Chapter 25
twenty-five
Kit
Kit touched the raw part of his neck self-consciously. He’d had no time to cover it, his night clothes still on. “It’s a long story—”
A couple of thuds and a moan sounded from the guest bedroom.
“Fuck,” Samar dragged the word out, his tanned face losing all color. “I forgot about her. Quick. You two need to hide.”
Silently, Kit picked Gentry up. He was a little horrified when the girl let out a soft cry of pain.
Samar ushered them into Visha’s bedroom, which was covered in clothes and little trinkets.
Kit winced when his foot hit a discarded nail polish bottle, but he managed to shut the door with his foot and placed Gentry onto the bed.
He then tapped the large crystal ball on Visha’s dresser, toggling the surveillance she had on the camp until it landed on the living room.
And he watched as a dark-haired, sullen bedraggled teenager trudged by the sofa.
He recognized her instantly — Georgia, Clea’s apprentice.
In the week that had passed since their meeting in the warehouse, her black eye had gone from a bruised purple to an ugly yellow.
But the deep shadows under her eyes and the way she kept blinking at the morning light told Kit she’d had more than a little to drink.
That, and the large wine bottle in her hand.
“Do you have any more of this stuff?” She swayed in front of Samar, who was in the kitchen doing an excellent job of looking busy. “It’s pretty good,” she slurred, “for being brewed all the way out of here in your shitty rusted cauldrons.”
Samar smiled wanly at the insult. “Our last bottle is in the cellar,” he gritted out, and Kit recognized the other man was about to snap.
But just then, he watched as Georgia seemed to take in several things: the medicine on the table, the rumpled couch, and then, finally, the blood on Samar’s fists.
"You got in a fight?" Georgia slurred, a mischievous smile edging up on her cheeks. It made her look younger. It also made her look, to Kit's horror, flirtatious. "Did you win?"
Samar looked equally as horrified. "I-I did win," Samar stuttered, clearing his throat and shifting from foot to foot. "We had some intruders from the Trapdoors, but we did pretty well."
Georgia's eyes gleamed with interest. "Do you think they'll come back tonight?
" she asked eagerly. "Feels like I never get to go all out in a sky fight.
Everyone's too afraid of us. It's always, 'collect these taxes, Georgia,' 'raid this coven for valuables,' but no one ever really puts up a fight. You know what I mean? It's boring.”
“Well, what about the apprentice games? I heard those aren't boring."
Georgia's face clouded. "Now those are too dangerous.
Damn near lost my head at the last one." She took a swig of her bottle and brightened. "But maybe we should raid those Trapdoors. Get them back for disrespecting you. We could go right now!” She looped her arm through Samar’s as though they were about to go to a ball.
Kit stifled a laugh as his friend rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Starting a fight. But we should wait until nightfall,” he said quickly.
“Of course,” Georgia purred, rapping her long nails against his shoulder.
"You said you wanted something to drink," Samar said. He looked around the room before retrieving a small little bottle that could pass as a bottle of Jack from Visha’s medicine cabinet. "You should try this out. It hits pretty well."
Georgia laughed. "I like the way you think. Now we're talking. But only if you have some first."
To Samar's credit, he didn't falter. "All right, but only a little bit." He tipped his head back and made a big performance of taking a swig. He then handed it to Georgia. She finished the bottle off. She grinned sloppily into his face.
"You're pretty," she slurred before collapsing on the ground.
Kit could no longer hold his laughter in. It came out in a loud boom.
"Shut up," Gentry murmured from Visha’s bed as Samar opened the door, the collar of his shirt mussed from where Georgia had been roughing him up. Kit laughed harder.
"Don't you say a fucking word," Samar said.
"You said you were under siege by the Weavers, and they sent you an apprentice?"
"She's a fucking menace," Samar defended himself. "She drinks everything in sight and flirts with everything that moves. Not to mention she's gotten all of the recruits gambling and acting like this is a fucking frat house."
Kit sobered with some effort as he tried to focus on the real risk here. Apprentice or not, Georgia was a direct line to Clea, and they were screwed if the fabled mad tracker of the Weavers got a bead on where they were. "Will she know she’s been drugged?”
