling much better.”

  “Did Patti really say Emily and Luis needed you?”

  I blinked. It took a second for the words to percolate through my skull and make sense. My mouth fell open. I considered sticking my fingers in my ears to see if they were working properly. Instead I stepped back, my chest hurting like he’d punched me. “Are you fucking serious? You think I’d lie about that?” My voice rose, and my eyes burned with tears of frustration and hurt. “You think I’d play mind games with you?”

  He winced but didn’t look remotely apologetic. “Riley, calm down—”

  “Fuck you! I’ve got every right to be pissed. You push me away and then when I’m actually going to listen and go away and leave you the hell alone like you keep telling me to, you accuse me of lying just to get away from you.” The words ratcheted out like bullets. “I do not lie. But you know what? I don’t have to lie in order to leave. I can just go. Wanna see? Watch me.”

  I started toward him, fully intending to do whatever was necessary to make him move. At the moment, kicking him in the balls seemed like a fine choice.

  “Don’t do this to me, Riley. I can’t—” His voice broke. “You mean everything to me. Hurting you rips me apart.”

  I made a sound of frustration and rage, stopping when the air around me firmed into the consistency of Jell-O. One way or another, Price was going to keep me away from him. Even as his magic escaped his control, it answered his primitive feelings.

  “Watching you suffer is no picnic, either, but you know what? As long as we were swimming in the deep shit together, I was okay. But we aren’t in it together anymore. You made your choice, and now I get to make mine. So get the fuck out of the way and let me go.” Despite my anger, the words nearly broke me.

  “You could die,” he choked, and now the winds broke free. A gale roared up, spinning through the room, knocking the pictures from the walls and flipping the blankets from the bed. I dropped my coat and snow pants and walked toward him. The clothing whipped through the air. Price’s hands remained jammed in his pockets. A white film covered his eyes. When he was totally submerged in his magic, his eyes went altogether white. I wanted to keep him as far away from that as possible. At least until he had control.

  “I can’t watch them put you in a hole, too.” His gaze skewered me with agonized desperation. The white in Price’s eyes thickened until I could only see a shadow of his blue irises. I knew he was remembering the funeral we’d had for Mel only a few days after arriving at the cabin.

  In rescuing Price from the FBI compound, my stepmother, Mel, had been killed. It had been an accident, one that Price had caused. None of us blamed him. He’d been tortured past the point of reason and simply wasn’t responsible. But every time he thought about letting me help him, I knew he remembered Mel’s broken body as we carried her out and her cold, white face as we lowered her into the ground.

  My stepbrothers have metal talents. They were able to dig through the frozen, rocky ground to make a grave. Taylor, Price, Dalton, and I had built a coffin for her out of a supply of lumber in the basement. The w
hole thing had been a nightmare, and yet after, I was glad I’d had a part in laying her to rest. It gave me a chance to grieve and share my sorrow.

  For Price it had been an unending nightmare. He was always going to feel responsible for killing Mel. Nothing any of us said could change that. And now he was imagining me in the wood box, me being lowered into a hole, me being covered by a mound of rock and dirt. Me being the one he’d killed.

  Deep grooves fanned his mouth and eyes. All around us, the wind kicked higher. The window rattled, and the doors slammed and shuddered in their jambs. The two lamps on the nightstands turned into kites. Their cords gave way one after the other, and the ceramic smashed against the walls, the shards and cords whipping into the air with shoes, soaps, pillows, blankets, towels, and every other loose bit in the room.

  I hardly felt the pain of things pelting my body. A trickle of warmth dribbled down my neck as something sharp cut just below my jaw. I reacted without thinking, driven by the knowledge that Price hovered on the brink of total meltdown. If he noticed he was hurting me, I didn’t know what he’d do. Was there such a thing as a land-based hurricane?

  I did the only thing I could think to do. The only thing that I wanted to do. I flung myself at him and wrapped my arms tight around his neck, pulling myself up to press my lips against his.

  His body was all angles and stone against mine. At first, he remained stiff, his mouth pressed tight, as if his entire being refused me. Then in a convulsive moment, his arms clenched me in a brutal embrace. I could hardly breathe. I didn’t care. For the first time in weeks, I felt like I was where I belonged. A heavy weight fell from me. I’d worried Price would never let me close again. That I’d never hold him or be held; that I’d never taste him again or feel him inside me.

  His mouth opened. His kiss was desperate with need and hunger and want. Mine no less so. Not to mention a healthy dose of fear on both our parts. I clutched his head. Our teeth ground together, tongues jabbing and sweeping. Desperation is too little a word for what we felt.