Текст книги "Iced"

Автор книги: Karen Marie Moning

Соавторы: Karen Marie Moning
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Fifteen

“Hot child in the city”

I lose track of them for one minute, distracted by a female Unseelie down in the streets that has what the Highlander in me considers revolting parts but the prince in me thinks are all the right ones. Sex has become bloody weird. Incredible. But weird. She’s a few blocks south of the church, and she’s throwing off pheromones that make my dick go flat to my stomach, and by the time I realize what’s happened to Dani, I have one more reason to hate Ryodan and the whole fucking world, as if I needed one.

“No!” I roar as I rush for the edge of the roof. That’s the bad thing about being a half-breed. The Highlander in me wants to take the stairs. The Unseelie in me wants to use wings.

Too bad I don’t have any yet.

My heart makes the decision without me and tries to get to her the fastest way possible.

I jump.

I curse as I plummet four stories and brace for impact. Contrary to what she thinks, I can’t sift yet so I can’t cut out of this fall. What kind of idiot breaks all his bones at the precise moment his damsel needs him the most? Up to now I’ve been glad I can’t sift yet. I think it’s the point of no return. The day I can blink out of existence and back in at a mere thought, I’m no longer human.

I twist in midair, trying to land on my feet.

I’m astonished when it works. I discover new things about myself every day, most of which disgust me, but this is a welcome change. My center of balance has shifted. I pivot and realign flawlessly. My bones seem to have developed an incredible rubbery resilience. My knees bend slightly, bowing in a distinctly inhuman way to absorb the impact. I land like a graceful cat. I stare down at my feet, which are intact and functioning perfectly, and all I can think is bloody hell, I just fell four—

“Bring her OUT here! NOW, you buggering idiot!”

My head whips up.

Some teenage guy wearing glasses is standing outside the church, looking in, screaming at Ryodan. I have no idea who he is or where he came from. But he just said my line, although I’d’ve done it minus the buggering part and with a lot more “fucks.”

The kid’s hands are fists and he’s plastered up against the door-jamb of the church. His face and hair are frosted and he’s shivering violently.

I push past him, shouldering him aside. “She doesn’t need you. Worthless human. Get lost.”

He snarls at me.

I laugh. Looking me in the face and snarling takes major balls. “Kudos to you, kid. Now take yourself off somewhere and die before I decide to cram those big balls you think you have down your throat.” I shove into the church, so I can rescue Dani and kill Ryodan for taking a hothouse flower into the arctic zone.

The cold hits me like a brick wall and stops me in my tracks. A solid shell of ice forms on my skin. When I flex my muscles, the ice cracks and falls in a tinkle of crystals to the floor. I take another step and ice, mid-step this time, while I’m still moving.

I spent a small eternity in the Unseelie prison and never had this problem, and it was inhumanly cold there. I’m half Unseelie prince. I didn’t think there was anyplace too cold for me. How can that dickhead Ryodan tolerate it, if I can’t?

I take another step, ice again, crack it and step back. It won’t do me any good to freeze up like the tin man and become useless to her. I don’t understand how this is happening. The cold in the Unseelie King’s kingdom iced my soul and made me hate being alive. This is worse. I wouldn’t have believed there was anything worse. There’s something familiar about this place, this scene, this cold. Déjà vu. I despise this cold. It makes me feel bad in the center of my bones. Empty, hollow, somehow … flawed. I narrow my eyes, looking around.

Dani!

She’s on the floor and it’s not the cold that takes my breath away. Her jeans are tangled around her knees. She has on a black bra and underwear with little white skulls and crossbones all over them. She’s thrashing her arms and legs and crying incoherently.

And I can’t get to her. My girl is half naked and dying and I can’t get to her!

I push forward.

I ice solid.

I crack it and pull back.

Fuck!

She’s trying to kick off her jeans the rest of the way and he’s fighting her, trying to keep them on. He needs to get her out of there. Why is he wasting time trying to keep her clothes on?