"No, she's been drunk as a skunk for days. She'll be out maybe three, four hours. She'll probably just think that she was hungover as long as I move her back to her bed. Now come on, help out."
Kit helped Samar move Georgia back to the guest bedroom and arranged Visha’s house back to its usual state: medicine put up, wine bottles spread throughout on the coffee table and on the bedstand so that Georgia would take the hint.
That done, they sat at the kitchen table.
Kit then proceeded to tell Samar every little detail about the job and why he was now bound to Gentry.
The dark-skinned man let out a low whistle. “Now that’s a damn story. Can’t particularly make myself feel bad for you either. You should’ve told Visha to eat rocks when she pulled that shit.”
Kit blinked. “But the coven—”
“—we were about to ex-communicate her,” Samar interrupted him, “then the Weavers would’ve reaped the debt from her alone. I’d been going through the books after a few deals fell through. She’s been making all kinds of promises she can’t keep.”
“But what about Raja? Sam, he was like a father to you too.”
“So? I loved Raja, Kit. That’s why I let Visha run things for so long. Thought she was grieving and would snap out of it. But she hasn’t. She’s a grown woman who’ve I have tried to help, and she hasn’t shown any signs of changing.”
Not knowing what to say, Kit looked down at the kitchen table, the usual plans and maps strewn across it. Only then did Kit realize that most of the documents bore Samar’s handwriting — not Visha’s. God, how long had he let that woman pull the wool over his eyes?
"You two can stay here for three more hours. I’m sorry I can’t offer more," Samar said, not unkindly. Kit looked at his friend with new eyes. He’d known that the other man had held things together while he’d taken care of the Redbacks, and knew he’d been a silent supporter when he’d broken things off with Visha.
“Thank you,” he said, for more than one reason, “we really shouldn’t stay any longer, anyway.
Visha knows we came here. I'm not sure if she'll try to call Clea back over here, so we can't stay too long.
" Although Kit was willing to bet that Visha assumed Gentry hadn't made it.
She'd seemed so confident that only she knew her medicine stash.
What other secrets had she kept from him?
Deciding he’d never let that woman waste more of his life than he already had, he focused on the next steps.
Gentry needed rest, and a bit of food before they left.
He wasn’t quite sure where they’d go, if Gentry’s plan included any new leads to follow now that her father was dead, but there was always the plan Visha had rejected. The Wilds. They could run to the Wilds.
But he couldn’t make any decisions with her sleeping. It drove him a bit crazy, seeing as he’d raced over here with a dying girl. Made him restless, like there was still a fight to be had.
“The Trapdoors,” he said, “do you need help dealing with them? I’ve a bit of time to pay them a visit.” It wouldn’t be a pleasant task, but once they realized he’d been the intruder over their airspace, they’d drop the pitchforks.
“No need. I’m about to call their coven leader. I let the one who followed you here go with only a couple broken bones, so we’ll likely be fine”—his friend smiled at him—“how about you check on the magic-less girl?” Samar asked, 100% fucking with him.
Kit rose to the bait and stood up. “I’ll do that.” Secretly, he felt a bit disappointed. Samar had more medical training and he wanted Gentry to have the very best care. Whether it was because she was a gorgeous girl or because he felt guilty as hell about his ex poisoning her was anyone’s guess.
But he wasn’t ready for what he saw next when he walked into the guest bedroom.
Gentry was awake. She was sitting up in the bed, her green eyes blinking owlishly at him.
"I feel funny," she announced, her voice far younger than what he was used to hearing.
"Is that so?" Kit asked, amused. Whatever antidote he'd given her had clearly made her loopy. If she was sober, he suspected that she'd be giving him hell about Visha poisoning her.
"You saved me, didn't you?" Gentry said, plopping onto her back. "Visha gave me something funny to drink and then you gave me something even funnier and now..." She spread her arms out as if she were trying to capture the enormity of her feelings in a single gesture. "I'm a mess."
"Are you sure you weren't a mess before?" Kit asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed and avoiding getting kicked by a wayward foot.
"This is a nice kind of mess," Gentry proclaimed. "I never took a bunch of pills like the others in the hospital do. Because they don't want you to think and I like to think, but right now..." She put her pillow over her face. "I don't wanna think."
"About your father?" Kit guessed.
