A Million Worlds with You (Firebird #3)
Page 6My dad took a step toward him, hand outstretched as if he were about to check Paul’s forehead for fever. “The splintering—what happened to your soul—we hadn’t fully considered the aftereffects. Are you feeling disoriented?”
“Yes,” Paul admitted. But his eyes remained locked on my face. His body betrayed his inner tension. He didn’t trust his own judgment, but he didn’t trust Wicked, either.
This was when Theo stepped in, the Triadverse version within using his pale, weakened body as a marionette. “Hey, man, it’s okay. Marguerite’s okay, and so are you, and so am I. Just took my first trip through the dimensions, and wow, does that mess with your head. I get how you could be confused. Take a deep breath.”
“You drove us half mad with worry, you know,” Dad said to Theo. “As soon as you’re well, you’re in deep trouble, Mr. Beck.”
“I can live with that.” That roguish grin was Theo’s—in every dimension I’d found, everywhere—so the deception seemed complete.
My mother remained silent, her hands clasped in front of her. Then she said, “Were you experimenting with the Nightthief treatment?”
I didn’t get why Mom was thinking about that at this very moment. Neither did Wicked. “We just got back, Mom.”
“But the Nightthief is on the table,” she said.
The vial of emerald-green liquid—the drug that had been used to hijack my body and Theo’s—sat on the rainbow table, bearing silent testimony to the crime.
Theo lunged forward. Even though he was a good four inches shorter than Paul, he barreled into him at full force, driving his shoulder into Paul’s gut. As Paul doubled over, my parents ran toward me—and my hand closed around the letter opener. It was as sharp as any dagger. Horror flooded through me as I realized I might have to watch my parents die at my own hand.
But Wicked didn’t stab the blade at them. Instead, she held it to my—our—throat.
Mom and Dad froze. The point pressed against my skin so hard I could feel the pain increase with every beat of my heart.
“This is the carotid artery,” Wicked said. All pretense was gone. I could feel the contemptuous sneer on my face. From the kitchen, I heard dishes clatter to the floor and break, and a heavy thud against the cabinets. Paul and Theo’s fight had turned brutal, a blur of fists at the corner of my eye—but I couldn’t focus on it, because Wicked didn’t look. She was too busy drinking in the terror on my parents’ faces. “In other words, this is the blood vessel that leads directly from the heart to the brain. If I sever it, your perfect traveler bleeds out in about thirty seconds. Maybe a minute. Long enough for me to save myself with my Firebird, but short enough that nothing will save her. You’ll get to stand here and watch her die.”
“Please, no.” I’d never seen my mother look so afraid. So small. She held her hands out toward Wicked, as if to plead. “Tell us what you want, and why you’re here.”
“Oh, now you’re worried about her.” Wicked spat the words at them. “When did you decide to start caring about Marguerite? And call off your dog Paul Markov before he—”
A heavy thump on the floor was followed by gagging and a groan. Wicked finally looked, and I saw Paul leaning over Theo, whom he’d beaten down to the floor, but Triadverse Theo grabbed the Firebird at his neck. A shudder was the only sign that he was gone. Then our Theo weakly whispered, “What the hell—?”
Tension tightened my chest. Wicked hadn’t realized Theo would bail out on her so fast. “I said, call Markov off.”
Paul didn’t listen. He rushed toward us, and even as Wicked tightened her grip around the letter opener, he grabbed at her.
She expected him to go for the blade. Instead, Paul yanked at the front of my cardigan, savagely ripping it open. In that instant his broad fist clutched both Firebirds in his hand, towing me closer, off-balance. The cold, terrible anger in him now reminded me too much of his Mafiaverse self—that, and the potential for violence just beneath the skin.
“Put the blade down,” he commanded Wicked, “and I’ll give you back your Firebird long enough for you to get out.”
She lifted her chin. “Let go of me or your Marguerite dies in your arms.”
The point of the letter opener pressed harder against my skin.
“You won’t do it,” Paul said. “Because if you hurt her, I’ve got the Firebirds, and that means you’ll bleed to death along with her. You might be willing to do anything else for Wyatt Conley and Triad, but I don’t think you’re willing to die for them.”
Silence. My parents hung on to each other as if they were holding each other up. Behind them, out of focus, I could just glimpse Theo pushing himself onto his elbows, head sagging. Paul’s gray eyes remained focused on mine.
“You think you know me?” Wicked’s smirk twisted my lips. “You didn’t even know yourself, until yesterday. Because you’re not a single, whole human being any longer. You’re Frankenstein’s monster, all sewed together out of pieces of other people you’ll never be again. And the stitches could rip at any minute . . .”
My voice dropped to a whisper as she said, “Oh, I do lots of things out of spite, Mr. Markov.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Paul whispered back. “But you do those things to other people. Not to yourself. Now get out.”
“Now I know how we’re going to play this,” she said. “Time to slam some doors.”
Wicked let the hand at my throat drop, but before I could even register relief, she slashed at Paul. Blood sprayed warm against my skin and clothes as he jerked back his injured arm, pure reflex. It gave Wicked the moment she needed to seize her Firebird. My hand worked the controls—
—dizziness swept over me again. The world went dark and swirly, but even as I swayed on my feet, I knew my body was my own again.