Mixed Feelings (Empathy in the PPNW Book 1) Read online

  I stopped myself before I called him Dad. Barely. “I’m so sorry.” Inside I was crying because they didn’t believe me. They weren’t going to find me. I was going to be stuck inside this blackness forever.

  “Your son is alive and I’ll—” My voice shook slightly as Mel grabbed my wrist and pulled me down the stairs. “I’ll find him. I’ll get him back. I’ll come home!”

  Christina was talking over Mel’s rapid stream of apologies, begging him not to leave even as Shannon was ordering him to do just that.

  Everything blurred together as the werewolf shoved me through the front door; my resistance was no match for his strength. The further we got down the driveway, the less I fought. As we reached the car, I felt mortified, angry, embarrassed. I no longer felt young, desperate, and vulnerable; all I felt was the burn of my own regret.

  Mel let go of me and I dropped to my feet, realizing for the first time that he’d been carrying me, an arm around my waist. He tugged my shoulder and turned me roughly, staring down into my eyes.

  When I simply stared back, unsure of what needed to come tumbling out of my mouth, he lifted a hand and flicked my forehead.

  “Ow!” I cried.

  “Gwen?”

  “Yes! Dammit, that hurt.”

  “You are one big bucket of crazy.”

  I rolled my gaze to the house behind Mel, saw Mrs. Carlyle staring at me through the front window. I swallowed my embarrassment and shifted to place Mel between us as a shield against her despair.

  “Oh my god, did I really just lose it in front of them?”

  “Yep,” Mel said, straightening up. He crossed his arms over his chest but didn’t move; he let me use him as a wall.

  “Oh my god, oh my god,” I wailed, dropping my head into my hands. “I should be locked up, or put to sleep. I am a nutcase. I am—I should be carted off in a stretchcoat.”

  “In a what?”

  “In a—um.” I couldn’t think of the word, so I shook my head, lifted it, and then wrapped my arms around myself to demonstrate. “You know! One of those things!”

  “What happened? Are you okay?” I twisted to find Chloe rushing down the sidewalk toward us.

  “She’s had another breakdown.”

  “Another?” Chloe demanded.

  “Look, we should do this somewhere the parents can’t watch,” Mel pointed out.

  “Right,” Chloe glanced toward the house, nodding.

  “I’m driving with Chloe,” I said. “I don’t want another—I can’t be alone with you right now.”

  “You sure?” Mel asked.

  I nodded rapidly. “Unless something’s going to flip the car, I think I’ll be safe without you. Let’s just go.” I stepped around Chloe, heading toward her car as fast as I could manage.

  ***

  We ended up pulling into a nearby hotel parking lot, driving around the back to park next to each other. Chloe grilled me the entire time we were driving but I didn’t have much to say. I couldn’t explain my behavior, or the tiny, screaming part of me that wanted to curl up in a ball and cry myself to sleep.

  Mel yanked open the back door and climbed in behind me.

  Chloe turned to him. “She’s not saying much.”

  “I’m not surprised. I think she’s cracked.”

  “I’m not…” I trailed off, lacking an argument.

  “What happened?” Chloe asked. I remained quiet, but Mel assumed she was talking to him and detailed everything from finding me crying in the kitchen to my breakdown in the car to my show at the Carlyles'. Chloe’s worry dissipated as he spoke, hardening into resolve and making me lift my head to watch her curiously. When Mel finished, she nodded.

  “We’re going to Merrin’s.”

  “I tried calling and she’s not answering,” Mel offered.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Chloe said, sliding her phone out of her pocket.

  “And how will you do that?” Mel asked.

  Chloe ignored his question. “You riding with us, or taking your own car?”

  Mel was quiet for a few seconds before muttering, “I’ll meet you guys there.”

  “Then get out.” Chloe started the car.

  Mel stayed stubbornly motionless for a few seconds, but when Chloe put the car into gear, he did as she ordered. I turned to watch her as she hit a few buttons and put her phone to her ear. When she spoke again, she was all business.

