Chapter 13 #2
“Uh, yeah, sure.” He pulls his phone from his back jeans pocket, unlocks it, and hands it over.
I type in Carter’s number, biting my lower lip, trying to think how to phrase this so he won’t freak out.
“So are you and Devon—” Aadesh begins, too casually.
“No,” I say quickly. “Not at all.” I pause. “Are you and Devon?” Because if Devon is lying to me about backing off his hold on them—
Aadesh shakes his head. “We’re just friends. But he’s one of those people you just click with, you know?” he muses, more to himself than me. I wonder if he hears the tiny bit of wistfulness in his voice.
But it seems as though Devon was telling the truth about reducing his influence on them.
I tap out to Carter: Hey, with a friend. I’ll catch up with you back at your place later. xJo
I immediately regret the “x” as soon as I hit send, but too late now.
“Thanks.” I hold Aadesh’s phone out to him, but before he can take it, Carter’s number flashes on the screen and the phone begins vibrating in my hand.
I’m sure it’s my imagination, but the buzzing feels more insistent than I would expect, as if it’s conveying Carter’s intensity.
Aadesh and I both look at the phone, like it’s a used tissue that neither one of us wants to address.
“Are you going to answer that?” Aadesh asks.
Fuuuuck. I take the phone back. “Hey.” I tuck my chin down, keeping my voice low.
“Where are you?” Carter’s voice is hushed, too. He must still be at Dr. Stephens’s office, given the murmur of conversation in the background. “I thought you were going to stay in my apartment.”
I move away from Aadesh. “I had a couple things I needed to do, bumped into a friend.”
“You went looking for him by yourself, didn’t you? The guy from Happy’s.” Carter doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Damnit, Jocasta. It’s dangerous. You don’t know him. He was one of the last people to talk to Lennie when she was alive.”
So were Daan and I. And then whoever got her to Branwick. I flinch at the thought.
“I’m okay,” I say gently. “I’m still on campus. I’ll be back to your place later, when—”
A shriek, like a toddler mid-meltdown, carries prominently through from Carter’s end. I frown. Dr. Stephens’s children are in high school. Who is over there?
Or, maybe the better question is … where is Carter? My stomach descends into free fall. Does the new girl have a child?
“Jocasta, please.” Carter’s voice is taut with tension. “Please just tell me where you are. I’ll come to get you.”
Irritation flicks to life in me. Yes, he’s two years older, a grad student, and something of a former authority figure in my life while also my covert closet hookup, but he is not the boss of me.
“Carter, I’m not your responsibility,” I point out.
“I appreciate your help this morning. I do. But we’re just friends.
” If that, I want to add, but I’m trying to end this conversation, not add rocket fuel to it.
“And I’m trying to be your friend by keeping you safe against your own worst judgment,” Carter says sharply. “You’re already in trouble with the police, and—”
I laugh but it’s more out of disbelief than actual amusement. My own worst judgment? At the moment, since that apparently terrible judgment includes listening to him, yeah, I agree.
This conversation is so over.
I hang up and hand the phone back over to Aadesh. “If it rings again—”
“Oh, trust me, I’m not getting in the middle of whatever that was,” Aadesh says quickly.
“Thanks, Desh.”
He gives me a salute and, with one last frowning look around the porch, heads back inside.
Leaving me to steam on my own about Carter. I pace the length of the wooden porch again, this time my fury keeping me warm.
What the actual fuck? I realize he has no idea what’s really going on, and yes, okay from his normal human perspective, what I’m doing probably does seem a little, well, crazy. But can’t he just believe in me, believe that I’m doing what I have to do?
No. Because he doesn’t really know you. And he never can.
Devon returns a few seconds later, shrugging into a heavy black coat with white flecks embedded in what looks like cashmere. He’s changed clothes, back into jeans and a sweater, this one a deep green. His white leather low-tops look equally expensive and new.
He’s holding a short stack of square pizza slices, wrapped in a brown paper towel, which he holds out to me.
I don’t take it, eyeing him and the pizza with suspicion.
Devon raises an eyebrow. “It’s just food, Jo,” he says patiently. “No strings.”