“Bring her to me!” I demand.

“Don’t freeze-frame with her!” the kid on the steps bellows. He’s got some lungs. “If you move fast, you’ll kill her!”

“What the fuck do you know,” Ryodan says.

“Everything there is to know about hypothermia! And I’m willing to bet neither of you can warm her. Bring her to me if you want her to live! Stop trying to put her clothes back on. It’s not going to help!”

“Fuck you, kid,” Ryodan says, but he quits trying to dress her and scoops her up. Her jeans fall to the floor. She’s mostly naked in his arms. I can’t see past the red rage in my eyes.

“Don’t move her any more than you have to! It’ll force cold blood to her heart and she’ll have afterdrop!” the kid yells.

Ryodan walks with her real slow and easy.

She’s stopped flailing.

She’s not making any noise now either. She’s gone limp. Her arms and legs flop like a rag doll with each step he takes. If he killed her I’m going to beat him bloody and eat him piece by piece, slowly, with steak sauce.

It’s all I can do to keep my feet rooted where I am and not attack him as he passes. Glorious, beautiful scenes of death and destruction, battlefields and torture chambers, crowd my mind, enticing, sexual, egging me on to smash and crash and raze everything in my path with no care for the consequences because there are no consequences for what I’m becoming.

When he walks past me, my fists drip blood. But I don’t fight for her. If I fight for her, I could kill her. That would turn me into something worse than an Unseelie prince.

“You!” The kid stabs a finger at me. “I need sleeping bags, an aluminum blanket, and hot packs. Outdoor store on Ninth and Central. Get me sugar, Jell-O, and water if you can find it. Don’t waste time if you can’t. Same goes for a generator. Now!”

“I don’t fetch for humans!”

But I’d cut the fucking moon out of the sky for her.

When I return with blankets and hot packs, she’s on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street from the church.

The kid with glasses is in his underwear. Apparently dickhead doesn’t wear any.

Rage chokes me. I fight for control. The human part of my brain knows exactly why they took their clothes off. So they could bundle her in them. She needed everything they had. She’s curled in a fetal ball, packed in their pants and shirts and jackets. The Unseelie part of my brain comprehends nothing but that two male dicks are way too close to something that’s mine.

The kid is on top of her, on his hands and knees, with his face brushing hers like he’s kissing her.

Ryodan looks like he’s about to rip his head off. As I get closer, I see the kid is breathing just over her nose and mouth, letting his breath drift up her nostrils. I’m shaking with rage. My hands are fists again, bleeding from clenching them so tight.

“She keeps curling up,” Ryodan says.

“Burrowing instinct. Freezing people do it when they’re about to die.”

“You let her die,” I say to the kid, “I’ll kill you every way a human can get killed, bring you back and do it all over again.”

“Did you get what I need?” The kid thrusts a hand behind him, ignoring my threat. “Aluminum blanket. Now. And easy when you move her,” he says over his shoulder, like he doesn’t even know two homicidal maniacs are watching his every move and want him dead just for being so close to her. “Nothing sudden.”

“Why aluminum?” I want to know exactly what he’s doing so I can do it myself when there’s a next time. I’d say that there’s not going to be one, but since the walls fell there’s always a next time.

“Superinsulation. Traps in heat. Keeps out everything else.”

Ryodan and I place her gently on the blanket, then the kid stretches over her again. She’s motionless. I can’t even see her chest rising and falling. She’s pale and still as death. It’s a disturbing turn-on. I’ve never seen an Unseelie princess but I suspect they’re like this: white and cold and beautiful. “Is she breathing?”

“Barely. Her body is using everything it’s got just to keep her brain and organs functioning. She needs to urinate.”

“You can’t fucking know that,” Ryodan says.

The kid doesn’t turn his head or look at him, just talks straight up her nose. “She eats and drinks constantly. Her bladder is always at least partially full. Her body is wasting precious energy trying to keep the urine in her bladder from freezing. We need that energy directed at her heart. Ergo, she needs to piss. The sooner the better. We need her conscious to do that, unless you have a handy catheter.”

