“My baby.” She brushed a thumb across my cheek, wiping away more tears. “I can’t believe what a beautiful woman you’ve grown into. I’ve missed so much being away. I’m sorry I’ve been gone for so long.”
Her comment brought me back to reality. Yes, she’d been away for a long time. No calls. No hints that she wasn’t dead. Nothing but radio silence. Was I thrilled to see her? Hell to the yes.
But she had some ’splaining to do.
“About that—” The rest of my statement was cut off by an unsettling stir from the crowd as it parted. I turned and stopped short of rolling my eyes. Of course, the Council would crash the party.
Albert Stephens and several of his band of merry men in black approached, each of them focused on my mom and me. Mainly her. The head of the Council stepped forward and swung his pale gaze my way, nodded once like that meant something, then regarded my mom.
“Samantha.” He nodded at her too, and it still meant nothing. “How good it is to see you.”
His words and his body language told two very different stories. He stood rigid, his expression a cool, unfriendly resting dick face, as he remained several feet away. I looked to my mom, who seemed about as happy to see him as he was to see her. She held her ground as this aging man assessed her with an icy stare.
“You’ll need to come with us,” he finally said.
This time, she nodded as if she’d expected him to make the request.
I shook my head. Vehemently. I just got her back. I didn’t want to lose her again. “No. No way. No. Just…no.”
“It’s okay.” She rested her hand on my shoulder. “They just want to ask me some questions.”
So did I, but now I had to stand in line behind a bunch of men in black. “But—”
“Katy.” She cut me off sharply. Apparently, her being absent for six years hadn’t softened her mom voice. “It’s okay.” She regarded Stephens. “We knew this day would come, Albert.”
Those words. I swayed and leaned against Bryan as he caught me before I collapsed from the weight of those six words. Why did people keep using that saying like it somehow explained the shit show of chaos happening around them? My dad when my mom had disappeared. My dad again when he’d quite happily written me out of his life after I’d come into my powers. And now, my mom for reasons I didn’t understand.
“You overestimate my understanding behind your disappearance.” Stephens motioned for two men to retrieve my mom. “Take her.”
She brought up her hand to stop them. “I can walk fine on my own, thank you.”
Way to go, Mom.
As the Council led her off, she glanced over her shoulder to Bryan. “Take her to the infirmary. Make sure you’re both okay. I’ll meet you there.”
He nodded and grasped my arm, drawing my attention. “Come on, Katy.”
“No.” I jerked out of his hold and turned to chase after my mom, but they’d already teleported out, leaving me there to stare at where they were just standing. “No,” I whispered as everything darkened. She was gone. I’d lost her again. “No!”
“Montana.” Clay stopped next to Bryan. “She’ll meet us at the infirmary. Come on.”
“But…” I couldn’t stop staring at the vacant spot.
“Reed?” Rob appeared, a bandage covering the gash on his forehead he’d earned during the battle inside the warehouse. He took my hand, running his thumb along my palm. “Let us take you to Syd.”
“No!” I jerked my hand back. “I’m fine. I don’t need an infirmary. I need to know where they took her.”
“Ask her when you see her at the infirmary.” Bryan yawned and rolled his large shoulders, looking no worse for wear than when I’d seen him hours ago. No warehouse smudges on his school uniform, unlike the rest of us. No bumps or bruises, scrapes or anything else to mark up his beautiful face. Not even a hair out of place. “Come on, Katy. You want to see your mom again, then we need to pay Syd a visit.”
I looked at all of them. Bryan, the largest of the group, with his short brown hair always so neatly combed, his hazel eyes swirling with worry as he studied me. Rob, our tall, dark, and handsome ringleader, his five o’clock shadow more like a ten o’clock shadow after he was out all night searching for Bryan. Clay, always ready with a smile that lit up his brilliant emerald eyes, his wild brown hair even more untamed than normal, his soft beard caked with warehouse dirt.
“Wait.” I pushed them back when they closed in. “Where’s Leo?”
“He’ll just Uber it back to the academy,” Clay said.
I wanted all my guys. “Find him. If we leave, we leave together.”
He rolled those glorious eyes and groaned. “Fine. I’ll be right back. So bossy.” He popped out.
“You okay?” Bryan asked.
No, I wasn’t okay. I was the exact opposite of okay. My mom, presumed dead for the past six years, had just reappeared in my life. I didn’t know how to feel about that. I was overjoyed, of course, but I was also very, very confused. Where had she been? How’d she find Bryan and rescue him from the dark elementals who had taken him? Alec von Leer and Spencer Dalton weren’t exactly the type to hand him over if someone said please.
I’d been so focused on my mom, I completely forgot Bryan had been taken by the grand poohbah of dark elementals and his sidekick, whose eyebrows I’d singed off in our last battle. “Are you okay? Where’d they take you?”
“How about I tell you all about it after we get out of here?” He glanced around at all the Council members staring at us, waiting for us to…what? Jump on a unicycle
