Infinityglass h-3 Page 12

  The yellow fever is spreading; bodies lie in piles on the streets outside. We can’t take on any more orphans, but the infection makes new ones every day. Every hour.

  Is it punishment? Justice? Crying, hungry children speak of neither.

  The sound of a bouncing ball echoes down the hallway. Playtime and prayer time blend into an ache in my chest.

  The ache spread out through my limbs, and my head began to spin. Three sets of sight competed, fighting for purchase.

  Maman and I, leaving the ballroom as Monsieur Brionne watches.

  My husband and I, laughing as we dance in the middle of the floor.

  My gnarled hands and the pain in my knees, speaking of good use and great age as I kneel to pray.

  “Hallie.”

  Who is Hallie?

  “Please, Hallie. Wake up.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed, breathed deeply into my center, and pushed.

  Cecile Dupart.

  Melina Landrieu.

  Sister Mary Christina.

  Their worlds disappeared, but their memories remained. Time sealed itself shut behind them, and the ballroom fell silent.

  I’d experienced more life than I could ever live on my own in the Bourbon Orleans ballroom, in the span of a few seconds. Something in me sensed the wrongness of the situation, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want it. I could go on a thousand jobs for Chronos, but I’d never dance in a pre–Civil War ballroom. I could fall in love a hundred times, but I’d never be the debutante who married an aspiring politician in the calm that came before the Vietnam War. I could live for eighty more years, but I’d never, ever be a nun.

  Ever.

  “Hallie?”

  My eyes flew open. It took me a few seconds to focus on the chandelier above me, and a few more to find Dune’s gray green eyes.

  “Dune?” I was on the floor. “What happened?”

  “I don’t think we should talk about this here.” His face was drawn, his eyes guarded.

  “Why?” I struggled to sit.

  “Not here, Hallie.”

  He scooped me up in his arms like I weighed nothing. I rested my head on his chest, barely noticing my surroundings as he took me to the room.

  The unfamiliar memories that now belonged to me repeated on playback in my brain. I had real power. Not false bravery or blustering confidence. I could still feel it in my veins, pulsing under my skin.

  “Are you okay?” Dune sat beside me so softly that the couch barely moved, a feat for someone his size. He brushed my hair back from my face.

  How had we gotten to the room so quickly?

  “I don’t know.” I tried to sit up and he helped me, his arm around my waist. “Was … was it like last time?”

  “It was different.” Caution kept his voice guarded. “Powerful.”

  “It felt like freedom. Ultimate, supernatural freedom. I lived other people’s lives through their eyes, and I felt all their emotions. But you didn’t feel that, did you? What did you see?”

  He didn’t answer. Just looked at me like he was afraid of me.

  “Dune?”

  “You changed.”

  Dune

  “You were three different people. At first, you just froze. Your face was expressionless.” Her irises had reflected the light pouring in through the windows, and she’d stopped blinking. I’d stepped back from her, and that’s when her feet left the ground. “Then the rip sucked you in. It was all around me, but I wasn’t part of it.”

  Like I was the ghost, and the rip world was the reality.

  “What else?” she prompted.

  “Your facial features rearranged. When it happened outside Lafitte’s, it was one face. Today, it was three. A young girl with brown eyes. A blonde with a slightly crooked nose. An older woman with dark skin. You were three people in quick succession, and then, somehow, you were all three at once.”

  She nodded and let out a shaky breath. “Sounds about right.”

  “You pushed them back. The images from the room flowed into the hole in time, and the rips went in, too. And you were back.”

  She was shaking so hard her teeth chattered.

  “Hallie, look at me. You’re either cold or in shock. Let’s get you into something more comfortable.”

  When she didn’t take advantage of the tease I’d set up, my stomach dropped. I grabbed her bag, unzipped it, and handed it over. She fished out a change of clothes, along with her brush and a makeup bag.

  “Do you need help with anything?”

  “No. Just … don’t move.” She disappeared into the bathroom. I heard running water and an electric toothbrush. A few moments later, she opened the door, wearing yoga pants and a tank top. Her face was clean, and she’d tied her hair in a knot on top of her head.

  She picked up her sweater and slid her arms in. She sounded like she’d been screaming for hours. “You’re a good baby-sitter.”

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “I was the Infinityglass, Dune.” She curled up on the couch, pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands. “I made the rips go away. I sent them back. That has to be good, right?”

  “I don’t know.” She’d floated and I’d watched the power pulsing through her. Nothing about it felt good. “It was a manifestation of the Infinityglass power. It overtook you, Hallie.”

  “Then I’ll just figure out how to control it. Next time, I’ll know what to expect.” She dropped her head into her hands. “You’re looking at me like I scared you.”

  “I’m scared for you. I know that letting me take care of you right now would be harder than taking care of yourself.” I touched her knee. “But …”

  She looked up.

  “Let me?” I asked.

  I got my answer when she crawled into my arms.

  Once she was asleep, I carried her to the bed and stepped out onto the gallery.