“Get her conscious,” Ryodan snarls.

“You’re not putting a catheter in her,” I growl.

“I’ll do whatever I need to do to save her life. You. Bloody. Idiots,” the kid says.

He pops open heat packs and shoves them in her armpits and groin. Then he stretches out next to her. “Roll us up in sleeping bags.”

I look at Ryodan and he looks at me and for a second I think we might both kill the kid. Ryodan’s more stone-faced than usual, if that’s possible without turning to concrete, and his fangs are out. I look down. Ryodan’s dick is as big as mine. “Why the bloody hell don’t you wear underwear?” To an Unseelie prince, an exposed male dick is a call to battle.

“They chafe. Too small and confining.”

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Dudes. Get over yourselves,” the kid says. “Roll us up. Do you want her to die?”

“You should never have taken her in there. I’m going to kill you for that,” I say to Ryodan as I help roll up a nearly naked kid with my girl.

“I told her not to touch anything,” Ryodan says. “I knew it would drop her out of fast-motion. I reminded her at every scene we went to. And bring it on, Highlander. Any time you think you’re ready.”

“And we all know how well she listens,” the kid says dryly.

Ryodan gives him a look that would make grown, armed, psychopathic men shut up. “There was no reason for her to touch anything.”

“Obviously she thought otherwise,” the kid says, completely unperturbed.

“I was right there with her. I figured I could get her out.”

“You figured wrong, dickhead,” I say.

“I didn’t think it would affect her so quickly if she did. It didn’t do that to me when I tried it.”

“She’s not like you. And shut up, both of you,” the kid says, and puts his face on hers again, breathing, cupping his hands around their faces to keep the warm air in.

“Why are you doing that?” I say.

“Warm air. Hypothalamus. Regulates internal temperature and will help raise her consciousness. I need her conscious so she can piss.”

“I would have rubbed her down to warm her. Restored her circulation.”

“Brilliant. You would have killed her. Her blood is too cold. It would have stopped her heart.”

“I don’t understand why she stripped,” Ryodan says. I look at him. He’s doing the same thing I am. Learning what to do if it happens again. Both of us would have sped off with her, trying to get her somewhere warm. And according to this kid, we both would have killed her.

“Blood vessels widen. She thought she was hot. Hikers get found all the time dead in the mountains, naked with their clothes folded nearby. They get confused. Brain tries to make order out of chaos.”

“How do you know all this?” I despise that he knows it and I don’t. Makes him the better man for her in this situation. I want to be the better man for her in every situation.

“Mom was a doctor. I nearly died of hypothermia in the Andes once.”

“I almost killed you,” Ryodan says.

“She can’t hear you,” the kid tells him.

“I wasn’t talking to her.”

“Give me more hot packs,” the kid says. “Bugger, she’s cold!”

“A few weeks back. I almost killed you.”

The kid gives him a look. I think, what the fuck gives a kid this young the balls it takes to snarl at me and give dickhead a look like that?

Ryodan says, “I stood in the shadows of an alley you were walking down. You wouldn’t have seen me coming. She would have died tonight if I’d killed you.”

“Is that, like, an apology?” I mock.

“Does she gasp in horror every time she sees you, Highlander?”

I unfurl wings that aren’t there yet and hiss.

“You both talk too much,” the kid says. “Shut up. Don’t make me tell you again.”

We shut up, which I find hysterically funny.

I suddenly see us from above. I do that all the time now. I think it’s because I’m losing my humanity and it’s my way of marking my descent into hell. I observe that there’s only one human male at this scene and it’s not me.

I see a radiant woman-child who has more curves under her clothes than I guessed, and from the way Ryodan is looking at her, he didn’t guess it either. She’s bloodless, blue-tinged, rolled up tight in the arms of a half-naked teenager that could have been, should have been, me. Keeping vigil over her are two monsters of very different breeds but monsters just the same.

Death on her left.

