Infinityglass

Chapter 26

Hallie

“For the amount of intellect that man had, you’d think he would’ve anticipated that outcome.”

Two people just died at my hand. My own mother made me an accessory to murder.

“Greed makes people blind and dumb.” I offered. “Or maybe he didn’t know you well enough to understand that your go- to is betrayal.”

“I’ve never betrayed you, Hallie.”

“You betrayed me before I was ever born.”

“I created you for a unique purpose. Picked every single trait.”

“I’m another version of you, Mother dear. Created to resemble the creator. You even gave me a calling. Sound familiar?”

She was so busy buying her own propaganda that she didn’t even hear me. “I always wanted to dance as a child, but we didn’t live close enough to a studio for me to walk to classes. I picked that for you.”

“Did you cause my accident, too?” It was sarcasm, not an accusation.

But she blinked.

My knees grew weak and threatened to give. “Did you have something to do with Benny’s death?”

Mother stared over my head. “The guard wasn’t supposed to follow you. You wouldn’t have been hurt if he hadn’t tackled you.”

“Benny was my best friend.”

“He was an attachment you didn’t need.”

“He was my friend and I loved him.” Long-buried grief surged in my heart. “That’s the way humans are supposed to work. I tried to love you.”

And I deserved to be loved.

“Love is a nice concept, but ultimately life is about the survival of the fittest, and who’s strong enough to come out on top.”

“You never should’ve been a parent. Thank God I had Dad.”

“How do you think your father will feel when he finds out you were a means to an end?”

“He already knows.” I lifted my chin. “And his love is more than enough to make up for what a piss-poor mother you’ve been.”

She smirked. “What about Dune? Because I’ve seen the way you two look at each other, and that’s not love.”

“Yes, it is.” She couldn’t shake my faith in him, in us. He’d said it and he’d showed me. He came to New Orleans and stayed. Stuck by me when the crazy started. Called in his friends to serve as backup. Offered me a piggyback ride, because he didn’t want my toes to get cold. “He gave up his life to help me.”

“The Infinityglass is an obsession for him. He came for it, not you.”

“It seems like you’re trying to convince me that you’re a more appealing option than he is. You created me in a lab, not out of love. You want me to murder for you. You’ve got the Infinityglass gene. Why can’t you do it yourself?”

“I don’t want to be a tool.”

“So you built one. The Infinityglass is vulnerable because you believe the true power lies with the person who controls it.” The truth got uglier. “I am your daughter. Do you have any concept of what family is supposed to mean?”

She ignored the question. “Get in the cabin.”

“Are you going to make me forget about my life here? Daddy? Dune? How long would it take you to turn me into Cat? Because that’s what you’ll end up with if you expect me to go with you without a fight.”

“What I expect is for you to get in the cabin. I still have the gun. My next shot might involve an artery. I don’t know how quickly your cells can regenerate, but I imagine the healing process would be painful, especially if you had to do it repeatedly.”

There had to be another option. I wouldn’t kill for her again. I scanned the shore. Too far to jump, and too many bodies in the way.

“Don’t even think about it. You can’t get past the crew unless you can fly, and they won’t hesitate to fish you out of the water.”

“Whatever did you do to make an entire ship of sailors so loyal to you?” I smiled sweetly as the implication landed exactly where I’d aimed.

She didn’t get a chance to answer.

“Hey, boss!” One of the men waved and held up a satellite phone. “Port authority question before we shove off.”

She turned her back on me and signaled to one of the deckhands. He crossed over to Cat, picked up her body, and tossed her into the water.

I watched the proud line of my mother’s posture as she walked away, and thought that I’d rather give myself over to the rips than let her control me for the rest of my life. It was an option. One to consider, eventually. I wasn’t ready to give my life up yet.

Movement by the cabin caught my eye, and my heart became a rapid bass line thumping in my chest. Rips, as if they’d read my mind. How would I fight them on my own?

I turned around.

Not rips.

Dune.

Dune

If I made one misstep, I could unleash the power of the Mississippi and kill us all.

