Chapter 22

 

Pushing away from the window, I moved over and looked from one to the other. “What?”

Troy leaned back and then jumped forward again like the couch bit him. “Wanda will have to die on this side if there are others here tracking her they can report back that she’s gone.”

“So you’re going to kill her?” This I wasn’t feeling easy with.

Rafael shrugged. “It’s only on this side.”

Holding my hands up, I shook my head. “Okay, back up. Won’t she be dead on both sides?”

Michael rubbed a hand over his forehead like his head was starting to ache. “No. She will be alive on our side. She just won’t be able to ever cross again.” He scowled at Troy. “Will you please call Chase so he will stop trying to jump into my head?”

Troy grinned. “I blocked him.”

“Me too.” Rafael added with a smile.

Michael sighed. “Well apparently I’ve no skill in blocking him out. My head is going to explode shortly.”

“You guys can talk in each other’s head?” I forgot about killing Wanda.

Standing up, Troy pulled out his phone again. “Not really talk, we just know when one of our brothers is trying to reach us or get our attention.”

“That’s handy,” I mused.

Michael rubbed his temples. “Most times it’s great. He’s just being a little pushy with it tonight.”

Moving over by the door, Troy spoke quietly into the phone. I couldn’t quite hear what he was saying, he nodded a few times and then his eyes started moving all around my place as if he was describing it. I looked around trying to see how he’d see it, and then I remembered my bedroom on that side and the dining room and decided he was probably trying to explain that I lived in a shoe box that had seen better days.

Putting the phone back in his pocket, he glanced at me briefly and then looked at Michael. “As soon as you two make sure Wanda is safely tucked away, swing around to Chase’s and fill him in on all the details.”

Rafael nodded and then held out his hand to Wanda. “Let’s go get this over with.”

Hesitantly she took his hand.

“We’ll see you when you get back.” Rafael said to Troy.

Then Wanda, Michael and Rafael were gone.

I looked around quickly. “Where are they going?”

“To make sure Wanda’s death is public.”

Scowling at him, I went over and looked out the window. “Shouldn’t we be in on this?” Because seriously I wanted to see how this was going to be accomplished.

“No.” He spoke from right beside me, almost making me jump onto the window ledge. “We can’t be seen with her.”

With nowhere to move, I looked up at him. “I missed the part where someone explained why to me.”

Reaching over, he pulled a small section of my hair forward, in the light from the weak street light outside; it looked like it was as blond as his. “Because whoever is helping by following Wanda will go back to Marcus and tell him that the Night King and Huntress are up to speed on what’s going on.”

It took a few seconds to click. “Oh and we don’t want him to know we have any clue.”

“Right.” He leaned closer.

Leaning my head back against the wall I tried to keep a little distance between us, not because I didn’t want to be near him but because I did want to be near him. Complications like that I didn’t need at this messed up reality of my life. “Easier to apprehend when they think all the top people are clueless.”

“Exactly. I don’t know who is helping from the inside, but from now on the only ones to be trusted are my brothers.”

With my head up like this I realized I was giving him my open neck as he moved closer and inhaled softly beside my skin. “And you’re sure about your brothers?”

“Absolutely. That connection we have that allows us to get each other’s attention is also a great way to monitor one another.” His breath brushed over my throat as he spoke.

“That seems like invading each other’s privacy.”

He chuckled. “We don’t pick up on everything, just serious mood shifts and stress.”

“Oh.” Swallowing, I craned my head around so I could look into his eyes, they were red. Pushing gently on his chest, until he backed up, I moved out of the corner and into the open room. “We should get back and see if we can track down this bad guy then.”

“I’m making you uncomfortable, again.” He stayed where I left him.

“A little. I’m still trying to figure everything out.” And being physically attracted to you and your twin are seriously messing with my head. Maybe it was just because I’d been alone for a while. Actually, almost eight months if my math was right, yeah that had to be it.

“I’m sorry you were just tossed into this. I forget that I’ve had years to digest all of it.”

“And wait for my arrival.”

Grinning, he leaned back against the wall. “And wait to see if the prophecy was true.

“You didn’t always believe it?” I sat down and studied the way he stood there, almost blending into the wall, not moving in the slightest. He’d had years to hone the predator gig too.

“Not always. When I was younger I didn’t want to believe that my future was dictated by a prophecy.”

“Don’t you mean my future?”

Glancing out the window, he shook his head. “There’s more than one prophecy, there’s actually many.”

That made me feel better. “And the others, have they come true?”

He moved away from the window and came over to sit on the arm of the couch. “I can’t answer that entirely, things are progressing in a way that says they are infallible after all.”

“It makes me feel a little better that it’s not just my life being directed.”

He looked around the apartment silently for several minutes. “Would it be hard to give up this up and take what is yours on my side?”

When I considered the stained ceiling, cracks in the wall and sloped, peeling floor, I had to admit it wasn’t a hardship to accept what he offered. “Why can’t I do both? I have a job here.”

“You have a job there.”

“They both seem to be tied together. You have runners, I track runners. Does it have to be one or the other?” I started to get that feeling I was missing something again.

“Not if you want to do both, no, at this time I don’t see a problem with it.”

I didn’t ask more, figuring his answer would be more cryptic explanations. I was tired; it had been one hell of a day so far. He straightened suddenly like he’d heard something; I sat forward and reached for my raptor.

“We have to go back now.” He stood up and held out his hand.

“Spidey senses tingling?”

He smirked, “something like that.”