Chapter Five
Indigo
I’d become a connoisseur of awkward silences over the years.
I’d never met someone quite as adept at producing them as I was.
Lucretia Boline and her deputies had greeted me with enough stony silence on our first meeting to wall me in solitary confinement.
I’d had my share of silences with Anthony in the time we’d been together.
Especially when the magnitude of what I’d been involved in stole even the most ardent spark of desire from his eye.
I’d had them with Lydia as well, when she’d been too outraged and disgusted by what I’d dragged into her life to speak to me.
But this quiet was the coup de grace. The eternal stretch of permanent silence.
Lydia would never break the through the barrier between us again, offering me another chance that I did not, in any way, shape, or form, deserve.
She couldn’t. She was gone. Dead in my place, if Murrain had his way.
And even if she didn’t remain a mass of energy in the Mananangal’s stomach, she was now barely more than a ghost. The reversal of our fortunes was so incredibly unjust that I wanted to scream.
We were now taking up residence in a motel about a half an hour outside of Haven Hollow. We needed to hide at the same time that we needed to plan our next steps. This was one of the temporary safe houses on my list of safe houses.
I buried my face in the overstuffed pillow to muffle the groan that escaped me.
Reconstituting, even in a new and relatively healthy body, had been hellish.
There wasn’t an inch of my body or soul that didn’t ache.
Not to mention the extra damage I’d incurred during the hour and a half we’d spent driving down a pockmarked road, hitting every speed bump the mundane driver could find.
Even with layers of fabric in the way, all of us were so tightly piled in, elbows and ankles dug into the witch lying next to you.
Depending on how harsh the bump was, the seating arrangement could change.
I’d started the journey lying alongside Wanda so she could hiss furious follow-up questions in my ear.
I’d ended the drive wedged between Poppy and Olga.
Both had rooms down the hall from mine, as the coven tried to figure out who I should bunk with.
Rightfully, none of them trusted Angelo to take the queen-sized bed next to mine.
Even if the demon was as sold on Lydia as he claimed to be, it didn’t make him safe to be around.
If anything, my presence might be a temptation too great to bear.
He blamed me for what had happened to her.
I knew that if there was no way to get her back, he’d kill me.
Or, at least, he’d try. And maybe I’d let him succeed.
Of all the things I’d done in my life, this was the worst.
The monsters had come for my friend, and I hadn’t been able to protect her.
For all my power and knowledge, I hadn’t seen the trap coming in time.
I hadn’t stopped it from snapping closed on her, extinguishing her life.
It was my fault she was dead. Permanent or not, it was unacceptable.
I deserved a thousand hells for it. Maybe that was why I hadn’t been allowed to move on.
Maybe it was the goddess’ unique and horrifying punishment for someone who’d transgressed as badly as I had.
Maybe I’d be stuck like this for all eternity, unable to move on. Always here. Always hurting.
That seemed about the right speed, given how my life had gone thus far.
I hunched in on myself, arms winding around my knees when no glib teasing wafted out of the darkness to chase away my pessimism.
Lydia wasn’t a beam of concentrated sunshine, the way the other gypsy woman was, but she was delightfully free of the kind of nihilistic attitude that had eaten me alive for years.
Looking at life from her eyes, I’d half-begun to believe the world might be a place worth saving.
Without her here, the grim thoughts were circling, ready to prey on me in my nightmares tonight.
After the day we’d had, I was doomed to have at least one.
It would be the first time since my end that I’d have to experience the terror alone.
I should have gotten up to shower. Washing away the blood and filth of the day wouldn’t solve the issue, but it would make me feel better.
Instead, I stayed where I’d fallen, face-down on the bed in this motel in the middle of nowhere, my limbs feeling impossibly heavy.
It should have been exhilarating to move on my own.
But I could only focus on the heartless toll it had come at.
I really ought to have been planning. Strategizing.
Trying to make allies. But doing any of it felt hopeless.
The odds of success were laughably slim, even if we managed to do everything right.
