Page 51 of Hextreme Measures

Ofelia took them in stride, however. “I do that sometimes. I’m kind of a Debbie Downer. I don’t know what you see in me.” She buried her face in his chest.

He chuckled. “You have a split-personality,” he countered. “You are a Debbie Downer some of the time. There was no option of escaping that because both your parents share that tendency. You were doomed on that front.”

“Well, that’s a cheery thought,” Ofelia drawled.

He laughed harder. “You also have more hope than anybody I’ve ever known,” he said. “You get that from your father. I didn’t realize it until he was receiving treatment, but he’s an incredibly upbeat person.”

“When mental illness isn’t dragging him down,” she agreed.

“Don’t go there,” Sully warned. “He’s fine, for right now at least. Let’s focus on Angelique.” He’d filled Ofelia in on what Dex had told him the night before. She’d been as intrigued as him.

“Yeah, I like the idea that there’s a banshee in town that has evolved past the other banshees,” Ofelia admitted. “Usually, you hear about these evolutionary splits long after they’ve happened. We might be front and center for one of them.”

“We might be,” Sully agreed. “We need to figure out how to find this individual.”

“Well, I actually have an idea on that.” Ofelia propped her chin on her fist as she stared into Sully’s eyes. “When my father was running the bar, he was familiar with paranormals. He wasn’t keen on me showing signs of being one, but he welcomed them into Krewe.”

“Money is money,” Sully guessed.

“Yes, but it wasn’t just that.” Ofelia emphatically shook her head. “He wanted to learn from them, for my sake.”

“See, your dad really is a hopeful individual.” Sully leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose. “Unfortunately, your mother is as moody as they come.”

Ofelia barked out a laugh, then looked around, as if worried her mother was going to jump out of the shadows and lambast them for making fun of her. “Anyway,” she said when she’d convinced herself there was no danger surrounding them. “My father heard a lot of stories back then.”

“Do you remember him mentioning a banshee?”

“No, but that’s the thing.” She laughed a little, even though nothing felt funny. “My father didn’t bother to learn the names of all the creatures. He knew the words shifter and vampire, of course. He also knew the word witch. Ask him about a maenad or a banshee, though, and he would have looked at you as if you sprouted a second head.”

“Oh.” Realization dawned on Sully, and he nodded. “I get it.”

“Yeah.” Ofelia rubbed her hand absently over his bare chest. “I remember hearing my father tell a story about a screaming woman. It could be nothing,” she added hurriedly.

“Or it could be something,” Sully finished for her.

“Yeah. We’re having breakfast with Dad today. There’s no reason we can’t ask him about that story.”

“Definitely not.” Sully rubbed his hands over her bare back. “We have time before breakfast,” he said. “Do you want to get a fun jump on our day?”

Ofelia hesitated, her mind immediately going to Angelique.

“She would want you to greet the day with a smile,” Sully insisted.

Ofelia laughed when he batted his eyelashes. “Fine, but we’re never going to tell anybody else about this. I’ll feel guilty.”

“You are a prude that way.”

“Oh, keep it up and I’ll choose to wallow if you’re not careful.”

Sully’s grin was wide as he rolled her. “We can’t have that, can we?”

OSCAR WAS YUKKING IT UP WITH his friends when Ofelia and Sully made their way into Oceana. They were 10 minutes early, despite their morning calisthenics session. Oscar didn’t even look at them when they sat down with him, though.

“I’m telling you that eventually everybody will have a phone wired to their brains,” Oscar said. “That’s what the government wants.”

Ofelia was used to her father’s conspiracy theories and wasn’t worried. He had a theory about the government, whether he was feeling mentally well or not.

“I don’t think it will be a phone,” she offered. “It’s more likely it will be a chip.”