Eternal Hope (The Hope Series) (34 page)

She broke off when Farley started calmly pouring the contents of her glass over Cassie’s head. The rivulets of orange trickled down her stunned face.

“You…
you
bitch!
”

Farley didn’t even flinch. There was a deadly calm over her. She was certainly calmer than Daniel was; he was about ready to forcibly grab hold of Cassie and boot her out of the apartment. She’d crossed the line. He’d never seen her so spiteful and vicious before, and she’d always been a little volatile. Farley blinked slowly and gave the up-ended glass a thoughtful shake so that the last drop of juice dripped down onto Cassie’s head.

“I don’t feel sorry for you, Cassie. It’s Kayden I feel sorry for. He’s made some really poor decisions in the past, one of which is almost unforgivable, but the decision he made to let himself fall in love with you was almost as stupid. He’s flawed and selfish and a bit of a jerk, but all that aside he’s a wonderful person. And you don’t deserve him.”

Farley stalked around the breakfast bar and took Cassie by the arm. She wasn’t rough or violent when she pulled her up, just firm. “If you need to speak to Daniel about what’s going on, then don’t hesitate to call. But please do me a favor- I don’t want to see you here again. You’re not welcome, and I promise I won’t be so civil next time.” She guided her across the room and pressed the button on the elevator. When the doors rolled back, she gestured inside it, smiling politely.

Cassie stood there with sticky liquid still running down her white cotton shirt. Her mouth had been open the past thirty seconds, and it looked like it might be stuck that way. She fixed shocked eyes on Daniel.

“Are you really gonna let her kick me out?”

The idea that she expected him to side with her against Farley made him realize how warped her train of thought was. “You heard her, Cass. You’re not welcome here.”

“But…” Her chin wobbled like she was about to burst into tears. “But we’re friends. You said I was like a sister to you.”

“You are. And I think it’s incredibly inappropriate that the person I consider a sister keeps banging on about me and her being together. Incest is
not
best
.
And if my sister spoke to the person I loved and was going to spend the rest of eternity with the way you just did, I’d say the same to her. Now get out.” He folded his arms across his chest in a way designed to tell her he’d brook no argument. She hesitated for a second before pivoting on her heel and storming into the elevator. The doors took their sweet time to close, and the whole while Cassie glared at them both as though she were already plotting her revenge.

When she eventually disappeared, Daniel rushed to Farley’s side. She stood like a statue in front of the elevator, chin held high. “You handled that so well,” he whispered. “So much better to stay composed than let her affect you. I don’t know if I could’ve done that.”

He’d barely finished speaking when she turned and collapsed into him, burying her face in his chest. She sobbed so loudly it echoed around the apartment. Daniel wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. Of course she was upset; it was stupid to think she’d be able to listen to all that hate-filled crap and not be bothered by it. He nuzzled his face into her hair, which made her cry even harder.

“Hey, hey…it’s okay. She’s just jealous that you’re happy.”

Farley pulled back and blinked through her tears. “Yeah, she’s jealous, but she’s also right. I’m not going to blame you if you do get together with her after I’m gone. You shouldn’t be alone. It’s just… I can’t… the idea of it hurts so much.” Her words distorted after that, made unintelligible by her crying. A spike of anger burned through him, stirring the whispers. She was eighteen years old and already contemplating her own death. Contemplating him moving on like she was nothing more to him than a pleasant albeit brief flash in the pan that was his life. The prospect of her not being with him anymore left him physically winded.

“Don’t ever worry about that. It’s not going to happen. There won’t be anyone else, let alone Cassie. I told you, we’re going to share the same fate, you and I, whatever it may be.” Farley continued to cry, so he held her face in his hands and forced her to look up at him. “I mean it. Our future is together. Our souls and our fates are intertwined. I’m never going to leave you. Can you believe that?”

She scrubbed at her eyes with the backs of her hands and nodded, but there was something heavy in the way she looked at him. She didn’t believe him. He pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m not going to live here without you,” he whispered.

Farley stopped breathing and stared up at him. She placed her hands on his wrists and pulled them away from her face. “Don’t say things like that. You wouldn’t get to be with me. The Quorum would punish you like they did Kayden. Then what?”

A thousand different scenarios played through his head where he tried to imagine being rational enough to think about that when the time came. He couldn’t imagine it, though. All he could picture was the harrowing pain and nothing more. It consumed him already and left him terrified.

“I’d find a way.” He closed his eyes and cursed angrily in his head. How had they ended up in a life like this? The thought that Farley’s soul was going to move on somewhere and leave his behind, maybe forever, made him want to throw up.

“I couldn’t stay here, Farley. It’d be a prison.”

Farley pulled away from him, wide eyed. He stepped forward, trying to pull her back again, wanting to make her see how impossible it would be to exist without her. “I’m sorry, love. I know you’re worried about all of this, but everything’s going to be fine. We’ll-”

“A prison,” she whispered.

She wasn’t making sense. “Farley, are you okay?”

“A prison, that’s what you just said, right?”

He nodded. Farley covered her mouth with her hand and started pacing. “Kayden said his existence was a prison, but I didn’t realize… I didn’t
think
.” She clapped her palm to her forehead as though an epiphany had thundered out of the heavens and struck her there. “That’s what he meant,” she said.

“What Kayden meant?”

“No.” She halted pacing. “Simeon.”

Daniel was a genius. Well, sort of. Simeon’s question back on the beach had troubled her no end, but now she knew the answer. The Simeon she’d met and spoken to was the real Simeon, the one who’d loved Aria. Grieved her death so much that he’d unwittingly pushed all of his anger and despair into her dead body, creating the first whyte. He was trapped, stuck in a loop of his own memories, removed and unable to participate in them for the most part. That was his prison. He was snared inside his own mind while the crazy version of himself plotted to kidnap people and force non-existent souls into them.

