The Butterfly Code (31 page)

T
he room is dead still
. No sound except my breathing. And I don’t know if it’s relief or understanding, yet tears are trickling down my cheeks.

"I don’t blame her," Hunter says. "I never did. I never will. She was right. We wouldn’t have made it. But some of the others still carry a grudge."

"Like Ian?"

Hunter nods.

"And Victoria?"

"Not really. Not so much. I think she changed her mind after meeting you."

"Was she one of the scientists?"

"No. She was your mother’s nanny."

My hand goes to my mouth. "Victoria? Are you serious?" Despite my tears, I let out a small laugh.

"Yeah. I know. Go figure. No idea how that happened."

"Why didn’t my dad tell me? I still don’t understand."

"Maybe he thought you’d feel some unwarranted obligation to right a family wrong. To pay her dues. To drop your music and put your efforts into fixing this. When we got back to civilization, we escaped. But only after they took her and put her in the foster system. They changed her name to erase her past. Perdu . . ." He laughs, rueful. "Someone’s sick idea. It means ‘lost.’ We never saw her again. But I know she dedicated her life to finding a cure for us. Your dad’s afraid he’s going to lose you, the way he lost her."

Dad knows me too well. Because, as Hunter says it, I know it’s true. I do have an obligation. To Mom, and to them. This is my legacy. To find her killer and to know what answers she’d been bringing to Switzerland.

She’d been happy. Overjoyed. She’d found the solution to their suffering. A way to fix them. I’m sure of it. A flash of memory startles me. One I’ve never had before. Of us peering through a frosty hotel window at the mountain above and her saying that after this trip everything was going to be different. When we got home, we were going to live with Dad. And she wouldn’t be busy anymore. It would be the three of us. Together.

That trip was supposed to be her salvation. Our salvation.

And now her crusade would be mine to bear.

As I look at Hunter, my mind is reeling back to that happy day that became a nightmare car crash. I’m hearing her voice when she told me she’d always be with me. I’m feeling her hands thrusting me out the door to safety. I’m seeing the black smoke coiling all the way to the heavens.

Then I recall the man’s arms that lifted me screaming and fighting from the bushes and carried me through the blackness to safety.

"That was you," I gasp.

"Yes."

Night air whispers softly over the windowsill.

"Yes, that was me. I saw the flames and came to investigate. I found you there, clinging to the branches, and you wouldn’t let go. It just about broke my heart. So you can imagine my shock when I saw you outside the Zenith Club. That’s when I should have driven away. Let you be. Instead, I just had to find out if it really was you."

I sink down on the bed beside him. "I’m glad you didn’t drive away."

His arm comes around my waist, and my head rests against his chest.

"So who killed my mom?"

"I don’t know."

"Well, we’re going to find out. And I know how. There was a man who searched our car. I saw his wrist. He had a tattoo. Two letters.
WB
."

"Winterborn."

"Yes. Winterborn."

"I’ll find him, Aeris. If it’s the last thing I do."

"We’ll find him together."

A commotion sounds downstairs.

"Hunter? Ian? You guys here?" It’s Victoria.

I hear Edward, too.

We hurry downstairs to meet them.

"We came as soon as we could," Edward says.

"Where’s Lucy?" I ask.

"We couldn’t leave the horses. Not with the new pony in the barn. She’s manning the fort," Edward says.

Blaze. I’ll be able to see Blaze again. And then they’re offering Hunter their condolences, and we’re all gathered in the kitchen, and I’m looking at Victoria and realizing she cared for Mom. She knew her and I’ll be able to ask about her, things Dad didn’t even know. So I go and sit beside her and we talk.

H
ours later
, back upstairs, Hunter puts his arms around me and kisses me.

I have so many questions, still. Like why, of all places, did Hunter set up his research lab in Deep Cove? And was it truly a coincidence that Gage lives so close? And what about Dad, why did he move to the one place where people are living that are connected to Mom's research? There will be time enough for answers. For now, I don’t want to think about any of it anymore. Of death and loss. Of Mom and Gage. Of Switzerland and Mom’s killers.

I don’t want to think about the secret shed in Charlie's backyard and the glass recasting boxes, about the pain that will engulf Hunter. About his immortality and my own mortal life. All I want right now is to burn away the horrors of the past and the challenges that will come.

We go to the bed, pull back the covers, and crawl in together.

In this small world of two, he’s everything to me and I’m everything to him.

His kisses are my kisses, mine are his. Ours. Sensations mirrored, echoing back on each other, on and on until infinity. Gentle and then more urgent. We understand everything. We know everything. There can be no uncertainty, no awkwardness. What he wants, I want. What sends fireworks exploding in his mind, sends them exploding in me, too.

Strong fingers and hot skin, soft lips and powerful twining legs. A sea of passion sweeps us aloft. We’re a single mind, a single soul, a single body, blending in unbound ecstasy. Trembling and real and surreal. Murmurs melt into groans into cries. We know each other, as neither has ever known a soul before. We are each other.

We are one.

"
A
eris
?" Victoria calls through the bedroom door.

"Come in. It’s open," I call.

She steps inside. I’m standing in a towel, my damp hair pushed behind my ears.

"Hi," I say.

