Twice as Hot (Tales of an Extraordinary Girl #2)(50)
Author: Gena Showalter

Lexis stood in front of the window, watching the day pass through the lens of Rome’s telescope.

"Now would be a good time to tell me what you learned about Candace," I said during a lull in my conversation with Sherridan. The other times I’d asked, Lexis had told me she needed to concentrate, that she might have found something. She hadn’t.

Now, she popped her jaw. "I did some research on the plane." Finally, we were getting somewhere.

"Candace bought Big Rocky about three months ago. Came into some money unexpectedly. Vincent’s, I’m sure. Anyway, her first week, she fired half the staff and replaced them with employees of her own choosing. We’re guessing scrims. We also think, because her power is so connected to water, she needs more of it than the average person. Running a supplier like Big Rocky, she has an unlimited source." All of that made sense and made me feel foolish for not having considered that type of angle. "I really wish Cody had just knocked her out and brought her in." After all, if Candace was the bad guy, it seemed a little backward that the only one getting knocked out and brought places was me.

"Knowing Cody as Rome and I do," Lexis said, and I just loved how she put herself and Rome together as a couple, "we think Desert Gall has more people locked up and he wants their location before he strikes."

"Uh, Cody and Rome texted," Sherridan said. "That’s how you know there are more people locked up."

Lexis tossed her a scowl.

"That’s all that was learned," Sherridan told me, apparently deciding it was better to fill me in herself.

"Well, except that Candace Bright is a redhead and Desert Gall is a blonde. Dyeing her hair is as dumb as, like, removing her glasses to switch her personas. No offense to your own fantastically colored black tresses, Belle. So anyway, what superpower will I get?" she asked, changing the subject to her favorite topic before a catfight erupted. "And when will I get it? I’m tired of waiting." There was so much for me to absorb, I was grateful for the reprieve.

Lexis didn’t bother turning toward her this time. "I told you. I don’t know."

"I thought you knew everything." She tapped her chin as she studied the pieces. "Well, everything except when to quit chasing after a man."

Gold star for Sherridan. But speaking of knowing everything…"Any idea when Tanner is going to wake up?" After my shower, I’d called his doctor. There’d been no change, but then, Lexis could tell me more than a doctor could when it came to a long-term prognosis.

"He’s going to come out of it," she said, flicking me a glance. Her eyes were haunted.

"Really?" I chewed on my bottom lip, joy bursting through me, almost afraid to hope.

She adjusted the lens. "I have seen bits and pieces of his life. It does not end with him in PSI’s hospital, drained of energy."

That was exactly what I’d needed to hear, and just like that a terrible weight lifted off my shoulders. I might not like Lexis at the moment, but I was suddenly grateful to her for sharing that. She could have kept it to herself, watched me suffer and laughed about it behind my back.

She wasn’t a cruel woman. Not deep down. I knew that. She just loved the wrong man and was going about winning him in the wrong way. Would I have done the same, if the situation were reversed? I liked to think I wouldn’t, I’d even told Lexis I wouldn’t, but…

"Pay attention, Wonder Girl." Sherridan moved one of her horses to a square at the right of the board.

"Your move," she said.

Now I stared down at the pieces, shrugged and used one of my horses to jump her…queen, I think the piece with the crown was called.

Lexis threw us a quick glance. "You’re playing wrong," she said irritably. I think she even muttered idiots.

"We’re playing Bellidan style," I said. Belle plus Sherridan equaled greatness. "So we’re playing the right way."

"There’s no such thing as Bellidan."

"Yeah, there is." Sherridan tossed her a sympathetic smile, then moved one of her pieces to the left. "It’s sad that you’re so ill informed."

Silence.

Wait, no. I heard the gnashing of teeth, which reminded me of the way Elaine had acted during the first few minutes of our meeting. And speaking of Elaine…"You have any visions about our energy vampire?" I placed my queen in the square Sherridan had just taken, scooting her horse out of the way.

Lexis’s brow furrowed as she turned a dial on the scope. "Who?"

"Elaine Daringer. You know – " ugh, I can’t believe I was going to say this " – Draino." A new name was definitely needed, and it was time I put my immense brainpower into thinking of one. Let’s see, let’s see…The Zapper? No, that still had a negative connotation and she wasn’t a negative girl. She was sweet and needy, and had probably been made to feel unworthy all her life for something she could not help or control. Princess Draina?

"No," Lexis said. "Nothing on her. But then, I haven’t really spent any time with her. Haven’t touched her, which even I can’t do. And to learn something, I’d at least need to go near her, which I don’t – "

"Great. I’ll make arrangements when we get back."

Finished with the equipment, she threw herself against the mattress, staring up at the ceiling. "You are so pushy. I don’t know what Rome sees in you."

Truth be told, all the months he and I had been together, I’d wondered the same thing. I wasn’t easygoing like Lexis. I was more trouble than a school of unsupervised four-year-olds. (If only the first step to recovery was admitting it.) But for some reason Rome loved – had loved – me, and hadn’t wanted to change me.

I’d come to think he liked the excitement I brought to his life, the amusement. I mean, I wasn’t just another of his lackeys. I didn’t take everything he dished. Didn’t do everything he commanded. Well, some things I took, some things I did. But only in the bedroom.

Was that what Memory Man liked about me, as well? I found myself wondering.

"Like you’re an angel," I told Lexis, making one of my horses kiss one of Sherridan’s horses. "But I don’t want to rehash the fact that you’ve stabbed me in the back, betrayed Rome with your lies and destroyed Tanner’s heart. Actually, you don’t get to talk badly about me." She banged a fist into the comforter. "You don’t have a child with Rome! You don’t know what it’s like, tucking your daughter into bed at night and having her ask you if her daddy can come over and read her a story. You don’t have to watch in horror as your daughter mists through walls you can’t reach, just to find her daddy. You don’t have to hold your crying daughter at night and take care of her by yourself when she’s sick."