  “It’s me.” She was quiet for a moment but, when she started speaking again, it was in a language I didn’t recognize. Seconds later, she hung up and I felt her try to mold the rigid concern inside her into something softer. I didn’t know what had her so serious, but she could tell I’d caught on and didn’t want me to worry. “You’ll be fine.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Merrin opened the door before we even knocked, looked right at me, and said, “There are lots of you. You have company.”

  “Okay.” I wasn’t sure what that meant. “Hi.”

  Chloe shuffled me inside, left the door cracked for when Mel arrived, and jerked her chin at Evadne. They shared a look I didn’t understand before I turned back to Merrin. She was still watching me, her focus much more intense than I was used to from her. A slim line of curiosity dripped between her forehead and mine and I swatted at it without realizing it was a feeling and not a spiderweb.

  “All of them are asleep. Am I asleep?” she asked.

  “All of who?”

  “Let her touch you. Give her permission.” Evadne gestured at Merrin’s hand with her long blue nails.

  I nodded. “Merrin, you can touch me if you need to.”

  She blinked, her dreamy eyes clearing. “Oh, Gwen.” Her tone was conversational, as if she’d just stated something utterly relevant to a discussion that we’d been having for hours. Lifting her left hand, she pressed it to my cheek like a mother looking upon her child. After a moment she shifted, moving her fingers into a specific pattern along my jaw, cheekbones, and temple. I saw Chloe bolt toward me but before I could register what was happening, my eyes rolled back and I felt myself plummet into unconsciousness.

  ***

  My body was on its back on the floor, head cradled in Chloe’s lap. I knew it was my body and yet I wasn’t in it. In fact, the more conscious I became of my surroundings, the more I started to wonder how my body was no longer that of an adult woman.

  I was staring at a tiny blond boy with giant brown eyes that were focused on Chloe’s face. I could hear a vague, muffled sound that I recognized as speech but couldn’t understand. From my position, I couldn’t see Chloe’s expression and it made me wonder if she noticed that I was no longer myself.

  Shifting my focus was instant, like changing camera angles in a movie. I was no longer looking at Chloe, but at Mel across the room. I wanted to laugh at the expression on his face; he was cold and irritated, shivering ever so slightly. His exposed skin had goosebumps, despite the heavy leather jacket he wore.

  His arms were pulled tight against his chest and he was perched awkwardly on a barstool, like a pro wrestler asked to sit at a plastic kids’ table. My focus changed again and I found Merrin sitting across from the me on the floor, her legs tucked under her butt, her ankles crossed. Behind her Evadne watched me—the floating me—a small smile on her stunning face.

  She spoke but her mouth didn’t move. I could understand her, even though her words had no sound and felt like snowflakes on my eyelids.

  “Yours is a funny-looking soul.”

  I glanced down at myself and I saw nothing but the floor and the young boy’s body. The laugh that came from the fairy was sharp and I shivered, pulling my hands up to clutch my ears. If I didn’t get back in my body soon, I was going to freeze to death.

  This time, her mouth moved and her words were room temperature. “Pet, she needs to come back. Any longer and that little boy is going to grow up very confused about his place in the world.”

  I turned to look down at my body again and found I no longer looked like a
small blond boy. I was an adult woman now: dark chin-length hair, shapely legs, and just a little too much pudge around the hips and thighs for my personal taste. Frowning down at my body, I resolved to let the candy thief’s lesson be to eat less crap.

  I felt a disorienting sucking sensation, like pressing a vacuum hose over each of my eyes. It started at my temples and moved along my body until I was staring up into Chloe’s heart-shaped face, her blue eyes comforting.

  My hearing popped in and I heard Merrin mumbling near my feet, followed by Mel’s voice asking if we were almost done. Evadne hissed a command for silence and I cringed, expecting to feel my ears freeze again.

  Chloe’s hand moved from my cheek to my forehead. “She’s gone a little cold, is that natural?”

  “That’s my fault,” Evadne said. She didn’t sound sorry.

  “Oh, gotcha,” Chloe nodded, looking up at Merrin. “Is she good to go?”

