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I swallowed hard when my stomach twisted into a knot of nerves.
Colter came to me. He stood close to me, and I took a deep breath, breathing in his scent. His closeness was reassuring.
He leaned forward and pressed his lips against my forehead. I closed my eyes and drank him in for a moment.
“Ready?” he asked.
I nodded, and Colter wrapped his arms around me, twisting his ring.
I still didn’t know exactly how the magic worked that powered the ring and took us across the city. I just knew that, for a while, I was lighter than air, made up only of particles, and we traveled through nothingness until we reached our destination.
We took form in front of the doors of the Wonderprise building.
“Hi, Fred,” I said to the doorman with a smile when we appeared in front of him.
His eyes widened.
It was very early, but the man was always at his post. We’d decided to come as early as we could, rather than later. We had less of a chance of running into vampires who would put up a fight if we came at this time—that had been my reasoning, and Colter had agreed to my logic. Despite Colter killing that vampire and ruining the machine, he was still worried they might have found out about the test results. If that was the case, even just with Jerry knowing, it wasn’t as safe as when they all backed down in fear of Colter firing them because he owned the business. This had become a kind of war, although it was still under wraps.
Everyone was just waiting for the other to make a move, to screw up. It was like they were all holding their collective breaths, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Miss Clarke,” he said slowly. He looked at Colter. “And Mr. Price, what an honor to see you again.”
Colter only grunted.
“Holding down the fort?” I asked Fred.
“As always, ma’am.” He frowned. “We haven’t seen you around for a while.”
“I had a couple of personal things to take care of. How’s Gloria?”
“Just fine,” Fred said.
I nodded, and he opened the door for us. We stepped in.
“Are you friends with everyone in the building?” Colter asked.
“It doesn’t hurt to be nice to people.
“It doesn’t help, either.”
“You never know who you might need,” I said. “But if it’s nothing more than you giving them a reason to smile, it should be enough.”
Colter shook his head. He didn’t get it—he was closed off and grumpy, but that was fine. I wasn’t like that. I liked people. People needed each other—we all went through hell. We were all fighting our own brand of demons, and it helped to be there for each other, even if it was just in spirit.
“Let’s get to that machine and get going before anyone else arrives,” Colter said.
We hurried through the building, following the usual route I took through the hallways until we reached the research offices. Before we reached the lab, Jerry appeared in front of us. He’d just dropped out of thin air, and I yelped and jumped backward.
“Jerry,” Colter said in a calm voice.
“Colter,” Jerry answered, but his eyes were glued to me—to my neck, to be specific.
“What are you doing here?” Colter asked.
“I should ask you the same thing.”
“Let’s not forget the pecking order here. I own the company,” Colter said.