Gentry made a disgusted choking sound and threw the pillow aside. "Forget about that. It's done. Five years down the shitter. My life is... all shitty. I planned and planned and planned and now I don't know what to do."
"Me neither," Kit said, surprised that they were on the same page for once, albeit because she was severely inebriated. "I don't know what to do either."
"Your girlfriend's bad," Gentry murmured.
“My ex,” Kit immediately corrected, “yes, she was bad. That’s why I broke things off with her.”
"Good for you," she sighed, "I want an ex."
"You don't have an ex-boyfriend?" he asked, surprised by this information. He remembered her taking control in the hotel room, how he’d instantly been helpless to her. “You’re lying.”
Gentry shot him the dirtiest look she could, but it lacked the amount of heat he'd grown used to.
"Sex is different from dating, dumbass. No boyfriend," she lisped.
"No girlfriend. I’ll settle for anything at this point.
I'll have to dump them fast to call them an ex. That way I’m experienced.
The second one will be more serious," she decided.
"You can’t plan all that," Kit said, amused by the topic.
"How can I know if my boyfriend's any good if I've only ever had one boyfriend?" Gentry closed the distance between them and poked him on the chest, leaning close in.
"Gentry." It took everything in him not to put his arms around her, pull her closer. "Visha was the only girlfriend I ever had," he told her, not counting the women he’d slept with as he and her had fought and taken their breaks.
"Excellent!" She smiled back up at him. "That means the second one has got to be better."
"More than likely," he agreed, not fighting at all as the smile tugged up at his lips. It was funny. Even deadly drunk, this nerdy, magic-less girl was smarter than he was.
"I could be your second girlfriend." Gentry leaned in close and put her head on his chest, and Kit just about jumped off the bed at the gesture. "Because you're terrible and I'm great so it makes sense," she announced.
"You can only go up from here," he agreed, not fighting the smile tugging at his lips.
So sure. Despite his light words, his heart was thundering in his chest, his body hot.
After all, he'd always found Gentry beautiful and smart and more than a little intimidating.
To have her all cute and cuddled into his chest like this, it felt like a perfect little slice of hell.
She was so innocent compared to the woman who’d taken control at the hotel. Kit didn’t prefer one over the other. He wanted both. For a second, he wondered if this was a game she was playing, but he dismissed it. She had nothing to gain from faking this time.
"You do look like you'd be a good kisser," Gentry said, scooting herself even closer to him and sitting up on her knees so that they were eye level. Her eyes were concentrated on his, intense. Despite this, she traced his scar up from his chin over his lips, her gaze losing focus instantly.
"I've heard no complaints," he admitted, once again fighting a smile. He scooted back so that they had some distance. "But I just went through a breakup and you..." He flicked her nose and she fell over. "Are high as a kite right now."
"But I wanted to kiss you while I was sober," Gentry said. "And you need a rebound."
Everything in him tightened. "You’d be a hell of a rebound," he admitted, not wanting for one second for her to think that she was anything less than beautiful.
"So let's see if you still feel the same after you take a little nap.
" He suspected very strongly that she wouldn't. After all, how could she want him?
She was beautiful and smart and he was the bastard who tried to snuff that out, all just because his bitch of an ex-girlfriend had told him to.
And that wasn't even considering the point that Gentry had essentially just escaped a prison of 5 years; her finding him desirable in any way could just be a case of not enough choices.
If they could ever find someplace safe, then Gentry would be reminded that no sane man would turn her down.
But that idea didn't make him happy, far from it. He was surprised by the raw amount of jealousy burning in his chest at the thought of some guy getting his hands on Gentry. God, he felt so off-balance.
He stood up before he did something he regretted.
"Get some sleep," he told her. "We’re out of here soon, and I’ll need that brain and laptop of yours to come up with a plan.” His spiel about the Wilds could wait until he heard her plans.
After he’d almost gotten her killed, Kit wanted to give her a chance to decide their fates herself.
Gentry pouted at him, but lay down. "Whatever you want," she said cheekily, burying herself into the covers and batting her eyelashes at him.
Kit’s body went hot again, and he saved the memory for a time when he wouldn't feel so fucking confused. He was in trouble; if she ever acted like this again sober, they'd both be doomed.