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Elena’s tongue swept into Marisol’s mouth again, tasting her, claiming her. Marisol moaned, the sound swallowed by Elena’s lips. She was drowning in sensation, in the feel of Elena pressing against her, in the heat that pooled low in her belly.

“Still want me to scare you?” Elena whispered into their kiss.

Marisol’s body thrummed with need. She knew she should say no, knew she should walk away before she drowned in Elena. But in that moment, lost in the taste of her, the feel of her—Marisol couldn’t bring herself to care.

“No,” she breathed, leaning in to capture Elena’s lips again. “I want you to ruin me.”

Chapter Fourteen

“Motherfucker,”Zuri cursed when she pulled up to the hospital. She hadn’t been there in over a decade, but she was pretty sure it hadn’t been a sprawling metropolis the last time she’d seen it. How was she supposed to find Elena in the myriad of interconnected buildings? It was a damn city-state. After parking in a garage four-fucking-thousand miles from the main entrance, Zuri was slick with sweat when she finally stepped inside.

She still couldn’t imagine a universe where Elena was roaming among this many humans. When they were together, Elena had come with her to a friend’s wedding. By the time the couple was dancing their first, Elena was ready to breathe her last. She couldn’t stand how banal human lives were—so rarely of any consequence, and when they left a mark, it was usually for the worse.

It was Elena who’d made Zuri realize just how ugly humanity was as a whole. How full of cruelty. Humans cared about self and ego, rarely capable of self-sacrifice for the good of the order. Witches, though—they were only ever as strong as their community.

Elena shared Zuri’s convictions about family. She would never leave her little viper’s nest untended. Not willingly. Everything about her disappearance was wrong.

When Zuri reached the reception desk sitting behind a foot of bulletproof glass, she shoved aside her fears. Those weren’t going to help her find Elena.

“Hi, I’m looking for my friend. I think she may have been brought here last night,” Zuri said in her best customer service voice.

Behind the glass, a woman with the countenance of a seasick bullfrog blinked at her. When telepathy apparently failed her, she rolled her eyes before blinking in a way that oozed exasperation. “Name?”

Panic, quick and cold, spiked up Zuri’s spine. She couldn’t exactly say Elena Amador, DOB August 1, 1730. She searched her memory for Elena’s current alias. She’d never had to use it.

“You’re so worried about your friend, but you don’t know her name?” Bullfrog asked in aI’m-not-having-it-todaytone.

“I’m sorry. I’m just so nervous. I haven’t been able to get a hold of her, and I just—” Zuri tried to summon tears. To look vulnerable and scared and deserving of a break.

When Zuri looked up, Bullfrog was blinking one eye at a time. “Ma’am, people are waiting. If you don’t have a name, step aside.”

Easing out of her failed attempt at acting, Zuri leaned close to the glass. There had to be another way to get this asshole to help her. She glanced at her name tag, noting the uniquely Cuban combination of too many Ys, and code-switched into Spanish.

Zuri took an educated guess at what might trigger sympathy. “You can’t imagine how worried her grandmother has been.”

Bullfrog glanced at the armed security guard like she was sending a signal before turning back to Zuri. “Then call her abuela and ask for your dear friend’s name. Next!”

“Please!” Zuri slapped her hand uselessly against the glass. “I can give you a complete physical description?—”

“Miss, you have to?—”

Zuri dodged the security guard and kept her eyes trained on a bored Bullfrog. “I can tell you exactly what she was wearing when she got here,” she shouted, the guard’s hand on her shoulder. “She has a birthmark on her armpit that looks like a three-legged turtle!”

“Oh, perfect. I’ll check for that in our system,” she said before pretending to type in the air.

“Olivia,” Zuri screamed the pseudonym, but the guard was already using his body to push her back to the entrance.

“This doesn’t have to get worse for you,” he said in a steady voice despite Zuri’s struggling.

“You can’t do this,” she shouted, vaguely aware of the minor scene she’d created. “This is a publicly funded hospital and I’m a tax paying resident!”

Zuri stopped screaming when she realized that anything anyone shouted while being bodily removed from a building sounded insane. She pushed off the guard and went back into the humid night on her own two feet.

She should leave. She’d tried her best to help and failed. That should be enough to assuage her guilt. The sense of duty coursing through her chest was an illusion. She didn’t really owe Elena a damn thing. With all her own problems, she didn’t have time for this.

Instead of walking to her car, Zuri stalked along the edge of the main building. She wasn’t looking for another way in. Wasn’t planning on breaking into a hospital. That was crazy. There was no reason for her to linger by an exit. And absolutely no excuse for bolting to the garbage can when an exiting woman peeled off her visitor’s badge and tossed it into the trash.

Zuri looked down at the poorly rendered black-and-white pixelated photo on the sticker. She looked nothing like the woman who was old enough to be her mother, but how closely did anyone ever look at these? As long as she laid low and didn’t give anyone a reason to inspect the pass…