Water. Nothing but molecules—hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The compound that made up more than half of every human on the planet, including me. Liquid matter that could bend to my will. My will.

I focused on exactly where the veil hung in the atmosphere.

“Dune. Dune!”

Hallie.

I held a finger up to my lips. Teague was too far away to hear Hallie’s whispers, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

“You’re on a boat,” she whispered. “In the river. And you’re fine. How?”

“Because you’re on a boat in the river, and I have to be fine to help you get back to dry land.”

Her eyes softened, and in that moment, I wanted to touch her more than I wanted to breathe.

“Hal, I have an idea, but we don’t have a lot of time, so you have to trust me.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“Don’t look at me, for starters.”

She focused on the dock as I briefly explained the plan. “I’m going to try to guide Teague into a veil using the river.”

Hallie’s eyes went wide. “You’re going to use your ability.”

“I don’t see any other options, and I’m going to need your help. Teague has Cat’s exotic matter. I need you to try to get the necklace off. It’s the missing ingredient to get her into the veil.”

“I’ll try.” She straightened, and I flattened myself out against the side of the cabin seconds before Teague said her name.

“Hallie. Why aren’t you in the cabin?”

“I want to say a melancholy good-bye to my childhood home. Not that you understand why, because that would require emotion.”

Hallie stepped away from the railing. That was my cue.

I breathed in and out and called the current. It complied with a slight shift toward the opposite bank.

Adjusting things too fast could cause an accident. As it stood, it was only a matter of time before one of the deckhands noticed me.

I tried not to think about the day, all those years ago, when I had asked the ocean for help and it gave me the wrong answer. Hallie stood on the boat deck, five feet away from her mother.

I couldn’t mess this up.

I tried again, shifting the flow a little more this time. Not enough. The crewmen had already begun to loosen the moorings. Stern, midship, and bowline.

Teague wasn’t in position, and Hallie was still trying to take off the pendant.

I closed my eyes to concentrate and gave the current one more nudge.

“Stop! No!”

Hallie, in trouble. My eyes flew open, expecting an out-of-control rip. Instead, I saw Teague staring at me. Fury flashed across her face, quickly replaced by cunning. She grabbed Hallie’s arm.

“Stay away from him.” Hallie dug her heels into the deck. “Stop. I won’t let you do this! I won’t do this.”

Teague became only more determined, yanking her daughter behind her.

Her intent was written all over her face. She was going to kill me, and she was going to use Hallie to do it.

Hallie

My mother lunged for Dune with determination and a grip that would leave bruises on my arm. I went limp to slow her down.

That’s when a rip of a woman in a cancan costume stepped directly into our path. Mom lurched to the side to avoid it, and I broke free of her grasp and ran for Dune.

I exhaled the second he wrapped me in his arms. The relief and comfort that flooded through me felt like more than love. It felt like family.

“I can’t get the pendant off. There must be a trick to the chain clasp.”

He uttered a low oath. “It’s soldered closed.”

The development changed the plan, but gave us leverage. As long as I had the pendant around my neck and one hand on Dune, my mother wouldn’t touch me. Too big of a risk for her to lose her powers and her life. But I didn’t think anything would stop the rips. Their number only grew larger.

I faced her. “I see you’ve stopped in your tracks.”

“I see you’ve forgotten about this.” She held up the gun. “You can stand in front of him from here to Key West, but you can’t stop a bullet.”

I knew the words weren’t empty.

“I’ll go with you,” I bargained. “We’ll get on the speedboat and head to open waters and leave him here. You don’t have to shoot him.”

“You think he’ll stop looking?”

“None of them will.” From the look on Mom’s face, she agreed.

He couldn’t die. Not here. Not like this. Thanks to Jack Landers, there was another out.

“Don’t kill him,” I was reduced to whispering. “Erase him. Make him forget. He won’t be a threat to you anymore.”

She crooked a finger at the cabin. Someone had been inside the whole time. Listening. Watching.

Poe. Smiling at my mother.

Dune

I wanted to rip out Poe’s heart and throw it and him to the bottom of the Mississippi. I hoped my face showed just how much. He was grinning, his posture relaxed.

