~ Pandora ~
“Rough night?” Kira asked as Pandora and Jax walked into the kitchen.
Pandora didn’t even respond.
She just grunted and fell into a chair before crossing her arms on the tabletop and dropping her head between them so no one would see her bloodshot eyes.
Rough night is putting it lightly, she thought. More like catastrophic.
“Well, after we saw you come in and run upstairs crying, and, well, all of that, we sort of had a feeling you might need a little something this morning,” Kira continued, filling the silence as though it were her job. “So, we’ve got pick-me-up pancakes, wallow-away waffles, some, um, kiss-my-ass coffee—”
“I came up with that one,” Luke interjected. Pandora could hear the smile in his voice. These people were too cheery by half, but something about them was infectious, and she couldn’t help but lift her head high enough to peek through the curtain of her hair.
Kira tossed Luke a sidelong glance with an eyebrow raised. “You also came up with bugger-off bagels, so…”
“What?” he questioned, jaw dropping. “That one was great.”
“Who says bugger off?” Kira asked, shaking her head. “We’re not British.”
“Well,” Luke calmly replied with a shrug and a suspiciously nonchalant voice. “It’s not my fault that I’m so much more cultured than you.”
Kira just snorted and placed a cup of coffee in front of Pandora. “Anyway,” she continued, ignoring her fiancé, “I couldn’t come up with anything for eggs, but we have those too. And some bacon and frozen sausage if you want me to whip something up.”
Pandora sighed, gazing up at the conduit gratefully. “Thanks,” she murmured, corners of her lips twitching with the barest smile as she reached for a bagel and cream cheese. “This is exactly what I need.”
Then she took a massive bite and sank back into her seat, feeling a little bit lighter. Why is it that carbs make everything so much more bearable?
“So,” Kira said, unable to stop herself. “Are we going to do that thing where I keep talking until you can’t take it anymore and will say anything to shut me up? Or are you going to tell us what happened?”
Pandora wrinkled her nose at the conduit and took another bite.
“Relentless chitchat it is,” Kira replied smoothly, reaching into the stack of pancakes and sliding one onto her plate. “Well—”
“What did your father say?” Naya interrupted softly. Pandora had been pointedly avoiding looking at the werejaguar, aware of how easily those amber eyes saw right through her, but at the sound of her voice, Pandora turned her gaze. Naya and Mateo were sitting quietly at the other side of the table, sharing a waffle. The boy was staring dreamily out the window, but Naya was watching Pandora, demanding more information.
Maybe because they all deserved to know.
Maybe because she was concerned.
Or maybe because she knew, deep down, that talking about something difficult was the only way to make the pain go away. Maybe, like always, she was only trying to help.
“He wants Jax and me to go back to the enclave. Today.”
“No,” Kira immediately burst out. “You’ll miss the wedding!”
Four pairs of eyes turned pointedly to her.
“I mean, no,” she mumbled. “Something less self-absorbed that doesn’t make this all about me. I am not a bridezilla. I’m not…”
Luke patted her shoulder with solidarity. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.”
He jumped away before she had a chance to toss an elbow in his direction, then offered everyone else a wide grin.
“Why does he want you to go there? So soon?” Naya asked, ignoring the silly lovebirds and trying to stick to the point.
Pandora sighed, a heavy, quivering sound. “He doesn’t think Sam is dead. He says it’s not possible, and he’s adamant. He won’t change his mind.”
“Why?” Naya asked.
“Because he’s an asshole?” Pandora offered, tone hollow.
“Maybe…” Naya murmured, unconvinced. Then she turned to her brother for a moment, knowing gaze running over his frame once, observing how transfixed he was with the sunshine that no longer prickled his newly cured skin. With a smile, she ruffled his hair and gave him a shove. “Sal a jugar, Mateo.”
He turned around inquisitively. “¿Sí?”
“Sí.”
She nodded with encouragement, and a moment later, Mateo was in the backyard, rolling around in the grass. Naya’s eyes turned a soft gold the longer she watched him.
“When he was turned,” she said quietly, not blinking, as though afraid to close her eyes, “my grandfather told me not to go after him. Mi abuelo, he’s a tough man, an old man, from a different generation. He said the Mateo we knew was gone. It would be easier to pretend he was dead, to think of him that way, rather than risk my life for the futile dream of bringing him back when my people needed me, when they were counting on me, when…” Naya paused, blinking rapidly as she turned back to them, pupils glistening. “Anyway, maybe your father is an asshole, Pandora. Sometimes, life is as simple as that. But not always. Sometimes, it’s complicated. Sometimes, we do crazy things to protect the people we love. And sometimes, we do crazy things to protect ourselves.”
Pandora scrunched her brows together. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Naya muttered, lifting her gaze to the ceiling for a moment before settling them back on her friend. “I’ve spent a lot of time around lost souls, and I’ve learned to recognize them. Maybe he’s what you say. Or maybe he’s just a man who was dealt some awful cards that he didn’t know how to handle, who did the only thing he thought he could. Maybe he needs to believe Sam isn’t dead, that he can’t be dead, because the alternative would be too much to bear. That he lost his wife? That he shunned his own child? That he stabbed her? All for nothing? That would be…” She searched for the right word. “Extremely difficult to live with.”
