Prophecy (17 page)

“Stay, Callie.” Tony ordered. “You should see how this ends and know the man you serve is superior to all others.” Tony changed his stance to Warrior Pose, something I’d learned in yoga last fall. The hand stretched behind him glowed.

“Go.” Liam commanded and my limbs twitched to obey.

“Stay.” A line of white light appeared in Tony’s glowing hand like a spear or weapon of some kind.

I rubbed my eyes until they were raw from the pressure. My back slid down the tree trunk to the damp earthen floor.

Liam groaned. “Forget, Callie.”

The words swept through my mind like a painful mist, aching like the feel of Tony’s angry mouth against my throat.

Liam growled.

Tony chuckled.

A wave of nausea knocked me over into the bed of fallen leaves. My eyes slid shut, forced by unearthly heaviness. Drugs.

“She. Is. Mine.” Liam vowed.

Leaves spun around my head, rustling and whipping against my face. Flashes of light illuminated the world beyond my eyelids, begging them open. Despite the weight of whatever had been in my drink, my eyelids parted. A narrow slit of vision revealed the pair in battle. They moved too quickly at times for my addled brain to comprehend. Other times they circled slowly, speaking in a tongue I didn’t know, looking like gladiators.

“Call Nike. Your clan loses another tonight.” Tony swung his rod of light in a low arc, leaving a blur of white in its path.

Liam jumped as the tip slid by, catching his bare ribs and spewing blood onto the leaves before me. My limbs twitched in response to his pain.

“The girl will beg me for more by night’s end,” Tony taunted.

More what, I didn’t want to ask. My twisted, intoxicated mind had some ugly ideas.

“Never.” Liam’s slow, cold speech reverberated through me as his arms stretched out between them.

The beam of reaching green light in Liam’s hand swooped through the air, cutting a sharp arc in the night and dragging a trail behind it. Liam spoke again in the foreign tongue. A guttural mix of pain, urgency and power emphasized each strange syllable as he pierced his opponent with unreasonable speed and strength. The blow knocked Tony back several feet, instantly changing his eyes to a darker, more human color. The sword in Tony’s hand extinguished and he fell to his knees, arms splayed wide, back arched, no longer inexplicably inflated. Liam nodded once and pulled the sword from Tony’s chest with a grunt. Blood poured forward into the leaves and dirt. Liam moved lithely to the side, lifting his sword once more and delivering it upon Tony’s throat in a move so graceful it could’ve been something choreographed and set to music instead of what it was—brutal. Bloody. Lethal. Tony’s head fell into the blood puddle and rolled.

Vomit caught in my throat.

Liam turned to me. His eyes glowed like two emerald stones. His blank expression was devoid of humanity. I vomited. Tremors started in my chest and wracked me senseless. I curled into the fetal position and waited for it to end. Something was horribly wrong with me.

My brain pounded against my skull hard enough to break through. Fire danced before my eyes. Embers soared into the starry night. “Ugh.” I rubbed my temples, readjusting to the world around me. Dozens of people danced and laughed in knots and clusters near the fire. The lawn chair under me wiggled as I pushed to stand.

“There you are,” Allison squealed. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in forever. I thought you left. If you didn’t show up by midnight, I planned to tell Justin. First, I thought you dipped out to have a talk with him. Then I saw him helping Pedro with a keg stand, so I imagined you snuck away with Liam.” Her eyes widened. “Did you?”

Liam
. My mind twitched. Memories rubbed my subconscious like a forgotten dream just beyond my reach.

“Here.” She handed me a bottle of water. “Were you drinking? You don’t look so good.”

“Someone put something in my drink.”

Allison stiffened. She looked over both shoulders. “Who?”

“If I knew, I’d level them, then sic Justin on them and maybe have them arrested.” I scanned the crowd for Kirk and his goons. I couldn’t blame them unless they’d snuck in and out. Who else was that slimy?

The water bottle Allison gave me was cool and wet in my hand. I pressed it to my forehead before cracking it open and gulping half the bottle.

“Everything okay?” Justin jogged up behind Allison. “I heard my name.” He looked me over. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head at Allison. I wasn’t sure what had happened.

“Someone put something in her drink.” So much for reading my mind. Allison looked too worried to care what I wanted. “She looks like she blacked out or something. I didn’t see her for a while and now she can’t tell me where she was or who she was with.”

