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Layden might be so much older than me, but he’s brand new to this modern world. He seems not to know how drop-dead gorgeous he is. If he wasn’t literally a curse on any woman he spent more than an hour with, they’d all be drooling over him.
Of course he’d like someone sunshiny and bright like Sabra more than a gloomy person like me.
It only matters if she manages to free him from his curse. I’m ashamed that the thought makes me feel like stabbing my best friend.
Chapter Seventeen
LAYDEN
Present Day
Phoenix and I scrub the surveillance all night long but don’t find a thing. So I set up some bots to keep searching for Ammit’s face on all the video feeds we have in the city, something I probably should have done earlier, but it felt too good sitting beside Phoenix in the dark computer lab doing it manually. It was easy to agree with her that we might see something that the bots could miss.
Still, by three a.m., she was all but falling asleep at her console, so I told her we should get some sleep.
“Come on, let’s go to sleep. I’ve already got the bots ready to take over for us.”
She huffs out a quiet laugh as she scrubs her eyes. “Of course you do.” But at least she nods and stands up. “Have the alert sent to my phone, too, if they find anything?”
“Already done.”
She nods again and starts heading across the hall toward her bedroom.
“Should I head down to…” I leave off uncomfortably, jutting a thumb down the hall toward the room where I used to sleep when I stayed here ten years ago.
She stops and looks over her shoulder at me, then back down the hall toward the rest of the compound. “Oh, right. Shit.” But then she just waves a hand. “There’re no cameras in this part of the compound. We shouldn’t have to put on a performance for Grandfather tonight.”
“Goodnight, then.”
“Goodnight.”
She lingers only a moment before disappearing into her bedroom.
Not that I can sleep much after everything that’s happened. Still, I never needed much sleep. I can go for days with none at all and be no worse for wear, but Phoenix is still human. Or, well, mostly human.
I head two doors down to the room that used to be mine. It, too, has been redecorated. I look around after I flip on the light. It’s not as bright, either, now done in tasteful beiges. While she didn’t go for the dreary blacks of the rest of the compound, it’s still as if all the color has been leeched out of her world.
What happened over the last ten years? Now that we’re in this odd place in between who we once were and who I still hope and dream we can become, I have even less idea of what’s possible.
And maybe all that hoping is making me blind to who Phoenix actually is now. It’s not fair to her. I sigh as I lay in bed, another sleepless hour gone. Especially since I’m not sure how to make it right.
I stay in bed staring at the ceiling until the morning hour, which I only know by watching my phone. There haven’t been any alerts, but it’s probably a good idea to let my brothers in on the situation at hand. So I call up Abaddon.
It takes many rings before it’s finally picked up.
“Here,” Hannah’s face appears on the screen before she hands it off to Abaddon. “You just push the green button when it rings like that.”
Abaddon looks gruff and angry as he glares down at the screen. “I don’t see why he couldn’t walk himself over here if he wanted to talk.”
“He’s on his honeymoon!” calls Hannah from off-screen. “And you need to learn how to use the phone!”
“Lovely to see you, too, brother,” I comment dryly.
“What is it? I’m eating breakfast.”
Behind his head, I see Raven flying around. She seems to be making circles on the ceiling over the breakfast table, a favorite activity of hers.
“I only saw her last week, but I swear Raven’s gotten bigger.”