Devil on her right.

The kid looks like I did at his age, except for the glasses and a few inches of height he has on me. Dark hair, great smile, wide shoulders, the kid’s going to be good-looking.

If he survives past next week.

At the moment I’d wager strongly against it.

He’s in a sleeping bag with her, holding her. She has skulls and crossbones on her underwear. It charms me beyond reason.

The way I see it, if it’s not Ryodan in that next dark alley, it’s going to be me.

Sixteen

I fight authority and authority always wins probably always will

I make a new discovery that totally blows.

Dying is the easy part.

It’s coming back to life that sucks.

One second I’m gone. I don’t even exist.

The next second, I’m on fire with pain.

I hear voices talking but I feel like somebody stacked weights on my eyes and don’t even try to open them. I hurt so bad I want to lose consciousness again. I groan, miserable.

“You said we could move her, so let’s do it. Now. We’ll take her to my place.”

It’s Christian. I wonder what he’s doing here.

“She’s not going anywhere with you. She’s coming with me. If you’re wrong and it’s not safe now, kid, you’re dead.”

That’s Ryodan. But who’d he call kid? The only person I know that he calls “kid” is me.

“I don’t take chances with her. It’s safe.”

“D-D-D-Dancer?” I chatter.

“Easy, Mega. You almost died.” He closes his hand around mine and I hold on. I like his hand. It’s big and holds easy but sure. It’s the kind of hold that says, I got you if you want me, but I’ll let go if you feel like running for a while. “She’s not going anywhere with either of you. She’s coming with me,” he says.

“The fuck she is!” Christian explodes, and I see flashing lights behind my eyelids from the hugeness of his voice and the pain I’m in.

Ryodan says, “She’s weak, and you don’t have what it takes to protect her.”

“I’m n-not weak,” I mutter. “I’m n-never weak.” I slit my eyes open and the faint light in the street nearly splits my head. I close them again. Feck, I’m weak.

“The hell I don’t.”

“I sauntered right into your place and took her from you.”

“I wasn’t there at the time. Or you wouldn’t have.”

Ryodan laughs. “Puny human.”

“She comes with me,” Christian says.

“D-Dudes, I feel really s-sick,” I say. “What’s closest?”

“My place,” Christian says.

“The hell it is,” Ryodan says.

“You don’t even know where it is,” Christian says.

“I know everything.”

Dancer says, “Chester’s.”

To him I say, “Take me there. And h-hurry. I’m starving and f-f-freezing.”

When we walk into Chester’s the noise just about splits my skull from temple to temple. I’m so sick I’m wobbly. Ryodan tells Lor to get blankets warmed and take them to a room somewhere upstairs. I hope it’s soundproofed. Knowing Ryodan, it is. Like Batman, he has all the best toys. I don’t care where I go right now. I just need to lie down. I want them to stop making me walk but I insisted that they let me walk, because I hate being carried so I’m faking. Every muscle I’ve got is burning and cramping. I can’t think straight.

“Get the kid out of here,” Ryodan says to another of his men.

Two men move in, close their hands on his arms.

“Leave Dancer alone!” I say.

“It’s okay, Mega. I’ve got things to do anyway. You take care, you hear?” He looks at me hard and for a second I want everyone to go away and leave me alone with him. Life is so easy with Dancer. I want to ask him how he ended up in the street with me. I want to know what happened. Someone saved my life tonight. I want to know who and all the details.

But I don’t want him here. Not in Chester’s. I don’t want the stain of it on him. “See you tonight?” I say.

He grins. “Hope so, Mega. Got a movie to watch.”

“Get him out of here. Now,” Ryodan barks.

Dancer impresses the feck out of me when he shakes their hands off his arms and says real calm, “I can see myself out.” He doesn’t shake testosterone off his skin like a wet dog. He doesn’t turn into a stupid bull, throwing his horns around. He just takes care of himself.

I’d watch him go but Ryodan is suddenly turning me away, steering me like I’m a go-cart. He snaps an order for warm water and Jell-O and tells Christian to get the feck out of his club.