She didn’t know if Simeon was aware of what was happening on the outside world. Hopefully he at least remembered Aria was dead. Breaking news like that would be the crappiest responsibility in the world. Would he care that his crazy alter ego planned on kidnapping her? Daniel had refused to let her try and find Simeon again, so she’d snuck off to the bathroom to try and zone out there. But after fifteen minutes of trying to fall asleep, sitting on the toilet lid with her head leaning against the cold tile wall, she’d given up. She went back into the main room, where she found Daniel playing pool with Tess, who looked like she’d been crying again.

“Hey,” she mumbled.

“Hey. You guys playing for money?”

Daniel shook his head. “Bragging rights. No joy on the Simeon front, I take it?”

“What?”

“I’m not stupid, baby. I know what you were doing back there. It was either that or you’d fallen in the toilet. So, did you have any luck?”

She shook her head ruefully. “No dice. I’m too pent up. I need to get out of here. We
all
should.”

Daniel scrubbed some chalk onto the end of his cue, considering it with unnecessary severity. “We should probably stay here. We have no idea how many Immundus are out there.”

But I do
. There had been at least a thousand of them in the Great Room. If Daniel was privy that information, he’d never let them see the light of day again. He’d probably find a nuclear bunker for them all to lay low in, and Farley would kill Cassie and they wouldn’t be able to bury the body, because they’d be trapped on the inside of a reinforced cement cube. “There are millions of people wandering this city. Surely that makes the possibility of us running into a bunch of Immundus pretty low? Come on, it’ll be fun. And it’s getting dark, too. We’ll just blend into the crowds once night falls.”

He twisted the cue between his hands and looked at Tess. She hadn’t even opened her mouth, which was a sign of how despondent she was. Daniel sighed and pulled a tight smile at Farley. “And where is it you want to go?”

Farley tried to keep the wicked out of her smile. “Remember when we went back to London?”

Tess’ head snapped up. “When did you go to London?”

“We didn’t really. It was all in Aldan’s head.” Farley locked onto Daniel. “I complained about doing something with you, and you said you’d do it my way next time, if that made me feel better. You remember?”

Daniel formed an immediate frown. “I remember. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I’m with him on this one,” Tess said sullenly, abandoning her cue onto the forgotten table, disrupting all the balls. “Sounds like you guys got down and dirty inside some old dude’s head and now it’s Farls’ turn to pick the position. Don’t get me wrong, you’re both very attractive and all but I’m not into three-ways.

Trust her to make it weird. Farley shot her an aggrieved look and grabbed her by the arm. “I’m not talking about sex, you freak. I’m talking about dancing.”

Tess’ face instantly brightened, shedding some of the melancholy that draped itself around her like a straightjacket. “I haven’t been to a club in ages.”

“And you’re not going to one now,” Daniel said. It didn’t sound like he was going to change his mind. Farley sidled up to him and wrapped her arms around him so she could stuff her hands into the back pockets of his jeans. She looked up at him wearing the sweetest expression she could muster and pretended to flutter her eyelashes. “Pleeeeeease?”

“That,” he said gruffly, “does
not
suit you. Please stop. You’re actually scaring me.”

She blew out an exasperated breath. “Not until you say we can go.” Tess shimmied over and hooked her arm through Daniel’s, mimicking Farley’s over the top plea, lashes and all. They both smiled sweetly up at him and twitched their eyelids like they thought they might fly if they did it fast enough. In high-pitched unison, they both squealed, “Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?”

Daniel rolled his eyes and wiggled out of their grip. “I tell you what,” he smirked, “if you persuade Grayson to come, I’m in.”

*******

Grayson didn’t take kindly to being threatened, but then who did? He grumbled the whole time it took for them to drive through Malibu, where Daniel pulled up along the roadside fronting Point Dume beach and they abandoned the car. The night air was warm and filled with the promise of thunder. It felt like the world was paused on the precipice of some violent outburst, teetering, and any second it would descend into chaos. The palm trees along the boulevard had grown on a lop-sided slant, and it looked like a furious wind was already trying to flatten them. But there was no wind, not a breath on the air, and the ocean was startlingly calm, denying the possibility that it could ever be wild or angry. The shorefront was busy. People equipped with glo-stick bracelets and headbands trailed in small groups up the sand. In the distance a large bonfire raged, the flames leaping ten feet into the air in fits and bursts as the people around it shrieked.

“There aren’t any clubs around here,” Tess said suspiciously, trailing between Daniel, Farley and Grayson, who pulled up the rear. Daniel gave her an indulgent smile.

“I already told you. We’re not going to a club.”

“Then why have I put on a seriously uncomfortable dress and three-inch stilettos?” She hiked her dress up around the armpits so that it covered her boobs a little more effectively. The dress did look quite uncomfortable, but that was the price you paid to look like a stone cold fox. Daniel pretended not to notice her boob-covering wiggle.

“I didn’t tell you to wear either. In fact, I specifically told you to wear flip-flops.”

Tess pulled a disgusted face. “
Flip-flops?
” He might as well have advised her to wear clown shoes. “Do you even think I own a pair?”

Daniel shrugged. “You live by the ocean.”

Farley pulled a faux frown at Tess when she poked her tongue out at Daniel’s back. “Where are we going?” she whispered. He pointed off up the beach.

“Full moon party.”

Just as she was about to complain that it was hardly a party at all, a thunderous bass line kicked in, causing her eardrums to vibrate. That’s why she hadn’t been able to hear the music: there hadn’t been any. And this music was loud enough to wake the dead. It was perfect.