  It was dark, and a mist hung just above the street. It was the quietest I’d ever heard New Orleans, but even the loudest couldn’t compete with the noise in my head. I used my phone to send an e-mail detailing what had happened in the ballroom. Then I sat down to wait, searching for the setting sun on the horizon.

  Michael didn’t e-mail back. He called.

  “When did you fall for her?” It was the first thing he said after I answered.

  I couldn’t deny the relief. Out of everyone, I knew he’d understand.

  “I don’t know. Immediately?” I exhaled. “All those years obsessing over the Infinityglass, all the things I’d read, so much of it has transferred to her. But, Mike, tonight … for a few minutes, I didn’t know which Hallie I was seeing. I didn’t know if she was there at all.”

  He was silent for a minute, gathering his thoughts. “No one here has been possessed, and no one can send the rips back. So far, she’s the only one.”

  “So it’s an Infinityglass thing.”

  “I think so.”

  “Time closed behind her. It healed itself. What if she could send all the rips back? Would it fix things?”

  “At this point, the continuum is so compromised there are probably rips all over the world,” Michael said. “Definitely too many to keep them balanced by herself.”

  “She changed. Her body language and her voice.” Her essence.

  “I still believe she’s our answer, Dune, somehow. No idea how it’s going to play out, but she’s going to change everything.”

  “If that’s true”—I steadied myself to ask the next question—“do you think she can survive it?”

  “I don’t know.” Michael paused for a few seconds before he spoke again. “But I’ll help you figure it out. How would you feel about a visit from some friends?”

  Chapter 13

  Hallie

  When I woke up, it was dark.

  “Dune?” I was in the hotel bed, alone. And I needed him.

  “Yes.” His answer was immediate. “Are you okay?”

  A small lamp on the far side of the roo
m switched on. He must have been sitting on the stairs. Even though his hair was short, it was messy, like he’d had his hands in it. Worry had threaded itself into the fiber of his being.

  “Sit with me?” I asked.

  He sat on the side of the bed, I reached out to take his hand.

  “Actually …” I pulled all the walls down. “Would you hold me?”

  He climbed in beside me and gathered me up like he’d been waiting to do it for a lifetime. I let go of everything—nerves, uncertainty, and a disturbing slice of shame—and let him see my fear.

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “A couple of hours,” he said, smoothing my hair back. It hung loose, having worked itself out of the knot while I slept. “I kept checking on you. You were restless. I was worried. Tell me what to do to make it better.”

  “We’ve had this conversation, Obi-Wan. I don’t need you to save me.” He tensed up, the muscles in his chest and arms going hard. “But I want you to help me.”

  “Anything you want.”

  “I need you to know something. I play around, I tease. It’s fun.” I met his gaze in the faint light. His eyes, usually so full of sweetness, were shielding his emotions. “This? Isn’t like that.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “When you look at me,” I asked, “do you see me, or do you see the Infinityglass? Object or human? I have to know if you see me.”

  I needed him to see me.

  “I spend half of every second making sure I’m separating you from it.” His hand brushed across my cheek, surprising us both. He didn’t pull it away. “After what happened in that ballroom, I realized I can’t take on Hallie the human and leave half of her behind. Because I’m not interested in the things the Infinityglass loves or hates, and I’m done with trying to figure out every single thing about it, when I really want to know about you. To think about you. About kissing you. All the places I want to touch you.”

  I’d never been paralyzed like this, torn between throwing myself at him and running hard as hell.

  “But I was right, earlier,” I said. “You’re afraid of me.”

  “I’ve been afraid of you since I laid eyes on you. Maybe since I heard about you,” he said. “That goes way back, Hal. I’m taking on more than a girl.”

  His hand was still on my face. I reached up and pressed mine on top of it.

  “Tell me something, and I need the truth. Do you see me? Or are you interested because I’m there?”

  I heard the vulnerability in his voice, and I knew the answer because I’d asked myself the same question.

  “I see you, Dune. And I … I know. I just … I love how … honest and … thoughtful you are.” I couldn’t make the words come out the way I wanted. I tangled our fingers together. “You always seem to consider all the angles. You never rush into anything.”

  So much control.

  He managed to frown and look happy at the same time. “If we take this where it seems naturally inclined to go, it’s going to make every step that much harder.”

  “I think it could be worth it.”

  “I know it could,” he said.

  Where had he come from? How long would he stay? “Will you go back to the Hourglass when this is over?”

  “I don’t know. What will you do?”

  Hopefully be alive. Anxiety trickled between my shoulder blades like ice water.

  “I want the same things I’ve always wanted. We’re talking about you. I don’t even know your life plan. What is it?”

  “College. My professors let me take my finals early so I could come here.”

  “Come here and help me?” I put my arm across his stomach and squeezed him. “How is any of this fair to you?”

  “Everything I did was my choice. All I have under my belt are core classes. Pretty sure most of those will transfer. I can get into any school I want. Can probably get scholarships, too, at least for undergrad work.”

  “You want to go to grad school?”

  “I’m not counting it out. Loyola has a computer science program, and a newer one in digital humanities that’s fascinating.”

