Death (The Devil's Roses #5) 7

"I'm sorry Shane. I'm sorry for what happened. I didn’t know." I say.

His blue eyes are hard and cold, like his laugh. "You know now don’t you? You have it all back. Those memories of us, loving each other. You loved me. You chose me once. You remember that?"

I nod slowly, "I do. But we were different people then."

Giselle slaps him hard across the face, drawing dark blood from his mouth, "Answer the question."

"France. The south of France."

I instantly recall Phillip's request.

"Is Phillip in on this?"

He laughs and looks away.

Aleks looks confused, "Why?"

"No reason. I need to get out of here." I turn and leave. Being around him is harder than I imagined it would be.

"We need to go to the docs and talk to Sam and Hanna and Lorri."

Aleks follows me out, "Giselle you got this?"

She nods, "I do. Hurry up though cause for reals it's boring. And Dank. I finally understand what dank is. This shit ass cellar is dank." She kisses Shane on the lips, knocking him out. I wince. She chains him to the wall and leaves the cellar. She is so strong. So much stronger than before.

"Love you Giselle." I say softly

She grins, "Me too Aimes. Hurry up. I wanna go to Cuba."

Aleks puts a hand out, "Yeah. Me too." I touch him and we're at the front door of the Tudor.

Aleks lifts a hand to knock but the door opens. Lorri grins at us, "About time."

"Hey."

She opens the door wide. We walk in and look around, "Where is everyone?"

"Office. They got it. Blake and the doc got it. Hanna is super Hanna minus the freak show changes and the weird blackouts."

"No way."

She looks at me all excited, "Way."

I frown, "You are such a bitch sometimes."

She laughs, "It's all the time. Now, I left Abbey with Marcus so let's make this snappy."

I click down the hall and smile.

Hanna walks toward me. Sam is behind her. I can smell the Siren in her so strongly now. The shell bracelet she wears is bright red.

"Where did you get that?"

She looks at it and shakes her head, "The Ophelia girl who is really weird gave it to me. She made me like five and said they were for when she was gone. Bizarre chick."

Sam snorts, "You have no idea."

Lorri cuts past us and stomps into the doctors office, "I need you to hurry up." She says as she enters it.

We all turn and walk in. She is the last of the fallen. Her and Jonathan.

She lays out a map, "I think they're in the south of France." I say.

She turns, "Shane?"

I nod once. I don’t want to but I say it anyway, "Phillip came to me as I killed his father. He didn’t even seem to care about it all. He told me he was looking at condos in the south of France and he wanted me to bring Tristan there when the condo was ready, as a surprise for him. Just me and Trist."

She wriggles her lips, "Odd. I will say it's odd. It's possible Marcus wiped him too."

"Or Shane. Shane is almost as strong as Marcus."

She scratches her face, "Okay, where is Tristan?"

Sam gulps, "He's at Marcus's. He's been watching TV since it all went down. Not really eating or anything."

"The wolves?"

Sam's voice lowers, "Non stop tracking. They made me bring them to Alaska again, every hide out we've been to yet, and Italy twice. They phase and text and then change back. Ben is even texting with his wolf toes I think. Swear to god."

I chuckle and glance at Hanna. I can't help but notice her sliding a hand into Sam's. She squeezes it.

"We need to go to France. We need to see. I know where they'll be." She glances back at the doc who nods, "Most likely. Lillith will be able to get great strength there."

"Lillith?"

He nods, "He will use her if he can."

"We bring the kids then?" Sam asks.

Lorri shakes her head, "Just the one who makes herself disappear. The rest stay with Marcus."

Chapter Twenty-Two

Hanna

I glance at him and wonder if he can sense it. I can't stop touching his fingers. Gripping them. My tears are sitting in the back of my throat. I couldn’t talk if I wanted to.

The change brought them all back.

My beast knew the truth. Nothing Ari did could change the way my beast remembered it all. I see it differently, almost extreme versions of everything.

But I remember everything.

I glance at him sideways and remember how I broke his heart.

Every emotion is extreme. My beast is savage and hateful about her feelings. Now that she is fused with me and our minds are one, I can feel the basic survival skills she thinks with. She loves him. She always has. She saw things clearly. She saw Marcus as fun but she loves Sam.

His lips move. I can't hear the words. I'm lost in the memories.