Everything comes with strings, especially when it comes to spawn, Old Ones, my father …
But my stomach gives an embarrassing growl then, making the decision for me.
Devon’s mouth quirks in amusement, revealing dimples on either side, and I take the pizza from him. “Thank you,” I force myself to say.
“You’re welcome,” he says easily. As if it really meant nothing.
Devon produces a sleek key fob from his coat pocket.
“This way.” He jogs down the front steps and around the side of the house.
I follow him, eating as I go, to a small parking area, where several cars wait, covered in ice.
Most of them are the usual college student conveyances, but backed into one of the spots is a shiny silver Audi so new that even the rubber tires still gleam.
The face of it is aggressive, like the grill is snarling at me.
Finishing the last of the pizza, I roll my eyes. This car is ridiculous for many reasons, at least one of which is that we’re in Massachusetts in the middle of a winter storm. We’ll be lucky if we don’t end up in a ditch around the first corner on the icy roads.
“It’s on loan,” Devon says.
“Does the owner know?” I ask, before I can stop myself.
He stops, looking over his shoulder at me, his expression serious. “I meant what I said. I don’t hurt people, but I’m comfortable with who I am and what I have to do to survive. And yes, there are benefits.”
I wince. That feels a little … pointed. I’m comfortable, and you’re not.
And to be fair, he is correct. If I could never feed on disappointment, rejection, or death again, I would.
But it’s not quite the same, generating lust in someone and, well, killing them.
Though I suppose that’s from my perspective.
“As for the owner, he has a dozen others like this on his lot.” Devon continues forward, hitting the fob to unlock the doors as I walk to the other side of the car. “And he was more than happy to arrange an extended test drive for me.”
Sighing, I scrub my hands as best I can on the greasy paper towel before touching the passenger side door.
The scent of new leather hits me solidly in the face when I open it.
It is, I’ll admit, very pretty. All black leather and chrome detail.
I’m a little more used to the Camry, Civic, or even Jeep Cherokee genres.
Except for Lennie. She was always the exception.
Lennie. That’s who I need to focus on right now. Not Devon, not my father. I slam my door shut, but it doesn’t give a very satisfying bang. All that expensive noise-canceling whatever, probably.
“All right. Where are we headed?” Devon closes his door and presses a button, bringing the engine to life with a hum first and then a louder grumble.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to push away all the noise in my head. “I’ve been thinking,” I say. “And I have two very different but equally terrible ideas.”
“Fantastic.” Devon’s mouth twitches with amusement. “Let’s hear them.” He pulls his seat belt into place, and I do the same.
“Well, if the War spawn is here to challenge me because of this whole Death announcement, then I want to give them the opportunity to easily find me.” Before they kill someone else I care about or before a horde of spawn with similar intentions descend upon campus, apparently. One problem at a time, if possible.
He gives me an arch look. “And let me guess, this option involves making sure you’re highly visible by, say, driving or wandering the campus until they find you?”
“Basically,” I say with a grimace.
“You’re right. That is a terrible idea,” he says. “What’s behind door number two?”
I hesitate. “This one is a little riskier and more dependent on you.”
“I’m listening,” he says, just as casually as before, but I don’t miss the sudden tension in his shoulders, in direct contrast to his tone.
“This morning, when I was talking to the police—”
“Well, that’s never good,” he murmurs.
“—the detective said Lennie might have been coming to see me, that she called me a bunch of times.”
“And?” he prompts, adjusting the seat warmers.
“And I don’t have her phone, obviously. But I thought if I could get a look at it…”
“You want to break into the police station,” Devon says; not disapproving, more thoughtful. “Steal her phone.”
“I don’t want to steal anything.” I grimace. “I just want to convince them to let me see it.” And not to play back the security camera recordings, ever. If I can figure out where she was last night—obviously not at home where Daan left her—then maybe I can figure out who she ran across.
“You could do that yourself,” Devon says, his tone even.
He’s correct. Well, not the convincing part. I could pull enough life from everyone in the police station to leave them all unconscious, and then walk right in.
The part of me that is my father perks up with interest at the thought: Yes, let’s do that. We will be hungry again soon.
“I could,” I acknowledge reluctantly. “But there are cameras everywhere inside the police station.”