What did it matter if the coven liked me when one of their own was at stake?
I didn’t belong here. I knew it. They knew it.
The door opened around ten minutes later with a discreet beep.
Modern hinges glided soundlessly because I didn’t hear the door close until the mechanism slid softly into place behind the intruder.
Only sheer, morbid curiosity made me lift my head out of the pillow to get a look at my temporary bunkmate.
I half-expected to see Wanda in a nightie, ready and willing to pester me all night for answers.
Instead, I found the mundane standing feet away from the bed, wringing his hands in an effort not to collapse into the human personification of a flop sweat.
He looked nervous, though not for the reasons he ought to be.
When his gaze swept over my stolen body, he wasn’t looking for weapons or any indication I was looking to cast. The suspicion was automatic when you knew who and what you were dealing with.
Anthony did. It hurt to see him give me that appraising look when he thought I wasn’t looking. He cared about me. I knew that.
I just wasn’t certain it was enough, after everything I’d been through.
The mundane man was handsome if you liked the brawny ex-surfer type.
His hair was too long, his beard a little too thick, like he was constantly a day behind on shaving it.
The stubble made him more attractive in my opinion, not less.
I enjoyed the rasp over my skin. Anthony rarely grew his beard out, after several close calls with fire and facial hair had nearly scarred his face.
Unlike many men in their middle years, RJ hadn’t let himself go to seed.
There was an undeniable core of strength to him, even if he looked too befuddled to access it at the moment.
He shuffled from foot to foot near the base of his bed, still wringing his hands.
It was almost cute. If I’d been in my original body, it might have earned him a kiss.
But this was Lydia’s. I wasn’t inviting anyone she didn’t want into her bed.
It wasn’t my place. Not my body. Not my life.
“Did you need something?” I asked, wincing when there was a caustic note in the question. I hadn’t earned the right to cop an attitude with the mundane. He was irritating, but ultimately trying to be helpful.
To his credit, he didn’t retreat with a yelp of fright.
I’d managed to get more of a rise from him when I’d been in his bathroom, carefully trying not to see or comment on the impressive asset he was working with.
After going full-frontal in front of an entire coven, he seemed to have come to terms with his new reality.
“You’re Indigo, right?” he began.
I flinched at the sound of my name. How long had it been since someone had looked into Lydia’s face and seen me hiding beneath?
No one had said my name in a friendly fashion since learning the truth about my continued existence.
I was being tolerated in this coven, not looked after.
I was a danger, and they were dealing with me the best way they knew how.
Putting me into a room alone until they figured out what kind of danger I posed.
The poor man had been selected to be the canary in the coal mine, even if Wanda would keep that particular line of thinking to herself.
She was a witch looking out for her coven.
It made sense she’d keep them far away from me until I could be trusted. Whenever that might be.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “That’s my name.”
“I’m RJ.”
I vaguely remembered Poppy mentioning this man, but the details surrounding him were still fuzzy.
We hadn’t exactly had time for introductions.
It had taken Maverick and Anthony heading off some of Murrain’s people at the town limits to get us clear of the Hollow.
Maverick was going to cut through faerie, courtesy of his wife, and meet us at a safe house I’d eked out before abandoning Murrain entirely.
I was certain that the spells I’d placed would hold, completely obscuring the safehouse from anyone but myself.
RJ waited expectantly for the compliment that would never come.
I wasn’t going to tell him it was good to meet him.
If things had gone well for me, we would never have crossed paths.
I was a witch with power and more enemies than I could shake a broom handle at.
He was a mundane obsessed with monsters, but no practical experience with them.
He was like an adorable golden retriever puppy, paws far too large and clumsy to allow for fluid movement.
His innocence and clumsy and well-meaning attitude would probably get him killed.
“So,” he said, scrubbing the back of his neck to disguise his discomfort. “You’re a witch.”
“Yes.”
He winced at the caustic note in my voice. “Sorry if I’m being a pest. I just want to understand. Was Lydia a witch also?”