Page 65 of Hell Bent

Alex felt a headache coming on. They had a little over a week to put all of this together, and she had that same feeling she’d had before they’d thrown themselves into the ritual at Scroll and Key. They weren’t ready. They weren’t equipped. They sure as hell weren’t the right team for this job. What had Walsh-Whiteley said? I expect you to know your own limitations. It made her think of Len. For all his greed and misplaced ambition, he had practiced a strange kind of caution. He’d been stupid enough to think he could earn Eitan’s trust and move up in the ranks, but he’d never tried so much as a smash-and-grab when they were short on cash because he knew they’d get caught. He wasn’t a thief. He definitely wasn’t a planner. It was why he’d loved using Alex to deal on campuses when she still looked like a kid, before desperation and disappointment had hollowed her out. Low risk, high reward. At least for Len.

Now Dawes was talking about trusting someone to fight off a bunch of Grays while they lay there helpless in the ground. For the first time Alex felt unsure.

“I don’t like it,” she said. “I don’t want to bring a stranger into this. And are you going to tell them they have to drink Hiram’s elixir so they can see Grays? That can be fatal.”

“Michelle—”

“Michelle Alameddine isn’t going to help us.”

“But she was his Virgil.”

Alex stared at Dawes. Pamela Dawes, who had saved her life more than once and who was prepared to walk side by side with her straight through the gates of hell. Pamela Dawes, who came from a nice family with a nice house in Westport, who had a kind sister to come pick her up at the hospital and pay her to watch the kids. Pamela Dawes, who had no idea what it meant to hurt so much to live you might wake up one morning ready to die. And Alex was glad of that. People shouldn’t have to march through the world fighting all the time. But there was no way Alex was going to pressure Michelle Alameddine to do a job like this, not after she’d seen that tattoo on her wrist.

“We’ll find someone else,” Alex said. But she didn’t know who. They couldn’t just grab somebody off the street and offer to pay them, and they couldn’t ask someone from the societies without risking that person going straight to the Lethe board.

“We could use magic,” Dawes said tentatively. She was making slow spirals with her pen in the margin of her notes. “Bring someone on and then compel them so they can’t remember—”

“Don’t do that.”

Alex and Dawes nearly jumped out of their seats. Mercy was sitting on a couch just behind their table.

“How long have you been there?” Alex demanded.

“I followed you from the courtyard. If you need someone to help, I can do it, but not if you’re going to mess with my mind.”

“No way are you getting involved.” Alex said. “Absolutely not.”

Dawes looked horrified. “Wait, who … what does she know?”

“Most of it.”

“You told her about—” Dawes’s voice dropped to an angry whisper. “About Lethe?”

“Yes,” Alex snapped. “And I’m not going to apologize for it. She’s the one who fished me out of my own misery last year. She’s the one who called my mom and made sure I was okay when you were holed up at your sister’s house watching old sitcoms and hiding under the blankets.”

Dawes ducked her chin into her sweatshirt and Alex felt instantly terrible.

“I can help,” Mercy said, breaking the silence. “You said you need someone to watch over you. I can do that.”

“No.” Alex cut her hand through the air as if she were slicing the thought in half. “You have no idea what you’re signing up for. No.”

Mercy crossed her arms. She was wearing a bright blue granny sweater today, crocheted roses gathered around the neck. She looked like a disapproving kindergarten teacher.

“You can’t just say no, Alex.”

“You could be killed.”

Mercy scoffed. “Do you really think that will happen?”

“No one knows what will happen!”

“Can you give me a weapon?”

Alex pinched the bridge of her nose. At least Mercy was asking the right questions.

“You kind of don’t get to say no, right?” Mercy continued. “You don’t have anyone else. And you owe me for all the magical stuff.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”