“And?”
“I’m pretty sure a dozen or more people falling unconscious at once is going to look pretty suspicious,” I point out.
Unless, of course, I just kill them all. Be full, sated. Strengthened for whatever is coming next.
No. No! “You know what, never mind. I don’t even know if there’s anything useful on her phone anyway.
” Frankly, even if I found a mysterious call or text or address I didn’t recognize, it’s not like I’d know what to do with it.
But more than that, I feel weird about asking Devon to do something I won’t.
It’s not fair. “We’ll just go with terrible idea number one. ”
“No, I’ll do it,” Devon says a moment later, signaling to turn out onto the road.
I frown at him. “Are you sure? You don’t have to—”
“What will you do if you find the War spawn?” he asks instead.
I don’t want to answer that question. I don’t want to be the person who has a ready answer. But they murdered Lennie to get to me, and no matter how resistant I am to the idea of the Old Ones’ methods and manners, there’s only one response for that. “I’m going to kill them,” I say.
As quickly, as painlessly as possible. But yeah, I’m going to feed and take from them what they took from Lennie. It’s the only revenge, the only justice, she’ll ever get. And that probably makes me a hypocrite, not treating all life as valuable, but I don’t care.
Not since I saw her broken and vulnerable body lying there on the ground.
Devon doesn’t respond for a moment, and then he just nods. “All right.”
“And you’re just okay with that? Me telling you that I’m going to kill someone?
” Anger bubbles up inside me, and I’m not even sure why.
Maybe because we just had that whole conversation about not hurting people, about not getting involved in the spawn battles and Old Ones’ manipulations, and here I am, jumping in with both feet.
He, of all people, should recognize the hypocrisy and object, if he truly believes what he said. I’m angry at me, for God’s sake.
“Yes,” Devon says simply, turning onto the street and guiding us past the Oats’ house and the old cemetery to the intersection that will lead to the newer portion of campus.
“This is not who I am, not who I want to be. I stayed out of this bullshit for a reason.” Despite the heat blasting out of the vents and warming my seat, goosebumps rise on my arms, and I rub them through my coat sleeves impatiently.
“Sometimes it’s not about what you want to do but what you’re willing to do when it’s necessary,” he says.
“That sounds like a justification for just about any—” I stop. That sensation chasing its way up my arms is now moving down my back, like my skin wants to pull free from my bones. Not a normal chill, then.
Magic. Someone is using a lot of magic nearby. Just like last night.
My breath catches, and I look over to Devon. “Is that you?”
But I already know the answer. He’s sitting straighter at the wheel, his gaze sweeping the view through the windshield. Looking for someone.
“No,” he says, distracted. “I wouldn’t do that without—” His eyes go wide, and he slams on the brakes.
With a gasp, I grab for the interior handle, bracing myself for the slide, but the car clings to the road and, after a second we come to a shuddering halt.
I search the road, expecting someone to be standing in the intersection or gesturing at us, getting ready to try to drag us out of the car. Preferably someone who might be a War spawn. But the T-junction is as empty as before.
“What is going on? Why—”
Devon points at something through the windshield. Not in the street, but across it.
It takes me a moment to follow his direction, to understand.
I look past the road, the ice-covered blades of grass in the front lawn of the Delta Pi Gamma sorority, up to the porch and then farther up still, to the open window on the second story of the bungalow, where white curtains billow outward like flags of surrender.
To the blond girl dressed in leggings and a purple Beecher tee staring sightlessly ahead as she walks out, barefoot, onto the peaked roof overhang.
Not a spawn of any variety, as far as I can tell. But a student.
Her feet slip a little on the wet shingles, but her arms don’t windmill for balance and she doesn’t slow down. She doesn’t even seem to notice.
“Jesus,” I breathe. “She’s not going to—”
Devon yanks at his seat belt, scrambles out of the car.
I follow suit, shoving my door open. Right as I get out of the car, the girl reaches the edge of the roof and stops abruptly. Her toes curl over the edge of the slanted roofline.
Oh thank God. I barely have time to process the sense of relief, the release in my chest that allows me to inhale.
Then she pitches forward.