Christian laughs and settles on a bar stool in the subclub closest to the stairs.

As I hobble up the stairs, I see a funny thing. Ryodan pauses for a sec and I look back. He’s looking out over the dance floor, down at the kiddie subclub, and like she can feel him or something, Jo looks up, straight at him. Almost like she’s been waiting for this moment. Like there’s some kind of rubber band between them and she can feel him if he tugs on it. I think her highlights are even more dramatic than they were a couple days ago, gold in her dark hair. She’s sparkly between the boobs again – I wouldn’t notice except the sparkly makes you look there! – and wearing pretty bangles on her arms. She never wears jewelry. Even sick as I feel, I think Jo looks good. Ryodan gives her an imperceptible nod and she goes real still and wipes her hands on her skirt and swallows so hard I see her throat work from here. They look at each other and neither looks away.

After a long moment Jo nods back.

And I think what the feck? Is she an empath like Kat? How did she know what he was saying? And what was he saying anyway? And why is she turning her tray over to somebody else?

Then my legs are going out from under me because I faked as long as I could, and he’s got me before I hit the floor, carrying me, and I don’t even fight it because I’m too miserable.

They take me to a room a few doors down from Ryodan’s office and put me in bed. I burrow deep into the soft mattress, sigh with relief and pass out cold. Ryodan pisses me off what can’t be more than three minutes later by waking me back up and forcing me to drink warm Jell-O water.

At first I don’t want it but it tastes like heaven.

“What happened?” I say. “Did I, like, die and come back?” What an adventure! I wonder if this’ll get put into the legend of me when I do die. I wonder how many times I might kick Death’s ass in my life. How wicked cool is that?

“Drink.”

“Where’d Dancer come from?” My stomach cramps. “Aw, it’s hurting my stomach.”

“Stop gulping. Take small sips.”

I see another funny thing when he pours a second glass of warm Jell-O water. “Dude, shake much?”

“I got too cold.”

Lor laughs and gives him a look. “Or too hot. Get out of here. I’ve got it.”

Ryodan looks at my empty glass. I’ve drained the pitcher already and I want more.

“I’ll get it,” Lor says. “Go do what you need to do, boss.”

I wonder what he needs to do, why he’s shaking. If this is his weakness, I want to know all about it. Too bad I’m about to pass out again.

Ryodan stands up. “Take care of her.” He walks out.

Lor says, “Sleep, kid. I’ll be back before you know it. With candy bars.”

I slump into the pillows, curl up and sigh. Candy bars. Life is sweet. All I have to do is lie here where it’s cozy and warm and wait for them. They heated blankets for me. Someone’s bringing me candy bars in bed.

I’m going to sleep for days.

I wonder what happened. Dying to talk to Dancer. But it’ll have to wait.

I’m drifting, just about to pass out again when I suddenly get wired, struck by a certainty that pisses me all kinds of off.

I know why Ryodan gave Jo that look!

Because they’re in his office right now, talking about me! Conspiring, with Jo all worried about me because I almost died.

And they’re trying to figure out what to do with me since I don’t follow rules and almost got myself killed tonight. I hate it when adults have their stupid powwows about me! They always end with me getting read the riot act and handed a whole new list of rules that nobody in their right mind could possibly obey, most of which aren’t even logical or smart.

How the feck was I supposed to know if I touched one tiny little thing it would snap me out of freeze-frame? Why couldn’t he have just told me that? I would never have done it!

Thinking about how I didn’t almost get myself killed tonight, really he did, I start to steam from the inside and warm right up from sheer temper. I crawl out from under my huddle of blankets, get my sword, stumble to the door and wobble out into the hall. I look up and down but don’t see anybody. ’Cause, like everybody’s probably already in his office, dissing me.

I careen down the hall, stumbling from wall to wall, using them to steady me until I make it to his door, then I slap my palm where I always see him put his, and the door slides open. I don’t even wait for it to finish opening before I begin airing my gripes.