  A spark of hope lit up my chest and shot out to my fingers and toes. “Did you know that before you met me?”

  He grinned.

  “No.”

  Dune

  Her smile made promises. At least I’d die happy.

  “You gave me a list of places women like to be touched.” The light was in her eyes again. “Think you can conjure that up about now?”

  I took her hand and flipped it over. “Palm.”

  “Are you going to read it? Because there are palm readers all over Jackson Square. We can go down later and check with a professional.”

  I drew my index finger down the middle of it and kept going. “Wrist. Inner elbow.” “Oh. That’ll work.”

  Watching her eyes go wide gave me a boost. When I reached her collarbone, I traced it with two fingers. “Clavicle.”

  “That sounds too scientific. And sharp.” A tremble worked its way into her voice.

  “Hollow of the throat. Nape of the neck. Shoulder muscles.” I massaged some of her tension away, and then brought it all back when I put my hand on the small of her back and pulled her closer. She inhaled sharply when my lips grazed her earlobe.

  “You skipped a few.”

  “We aren’t ready for those,” I said.

  “I’m okay with concentrating on everything you listed.”

  “You’re breathing really fast.”

  “Is that a scientific observation?” she asked. “Should I make a note?”

  “No.” I couldn’t wait another second. I leaned in.

  She kept her lips still when mine touched hers, and I froze, wondering if I’d somehow misread her. I started to pull away.

  “No, don’t.” She held me tighter, sliding over so her body was flush against mine. “I always want to remember what it felt like the first time you touched me. Like this.”

  “I have a green light, then?” Because now that we were finally here, holding back might kill me.

  “It’s fluorescent. Blinking. Spinning.”

  I went slowly, partly because I wanted to drive her crazy, and partly because I wanted to remember the first time I touched her, too.

  Her lips, cheeks, eyelids, all got equal attention. Her temples, the spot just below her ear, the hollow of her throat. I traced the length of her spine and slipped my fingertips inside the back of her sweater to feel the skin I’d been dreaming of, loving the catch of her breath. She was as soft and warm as I’d thought she’d be. Better.

  Our first kiss was unbearably gentle, considering what I wanted, but I had a point to prove. So much of her life had been fast, lived out in spurts of freedom. I didn’t want what we shared to be like anything else she’d ever experienced. Time was compressed, trouble was going down, but I wanted to be part of a long chain of Hallie’s memories, which meant I’d be intentional about making them.

  She had other ideas.

  “My turn,” she said, rolling me onto my back. Her hair spilled over her shoulders and tickled my cheeks.

  “You’re going to wreck my self-control.” And my lack of it was a little too obvious.

  Leaning forward, she rested her forearms on my chest, touched her lips to mine, and whispered, “That’s the goal, yes.”

  I’d wanted to be close to her, and now I was all kinds of tangled up. I threaded my fingers in her hair, pulled her face closer. “Maybe we should move down to the co—”

  “Don’t you dare.” She trailed her fingertips down to my neck. “I haven’t read any surveys about where men like to be touched, but I bet the list is short.”

  “Only for those who don’t want to enjoy the journey.”

  “You have a way with the sweet talk, Mr. Ta’ala. Don’t tell me you’re going to be a gentleman.”

  “That prim and proper expression you’re trying on only makes me want to show you what a gentleman I’m not,” I teased.
<
br />   Prim and proper disappeared, and naughty and mischievous took their place.

  Heaven help me.

  “How about this? I want you to be Hallie the girl. I want to be Dune the boy. I want to kiss you until the sun comes up, and then until the moon rises again. Why should we hurry?”

  I knew there could be valid reasons, but I couldn’t give in to them. Not yet.

  “There’s some kind of crazy role reversal going on here.” She scraped her teeth across the scruff on my chin. “Aren’t you supposed to be trying to talk me into things?”

  “We can talk each other into things. Later.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” she said, and then her lips were on mine again.

  Chapter 14

  Hallie

  I rolled over to look at the clock. “It’s six A.M.”

  “I don’t want to leave.” Dune propped his head on one hand and traced the outline of my bottom lip with the other.

  “We could run away.”

  I looked for the smile in his eyes, but all they told me was that there was too much to run away from. He cupped my cheek and kissed me again.

  It was so easy to sink into his body, to fit it to mine, to take the warmth that was an intrinsic part of him. I felt like I’d known him for years, but every touch reduced me to a pile of first-kiss butterflies.

  “I have an idea.” I pulled away, reluctantly, and tugged at his arm. “Come on.”

  “Should I be worried?” He rolled his big body off the bed and helped me up.

  “Always.” I grabbed my sneakers out of my bag, contemplated how they’d look with my yoga pants, and decided I didn’t care. “My dad is gone until tonight, and I want to take advantage of that while I can. Can we go back to your place?”

  “I need to talk to you about that.”

  Serious tone. Frown. Uh-oh.

  “I live in the Georgian.”

  “I know the building. That’s where Poe lives.” Not that I’d ever been inside. He’d just popped into my place when we spent time together.

  “Yeah. I live with him.”

  “He’s back? How long has he been back?”