He glances at me and I try to look like a spaced out head case. He frowns but continues talking to Lorri and Aimee. Ugh Aimee. She hates me so much and my memory of her killing my father isn’t a fan fav.

My father.

The journals.

All of it.

It's too much. The tears start to leak out. I don't move or twitch or budge. I look down and hope the minor spillage will be enough to ease up the pressure.

It isn’t. A heave slips from my lips. I can't stop thinking about them all. The deaths of the children who are back and the world without Sam. My fingers tighten around his. There is no world without Sam.

Now the world is new again and O is gone. Dorian is gone. I won't ever just be with them all again in one place. I can remember it all before O. Everything was perfect. I want to blame her but her death hurts.

"Hanna?"

I don’t look up at him. He lifts my face. My ugly cry snot covered face.

He grabs a tissue from my dad's desk. Everyone is looking at me. He wipes my face.

"She remembers everything. Look at that face." Lorri says harshly.

I cover my face.

Sam pulls me into him.

"How?"

"B-b-beast memories." I stutter.

"Oh like how Luke could always sense who Ari was to him, even when she fudged with the time." Aimee says softly.

I turn and run from the office. Anger and pain are everywhere. I betrayed him. I betrayed him so badly.

I feel like my chest is going to explode. I run up the stairs to my room and slam the door. It's not my room. He hasn't died and left me the Tudor. The room looks like it did when he died but it has nothing of me in it. Just the bed and furnishings.

I collapse on the bed.

I hear footsteps in the room. I expect Sam.

"Hanna." It's Lorri. I don’t know what to say. I hate being weak in front of her.

She crawls onto the bed and lies beside me. She strokes my head. I wait for her to break my neck or bite me, the way Shane did. The way Marcus let him kill me and bring out the beast.

"Hanna, I know how you feel right now. If I stop and think for even a second, I'll burst into a thousand different emotions and tear this house apart. The hold I have over myself is so tense, I don’t think I can hold it much longer."

I'm scared. I'm really scared. She doesn't do nice. She is still stroking my head.

"But mourning is selfish my child. We don’t have the leisure of being selfish. The dead are gone and the world is still messed." She slaps me on the ass and gets off the bed, "So, let's, do this."

She is gone. I start to laugh. I wipe my face and shake my head.

A man's voice interrupts my moment of insanity, "That was weird for me too. I flashed in and then out. Yikes." I smile when I hear his voice. I roll over and smile.

"I'm so sorry Sam."

He shakes his head, "Hanna, it never happened. This is the first time we've ever met. This is a clean slate."

He walks toward me and crawls onto the bed. He snugs up close, so his angel breath is in my face. I love the smell of him. I close my eyes, but his lips don’t meet mine.

I open an eye. He is looking at a text on his phone. I frown. He grabs my hand and flashes us back to the office. I stumble where we are standing suddenly, but he wraps an arm around my waist and catches me.

"Luke found them. Not France. Florida."

Lorri's face drops, "He wouldn’t." Her voice is a growl and I'm scared again.

Sam nods, "I don’t know what that means, but they're in Florida."

Lorri bites her lip nervously. I'm really scared. She never looks that way.

Aimee frowns, "What is it Lorri?"

"The dark witches. The dark witches there. Shit." She sighs.

"I'm lost. The ones I gave my blood to?" Sam says slowly.

Lorri turns and scowls, "Oliver saved you that day. Those women are dark and evil. That's his plan." Her words are a whisper and her eyes are haunted and distant. She snaps her redhead around and shakes her head, "He plans to turn Lillith dark. To let them fill her up. But why?"

Dad's eyes dart to Roland who clears his throat, "We Fae have long believed Lillith has almost no powers. There is legend that she split the power amongst her children. Every time she gave birth another piece of the magic was given to the baby. She has many children now. Not much magic."

"Is that true?" Aimee asks and pulls out her phone and sends a message. She sighs and vanishes.

We all look around.

No one has an answer or a clue.

Aimee

The sound of my boots on the hallowed halls lifts the eyes from the sofa. The little kids smile, Marcus growls and slithers away, Abbey gives me a nod but doesn’t take her eyes away from the video game she is playing. Tristan sits perfectly still watching.

I grab his arm and wink us both. He is unshaven and smells funny.

"Dude."

He glances at me and looks around the hallway we are in, "Where are we?" His voice is missing the feisty passion and sarcasm it had before.