Page 55 of Heart of Mischief

Elias pointed at her with the hand holding the rag. “Bingo.”

And then—though she didn’t want to, though she wanted to feel nothing but cold hatred toward the boy who had betrayed her and tried to kill the people she loved—Charlie felt something melt inside her.

It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t even pity. She didn’t think she could ever feel any of those things for Elias again. It was more of a softening, of cracks forming in the wall she’d so carefully—

No, she thought, stepping back from the car.No, this will not happen.She couldn’t feel any tenderness toward Elias. Not when the only thing keeping her from coming apart at the seams was her mission to ruin his life. If she gave that up…

If she gave that up, the fear, the panic, everything she’d spent the last three weeks keeping squashed firmly down… It would come roaring back to life, all at once.

She cleared her throat. “That was seven years ago. Did Loki ever tell you where to find her?”

Across the car, Elias shrugged as he twisted soapy water from his rag. “To be honest, I don’t really care anymore.” He slapped the rag back onto the hood. “I’m a mare. I lost interest in finding Olive a long time ago.”

And just like that, her heart froze again.

18

When they finished scrubbing downthe last car, Elias excused himself to use the restroom and Charlie went in search of Lou and Mason.

It didn’t take long. She found them standing beside a navy blue Ford, arguing over the proper way to dry a door handle.

“You’ve got toliftit,” Lou was saying, demonstrating by carefully pulling open the handle and sliding the rag underneath. “See? Not all the way—you don’t want to actually open the door—but enough to get the towel under.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Mason. “You don’t have to lift the handle at all. You can just stuff the rag underneath, and—”

“I hate to interrupt such a scintillating debate,” Charlie said, startling them so much that one would have thought they’d been arguing over climate change, not drying techniques. “But I was hoping we could discuss the carpool home.”

“What about it?” asked Mason, looking annoyed that Charlie interrupted his time with Lou—or, more likely, that Charlie had the audacity to exist at all. “You’re driving. I’m packing in with the rest of the boys to run the supplies up to the Gut.”

“Cool. I didn’t want to get stuck riding back with Elias.”

“Speaking of Mr. Handsome,” said Lou, waggling her eyebrows at Charlie, “how was your afternoon getting sudsy together?”

“I don’t know how you can even make jokes about him,” said Charlie. “Hepossessed your body, Lou. Kidnapped you, draggedyou to a cave, and tried to use you to murder us all. Including yourself.”

“I know, I know.” She flapped a hand. “You’ve told me about a thousand times.”

This time, it was Mason who spoke. “And just how many times will it take for the message to sink in?”

“Itoldyou,” Lou said, glaring at her brother in a way that made Charlie think that the two of them argued about this far more than she knew. “I know he did all of those things. And I’m sure it was grisly and horrifying and unforgivable and all the other adjectives you and Charlie and Abigail have used to talk about that night. But Mason…I don’t remember any of it.”

“That’s not thepoint, Lou,” Mason practically yelled. Splotches of red blossomed on his cheeks, and he clutched the rag in his hand with a white-knuckled stranglehold. “It doesn’t matter that you don’t remember what happened. What matters is that it happened at all. What matters is that Elias is a monster who should never have set foot in this town again.”

“I don’t view the world in the black-and-white way you do, Mason.” She tossed the damp rag over her shoulder. “I see people in shades of gray. No one is beyond saving.”

Mason blinked at Lou several times. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m perfectly serious,” she said, lifting her freckled chin. “I’m not the type to hold wrongdoings against someone forever. You know that about me. Everyone makes mistakes, and I genuinely don’t mind a little bad in someone. Actually, Ipreferit.” She looked at Charlie and grinned. “It’s why I chose your sister as my best friend.”

Charlie shook her head, bewildered. “Me?”

“Obviously.”

“But that’s absurd. I’m not the type of person to cause trouble.”

“Not recently,” Lou said. “But you used to be.”

Charlie flinched backward, as if she’d been struck.