"Thought you might want these." She’s holding a familiar suitcase.

"You brought my clothes?"

"I did."

"You’re a lifesaver." I go to her and give her a hug.

She freezes, and she’s all hard, cold leather and bone and muscle, apart from the soft cascade of hair down her back. I sense her heart melt slightly. After a pause, her arms come around me, and she gives me a hug back.

D
ownstairs
, the others are in the kitchen.

"Can’t lie," Hunter tells me. "I liked seeing you in my clothes, but yours are even better."

"Big surprise," Victoria says, and takes a seat across the table from Ian, who’s halfway through eating a grilled panino.

"Ham and Gruyère all right for you?" Edward asks, handing me a plate.

"Yes, thank you. This looks great."

We all sit and dig in, and for a while there’s silence except for requests to pass the fresh-squeezed orange juice. Despite our sadness, I hope Charlie would approve.

The conversation comes to life, centered around his memory. The funeral needs planning. Hunter’s earlier happiness begins to dampen again, tinged with an awful sense of guilt. He blames himself for Charlie’s death. For bringing him here. I put down my panino, unable to take another bite.

There’s no way to tell him he didn’t let Charlie down. My mind roams to Gage, lingering in that sore place that aches and bleeds without end.

"I want Charlie’s funeral to celebrate who he was," Hunter says.

"I say we bury him with a case of hundred-year-old Scotch whisky," Ian says.

"You would," Victoria says, shooting him a blast of exasperation. "Let’s have fireworks. A whole load of them."

"Might I suggest a reception at the museum that’s going to be caretaking a large portion of Charlie’s collection?" Edward says.

I, however, am still wresting with the awful truth of Hunter’s future and mine. I’m going to be like Charlie one day. I’m going to be the one looking at the photograph of us, wondering where the time went.

I slip away to where I always go when I need to be alone.

The piano.

I want to play Mom’s song. I need to connect to her. More than anything, I need to feel her there. I sit down, and something awful happens.

I can’t remember it.

I can’t remember the song. The notes. The words. Any of it. My pulse throbs in my temples, escalating to near panic.

I force my thoughts back through the years, back to the rustic hotel by the sea. I squeeze my eyes shut and grasp for the image of my mother and her navy-blue dress with the white belt. My small size, my four-year-old self on the piano bench, pressing my shoulder into her. Her arm comes around me, her wonderful arm, which smells of lilies and soap. She squeezes me to her and I can hear her fairy-tale voice as she begins to sing.

And suddenly the song comes. It’s there, my treasure, my keepsake, my touchstone to her.

I set my fingers on the keys and begin to play.

I shiver as I realize the song reminds me of Winterborn.

"Those aren’t the words I know." Hunter has come into the room.

"That’s how my mother used to sing it. Maybe she wrote it that way to remember."

"Maybe."

A thought comes to me that I can’t quite catch. Then it’s gone.

My fingers falter, and I drop them into my lap. "If she found a cure, one has to exist. We’ll find it, won’t we?"

He’s silent for a long time. "I don’t know."

"You have to answer."

"I’m trying to."

I rise and go to the front window. Pressing my palms to the cool glass, I look out at the mist-shrouded world.

Hunter’s Porsche SUV squats in the driveway, black and powerful as a bulldog. Beside it lies a sleek, low racing vehicle. Hunter’s other car. His monster. The beast I first saw him leaning against on that fateful night.

I hadn’t realized that was how Victoria and Edward got here.

It’s so fitting that Hunter drives a vehicle with butterfly doors that a laugh escapes me.

"What’s funny?" Hunter asks.

"Nothing." I swivel to face him. "I want to go for a ride."

"A ride?"

"In your fast car."

"My fast car, huh?" In this light, the green flecks in his amber eyes take on a devilish burn.

O
utside Hunter clicks
the key fob. The doors glide up to welcome us in. I dart beneath the passenger wing and into the compact, leather-scented interior. A four-point belt harness straps me tight against the molded seat. Hunter slides in and switches on the ignition.

My fingers run along the carbon-fiber door. Then I hold on tight as we shoot out the driveway. The rear-mounted engine growls at my back. It’s like we’re strapped to the front of a rocket. We roar down the road, the low throttle of the engine a promise of thrills to come.

Hunter guides us out of the neighborhood. Out of town. Down a forgotten country road.

A lone car passes, its headlights catching Hunter’s eyes and making them glow with that otherworldly flash in the moment he turns to glance at me. The sight of his eyes, his face, his powerful body in this enclosed, tiny world sends a rush of heat coursing through my veins. It surges along my skin, all the way to my lips, and I smile.

"Faster," I say.

He presses the pedal deeper, and we glide into hyperspeed. I rest my head against the seat and watch the speedometer hit seventy, eighty, one hundred.

My heart thrums in time to Hunter’s, in time to the engine.

We’re flying fast. Flying away from everything. This butterfly has wings and I’m not sure where it’s carrying us, only that in this moment it’s enough. Tomorrow I’ll worry about the threat of Hunter’s recasting. Tomorrow I’ll worry about my growing older.

Today it’s just the two of us.

He takes my hand and shoots me a thrilling glance.

For now, I feel safe. I feel whole.

I feel alive.

I feel immortal.