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“We can’t keep driving this.” Cade’s voice hitched with the slightest bit of emotion. Anyone else might have made fun of him for getting teary about a car, but I knew exactly what he was feeling. Once a kid try to key my Mustang, and I’d almost lightning’d him on the spot. This was damage beyond repair. The Dodge was destined for the big junkyard in the sky.
“I’m sorry.” I looked at him, wondering what else I could say that would help and drawing a complete blank. This was one more thing to add to the list of stuff that was my fault. I had a gut feeling that list was going to get a lot longer before I could ever hope to make reparations.
He let out a shaky sigh, not lifting his gaze from the Dodge. “It’s just a car.” His tone gave away his true feelings. It wasn’t just a car. For people like us, possessions mattered because we had so few. And the one that mattered most to him had been taken away.
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
This made him snort. “Don’t.”
“No, I swear to Seth I’ll buy you a new one.” The temple was going to love me making promises like that, but I’d given them twenty years of my life, so they could spot me the funds to replace Cade’s car.
The sound he made was enough to break my heart: a low, sad wheeze from the back of his throat, like he was standing next to the body of his fallen horse at the end of an epic battle.
“It’s just a car,” he repeated. This time I didn’t offer any words of comfort. I knew he needed to believe it was just a car. If only for now.
I imagined that the next morning, in the light of day, things would look much, much worse. While Cade stared mournfully over the corpse of his noble steed, I pulled my phone out of my bag and sent a text to Sido. Looks like I’d need my Mustang sooner than anticipated. She replied immediately, and without asking any probing questions said it would be dropped off by the next morning.
How they would manage to get my Mustang from Seattle to Colorado in less than eight hours was one of those things I wasn’t sure I needed to know. If Sido said the car was coming, I knew it would be here. Whatever weird magic it took for it to happen didn’t matter.
Although if that selfsame magic could have gotten me to New Orleans in the same amount of time, that would have been nice.
Cade took one last look at the ruined Dodge before guiding us to our room.
Inside it was a carbon copy of the last room I’d stayed in, and the one before that. Only instead of one queen, there were two doubles. For some reason the sight of two beds felt strange and vaguely inappropriate, though it would have been much more scandalous for us to share one.
I set Fen on the floor, and he proceeded to go about his usual new-room investigation. Seemingly satisfied nothing was out of order, he bounded up onto the bed nearest the bathroom and nestled himself between the pillows.
“Guess that one’s mine.” I tossed my purse onto it, and Fen didn’t even look up.
“Maybe you should be more careful, considering there’s an idol in there apparently worth killing both of us over.”
“Skulls are hard. It’ll be fine.”
Cade stared at me, either in disbelief or annoyance, I couldn’t quite tell which. Suddenly it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. I started to laugh, and this only made his scowl deepen, which in turn made me laugh harder.
I laughed until tears were streaming down my cheeks and it was difficult to breathe. I laughed so much my chest hurt and I began to hiccup.
And then I started to cry.
I sat down on the floor between our two beds and put my face in my cupped palms, sobbing until my throat was raw and my eyes burned.
I was the kind of person who knew exactly what I was going to do in any situation, because in my line of work you were either prepared or you were done for.
But how in the name of the gods was I supposed to prepare myself for this?
I was going to die, and I really, really didn’t want to.
“Tallulah.” Cade’s voice cut through my sobs, but I couldn’t stop. I was so wound up the only thing my body was capable of doing was crying. “Stop it.”
“I-I-I c-can’t,” I sputtered.
He crouched in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders. When I lifted my head to look at him, he blanched. “Your eyes.”
The sizzle of energy I’d barely noticed since we left the mountain road sparked back to life, and my hands tingled with it. My eyes must have been blazing with lightning to make him look as unnerved as he did.
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“I-I c-can’t stop it.” My hands were shaking, and tiny sparks of electricity danced off my skin.