Pandora shifted her focus and studied the half-eaten bagel on her plate. But she wasn’t seeing the crescent shape of her last bite, she was seeing the shape of her father’s lips as he uttered a single word. No.
“But he knew I didn’t have to die,” she confessed.
“For how long?”
“As long as he’s been director.” She blinked, forcing the image of her father from her mind, looking back at her friend. “I was, I don’t know, thirteen. So six, seven years, something like that. Long enough.”
“Or maybe not long enough,” Naya offered, voice low and sympathetic. “By then, his wife had already died. He’d already spent thirteen years preparing himself for one inevitable outcome. He’d already spent thirteen years pushing you away. Maybe in his mind, consciously or not, it was too late to turn back, too late to—”
The sound of a fist slamming onto the table stopped her.
The plates jingled. The silverware rattled. One glass fell over, spilling orange juice over the waffles, sending a splash over the edge of the table. The drip, drip, drip of orange droplets was the only sound in the kitchen.
And then quiet.
“Stop trying to justify his actions,” Jax growled at Naya, seafoam eyes blazing green, backed by an unseen fire.
The werejaguar met his gaze head-on, unflinching. Her honey eyes began to glow as they narrowed, and she searched his expression.
A knock at the door broke the tension.
Jax turned his head.
Naya continued to study him, a wary edge to her face.
But Pandora didn’t have time to process. The front door opened, and a strangled voice called her name, prompting her to her feet. She ran into the hall to find three members of the titan delegation standing in the foyer with utterly disoriented expressions plastered across their faces. Immediately, her stomach dropped.
“What?”
Alison, the archivist, stepped forward, reaching toward Pandora but stopping halfway, as though unsure. Her fingers hovered, and then pulled back as her arm dropped to her side. Pandora paid the action little attention. She’d become accustomed to handling things on her own.
“Your father,” the woman said, throat so clogged the words came out half made of air.
“What about him?” she demanded.
In the back of her mind, a little voice began to beg, No, no, no, no.
Because she knew.
Without them saying a word, she knew.
“He’s dead.”
All the air left her in a whoosh, so she was hollow, empty, stumbling around with a body that had nothing left inside to hold it up. Her knees buckled, but two sturdy arms were there to catch her before she fell.
“How?” came the sound of Jax’s deep, comforting voice.
Pandora blinked through blurry eyes, feeling as though the world had turned upside down and she didn’t know how to see or stand or speak because everything seemed backward.
“We’re not sure,” Alison told him, no longer speaking to Pandora. “We found him this morning, lying on the dining room floor. We think maybe a heart attack, but he was in good physical condition. The healers back home are searching his family history. We’re going to send the body for an autopsy to be sure.”
Pandora trembled as the word body hit her ears.
Jax held her tighter.
“Is that necessary?” he asked. “Do you really suspect foul play? Here? In Sonnyville?”
“No,” she said quickly. “But we’re not used to our own dying so young, not with the— Well, not before, but I guess everything is different now.”
Pandora’s head snapped up, nostrils flaring. “Are you trying to imply that I did this?”
“Of course not.” Alison’s eyes went wide. “I didn’t mean— I only meant— We just want an autopsy to be sure.”
“Do it,” Pandora found herself saying, voice harsh and hardly sounding like her own. Because now that the idea had entered her mind, she had to know for sure—had to know if hundreds of titans all across the globe would be dropping dead because she’d severed the tie to their power.
But I’d been so sure.
So positive.
There’s no way.
There can’t be.
“It’s not your fault,” Jax whispered into her ear, brushing her hair from her wet cheeks, then pausing for a moment to run his thumb along her jawline. “You didn’t cause this.”
“Do it,” Pandora repeated, softer this time. “One way or another, we need to know.” And then she swallowed, pushing back the hurt and the pain and the bundle of tightly wound confusion spooling in her gut, forcing herself to keep it together long enough to get through. “When will you be leaving?”
“We were hoping to return to the enclave today,” Alison said. “Perhaps tomorrow.”
Pandora nodded, but the idea of returning home, of returning to that empty house now emptier still, was like a knife to the heart. Her scar began to sting, a reminder of what her father had done to her within the four corners of that place, a reminder that he didn’t deserve all the ache coursing through her.
“I need two weeks,” she blurted, spitting the words up from someplace unexpected. But they sounded right, and her mind fought to catch up with the logic spilling from her lips. “My friends. They’re getting married in two weeks. I’d like to be here. I’d like to stay.”
I need them.
I can’t go back there.
Not yet.
Alison nodded. “We’ll take your father’s body with us, for the autopsy. I’ll need a few days, maybe a week, to archive his memories for the next director. We can wait for you. We can wait two weeks to perform the funeral rites.”
