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“The space between the realms, the boundary, is like this nil space. It connects to the living realm anywhere, really. I follow the trail I want, and it takes me to where that being is, or at least pretty close to it.” He shrugged. “Travel like that is always iffy.”
The conversation went on, back and forth, but I wasn’t sure how useful any of it was. In the end, it was really just guessing. Guessing what Lucifer had meant to do, how we’d get across the dead zone if there was no bridge, how to deal with Lucifer.
So I drank glass after glass of the water, since each time I neared the bottom, Hunter ordered another from Mella.
Eventually, though, the water won.
“I need to use the restroom,” I said when squirming stopped working.
Hunter slid out of the booth, making room for me. He walked me back toward a door.
I opened the door and he tried to follow me in. I turned to block his way. “I don’t think so.”
Hunter looked past me, as if surveying the empty bathroom. “Modesty is useless if you end up dead.”
“But if I can’t pee in peace, is it even worth living?”
He lifted an eyebrow then studied the room once more, drawing in a breath as if to sniff. I could have told him trying to smell a public restroom in hell was probably a really bad choice, but I just wanted him gone.
Finally, he nodded. “You have five minutes before I’m coming back in, privacy be damned. I’ll be right here.”
I shut the door, thankful to have a moment to myself. I thought about how moms always talked about sitting in the bathroom for far longer than it took to actually pee because they needed the break, the quiet, the time to get off their feet and just sit in silence.
After I did my business, squat-style over the seat because I wasnotgoing to be sitting on that—who knew what sort of diseases one could get in hell—I washed my hands, ignoring the red-tinged liquid that left the faucet.
We were close. It was strange, since I couldn’t feel magic, yet there was an odd sensation that ran over my skin. It wasn’t a pull, not something I felt connected to, but rather an awareness. The closer we’d gotten to the Court, to the center of hell, the stronger it became.
Why?
Why any of it?I sighed, drying my hands on my pants when there wasn’t anything else to use.
Whys weren’t all that useful, really, since they hadn’t given me any answers.
Something moved in my peripheral vision, and I turned to catch sight of someone through the back window.
The boy I’d seen earlier. Where he’d had an edge of anxiety before, he was in a full panic, now.
He backed away, hands up, tears running down his dirty cheeks. The window was behind the row of toilets, up high enough to give bathroom goers privacy.
I moved without thinking. It was stupid, yes, but all I could think about was how I’d felt as a kid. I thought about the times I’d had no one looking out for me, the times I’d moved to some new group home or foster family with nothing. The fear on the kid’s face was so familiar that the only thing I could think of was doingsomething.
The reach wasn’t easy, but I pulled myself through the window,using the toilet as a stepstool, and shimmied out.
I planned to grab the kid, to get him to follow me back into the bathroom. Grant had to be wrong about him because he wasjusta kid.
I followed where he’d gone, just around the corner, to find him cowering in the shadows.
“Hey there,” I said, using my best ‘I’m a friend’voice. “Come on, why don’t you come with me? We’ll get you somewhere safe.”
He sniffled, then ran the back of his hand across his nose. “I can’t.”
I crouched down just in front of him. “Yes, you can. My friends look scary, but they’re really not.”
Okay, so they reallywerescary, but that wasn’t the sort of thing that would reassure the kid, so I kept it to myself.
He lifted his face, and it shifted before my eyes. That fear was gone, disappearing as if it’d never been there at all.
It was in that moment I realized Grant had been right, that I’d been stupid.