“It is not my fault I almost got killed, dude. It’s your fault and here’s ho—ooooww – Ew!” I shake my head, horrified and … and … and …

Horrified.

My mouth hangs open, with nothing coming out.

Ryodan looks over his shoulder at me.

He’s got Jo in there but they’re not talking. She’s bent over his desk with her skirt up. And he’s doing that thing I wish I’d never seen him doing. Holy travel agent! Did I, like, go through a time warp or something? How long did it take me to get here? Don’t grown-ups do other things before they get to this point? Like maybe hug and kiss, make out for a little while? I move fast and all but, dude! Kind of thinking some things’d be nice, a little slow, like maybe give you a chance to get ready for stuff that’s happening!

Jo gasps and turns bright red. “Oh! Dani! Get out of here!”

I’m seeing more of Jo than I ever wanted to.

They aren’t talking about me.

They weren’t even thinking about me.

Like I wasn’t even lying a few doors down the hall on my deathbed with obviously nobody worrying about me at all!

“You are such a traitor! Sleeping with the enemy! What’s wrong with you? This is just too gross for my eyeballs!”

“Go back to bed, Dani,” Ryodan says, looking at me funny.

I hate him and I hate her and I hate his stupid retracting door.

I can’t even slam it on the way out.

I wake up feeling amazing. Usually I wake up confused and cross. I’m thinking maybe I should almost get killed more often. I have no clue why I feel so good but I love it so I stretch, milking it for all I can get. My muscles are totally smooth and happy and relaxed, and I don’t feel a bruise anywhere, which is impossible. My muscles are always knotted somewhere. Bruises are me. This feels like a brand-new body! I figure I must be in some kind of pre-waking state I never been in before, where the brain’s been turned on but the body’s still numb. I feel candy bars in bed with me, melty in my warm nest. One’s mashed between my cheek and the pillow, I feel another plastered to my butt. I scootch them both out, tear one open and eat it without opening my eyes, blissfully happy. I could get used to this. No pain from assorted bumps and bruises, breakfast in bed.

Then I remember where I am.

Chester’s.

And I remember what I saw before I fell asleep.

Ryodan doing the dirty with Jo.

On his desk.

Gah!

Like I’m ever going to be able to look at his desk again! How am I supposed to sit in his office now?

I’m so pissed off I shoot bolt upright in bed and swallow the last half of my candy bar so fast it gets stuck in my throat.

I start choking and all the sudden a fist slams into my back. My mouth pops open and half a mangled candy bar goes flying into the glass wall with a gooey chocolate splat. It’s too gross for me so early in the morning. My stomach heaves and I double over trying to keep it down.

Yeah, this is more like how I wake up. All screwed up and confused. When I lived at the abbey, Ro told me I have growing pains and that superheroes have them worse than most people. She said that’s why I need to sleep so hard and deep, and wake up so slow, because my body has to do more work to repair me on a cellular level. Makes scientific sense.

“Might help, kid,” Lor says behind me, “if you chew more than once before you swallow.”

“I never chew more than once. I wouldn’t be able to eat fast enough if I did. I’d have to spend my whole day chewing. I’d get jaw muscles the size of Popeye’s biceps.”

“You’re too young to know who Popeye is.”

When you spent most of your childhood in a cage in front of a TV, you know who everybody is. I can sing the songs for Green Acres and Gilligan’s Island. I even know who That Girl was. I learned everything I know about the world from watching TV. There’s a whole lot of psychology in there if you’re paying attention, and I was a captive audience. Ro said I got all my melodrama from growing up that way. That I think folks are supposed to be larger than life like they are in shows. Dude, of course I do! But I didn’t need TV to tell me that. Life’s a choice: you can live in black and white, or you can live in color. I’ll take every shade of the rainbow and the gazillion in between! I push up from the bed, grab my sword and head for the door.

Lor’s in front of it, arms folded over his chest. “Boss didn’t say you could leave.”