Pandora nodded, unable to find her voice.
Father’s body.
The autopsy.
Next director.
Funeral rites.
Her skin began to crawl. An itchy sensation worked its way up her spine, then spread down her arms, to her fingers, to her toes. She swayed back and forth, switching her weight from foot to foot.
Suddenly it felt as if everyone was watching her.
As if everyone was waiting for her reaction.
The room grew hot, suffocating.
The air turned stale.
The silence hummed as it droned on and on.
“Did your father mention anything about mindreading last night?” Alison tentatively asked, pushing her luck, pushing to business a little too soon.
Pandora’s tight hold over her body broke.
Before she could stop herself, before anyone could process, she tore free of Jax’s arms and ran—down the hall, out the back door, across the porch, over the grass, and into the woods.
Deeper and deeper.
The smell of pine comforted her.
The fresh air allowed her breath.
Her legs pumped, and her arms swung, and her mind focused on that repetitive motion, on sprinting away, faster and faster, before anyone and anything could catch her, before her thoughts or her memories had a chance to break through.
This was familiar.
This was what she did best.
Outrun her problems.
Outrun her feelings.
Just run and run and run—
Her foot caught an exposed root, and she slammed face-first into the dirt. A copper taste filled her mouth, mixed with salt and mud. And just like that, everything caught up, washed over her, and there was nowhere she could go to escape.
No.
No.
No.
The word played on repeat in her mind, but it wasn’t her voice. It was the cold, heartless voice of her father, over and over again, each sound a bullet in her chest, fatal. Images began to flash. Her father sitting at the table, sipping whiskey, eyes hard and absent. Her father slapping Jax across the face, demanding to know where she was. Her father standing over her with a knife in his hands and a determined gleam in his gaze. Her father on the other side of a glass wall, studying his prisoner. Her father standing over her, unaffected as a hundred bolts of electricity flashed through her, making her twitch. Her father whispering that he planned to murder his own child on the day she turned sixteen.
You’re a Scott, Pandora.
We do what needs to be done.
Everyone has a fate.
We were born to be strong.
His lessons, his words.
Pandora rolled over on the grass, spitting a wad of blood. Her body went limp as she stared through the gently swaying leaves, toward the blue sky overhead. The sight reminded her of something else, something different, something almost more painful, as odd as that might have seemed.
When she was ten, her father had given her a play bow with a set of arrows for her birthday. She’d spent hours in the backyard, alone, trying to hit a target she’d attached to a tree at the edge of the grass. But she’d had no luck. And just as she was about to give up, she heard the whine of the screen door opening, heard heavy footsteps across the porch. Her father. His scrutinizing gaze took in the untouched target, the arrows scattered across the ground. Her head had shrunk into her chest and her shoulders had caved in as she tried to hide where she stood. But instead of the lecture she’d been expecting, her father had done something else. He walked to the closest arrow and picked it up before kneeling beside her. He told her to show him her grip, so she lifted her arms, stretching the bowstring back. He’d narrowed his eyes, studying her frame, making small adjustments, little changes here and there. And then he held his hand over hers, teaching her what to do. Together, they’d loosed the arrow. It struck the outer edge of her target with a heavy thud, but it might as well have been a bull’s-eye. She cheered, and when she turned to hug him, she noticed his eyes were shining, bright with the reflection of the sun. He blinked the expression away and stood, then turned to go into the house without another word. But Pandora had looked to the sky, and she’d seen crystal blue, the same color of the only thing she remembered about her mother—those sapphire eyes. And for a moment, it felt as if everything would be okay.
“Dory?” Jax’s voice brushed over her like a gentle breeze.
She sniffled, not bothering to look at him, keeping her eyes on the sky. “I don’t know what to think, Jax. I don’t—”
A muffled sob worked its way up her throat, cutting her off.
He sat beside her on the grass, then lay down next to her and tugged her over so she curled against his side, her favorite place to be. The only place that had ever felt truly right.
“You don’t have to know,” he murmured before pressing a soft kiss to her brow. “You just have to feel. Because I’m here, like I’ve always been, to carry you when you forget how to fly.”
The words were familiar to her somehow.
As though she’d heard them before.
In another life.
But her heart and her mind were too consumed by grief to understand.
More memories pushed to the surface. Her and her father sitting in front of the television in silence. Him quietly sliding a bowl of her favorite ice cream onto her lap. Dinners where they sat on opposite sides of the table without muttering a word. Fights that shook the foundations of the house. And stretches of quiet that were somehow worse. The handbag he’d given her as a gift, plucked from the page of her favorite magazine. The photographs of her mother he’d torn from the walls, ripping down half the wallpaper as he did. The look she’d rarely seen in his eyes, the one that seemed so much like love, but blink and it was gone.
Back and forth they went.
Good. Then bad.
Then ugly.
On and on.
Later, she’d sort it out.
Later, she’d try to understand.
Now, she closed her eyes, clutched Jax tight, and let go.