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Seth had taken a nasty blow to the temple that had left a cut seeping blood where he’d been hit in the minivan crash, and Gabriel’s forearm was scorched with a magical burn. As Rose and her cousin cast their best healing spells to mend the damage and Jin set the bus roaring on down the freeway, I found myself sitting next to Greg. The first witching guy I didn’t have any reason to hate. Which didn’t mean I had any idea what to say to him.
“So, this is what you’ve been dealing with since you broke out of the Assembly prison, is it?” he said after a moment.
“Yeah. They don’t know when to let up.”
“They’re obviously very scared of what you could tell people.” He rubbed his mouth, his eyes fixed on Naomi. “It could change a lot.”
“That’s what Rose says,” I said. “I’ve got to admit, I don’t know a whole lot about the political side of things. I’m here for her.”
One side of his mouth quirked up. “I know that feeling. Naomi wasn’t going to let Rose head back into the fray alone.” His gaze slid to me. “We got a couple of good ones, didn’t we?”
“If by good you mean keeping our lives way too exciting,” I said, but I didn’t really want to joke about it. “Yeah,” I added. “It looks like we did.”
From Greg’s expression as he turned back to watch his consort, he didn’t much care how much danger she dragged him into. Well, I knewthatfeeling too.
I’d take a fighter over a pushover any day.
“Do you really think Aunt Irene tipped off the Assembly?” Rose said to Naomi as she straightened up. She left her hand resting fondly on Seth’s short-cropped hair, just above the skin she’d sealed.
“I don’t know,” Naomi said. “My mom wasn’t very clear—I didn’t really have time to ask her with everything happening so fast. And now I’m kind of scared to text her anything, even talking vaguely the way I was before.” She let out a sharp breath. “All I know is that she caught Aunt Irene in the house with her—my mom’s—phone. Irene saw that last text from me about reaching the border. And when Mom confronted her, Aunt Irene said something that made her worried.”
“Why would shedothat?” Ky said, frowning.
Naomi’s head drooped. “I don’t know. Maybe in some weird way she thinks she’s protecting the family. The rest of it, other than us, I mean. I’m sure she found some way to justify it to herself. But it doesn’t matter. It’s not as if I’m heading back home.”
“You thought we could trust her,” Rose said.
“I never thought she’d go this far. But I guess we’ve never been in a situation like this for me to know. I’m sorry.”
“No!” Rose touched her cousin’s arm. “I’m not blaming you. I’m just saying—I know it feels awful. Thinking you knew someone better than that. After what happened with my dad… Anyway, maybe your mom misunderstood.”
Even after everything she'd been through, my angel was willing to give these people the benefit of the doubt. My hands clenched at my sides. If I had my way, after everything they'd already put her through, we'd burn all of them down—the entire Assembly, every part of this awful witching society of hers except maybe the two of them with us...
Rose turned toward me then, with a slightly pained smile that nonetheless sent a piercing sensation through me. Suddenly I was remembering her yesterday, open and vulnerable, asking us to trust her. My throat tightened.
Iwanted to burn everything down, but this was her fight more than mine. And she still wanted to salvage some of this witching world. She still saw hope in it.
Maybe I could offer something more than fire, if that was what she needed.
"I tried to question the guy I tackled," I said. "He got pretty edgy when I asked about The Cliff. But I'm pretty sure he doesn't know any details. The way he was talking, there's really nothing this faction of your Assembly cares about more than keeping their secrets. He was ready to let me kill him for things he didn't even know."
Rose nodded. "If their conspiracy to steal witches' power ever got out, every member of that faction would lose everything. And we don't even know why they're doing it, what they might stand to lose there."
"Well, I'm thinking that’s a whole lot of leverage right there," I said. "We don't know if we can get this proof, at least not right now. Not soon enough to save our lives. But there might be a way we can make them back off without it."
Gabriel cocked his head. "What do you mean?"
"You ever hear the term 'mutually assured destruction'? Both sides could destroy the other, but they agree not to, to save themselves.” I motioned toward the fallen bodies now far behind us on the freeway. “If we can make them believe we have enough to bring them down, we can bargain based on that. If they care that much about saving their skins, we might never need to reveal the bluff."
"Iwantto take them down, though," Rose said.
"But if we can't find enough right away to convince the rest of your society that your story is true, a deal like that could at least buy us some time," Seth said. "It's a backup plan."
"Yeah." I grinned. "So maybe it's not such a bad thing they know we're here. All we have to do is make it to that 'Cliff,' and they'll wet their pants trying to contain what we might know."
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rose
