the effect was the same. “Let me see your hands.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your hands, Ms…?”
“Scaglia. But you can call me Angie.” She frowned as she came forward, and I could tell I’d insulted her. “I wash them religiously. I know my job.”
I looked anyway. Fine whorls and liquid lines were laid like artwork upon each fingertip, the prints marking her as mortal. I swallowed hard, and managed an apologetic half smile as I glanced up. “I, um, read palms. Your arrival here is…fortuitous.”
“Oh. Really?” She brightened at that, and began to speak again, but before she could get too chatty, I dismissed her.
“Thank you, Angie.”
“Oh. Sure.” She put her chart away and looked around for something else to do, anything else I might need, but there was nothing. Another small smile and she turned to leave, but she paused in the doorway, looking back at her right hand, wondering what I’d seen there. “By the way, your mother stopped by.”
“What?” The word barely passed my lips. I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut.
“At the hospital? After you were sedated.” She glanced up, noted my surprise, and realized she’d just said something that could get her fired. If she knew her job as she claimed, she would’ve read up on the Archer family history. Color spread to her cheeks and she began to stutter. “At least s-she said she was your mother.”
“What did she look like?”
Angie opened her mouth, her inhalation hanging on the air like a question mark. She searched for the memory for so long that I knew she’d never find it. Whoever it was had either messed with her memory or was well- disguised.
“Honestly?” she finally said, shaking her head. “She looked pissed.”
And Angie, a woman who knew nothing of superheroes or Shadow agents or worlds outside this one, crossed herself as she walked out the door. I leaned back in my stacks of supporting blankets and pillows and imagined what Zoe Archer was capable of when she was pissed. Then I closed my eyes to rest.
Later, alone, with the curtains drawn and the house silent, I studied myself in a hand mirror. I looked past all of Micah’s impressive handiwork, tried not to get hung up on my sister’s beautiful face, or the physical scars I’d accumulated in the past year…beyond it all to that which even Micah couldn’t hide. Eyes so dark nothing shone in them. Funny, I thought with a sigh, but before my near drowning, I’d actually begun to believe my mental wounds to be healing.
I leaned forward, scanning my body, tentatively feeling along my forearms, my waist, my neck, fingers finally playing over my face. I swallowed hard, meeting my own gaze, trying to see myself as soft and vulnerable as the world saw Olivia, laughing at parties, taking trips on a moment’s notice, lunch dates like they were a part of a regular business day. After a moment I lowered my eyes and shook the visual away. Yes, those were Olivia’s pastimes. But not mine.
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men…” I muttered to myself.
“Then it’s up to you alone,” I told myself, lifting the mirror. “Again.”
That’s when I finally saw something I liked. It was very close to the expression my mother must have worn earlier in the week at my bedside.
I cleared it from my face when Helen entered. She flipped on the overhead light without warning, momentarily blinding me. I dropped the mirror, blinked, and covered my face with a pillow.
“You should let me change your bandages.”
I cracked an eyelid to look down at my wrapped palms. They were folded carefully so that my printless fingers were hidden-good habits die hard-though the light caught on the smooth tip of my right thumb, making it gleam like a pearl, a beautiful taunt.
“You should go to hell,” I muttered, pulling the covers up to my chin.
The room grew uncomfortably still, though if Helen was going to strike, I’d have been six feet under before I even knew she’d moved. As it was, the undercover Shadow agent left in a huff, slamming the door behind her without another word.
I smiled at the small power. She probably had orders to stick close to the remaining Archer, see if I couldn’t be as easily bought as my father, turned into a lackey for a secret paranormal organization. The Tulpa had to be growing increasingly desperate, weak, and with fewer resources than ever before. I thought of the way Warren would pounce on that. How Vanessa would be sharpening the blades of her steel fan while Felix joked about the chances of a Shad-owless city by spring. I wondered if Gregor still parked his cab behind the Peppermill in wait of dawn and dusk, and if Micah ever wondered about my long-term medical prognosis.
Tekla, I knew, was probably trying to determine the same via her charts and constellations and diagrams, though one never knew with her. She, more than anyone else, operated autonomously of Warren, and according to her own whim. Kimber wouldn’t be sorry to see me gone, that was for sure, and I wondered if Chandra had finally been given my Archer sign.
My heart squeezed at the thought, and I turned away from it so fast I ran smack dab into another.
I turned away again.
Hunter.
Everywhere I turned.
Hunter. Hunter and me. Hunter and Solange.
“You knew me,” I whispered into my pillow, feeling the darkness draw in closer. He’d known me, shared my bed and body-even a surprising ability to wield the same weapon for a while-and he’d said there was nothing wrong with me. I wondered if he’d retract that now. How flawless he’d find me without even two superpower chips to rub together.
Of course, the greatest hurt in all this was that Hunter had been looking for Solange long before Skamar’s appearance in this world alerted him to the existence of Midheaven. Even with all of Warren’s lies and denials, once he found out about Midheaven, he knew that’s where she was, and had been plotting his way to her, and using my greatest enemy’s soul to do it. Maybe someday I’d be able to look at the manuals detailing how and why, and begin to understand.
“Unlikely,” I said to the empty room, because meanwhile he’d made love to me even while knowing he would soon return to Solange.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t strong enough to temper those old feelings. That old love. And he’d had the nerve to be angry with me for revisiting Ben.
“Hypocrite,” I muttered, but there was no heat to the thought. I remembered all too well the division of the heart, and how difficult it was to step into a murky future when you still had the option of returning to a familiar, if dangerous, past. Solange and Hunter-or Jaden, as I needed to start thinking of him-had a history. He was right; I didn’t know what “more” had led to his actions, but in light of what I’d put him through, I couldn’t blame him for wanting to shield himself under the tapestry of that past. It was my own fault that I was the one stuck in this world, shivering and mortal and alone.
I looked over at the phone. It was dangerous, stupid to even consider with Helen in the house, but emotions won out over thought. I picked the phone up and punched in a long memorized emergency contact number for the rest of the troop. I felt like a jilted woman drunk-dialing her ex, though without the benefit of alcohol. I felt even more stupid once the electronic voice announced the number was disconnected. I didn’t bother checking to see if I’d misdialed.
“I am not disposable,” I whispered to myself, repeating it until Hunter, the troop, my mother, and the Tulpa were all smothered under my new mantra. No, I was recyclable, I thought with black humor. I lifted my shirt to reveal a belly with the glyph of the sun fading around a healed piercing. Those things that were recyclable could be reinvented in the world, right? I could become someone new. Again.
“Miss Archer?” Angie poked her head in after a short series of knocks. “You have visitors. A woman named