“Allison,” I snapped.

“What? Can you?”

My shoulders slumped. “No.”

Justin’s expression turned feral. He whipped his hat off his head and turned in a circle, examining the crowd. “Are you hurt?”

A throbbing in my arm drew my attention. Finger shaped bruises wound around my wrist and forearm. Justin followed my gaze and growled. “What’d you have to drink?”

A sudden chill fell over me. “Soda.” The only drinks I’d had were handed to me.

“Who gave them to you after me?” Justin clenched his fists.

I moved my head slowly left and right. “Only you.”

His eyes widened in shock.

Allison smirked. “She doesn’t think you did it, goof.”

“No. Of course not.” I wrapped an arm around Justin’s middle. “It just means I’m wrong about the drink, I guess. I’m not sleeping and things are…off lately.”

A crow cawed from the barn’s roof, nearly invisible in the night. He twisted his neck, angling a creepy black eye at us. Moonlight enhanced the oil slick of colors on each feather. His partner perched in the limbs of a nearby tree, hidden until he flapped his impressive wings.

“Good night! Those are the biggest birds I’ve ever seen.” Allison stumbled back and craned her neck.

“You want me to take you inside where you can lay down?” Justin touched my shoulder and I jumped.

“Ha!” Allison covered her giant smile with one hand, turned on her heels, and headed for a line of cowboys near the keg. “Sure. Let him help you lie down.” She winked over one shoulder and I wanted to crawl under my chair and hide.

“I didn’t mean…”

“S’okay. I didn’t think it either. You know how she is.” I nodded to Allison as she placed one of the cowboys’ hats on her head. “I think I’d rather go home. Something’s not right with me tonight. Maybe I’m coming down with something.”

“Uh…” Justin looked around. “Take my Jeep.” He held out his keys.

Oh, crap. Right. Justin had driven me and he probably wasn’t in a hurry to leave all these people alone on his property. I looked at Allison and the cowboys. Music rattled the speakers in a nearby truck, shaking the windows and my brain with each punch of sound.

“It’s fine. Really.” Justin pushed his keys in my direction. “Allison can drive me to your place in the morning to pick up my Jeep.”

“Are you heading home?” Liam’s voice sent my heart into overdrive. An unusual sensation jolted through me. I sensed I knew him from somewhere, long ago, another life maybe, but that was crazy. I didn’t know anything about him. Just the way he liked it. Still… I flexed my fingers at my sides, aching to reach for him. Maybe whatever was in my drink had been laced with ecstasy.

“Hale.” Justin nodded. “I didn’t realize you were here.”

Green lightning flashed before my eyes and I mashed them shut. “Ugh.”

Four hands grabbed me as my knees wobbled.

“How much has she had to drink?” Liam asked.

“She doesn’t drink.” Justin answered defensively as I cried out in frustration, “Nothing.”

“Are you quite certain?”

“Yes.” Justin and I answered in unison.

“Are you two…?” Liam motioned between Justin and me.

Silence. Awkward. Awkward. Silence.

“Never mind.” He turned his face to mine. “If you’re going home, I can drive you.”

“I’ll drive her.” Justin pocketed the keys he’d offered moments before.

Liam motioned to the bottle in Justin’s hand. “Really?”

Justin’s grim expression said more than words. Trusting Liam with my safety meant he’d hold Liam accountable for anything that went wrong in his absence. Not a small threat from a guy built like Justin. “Fine. Take her straight home. I’ll call her landline in ten minutes, so don’t think of doing anything else.”

I pressed a palm to my forehead. “Tell Allison I’ll text her tomorrow.” Liam led me through the crowd, and I wobbled down the drive, looking for his Mercedes.

Night closed in on me as I moved. The fire ducked behind trees, snuffing out my only significant light source. Music and chatter from the party softened in the distance as I stepped over rocks and ruts in Justin’s tree-lined driveway. A chorus of bullfrogs and crickets replaced bass and laughter. I rubbed my arms, realizing the true temperature without benefit of a roaring bonfire.

“He’s your protector,” Liam said.

I didn’t need to ask who he referred to.

“Yeah.” On cue, my phone buzzed. A text from Justin. I assured him of my safety and kept walking. “Where’s your car?”

Liam stopped short.

“You drove here, right?” We’d reached the end of the cars.