“I didn’t say your boss could boink Jo,” I say real calm-like, but inside I’m seething. I don’t know why I feel so betrayed. Why do I care? They’re grown-ups. Grown-ups never make sense. Jo doesn’t even like him. And I know he doesn’t give a shit about Jo.

“Honey, boss don’t ask nobody who he fucks.”

“Well, he ain’t going to do Jo again. Get out of my way. Move.” I’m going to tell her I’m never talking to her if she has sex with him ever again. I’ll make her choose and she’ll choose me.

“So you can start some shit?”

“Yep.” I don’t even try to deny it. I’m ready to knock heads and I’m not going to feel better until I make somebody else as miserable as I am.

He looks down at me. I slant my jaw at a jauntier angle, and I can tell he’s trying not to laugh.

“What? You think I’m funny?” I’m so sick of people smiling at me like that. My hand goes to the hilt of my sword. It closes on his hand. They’re all faster than me. “I’m not funny. I’m dangerous. You just wait and see. I’m not full grown yet, but when I am, I’m going to kick your ass from one end of Chester’s to the other. You just wait and see.”

He lets go of my sword and moves out of my way, laughing. “Go ahead, kid. Raise some hell. Been boring around here lately.”

On my way out the door I decide maybe I could like Lor. He lives in color, too.

When I blow past Ryodan’s office, I think I feel a breeze and spin around real fast, ready to fight him if I have to, but nobody’s there. I shake my head and bounce down the stairs, freeze-framing sideways in between steps because I have so much energy this morning, checking out the dance floor as I go. It’s packed and the place is rocking. Looks like I either didn’t sleep long or I slept a whole day until the next night, because there’s Jo, waiting tables in the kiddie subclub, looking all long-legged and … Geez! I squint over the railing at her. Happy. She’s, like, glowing! What does she think? That this is some kind of fairy tale she’s living? It ain’t. These fairies maim and kill, and the dude she’s having sex with lets them. How can she glow about that? There wasn’t even any romance or anything. Just … Gah! I don’t even want to think about it. I can’t scrape that memory off the inside of my skull fast enough!

I freeze-frame through the club, hyperfast, knocking folks out of my way left and right. Hearing grunts all around makes me feel better ’bout stuff.

When I stop in front of her, she looks startled then mad. What the feck does she have to be mad at me about?

She removes the last drink from her tray, sits it on a napkin in front of a Rhino-boy then holds the tray to her chest, her arms around it like it’s a shield or something.

“Traitor.”

“Dani, don’t do this. Not here. Not now.”

“You did that up there,” I say, flinging my arm up toward Ryodan’s office, “without worrying for one tiny little sec about my here and now. The whole time I was practically dying, you were having sex two doors down with the dude you came to rescue me from. From his dungeon. Like, where he was holding me prisoner. Remember?”

“It’s not like that.”

“What? I wasn’t in the dungeon? Or you didn’t come to rescue me from him? Don’t tell me you weren’t having sex. I saw what I saw.”

“I didn’t believe he’d hurt you and he didn’t. He didn’t hurt either of us.”

“He’s got us both working like dogs for him! You’re waiting on Fae, and I’m running around on his fecking leash! He feeds people to the Fae, Jo. He kills them!”

“He does not. He runs a club. It’s not his fault if people want to die. What is he supposed to do? Talk them out of it? Start a Chester’s counseling service? What do you expect of him, Dani?”

I stare at her in disbelief. “You’ve got to fecking be kidding me! You’re going to defend him? Stockholm syndrome much, Jo?” I mock.

She moves to an empty table and begins to clear it, stacking dirty dishes on her tray. It makes me madder that she’s cleaning up after these monsters. Doubly mad that she looks so good doing it. Jo’s making herself prettier. I don’t understand it. She used to be perfectly happy wearing jeans and a T-shirt and no makeup and just hanging with the girls. We had pj parties and watched movies. Now she’s all superglam Jo. I hate it.