Chapter Eighteen #2
Something about that thought has me thinking about this deal, made by a bunch of male settlers who considered themselves protectors. But when is that ever true, the heroic stories men tell about themselves?
I look at Harrison’s hunched back. I know I’ve brought this up before, but I can’t help myself. “I get they wanted safety,
but how did they even figure out how to make the deal in the first place?”
“The historical record hasn’t illuminated that for us.” Harrison chuckles. “Wouldn’t it be nice if it did?”
I look out through the windows toward a gaggle of older people clogging up the sidewalk in front of the store. “I guess I
can’t believe this is all they got out of it. A steady stream of souls to slurp. Surely there was more.”
Harrison turns to face me and I can see I’ve gotten his attention more than the horror box of moldy clown figurines he’s itemizing
instead of burning out back, which would have been my choice. “What more could there be?”
I shrug. “What do people making a deal really want? Power. Have you done any research into the men who made the deal? Did
they prosper? Live freakishly long lives? What if there was more to the deal than the Feed?”
Harrison stands very still, though there’s a kind of gleam in his eye that tells me he’s interested. “What if there was? Do
you think knowing that would help us?”
I don’t really know. I’m just thinking aloud. Trying to make sense of something incomprehensible. I don’t know anything about
demons I didn’t see on a screen or read in a book. On the other hand, I know greedy men who would do anything for power. Who
doesn’t?
“I guess I think that to break a deal like this, we really have to understand it,” I say.
Harrison makes a considering noise, but it’s the kind a professor makes when you’ve made a really good point. “That’s interesting.
I suppose I’ve always tried to put myself in their shoes, you know. Would you make a deal like that, Lexi?”
“No, of course not.”
Harrison waves that away. “That’s knee-jerk. Think.” He’s said this to me a lot. And not the way my dad used to say it, which
was more think before you act or think before you speak. Harrison really does want me to think through whatever the question or problem is before us. “What would it take to make a deal with something evil? What could they promise
you that would make you consider it?”
He’s watching me closely, like he can see my brain working, and I feel like I have to answer. Like I have to really engage
with this idea that everyone is susceptible to evil if it asked you the right way. But I don’t believe that.
I suppose something evil could be tempting, but only if you believe evil is telling you the truth.
I’ve known enough finance bros and politicians running for office to know that evil never tells the truth when a pack of lies
will suffice.
As my silence stretches out, Harrison shakes his head. Not quite in dismay, but it feels adjacent. Like my old buddy, disappointment.
“We all have a weak spot, Lexi,” Harrison says quietly. “It’s best to know it. Otherwise, the Feed could have its way with
it, and with you.”
This feels like a warning. A dire one, even, but I don’t know what to do with it.
“What would make you consider it?” I ask him, looking for advice maybe. Or some hint of the answer he’s looking for.
There’s something in his expression that twists inside me like anxiety. But before Harrison can answer, or I can tell him never mind because I do not want to know, I hear a voice.
“Hey, Grandpa, is Lexi— There you are.”
Then Jack comes into view around the corner, and that’s a relief on a number of levels. The what will make you dance with demons part, sure. And also the whole him part, too, because he certainly hasn’t gotten any less hot.
Today he’s got on that leather jacket that really does amazing things for his shoulders. And his wary, compelling green eyes
actually meet mine and hold for the first time in days, even though I’ve spent every morning in the diner kitchen.
He lifts a thumb and jerks it toward the exit. “Come on. We’re going for a ride,” he tells me. Like he’s in charge. Of the
world. Of me.
I raise an eyebrow at him. “We are?”
“Nora’s worried about Cleo, but she can’t get away from the store right now. Marleen can handle the diner for a few hours.
I’d handle Cleo myself, but we always end up yelling at each other.” He studies me, not with interest or anything kind, I
assure myself when my cheeks feel like heating up. It’s more like a scientific study. “I don’t think she’ll yell in front
of you.”
“We’ve been busy,” I tell him, waving the book in my hand. “I was just about to find out if Edna Marie Darling was able to
save her husband’s best shirt from the indignity of stains.”
Jack’s gaze shifts into something a lot more like interest—but I assume that’s for the history of it all. Maybe Edna Marie
Darling’s stain remover was a code for demon hunters that I can’t crack. I’m sure he’ll tell me.
“I’ll bring you back,” he promises me. “But we need to catch her before her afternoon flying lessons.”
He turns away from me like he fully expects me to jump up and follow.
Which I want to do. Only in part because I want to help Cleo if I can. Still, I’m not the sort of girl who follows boys around like I’m a puppy. Especially when I can’t tell if they like me or not.
Or if my whacked-out dream journal has changed antagonism to uncomfortable pity.
“I’ll be out in a few,” I tell him loftily.
He grunts irritably and stalks out. I collect the diaries Harrison’s let me skim through—none of which have shaken anything loose, as Nora had hoped.
Maybe I watch Jack go while I do. Maybe my imagination gets the best of me. Are we going to ride his motorcycle out to the
airport? Wrapped around each other?
“Jack means well, Lexi,” Harrison says, interrupting my daydream. He chuckles. “There’s a lot of good in there. I love that
boy, so I don’t mean this as harsh as it might sound . . . But you’ll want to be careful.”
I feel my cheeks heat so fast this time that I can’t do anything to stop them. Can he read my mind and the inappropriate little
detour it just took? “What do you mean?”
“He’d sacrifice anything and anyone to find the answer he wants.” Harrison looks at me, his eyes dark and serious. “Anyone.”
It causes one of those cold shudders to move down my spine. Par for the course in Midas, but I don’t know what to say to Harrison.
Suddenly, it all feels fraught and weird.
Because I know that Jack is keeping a secret when he told us not to do that. He has my dream journal, and clearly it hasn’t
been the answer he thought, but he has it, and Harrison doesn’t know it exists. Should I tell Harrison that?
On the other hand, I’ve never liked a warning for my own good. Even a well-meaning warning.
I manage a smile at Harrison. “I’m always careful,” I tell him cheerfully, a lie in so many ways it’s kind of funny.
He smiles back, so kindly that I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Or why Jack is keeping secrets from him in the first place. “Don’t forget those books about the orphan trains.”
“Right, yeah, I’ll come back and get them once we’re done,” I tell him, and hope we both forget. Then, with a wave, I leave
the antique store and make my way outside, where the gaggle of geriatrics has moved on.
But Jack’s there, waiting in front of the diner next to his motorcycle. I really thought he’d have a car. Or one of those
giant trucks that makes too much noise and is always belching out smoke in defiance of all climate concerns.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been on a motorcycle before,” he says, as if I’ve made great previous claims to biker bitchdom
and am backing down now. I realize he might be getting this impression from the way I’m standing here eyeing the motorcycle
like I’ve never seen one in my life.
When, in fact, the problem is that I just saw it in great detail in a vivid little fantasy sequence I had in front of his
grandfather.
Besides, his gruff tone puts my back up.