A sharp whistle sounded on the other side of the deck. The moorings were stowed, and the riverboat pulled away from the dock. Poe’s eyes stopped for one second on the veil that hung downriver as he walked toward Teague.

Hallie tensed in my arms as he passed, and I held her tighter.

“Well?” Poe stopped in front of Teague and crossed his arms over his chest. “You called your dog; he came.”

“There are four members of the Hourglass in New Orleans. Hallie believes they’ll look until they find her. You need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Now?” Poe asked. “Or can I eat first?”

“How can you do this? Joke about it?” Hallie’s voice broke. “Less than twenty-four hours ago, you were trying to—”

“Trying to what? Get in your pants? Oh no, wait. You’re always the one trying to get in mine.”

“Shut up.” The growl came from deep in my chest, and my fists ached for Poe’s face. “You apologize. Right now, you son of a—”

“It’s okay.” Hallie put her hand on my arm.

“No, it isn’t,” I argued, but I dialed down the testosterone.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Hallie asked Poe. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the now churning paddle wheels. “You’re supposed to be my best friend.”

“Sweetheart, I’m your only friend. And what a sorry pair we are. Or were,” he said, giving me the once-over. “As the case may be. Seems you’ve gone tropical.”

I just smiled. He could insult me all he wanted, but if he breathed too close to Hallie, I was going to take him out.

“There’s nothing wrong with me, Hallie. I survive. Good or bad, right or wrong, your mother is my best chance. It’s not as bad as all that, is it? At least we’ll be together.” Turning to Teague, he said, “You want me to take out four, yeah?” He leaned over and slid his knife out of his boot.

Hallie shuddered.

Teague smiled. “All four.”

“Who’s here?”

“Kaleb, Lily, Michael, and Emerson.”

“If I’d known I had to do Emerson again I’d have left her dead the first time I killed her.” He turned away from Teague and walked toward the cabin, saluting us with his knife. “Not like I’ve ever been a hero to anyone, anyway. Least of all to you, Hallie.”

And then he winked.

Hallie squeezed my forearm, but her expression didn’t change. Poe hadn’t switched sides. He was still on ours.

I looked downriver. We were still in line with the veil, the current following my subconscious bidding.

“You’ve taken care of the Hourglass,” Hallie said. “What are you going to do about those?”

Teague looked toward the ever-growing population of rips. “Lots of room for history on a riverboat. Especially one this old.”

Everything from Mark Twain types in white suits to tipsy senior citizens took up residence on the deck. I begged the heavens for a repeat of the rip in the park—that Hallie and Teague together would confuse the possession process.

My prayers were answered. The rips switched focus between Hallie and Teague. The riverboat chugged toward the veil. I wanted to boost the river flow, but I didn’t know where Poe was, or how he planned on getting Teague where she needed to be. I would have to wait.

The rips didn’t want to.

“Look at them.” Hallie began to tremble. “They know who they want.”

The rips moved in one accord, approaching Hallie at the same rate the riverboat approached the veil. I put my body between them, as if I could hide her from fate, but this time we couldn’t run.

I wanted to call out for Poe, but I didn’t want to tip Teague off about his allegiance, especially if something happened to me and Hallie was left on the boat with him. I looked over my shoulder. Too much was happening at once.

“Stay as close to me as you can,” I said over my shoulder to Hallie.

Her breathing sped up. “If I go to them, she can’t use me. She won’t have any reason to hurt you or anyone else.”

The rips were ten feet away.

The veil was fifteen.

“Hal, don’t be reckless.” Where was Poe?

“It’s true, isn’t it, Mother? You don’t want to lose the Infinityglass, but you’re afraid of the rips. What did you see when you were with them last? How did you manage to get away?”

Teague tore her gaze from the rips, which were now two feet away from Hallie.

The veil was right behind them.

I couldn’t hold back the current any longer.

“Poe!” I tried to rein in the power of the water.

He burst out of the cabin with the knife in his hand.

“Throw it!” I roared. “Now!”

It left his hand in less than a second, tumbling end over end.

I set the current free.