CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Myra
I didn’t see hide nor hair of Yael for three days, let alone his dick.
There were no calls. No texts. No impromptu ambushes that made me want to stab him.
Just nothing. In truth, it was a bit of a reprieve, because I knew that once he did turn up, he would only drag me into yet another crazy interrogation, and I was less than enthused about that.
Fortunately, I had a standing date with The Riff Raff, and it was always good for providing a rowdy distraction with potential outlets for misplaced frustration.
I stepped out into the crisp morning air to find it was actually nice outside.
The sun had managed to permeate the cloud cover for once and warmed my face as I walked through Serpent’s Tongue, a welcome change from my normally dreary commute.
As I walked, I tried not to think about all the things that had happened since Yael’s return, but it proved impossible not to.
In a week’s time, I’d nearly died trying to return home, been hoodwinked into a fae deal, killed a man employed by the mob boss of Demon’s Horn, interrogated a cannibalist witch—who’d tried to eat me—and had a cryptic conversation with an old crone that Yael couldn’t see.
That was an impressive list even for me, and I shuddered to think how it would read by the time Yael returned me to the sea.
And then there was the not so tiny matter of whatever was going on with my Siren’s Song.
Never in my life had it behaved the way it had while helping Yael, and I had no idea what was making it so unpredictable.
At first, I wondered if it was a result of my ejection from the Deep, but I had used the power to a mild degree without incident since my arrival in the Playground.
Then I wondered if it was a side effect of the potion I’d taken, or an adverse consequence of trying to defy the magic prohibiting me from returning, or if maybe it had to do with me trying to force Yael to undo our deal.
Whatever it was, it was making our attempts to find his sister even more risky than they already were, a problem I wasn’t super keen on.
And I couldn’t imagine he was, either.
Thinking about the crafty fae bastard, I pulled out my phone as I walked to see if he’d finally messaged me but found nothing.
Asshole…
As my mind started to spiral about what he was up to, the sound of something skittering across the pavement yanked me back into the present.
I wheeled around to see if my thoughts had somehow summoned my fae keeper, but all I found was an empty street with a beer can slowly rolling to a stop.
Not willing to trust that the situation was completely innocuous, I scoured the nooks and crannies of the neighboring buildings to see if someone was hiding there but found no one.
“Cute trick,” I called out to whoever had kicked it. “Super impressive. Now fuck off.” I turned back toward The Riff Raff and picked up the pace. I was in no mood to be messed with that morning.
As I rounded the corner, a window shattered not far behind me. I looked back to see shards sprinkling onto the sidewalk about half a block away, and still, I saw no one there. Not wanting to tempt fate, I took off at a sprint for the bar.
Two blocks, I told myself. I only have to make it two blocks.
I could see the old red-brick building in the distance when another window exploded right behind me, and I dug deeper still and pushed my legs and lungs until they burned.
The alley to the back door was closer than the main entrance, so I made a sharp left and darted toward it.
The second I ripped the door open, I stumbled in, slammed it behind me, and leaned against the metal as I fought to catch my breath while everyone in the kitchen stared.
Curtis gaped at me, his knife hovering above the side of beef he was butchering. “Umm, you good, Myra?”
“I fucking hate this place,” I wheezed.
“But you literally just walked in the door—”
“Not THIS place,” I said, flailing my hand around at my immediate surroundings. “The Devil’s Playground.”
“Ohhh,” he replied, resuming his task. “That makes way more sense.”
“Did something happen?” Ravi asked as he stepped out of the walk-in cooler and took in the scene playing out.
I choked on a mirthless laugh. “Something always happens around here, Ravi. You know that.”
He set down the plastic tray of beef in his hands as he assessed my frazzled state. “Not in my part of the Playground, it doesn’t,” he countered with narrowed eyes. “Is this because of Yael? Because if it is, I will—”
“Oh my god, Ravi, no. Not everything sketchy that happens to me involves Yael, much to his chagrin, I’m sure.
” Somehow, that response didn’t seem to appease his anger at all.
“Listen, I just got spooked. I thought someone was following me, got in my head about it, then took off running. That’s all. ”
Ravi’s eyebrows pinched together. “Are you sure?”
