Chapter 9 #2
The cabbie picks up a phone call and talks the rest of the way to the tow lot. Even though Electra readies a credit card on her phone screen, I mutter, “What part of I don’t want your money didn’t you understand?”
“The cab was my idea,” she says, lowering her phone but not turning it off.
Her black Amex sits there, casually advertising her bottomless wealth. All dirty money amassed thanks to magic.
“And the shitty parking was mine.” When we pull up in front of the large industrial compound that resembles a low-security prison, I fish my wallet from the pocket of my sweats and peel out a few bills.
I’m about to wish her a goodnight and thank her for having come along, but she gets out of the car.
“You don’t have to hang around.”
“I know.” That’s all she says before heading into the building with me.
The agent enters my license plate into her system, then tells me the car just arrived and presents me with a bill that makes my pulse hiccup.
I open my wallet and pull out my ID, then begin counting out my cash. Beads of sweat form along my hairline when I realize I don’t have enough on me to cover the parking violation fine and the tow cost.
“I’ll need access to my car to get you the rest of the money.”
The lady behind the counter eyes me, then my wallet, then Electra, then hefts a brow that contains more gold hoops than hair. I suspect she’s about to point out that I’m with an Atlantean—that surely my companion can pay for me—but Electra’s face isn’t known like Tarian’s or Calanthe’s.
“I’ll need to find an attendant.” She picks up her phone and taps a button with nails bitten down to the quick and streaked with chipped polish.
My attention strays to Electra’s nails. They’re bare and cut clean with just a crescent of white. I’m not sure why, but I find myself relieved. I wouldn’t say I have a nail fetish, but I’m not a fan of the colorful, talon-like variety.
Perhaps I do have a nail fetish.
The woman behind the desk hangs up, then dials another number, muttering under her breath how she’s surrounded by lazy coworkers.
“R.R.” Electra’s quiet voice seeps over the whirring ventilation.
“Hmm?” I look away from her hands and up at her face to find her stare grazing the gold-embossed initials on my black leather wallet.
Fuck.
Me.
I’m tempted to slot my thumb over the Rs but the damage is done—she’s seen the letters.
“Thrifted or stolen?” she asks.
Even if it works in my favor, it stings that thievery is the second thing that comes to her mind. “You really think the worst of me, don’t you?”
Her gaze clocks my necklace that peeks out from my hoodie collar, evidently questioning my ring’s provenance now.
“Your wallet is monogrammed with the same initials as your shoes. Which aren’t your initials. What exactly did you expect me to think?” She tilts her head to the side.
I shrug. “I don’t know. That Cillian Lowry wasn’t my real name,” I say, with clinical sangfroid.
I wait for her eyes to spark and ask me for the truth behind the initials. They remain dark. Or as dark as such limpid irises can get.
“So…which is it?”
“Secondhand shop. But you must know this already, seeing as I’ve probably been background-checked to hell and back.”
“Did you also thrift the ring?” she asks.
“No. That belonged to my mother.”
Electra leans against the countertop as the woman on the phone dials yet another clearly useless colleague. I’m starting to think she’s pretend-dialing to keep us entertained while—
“What sort of cancer did she have?” Electra asks.
“Breast.”
When the clerk’s eyes go to the door behind us, and she murmurs, “Fucking finally,” the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
I reach inside my pocket for my foldable knife.
Electra’s lips move, but my heart is slamming too wildly to make out her words.
I palm my knife, thumb on the flipper tab, and pivot. Only to find it isn’t Trenton or one of his minions. It’s a stranger in overalls and a Red Sox cap grumbling something about not being paid enough.
“The man needs access to his vehicle,” the clerk tells the Red Sox fan.
As I close my fingers around the knife, forcing the blade back into the handle, Electra snorts.
“What’s so funny?” I murmur as I jam my weapon back into my pocket.
It’s only once I’ve recovered my ID and we’re halfway across the lot that she finally answers.
“What’s so funny is my complete and utter misreading of your person, Mr. Lowry.
You’re not some sweet, harmless boy with a penchant for Latin music.
You’re a jumpy thug with a backstory messier than the land of bald eagles and white-picket fences. ”
If only she knew just how messy my life is, and what a mess I’m about to make of hers.
I glance over at her as we walk side-by-side. “Does that scare you?”
“Not much scares a girl like me.”
I force my gaze not to lower to her neck and the runes it holds. “And why is that?”
“Because fear comes from a lack of control, and I’m a control freak.”
I’m suddenly convinced that Trenton picked Electra, not because of her connection to our parents’ murderer, but to ensure I’d fail so he could keep Quinn under his thumb.
I can’t fail.
I need to become the variable Electra can’t control. And not to break or scare her—unlike Trenton, I don’t get off on making women feel smaller—but because if I don’t “pull a Polly,” Quinn doesn’t walk free.
“Is it even safe to drive?” My target draws to a full stop beside the attendant who is unhooking the station wagon from his truck.
“Hasn’t given up on me yet.” I walk over to the driver’s side.
“Buddy, you need to go inside and pay first,” the tow guy instructs me.
“I know how it works, but I left my wallet in the car.” I walk toward the driver’s door, stick my key in the handle cylinder, and unlock it, then lean over to root under the seat.
Relief washes over me when I feel the familiar shape of my Velcroed pencil case that contains every cent I possess.
Before returning to the front office, I turn to Electra. “Wait for me?”
She’s still inspecting the Volvo like she’s waiting for the wheel caps to pop off and the carriage to disintegrate.
I add, “Please?”
Most girls can’t resist a man who begs. Hopefully, Electra’s no exception.
She finally tips me a look, one laced with such intensity it spikes my pulse. To think there isn’t any magic involved.
“I don’t have all night,” the attendant grumbles, readjusting his tattered ball cap.
“Wait for me, and I’ll cook you dinner,” I find myself offering Electra.
A corner of her mouth tips in incredulity. “Where? On the hood of your station wagon?”
“At your place?”
“Lady, just wait for him so I can get back to work,” the attendant all but growls.
Electra flips the man a smile that’s so crude it could double as a middle finger. “I should take a stranger back to my place just to make your life easier?”
“Stranger?” Red-Sox snorts. “You rode in with him.”
“And you rode in with his car. Do you feel a kinship to it?”
“A car’s a thing; he’s a person.”
When annoyance stains the guy’s cheeks, I stop dallying, worried she might lash out at him with her magic.
“I’ll go get my fine settled. Be right back.” I trot back to the office and pay, praying that, one, the attendant will be unscathed by the time I return, and two, Electra will still be there.
Only one of my prayers is answered.