Helen’s nostrils flared. “Who am I, Al Capone? I am not a mobster. I do not make a habit of menacing little girls, and I resent your bellicosity.”
“If I were bellicose, I would have dispensed with words long ago, and there would be blood.”
“What is it you really want to know? A nasty beast nibbled on your girlfriend. So what? She survived.”
“That nasty beast doesn’t think for himself, Helen. Someone holds his leash.”
Helen raised a black eyebrow. “And you want to know who that someone is?”
Thorin pursed his lips and glared at her. We both waited for her answer.
Helen slipped off the sofa arm and went to her loveseat. She plopped on the cushion and fingered the hem of her skirt. “Damned non-smoking rooms,” she said. “Nate, bring me my clutch, would you?” Nate raised a beleaguered eyebrow, but he planted his feet and rose from his chair to do as Helen bid.
“Why do you think I know anything?” Helen said to Thorin.
“It’s your trade,” he said. “Your commerce is information.”
“Among other things,” Helen mumbled. Nate returned, toting Helen’s purse, and she shuffled through its contents until she found a pack of gum. “Nicotine gum. Disgusting stuff. I miss the old days.” She popped a piece between her teeth and sighed. “At least they let us keep our booze.”
“Helen,” Thorin said through gritted teeth. “You’re dissembling.”
Helen rolled her eyes. “This is really all about that boy who worked for you, isn’t it? The one who died? I don’t see why you’re so worked up over it. Boys die every day and you don’t come hunting me down and not-so-subtly accusing me of violence. He can’t possibly be worth all this unpleasantness.”
Helen’s vain chatter burned into the raw places in my heart. I closed my eyes and tried to shut them out—Thorin’s merciless grasp and Helen’s vapid stare. My body trembled. These people—these strangers—were playing games, and my brother was dead because of their scheming. If Mani even registered in their awareness, then to them he was merely a minor obstacle to overcome on their way to grander aspirations. Killing him was a box to check off on a scavenger hunt: Do a stoplight fire drill. Stuff ten people in a photo booth. Kill Chapman Mundy. Check! Check! Check!
Thorin said he cared for Mani, but my brother had been little more to him than a canary in a coal mine, a harbinger of danger. His only concern was for his own safety. For Helen Locke, Mani’s death registered no more sorrow or regret than an antelope for a lion. There was no way to make her understand or appreciate the void created by Mani’s absence. Mani was my twin, my other half. Helen and Thorin might as well have stood on another planet when it came to their ability to relate to what had happened in my world.
I couldn’t bear it another moment—Helen’s haughty apathy and Thorin’s cold caginess. Anger erupted as a physical presence under my skin. I shook harder, a seizure almost. The others fell silent; the atmosphere turned stilted. I opened my eyes, not realizing I had closed them.
I was doing it again.
Thorin hissed and dropped his hands away from me, burned by the heat of my skin. An essence of light exuded from my pores, soft at first, but strengthened by each beat of my heart until flames erupted over my body.
“Gods below,” Helen said, turning to shield her face from my heat and light. “It really is her.”
Thorin tried to touch me again but fell back before making contact. I reveled in his weakness. The last time this had happened, I was frightened, hurt, and surprised. Now, I kept a hold on my senses and explored the sensation. It radiated like a fever, or maybe it was more like a sunburn, where everything inside goes cold while heat rolls from the skin in waves. I back-tracked the heat waves, tracing them into my body, along my nervous system, up my spine, until I found it, the source of this strange ability, affixed to a place inside me so corporeal it might have shown on an MRI.
“Solina!” someone yelled. “Stop it.” The voice sounded anguished, and part of me liked it. “Solina, please.”
It was Thorin, begging. What had I done to hurt a giant like him? Hearing him cry out shattered my moment of insanity, and everything went cold and dark.
Chapter Twenty-one
I woke to a lurching sensation. Several moments passed before my vision cleared and I was able to identify my surroundings. I lay in the little bedroom in Thorin’s boat, and because of the noise and motion, I assumed we were underway. Nausea roiled up from the depths of my gut. I stumbled to my feet and scurried to the bathroom, making it in time to heave the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I vomited until nothing but spittle strung from my lips. When my stomach finally ceased its revolt, I closed my eyes and rested against the shower stall.
I didn’t hear him. I never heard him. He always just… appeared. I knew he was there because of the cold, wet cloth he pressed to my forehead and neck and because of the odor of rain and storms that followed him everywhere he went. Maybe he wasn’t the God of Thunder, but he sure smelled like one. “I brought you something to drink,” Thorin said.
I cracked open my eyes. Thorin crouched beside me, offering a glass of water. I sipped, waited to see if I could keep it down, then drank the rest in small, careful gulps. “Are we going back to Siqiniq?” I asked.
Thorin nodded. “Left Juneau a few minutes ago.”
“Why didn’t we leave last night?”
“Thought you’d sleep better if we stayed put. You were in bad shape. Didn’t want to be too far from civilization if you needed something.”
Dear Lord—a sympathetic Thorin? Not sure I can handle that. I passed him the empty glass and said, “Can I have a refill?”
“Do you want me to take you to your room first?” Thorin asked.
I nodded.
Thorin gathered me into his arms and toted me to bed. I sprawled across the mattress and almost passed out again before he returned and handed me another glass of water. He watched, his face impassive, until I drained the contents. I set the glass on the nightstand, closed my eyes, and slid under the covers with no idea what to do or say next. Go away, Thorin, and let’s pretend like nothing happened.
I wasn’t going to be that lucky.
Thorin sank onto the corner of the bed. “You set Helen’s hotel suite on fire.”
I pulled the covers over my head. When I was a little kid, I believed the boogey man couldn’t get me so long as nothing poked out from under my blankets, not even my hair. That trick would never fool Thorin, but it was a very broad hint; maybe he would take it.
“You singed Helen’s hair before the sprinklers kicked in,” he said, ignoring my amateur evasion tactics.
Something in his tone grated on me. “Are you laughing?” I asked, yanking the blankets down.
Thorin mastered his features, but not before a hint of mirth sparkled in his eyes. “She’ll need a week or two to grow out her eyebrows.”
“Are you serious?” I said, laughing. I had suffered no ill effects other than the nausea, and that I could blame on the alcohol.
The corner of Thorin’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t answer.
