True Born

Chapter Nine

I grab his wrist. "I mean it. Why are you all being so nice? Saving us?"

When Jared sighs and steps back, eyes shuttered, I shiver. "That's something you need to talk to Storm about."

My stomach drops. Of course, I remind myself cynically, even the most basic kindnesses being extended to the Fox sisters must have a price tag. I tear myself from Jared's embrace and straighten the fabric of my blouse and skirt.

"Right. Thank you. For a moment there I had almost forgotten. All we are to you is a job."

Jared's eyes green as they narrow and his back turns ramrod straight. "Forget I said anything, all right? Go ahead, let your sister eat you alive. I must have lost my mind thinking that you might be different from all the other self-entitled, grabby Uppers, but seems I was wrong. You're worse."

As he spits the words out he inches closer and closer, and I keep moving back until I'm splayed flat against the wall and his face, his angry, beautiful face is just a hair's breadth from mine. I suck in a deep breath as Jared blinks and shudders. I bite my lip so as not to cry and push hard at his chest. He moves easily enough now, and I stumble down the hall to Margot's room—but now I stumble for another reason. I feel his eyes on me as I retreat, the heat of his simmering anger.

Just another bodyguard, my head tells me. A mean one, at that. The sharp ache in my chest says differently.

I spend the day fussing over my sister, avoiding the rankling in my heart. It has never bothered me before, what other people have thought of us, the Fox family. Me. But Jared's words haunt me. And each time they circle round, I feel them sinking in and deepening like a bruise.

By nightfall Margot is feeling well enough to sit up in bed and chat. Doc Raines visits her again and says she'll do. Once the doctor leaves, Margot all but drags me out of the room. "Come on, Lucy," she says, "I want to catch up with some kids from school and go to sleep."

I go, though unwillingly. Half of me is impressed. I can feel what my sister feels, but I still can't understand what it's like to be her: able to slip off whatever responsibility or duty or danger crosses her path as easily as changing a dress.

I can't rid myself of the feeling that if I leave Margot for even a second she'll disappear. And somehow it will be my fault. But as I close the door behind me and thread my way through the elaborate hallways of Storm's tower in the direction of his office, I can already hear her giggling at some silly thing Deirdre Phalon is saying.

It will be up to me to fix things. As usual, I think with a sigh.

"Why are they like that?" I point.

Storm stands framed by floor-to-ceiling windows and crowned with a thorny, mature set of antlers that twinkle darkly in the glass. One ankle slightly crosses the other, like an elegant buck. He focuses on something below, lost in thought. Sad, too, as though he'd be alone even surrounded by people.

Storm cracks the tiniest of smiles as he beckons me over. "It would be pretty difficult to fit through the door if they were more substantial, don't you think?"

I laugh and come over to where Storm is standing.

He smells different than Jared, more like spice and cloves and something dark. "Look out there," he says. I follow his outstretched finger. Red drips from on the top of a building, far below. But even from here the letters are huge. EVOLVE OR DYE.

"They can't spell," I observe.

"True"—Storm nods—"but hardly the point."

"What is the point?"