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Not this fucking reason. Never this.

“Binx,” I whispered brokenly.

I couldn’t stop running my fingers through his fur. His body wasn’t warm. How long had he been here, alone and dead?

He’d died all alone, and that didn’t seem fair to me. None of this seemed fair to me.

“Ariel, what the—”

“Oh shit.”

This was okay. I could fix this. There was still a chance that I could make this right and fix Binx. I wasn’t going to give up now.

“What?”

“What is she talking about? Fix what?”

Had I said that out loud? Damn.

“Call her dad. Tell him to come and get her. She’s not going to be able to drive herself home in this condition.”

“I don’t have her dad’s phone number. I don’t even know who the hell her dad is. I have Quinton’s number, I can call him.”

“Rain. Rain’s her dad. It doesn’t matter. Just forget it. I’ll call him. You’re as good as useless.”

I didn’t need them to call my dad, because I wasn’t going home. I needed to fix Binx. Binx needed me right now.

“Binx is the dead cat, I take it?”

Fuck Finn. He didn’t get to talk about Binx being dead. He wasn’t going to be dead for much longer. We could fix him, I could fix him.

“She’s not making any sense, man. I think she’s lost her damn mind, and who could blame her after what the Council’s done to her. Unless you’re hiding somePet Semetaryshit around here that only she knows about. In that case, you’re better off leaving the cat dead, trust me.”

I pulled my dagger out of the bag and whirled on Finn. I was done with him talking like that and talking about me as if I wasn’t in the room or in my right state of mind.

I wasn’t in my right state of mind, but who the hell was Finn of all people to call me out for it?

“Whoa,” Romero shouted as he rushed to my side. “Put that thing down before you hurt yourself. Your dad wouldn’t forgive me if you got hurt on my watch.”

I thrust my dagger in Finn’s direction. He hurriedly stumbled backwards in an attempt to escape me and fell into the wall.

“You brought me in here for this? I thought you’d be a cool chick because of your work with taking down the Council. I had no idea you’d be this fucking crazy. I can only handle my own crazy. I’m out of here.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” I snarled at him as I advanced, clutching my dagger in my hand like a lifeline. “I still need your knowledge with blood magic, and you’re not going anywhere until I get what I want from you. Then you can scurry back to whatever hole you’ve been hiding in, and you can die in there for all I care. Just not before you help me.”

Surprisingly, Finn’s face softened, but I was too far gone in my own grief and shock to take notice of it.

“Ariel, no. Just no.” Romero plucked the dagger out of my hand as if I were a child. He grabbed my arm and dragged me away from Finn and out of the room.

And away from Binx.

I didn’t try to fight him. In my heart of hearts, I knew there was nothing I could do for Binx anymore.

I didn’t know how I was going to deal with his death. There’d been a lot of death in my life as of late, but this one hit me the hardest. He might have just been a cat to some people, but he was no ordinary cat to me. He was my friend, and I loved him.

“I don’t mean to sound callous, but that cat is dead and no blood magic is going to bring him back to life. That freak show boy in there is right about you. You’re starting to sound a little crazy. I think you’ve finally hit your breaking point and snapped. It’s been coming, and we’ve all been on the lookout for it.”

I allowed him to guide me out of the house and to the front steps. He forced me to sit down and then crouched down in front of me. His eyes were immensely kind, and his face had gone entirely soft. That struck me as odd for Romero, and like everything else that had happened to me today, it hit me hard.