  I could feel my body again, but it felt loose, like I was wearing a jumpsuit that was three sizes too big. When I tried to touch my face, I overshot and smashed my knuckle against Chloe’s breast. When I tried to say “oops,” it came out a shapeless moan.

  Chloe laughed but I could tell she was trying not to. Instead of frowning like I wanted to, I felt my nose wrinkle, my teeth clench.

  “Never mind,” Chloe said as I struggled to make my face work. “I don’t think she’s okay. Gwen?”

  I moaned up at her again and Chloe rubbed my shoulder. Her expression bloomed into one of shock before I felt the front of my jacket yanked upward. My body followed it and I found myself staring at Merrin’s freckled face. Her expression was stern, but it was her hand I was suddenly concerned about.

  Mel cried, “What the hell?” as I felt her palm crack against my cheek, knocking me to the side. My chin barely missed the coffee table, but when my forehead collided with the hardwood floor, I felt normal again. My skin fit, my body was my own, and the stinging in my cheek was exactly where it needed to be.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, just to make sure I could actually speak. As I got my arms under me, I glanced over and found Mel on his feet, his expression tight.

  “Down, boy. She wasn’t settled.” As Evadne spoke, I felt a breeze blow past me. Mel took an uncomfortable step back, as if bracing against the sudden onslaught of a blizzard, and bumped the counter bar.

  “I think I’m okay. Am I making sense?” As I got to my feet, Chloe draped a hand on my shoulder and I leaned against her. She nodded, touching my face before dropping her hand down to my chest. Her fingers tucked into my jacket and under my shirt, warm against my skin. I glanced down and wondered briefly if she was getting fresh.

  “Her heart rate is pretty slow.”

  “It’ll speed up once you leave. Pet, please let them know where it is they’ll be going. The—Chloe and I need to speak privately for a moment.”

  “Mel?” Chloe asked, and before I knew it he was stepping up next to me, wrapping an arm around my waist and taking the burden of keeping me upright off Chloe’s hands. Chloe followed Evadne into the bedroom once she was sure I wouldn’t topple, but I was still too foggy to think much of their conference. Surprisingly, standing in Mel’s arms was an altogether pleasant experience. I tipped my head up to look at him and thought about how handsome he was and how nice his body felt against mine.

  Noticing I was admiring him, Mel winked and grinned. I felt a little spark of my usual annoyance but most of me was just happy to be touched.

  When I looked back at Merrin, she was staring at me in a way I recognized but hadn’t seen from her before. It was a look Chloe had given me many times when I’d eaten too much candy and made myself sick, but Merrin wasn’t usually aware enough of my presence to give it. I frowned at her and forced myself to straighten up, to stop relying on Mel to fight my battle with gravity.

  “What’s that face?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “It won’t last.”

  At her words, Mel snorted and announced, “Bite your tongue; Mel Somerset has no trouble lasting.”

  Merrin said nothing but wrinkled her nose as she tucked a folded piece of paper into my jacket pocket. She headed toward the bedroom just as Chloe emerged.

  “Come on, G,” Chloe said, her voice a song. “We should hurry up; we’re headed out to Tacoma.”

  Mel and I groaned in disgust at the same time.

  ***

  Ten minutes later, my mind had cleared enough to consider my experience in Merrin’s living room. Chloe was driving, Mel had taken the back seat, and I stared at each of them in turn. I wanted to ask what had just happened, where we were going, and what the hell was going on, but another question elbowed its way to the front of my psyche.

  “I can feel you, but not all of you,” I said to Chloe.

  “You can feel all of me whenever you want, sweetheart,” Mel announced. To demonstrate, he thrust his hips toward me as far as the seat belt would allow.

  “Not you, moron. Chloe. I feel like I’ve got all my mental shields up, but… I don’t think I do. Not on purpose, anyway.”

  “That was Merrin. She had to do some minor repairs before she could get to communicating with the kids,” Chloe explained.