“I mean, I can’t be certain, but I’m willing to bet this is all a result of lack of sleep and my general distrust of everyone, rather than someone actually trying to follow me in your part of town. It would make more sense—”
“Maybe,” he replied, his voice distant as he mulled something over. “Did you actually see anyone?”
“No. Every time I looked back, no one was there.”
“But you still felt like someone was watching you?” he asked, walking around the prep counter toward me.
“Yeah—and a window shattered not far away from me, which felt ominous in the moment but could have been totally random in hindsight."
Frustration overtook his expression, and he scrubbed his hand over his face in an attempt to force it away.
But that was always hard when I was involved, and he knew that better than anyone.
“I’ll see what I can find out—perhaps call in a few debts to learn if there’s someone new in town who doesn’t yet know how things work around here. ”
“Don’t waste hard-earned favors on my paranoia,” I argued as I pushed past him to drop off my things in the office. “It’s not worth it.”
“I disagree.”
Fear crept in at the thought of Ravi’s digging somehow leading to news of the dead enforcer from The Lion’s Den.
He was smart and suspicious, two traits that went far in the Playground, and I knew it wouldn’t take him long to piece together the timing of that death with me showing up in the middle of the night at his apartment, clearly shaken.
“Just don’t worry about it, okay?” I said, turning my weary face to him. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“But I am worried, bitiya. I like nothing about this at all.”
“If it makes you feel at all better, Yael won’t like it either once I tell him, and he will likely insist on escorting me everywhere from now on.”
“It does not.” His flat response combined with the anger burning in his eyes did not bode well. He stood in the doorway of his office while I grabbed my apron from the hook on the wall and hung up my bag. When I turned to leave, he didn’t move.
“I should probably get out there and help the girls before they realize they’re both more powerful than I am and stage a coup,” I said, faking a smile. “I really don’t have it in me to thwart an evil uprising today.”
“I don’t like this,” he said, eyeing me tightly for a moment before relenting his position and allowing me to pass.
“I know you don’t, Ravi. It’s one of the things I love most about you.” Before he could say anything else, I hurried into the kitchen to find everyone still staring. “Don’t you nosy-ass slackers have shit to do?”
“Why are they being nosy?” Laney asked as she popped through the double doors with Sasha right behind her. “Did something happen?”
“Myra thinks someone followed her to work today,” Curtis explained on my behalf. When Ravi and I turned to him, he shrugged. “What? It’s not like it’s a secret.”
“Thanks, new kid,” I said as I pushed past the girls and into the main bar area. Not surprisingly, they were right behind me.
“Are you okay?” Laney asked earnestly.
“Yes, I’m fine. It’s not a big deal. I probably imagined the whole thing. Can we drop it now? Please?”
Laney placed her hand on my arm without hesitation. “Only if you’re sure you’re okay.”
“I won’t be if we keep talking about it,” I replied as I led the way out into the dining room where people were already filtering in.
“Maybe it was the chick from the other night,” Sasha said as she slipped behind the bar. I shot her a death stare over the raised countertop, and her eyes went wide when she realized she’d slipped up.
“What chick?” Laney asked as she looked back and forth between us.
“It’s nothing. Sasha’s just running her mouth, as always.”
The loudmouth in question shrugged unapologetically.
“It’s what I do. Now, while your morning may have sucked so far, Myra, I know the perfect thing to erase this blemish from your day: Laney’s birthday party Friday night!
” She jumped up and down as she grinned like an idiot, clapping her hands at a frantic pace.
“We’re going glow-bowling at Balls Deep. ”
Her behavior was as terrifying as the thought of the event in question.
“Nope. Definitely not going. Sorry, Laney.”
“But you have to come,” Sasha argued. “It’s practically mandatory.”
“It absolutely is not.”
“True,” she said, clearly undaunted by my objections, “buuuuut it would make Laney so happy if you came.”
“Emotional manipulation doesn’t work on people who are dead inside, Sasha—”
“She doesn’t have to come,” Laney said softly, disappointment thick in her tone; thick enough to permeate my carefully curated armor. “Besides, I owe Myra one for shutting down that fight the other night, so she gets a pass if she wants it.”
“You don’t owe me for that,” I argued as guilt welled up inside. “Besides, you know I live for that shit.”
“But you got hurt,” she countered.
“Did you punch me?”
Her perfect, delicate features scrunched with confusion. “Well, no, but—”
“Then it’s not your fault. No b-day penance necessary for either of us.”