He cursed under his breath and kicked stones. “Oliver dropped me off.” He pulled a phone from his pocket and slid his thumb across the screen.

“Oh-kay.” I pulled my backside onto the enormous boulder at the end of Justin’s too-long drive. “I need to rest before we turn back.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Liam pulled his phone away from his cheek and gave me an apologetic smile. “Oliver’s on his way.”

“He dropped you off? Where’d he go?” I rolled my head against one shoulder, easing the tension in my muscles. “I’m feeling a little better.”

“And your injuries?” He nodded to my bruised arms.

“How’d you see those in the dark?”

He held my gaze without speaking. “I overheard you with Justin.”

“I thought Oliver was coming with you to the party tonight. What changed his mind?”

“He had an urgent matter.”

Hmph. I rubbed both temples. I didn’t have the time or patience for this.

“I saw you with Kristy Hines the night she got hurt.”

Liam’s head tipped forward. “She was at Oliver’s party.”

“What happened to her?”

The corners of his mouth turned down. “I can’t say.” Regret colored his words. “Mason needed me in the house. When I went back out to get Oliver, most of the party had dispersed. Kristy was gone.”

“You didn’t see her leave, who she left with, or how she got hurt?”

“No.”

“Okay.” His eyes burned with tamped emotion. There was no more doubt in my mind. Liam hadn’t hurt Kristy.

A roaring engine pulled my attention to the road. Liam’s sleek black Mercedes zoomed up beside us and stopped. The door popped open and Oliver jumped out. The brothers appraised one another. Oliver nodded. Liam sighed.

“Time to go home.” Oliver stretched his hand toward me, motioning me into the car.

Liam scanned the area around us as if someone lurked nearby. “Do you still need to sleep, or can we talk privately?”

“Let’s go,” Oliver urged. In the moonlight, he looked much older than a high school junior. His easy expression replaced by something intense. He looked like Liam.

Curiosity gripped me and though leaving with the Hales was a risk, I wasn’t afraid. With Liam, I knew instinctively I was safe. He slid into the backseat, leaving me outside the car. Oliver returned to the driver’s side.

I took a deep breath and ducked into the car. “I can talk.”

The moment my seat belt fastened, Oliver took off. The night flew past as we navigated around the edge of town to his backyard. Their enormous renovated barn came into view and one door opened as we approached. The car stopped inside the cavernous structure and the door powered down behind us.

“What about your friend?” Oliver turned to me.

“Justin?”

“No.” Liam managed to sound aggravated.

I had news for him. I had the market cornered on aggravation. “Allison?”

“Yes. Is she safe? Who’s looking after her?” Oliver asked.

“I don’t know. A dozen cowboys, probably.”

Oliver’s expression soured. The brothers exchanged a look in the rearview mirror.

Liam nudged my seat. “Get out. Oliver will go for her.”

The urgency in his tone frightened me. “Don’t let anything happen to her.” I laid my hand on Oliver’s arm and he froze. I sounded like my mother. She was safe at Justin’s.

“You have my word.”

“Call if you need me,” Liam said.

I climbed out, followed by Liam. The oversized garage door powered up again and Oliver shifted into reverse, casting red light on our pristine surroundings. The interior of the barn was finished, spotless and painted white. The floor was covered in smooth cement. We followed the car out of the ridiculous hanger-sized garage. Oliver stopped and powered his window down.

“Shall I stay with her or return her to her home?” A wicked gleam in his eye reminded me of the happy kid I’d first met. Allison might have met her match for mischief.

“Maybe hang out until Justin can take over? She’s drinking, but she plans to stay at his place tonight.”

Oliver raised his eyebrows.

“It’s not like that,” I explained.

Oliver smiled wide. “Not you. Not her. Poor Justin. I almost feel bad for the guy. Almost.”

The car pulled away, leaving me alone in the night with Liam. “He doesn’t feel bad for him at all. He likes her.”

“Allison?”

“Yeah.” He turned to face me. “Tell me what happened at the party.”

“I’m not sure. It sounds nuts, but I think I passed out. I had two drinks, both soda, and things got fuzzy.”

“Like a dream.”

“Kinda.” Images flashed through my mind like scenes from a movie I’d seen years ago and nearly forgotten. I pressed my temples with frozen fingertips. “At first I didn’t remember anything, but bits are coming back. They don’t make much sense.”