  “The kids?” I demanded. “What ki—the kidnapped—okay.” I waved my hand in the air, brought it to my forehead. Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I took a deep breath. I didn’t feel the baseline of awful that had been running through me since the first attack but something still wasn’t right. I was still missing time and unable to work through the fog in my mind. “You have to explain what’s going on. I’m lost.”

  “There’s a demon kidnapping children, specifically children with powers. They’ve taken three, tried for one more.”

  “I know that much, though I’d like to just forget all of this and go bury myself in some sand until it’s all over.”

  “Shh,” Chloe said. “Let me finish before you jump out the window and start digging. Demons aren’t terribly common and this isn’t the sort of thing they usually do. Generally their antics just involve conning people out of their souls, adult people specifically. This one, though, is taking children. We’re not completely sure why, yet, but the why doesn’t matter nearly as much as the ‘how do we stop it?’”

  “Did Merrin tell you all this?”

  “I told you to let me finish. It’s odd that the demon wants children, since anyone under eighteen doesn’t really, um, own their own soul. It’s the magic number, literally. Before you’re an adult, your parents have claim, which means demons can’t get a child to give up its soul for a piece of candy.”

  “Strange coincidence,” Mel piped up.

  “Not one at all,” Chloe said, though she didn’t explain further. “Now for the important part: the kids are alive. Whatever this demon wants with them, it doesn’t involve killing them.”

  “Good! Excellent! Let’s find out where they are and send Laurel and Hardy their way!”

  “I’m getting there. When Mel told me about your breakdown at the Carlyles' place, I started to think that maybe it wasn’t you. You’re prone to hysterics and you love a good tantrum, but this wasn’t normal. Even that time Poopy shoved an entire cake off the counter and rolled around in it, you didn’t go this nuts.”

  I felt rumblings of my previous rage over Chloe’s cat ruining my day—she’d wantonly destroyed an entire, perfectly good cake! That I had paid for!—burble in my stomach but I didn’t say anything as Chloe continued.

  “Maybe whatever took the kids and scrambled your brain left some sort of accidental connection. I called Merrin’s place—”

  I interrupted her. “In what, Russian?”

  “Nope,” Choe said, pushing on. Her tone was calm but I felt the barest hint of worry run through her, like she was scared I might ask more. “And told her we’d be coming over. She noticed right away something was wrong and once you were out, she got to work. My guess was right. You’re connected through the demon to the kids. So Merrin was able to draw on tha
t connection and get a location. We’re headed there now.”

  “By ourselves?” I demanded, suddenly horrified. “We have to call someone else. We have to bring someone who won’t pass out at the first enchanted bat that hits him in the face.”

  “Hey,” Mel protested.

  “Laurel and Hardy said they’d be there when you need them, didn’t they?” Chloe asked, ignoring Mel’s outrage.

  “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “Let’s just get to where the kids are and see what happens.”

  “I don’t like that plan. What if what happens is more enchanted bats?”

  “Will you please let that go?” Mel griped. I waved my hand dismissively. He let out a growl and I ignored the tiny flutter that it kicked up in my belly.

  “Look. I talked a lot with Evadne about this stuff while you were out. You need to trust me here.”

  Chloe was confident, which was nothing new, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t overcome my knee-jerk reaction of bitterness over it. There was no good reason for me to argue; there never was. When Chloe’s put her mind to something, she’s never wrong and no amount of jealousy over her competence and intelligence is going to make a difference.

  As I fought off the desire to bicker with her, to demand we turn around and go back to Evadne for clarification, I asked myself what it would accomplish. The only answer I could come up with was, nothing. Getting a solid promise from Evadne that everything would be fine wouldn’t do anything except prolong the inevitable. Either we’d show up and Laurel and Hardy would be there with bells on or Mel would get hit in the face with another bat.

  Smiling to myself at that thought, I gave in. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  ***

  We pulled up outside a run-down motel in Tacoma, parking at the edge of the lot.

  Chloe turned to Mel. “I’m going to take a walk around the perimeter and make sure no one’s hanging around. Keep an eye out, and for god’s sake, don’t hand anyone any bats this time.”

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “You get to tell Mel what door to break down.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”