“Yael could come too,” Sasha added, as though that would sweeten the deal. If only she knew how much it would not.
I turned to her and dead-ass stared her down. “No, Sasha. He definitely can’t. He’s busy that night.”
“You didn’t even ask him—”
“Trust me, he’s still busy.”
“Which means you won’t be,” she said, turning my fake boyfriend’s absence against me, “so you have no plans or excuses, which means you’re coming.”
I inhaled deeply to calm my frustration before I said or did something I would regret. “Sasha, I take back what I said to you the other day. You should totally give the portals another shot. Like right now, maybe.”
“I will not let your mean-girl spirit taint this for Laney, Myra. You’re coming to the party, and that’s final.”
I eyed the paring knife next to her on a cutting board and contemplated if it was worth the grief I’d get from Ravi if I stabbed her.
Not fatally or anything; just a little poke to remind her of how unhinged I could be.
Following my line of sight, Laney swallowed hard and quickly slipped the knife behind her back.
“I’d really love to have you come,” she said in the soft voice people used to calm a predator. “I promise it’ll be fun.”
Another pang of guilt stabbed my chest so hard it felt like the knife she was hiding had been buried there.
Dammit.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, taking a step away from the bar to defuse the situation, “but I’m not promising anything.”
Laney’s ice-blue doe eyes went wider still with surprise. “Really? Okay! I’ll take it.” She plopped the knife back down, then practically skipped into the kitchen to grab an order, leaving Sasha and me behind to stare at one another.
“You know she’s had it pretty rough,” Sasha said. “You could just try for once to do something kind for someone else because it’s what they need.”
“Nobody landed here because they had it easy, Sasha,” I countered. “And I said I’d think about it.”
“Which means no… just not right now.” I reached for a tray so I could escape her to go take some orders, but in a show of true bravery, Sasha caught my arm and held me in place. “She deserves better than that, Myra—especially from you.”
“Because she got banished from her home too?”
“Because she looks up to you like a big sister for some mind-boggling reason, and when you let her down, it cuts deeper. Just keep that in mind when you don’t bother to show up for her party.”
She let me go with a little shove and dismissed me, turning her back to stock the shelves.
For the first time since I’d met Sasha, she’d actually dressed me down with some real bite.
Her tenacity when it came to Laney was admirable, and if I were being honest with myself, a small point of jealousy for me when I lay in bed awake at night, my thoughts racing. Not that I planned to tell her as much.
Acknowledging Sasha as ever having the upper hand would only make her more unbearable.
Instead, I went about my shift with my head down and my mouth as shut as it could be so I could conserve energy for the shitshow that might arrive by the end of the night.
Visions of Yael waltzing in right before closing with a sketchy plan to interrogate Dreven played through my mind as I slung plates and took food orders until the sun disappeared from the sky.
“You doing anything fun tonight?” Laney asked tentatively as I stopped by the bar to drop off some empties.
“I’m not sure yet,” I replied, casting the front door a wary glance. When I returned my attention to her, she was leaning on her folded hands, swooning silently. “What?”
“What’s Yael really like?” she asked. “I mean, not like that, but in general. I feel like he’s got so many layers—depth we never really got to see when he worked here.”
“Oh, he has layers, all right.”
“Do you think…” She cut herself off and snapped to her full height as though she’d just realized her thoughts were wandering away with her. “Sorry. I should get back to work.” She hurried toward the double doors like she was trying to escape her own curiosity.
“Do I think what, Laney?” I asked.
The question halted her, and she turned around to face me with a strange blend of joy and sadness in her eyes. “Do you think he’ll take you out of the Devil’s Playground one day?”
“No,” I said softly, even though, in a strange way, that was exactly what he was going to do. “I don’t.”
Her shoulders rounded and she let out a whoosh of breath. “Is it weird that I want him to… and not to… at the same time?”
“Yael isn’t a knight in shining armor. You shouldn’t romanticize it.”
“Because it gives me hope?” she asked with a sad smile. “Don’t worry, Myra. I gave up on that a long time ago—except about you and my birthday party, of course. I’m still holding out a little for that.” She disappeared into the kitchen after the shot she’d fired hit me square in the heart.
I spent the rest of the night trying to dig that tightness out of my chest, to no avail.