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“Yup, text sent,” I confirm and shove my phone into my back pocket just as it starts to vibrate. I yelp. “Oh shit, that’s him.”
Eden nods and takes a tiny step back for privacy.
“Hey, Mr. Gutierrez,” I answer cheerfully the moment I pick up the phone, excited to finally get to share some good news with the man who has seen me at my lowest. “Did you get the payment I sent?”
“What payment?”
My stomach drops, and my hands suddenly feel numb. That is not Mr. Gutierrez’s warm and lightly accented voice. It is a woman’s harsh and high-pitched one.
“Mother?” I swallow down the bile rising in my throat as a confusing combination of emotions wash over me. Anger and irritation cling to the surface, but a bubble of hope sits small in my belly. She’s still my mom, and hearing her voice is a momentary burst of nostalgia.
“What payment, honey?” she asks again, seeming to get a handle on her tone, and the question comes out lighter. “How are you making money right now? Do I want to know? If you just drop the lawsuit and let Richard and I take care of you, then you wouldn’t have to worry about anything.”
I want to tell her I don’t needhermoney; I needmymoney. I want to tell her exactly how I make my money, how generous people are paying for my time, how just my presence is enough to get paid. I want to tell her I like getting to hear her voice, how it makes me think of the good times we had at the start of my career, when she’d always get ice cream after a bad audition. I want to tell her I still hate her. But I don’t say any of it.
“You know how much we miss you.”
“We?”
“Richard and I. You think he doesn’t care about you, but he does. He cares about both of us.” My mother’s voice takes on a disturbingly girlish tone when talking about my ex-manager, and I have the disgusting feeling they are now more than business partners. “Oh, and we got a pool put in, so if you were to come by, you could swim like you always liked to…”
I try to remember when I liked to swim, and the only memory I can come up with is when I had to learn different strokes for a kid’s channel movie about a middle school swim team.Fish Tales,I think it was called. This whole conversation feels bizarre, like she is trying to erase the first five years of name-calling and aggressive messages and the following years of near silence. She sounds like she did before I turned eighteen and my world was turned upside down.
“Mom,” I finally say, my voice lacking the strength it normally has as I interrupt her list of new home improvement projects. “Why did you call?”
“A mother can’t call her daughter?” she snaps, the mother I’ve known for the past ten years returning. “I can’t be worried about you? Jesus, Jules. It’s like you are determined for us to have a terrible relationship. I don’t know how you’re getting your money, honey, but there is no way it’s good for you. You hear me? Are you listening? You never listen, and I’m just trying to help you—”
“I… I gotta go, mom.” I hang up the phone, shoving it quickly into the back pocket of my borrowed sweats.
When I look up, Eden is staring at me. Her expression is kind but, thankfully, not pitying. My mother was loud enough that she got the gist of what was being said. We stand there, both uncertain of how to proceed.
“We’ve got more shopping to do.” She smiles overly brightly, a devious look in her green eyes. “I don’t think we’ve made nearly a big enough dent in Titan’s black card.”
Without waiting for a response, she turns and heads back down the hallway, and I follow her. We pass a large open room with a fireplace, and then the kitchen, and then we’re back at the gallery space foyer.
The witch’s dagger Titan had knocked over the night before is back in its place, the rubies in the scabbard glistening in the light like a beacon.
Eden is already heading into the dining room, her attention focused on flipping between her notepad and tablet. I feel an urge, the same sickness I’d felt listening to Titan and again listening to my mother, morph into action. I quicken my steps, moving closer to the pedestals.
I just want to get close enough to touch the dagger,I tell myself,just close enough to know that I could take it if I wanted to, to feel my hand wrap around the cold metal.
“Jules? Did I lose you?” Eden’s voice echoes as she reenters from the dining room.
My heart thunders as I drop my hand to my side and follow after her.
* * *
Idon’t see Titan the rest of the day, not more than a sliver of his back or a corner of his wings as he moved from room to room. It seems the other gargoyles live and work on the floors below. He is always followed by one or more of his brothers, and more often than not, it’s Rook, the broken-horned one Eden is always looking at.
I’m not needed for the planning stages of their scheme when they go over hacking security cameras and emails, so I spend the day with Eden. We eat lunch and pick out the rest of my clothing, shoes, and accessories on her tablet, which will arrive later at the penthouse by courier. I’m not going to waste the opportunity to get free designer clothing, so I show her the bookmarked items I’ve saved on my phone. If there is a budget, Eden doesn’t tell me, and I don’t ask.
The sun has set by the time the first boxes arrive, and I stare at them sitting on Titan’s bed. There’s a large white box made of heavy-weight cardboard and edged in silver, and three smaller boxes stacked on the floor.
The luxury brand name on the large box is written in metallic script. I don’t remember ordering anything from that particular store. A thin silver string is tied around the box, and a small envelope is tucked under the bow.
My name is handwritten on the envelope and, inside, a plain white card reads, “Wear this tonight. You can pick the shoes.”
I frown, looking at the box, now suspicious of its contents. Eden has my accurate sizing, but past experiences have told me that my arrangements tend to have obvious taste in women’s clothing. I hold my breath as I open the box and exhale slowly in relief as I see the contents.
