Page 24

J avi chewed his tapioca pearls while he considered my request.

I picked our favorite bubble tea place to meet—somewhere casual, neutral—because nothing says I’m-sorry-let’s-not-fight more than boba.

“Yeah, I have her business card. Why do you want it?” he asked mid-slurp.

Okay, I knew this answer.

I’d rehearsed it in the sun visor’s mirror.

Yet here, in the act, I failed to remember what partial truth I decided to tell.

“I think she can help me uncover some things I’ve been trying to learn about myself.” That didn’t sound too off script.

Chewing a mouthful of tapioca balls, he stared at me intently.

“Don’t you have therapy for that?”

“My therapist actually suggested it.” The suspicion coming off him was stronger than the matcha in my drink.

I took a nervous sip.

It went down the wrong pipe, and I spent a good minute coughing, unable to look guiltier if I tried.

“As a way to…get a unique perspective. You know, reframe.” Which, kind of, because isn’t that what facing my emotions meant?

His thick black eyebrows came together.

“And you decided to start with the psychic who harassed you at Grad Night?”

My jaw quivered.

I bit down to try and keep it steady, so hard that sweat dotted my upper lip despite being in a freezing-cold air-conditioned room.

“We have this thing called the internet.” Avoiding my eyes, he tapped his phone’s screen and started an aimless scroll.

“She doesn’t have a website. I tried every search engine.” It was true.

An hour ago, I’d been curled up in the passenger seat of Ryder’s car with the windows down, the music softly playing in the background and his arm resting atop my calves…

while we input every rendition of Madame Myrian into the browsers’ search bars on our phones—just so I didn’t have to do this .

I exhaled sharply. “There’s no trace of her online.”

Javi pulled a fabric bi-fold wallet out of his back pocket, and there between the Magic cards, old school IDs, and crumpled dollar bills, lay Madame Myrian’s business card.

“Here.” He slid the plain white card across the table.

My eyes narrowed as I tilted my chin and considered taking it or ripping it in half.

Was it so bad to just give up now and go back to watching reruns of our favorite sitcoms in our sweatpants?

Javi took another long pull of his drink.

“Do you need company, or is your friend joining you?” Condescension drenched his tone.

As much as I wanted to deny it, I couldn’t stomach another lie.

“Yes, he is.”

“Figures,” he grumbled into his tiger milk tea.

“Well, I hope you find the insight you’re looking for. Maybe she can even teach you a thing or two about being a good friend.”

My heart lurched painfully.

“That’s not fair.” Because I didn’t want it to be.

“You know what’s not fair?” His nostrils flared as his voice rose.

“Always being by your side, answering every damn beck and call, and still getting the shit end of the stick. It’s one thing to dip out on our adventures, but when did we start keeping secrets from each other?” He pushed the plastic cup away from him, jostling the ice.

It tipped over, the light brown liquid seeping onto the tabletop.

“Javi,” I pleaded, making a point to keep my voice low.

“I don’t even know how to start to explain what’s happening to me. It’s evolving and complicated and I’ll sound insane.”

“Try me, Riv!” He slammed his fingers into his chest. “I’ve sat outside almost all your doctor’s appointments. I’ve witnessed a thousand of your episodes—and I’ve held your hand through them all. I’ve helped you off the ground. I’ve comforted you when you were drooling and muttering gibberish. I’m still here. Try me River, please .”

The croak in his throat, the wrinkles in his forehead, the sheen to his eyes—I truly wished it were enough.

Enough to say fuck it and bring him along for the ride and show him a world far trippier than the ones in his comics.

But it wouldn’t be the sunset we’d be riding off into—it’d be more like the apocalypse.

Complete with vicious demons and bloodthirsty werewolves and half-angels armed with such wicked beauty they were perhaps the most dangerous of all.

Something else struck me then—what about the mental filter Ryder had mentioned after the teratorn at his house?

Would Javi even be able to see Source, or understand it?

My mind had been on the verge of breaking at least ten times since I’d accepted this twist of fate—and I was Nephilim .

What would it do to him, a human?

It’d be life altering, sure, but would it shatter him mentally?

I was all too familiar with having a brain that operated differently.

Even if I wouldn’t change it, it was hard.

Draining. I didn’t want him to go through that unnecessarily.

But I also didn’t want to lose him.

It was a no-win situation.

“I have one question.” He broke my silence.

“Does he know?”

I knew who he was, and for that, I hated my next words.

“Yes, but…it’s different.”

Pushing up off the laminated table, he thrust his chair back.

It squeaked against the linoleum, curdling my eardrums. “That’s all I needed to hear.” He paused after standing, messing with a crumpled straw wrapper.

“We have half a summer left, and you’re spending it with him . I guess our friendship— I mean that little to you that you can so easily toss me to the curb. By all means, be with whoever makes you happy, Riv. I just can’t believe I was stupid enough to think it was me.”

“You were going to leave me first,” I whispered, trying and failing to hold back that festering piece of resentment.

It gnawed at my integrity, killing any lingering decency.

I didn’t want to use that against him.

I was a monster. I was…

“I’m sorry.”

I wanted to hear his snort-chuckle laugh, not his skateboard gliding away.

Wanted to see his crinkled brown eyes, not his empty metal chair.

Wanted his goodbye to insinuate a next time, not that he’d been hurt beyond repair.

His absence left me with a haunting isolation, fueling the emptiness inside.

I used to love being alone.

I guess I got what I wanted.

“That looked rough.” Ryder slid through my remorse and into the vacated seat.

If the bags under my eyes didn’t give it away, my ragged breaths definitely did.

His hand reached for mine, ignoring the spilled tea.

“You get it?” he asked, eager but quiet.

I nodded at the card next to the condensation mark where Javi’s drink had sat, lacking the strength to do anything else.

“Sunset Court, Half Moon Bay,” Ryder read aloud.

“That’s a few hours from here.” He shuffled the edges of the card against the table.

“Well, this’ll take longer than expected. What are your plans tomorrow? Do you have class?”

I shook my head.

Not on Fridays. “Hanging out with you.” In any other situation the forwardness would make me feel cool and sexy, but it came out flat and didn’t carry an ounce of thrill when my heart slushed in blended chunks like my drink.

I had gone cold, stone-faced, utterly lifeless at the way things ended with Javi.

He’s in love with you, you know.

I knew.

And the only thing I could do was squash that thought right out of my brain along with the maple leaves beneath my feet.

Ryder had led me out onto the street, and we trudged past the weekly farmer’s market, one of my and Javi’s regular haunts.

A place we’d taste test every cheese, sausage, hummus, and pitted fruit we were allowed before the commotion of the midmorning rush—aromas and flavors I loved to get lost in.

But right now I couldn’t stand them—I could hardly stand myself.

Which is why, before I went any further, there was one more thing left to do.

I rounded the alley’s blunt corner, gripping its surface, the stone rough and firm against my fingertips.

A solid buffer to catch me for when my knees undoubtedly buckled and I could no longer maintain my balance, let alone my composure.

Once the cigarette fumes tickled my nose and my throat, I’d be too close to second-guess my decision.

The goodness of my heart hadn’t led me to Kona Koffee—it was more like the glare from the glass door swinging open, the light hitting me square in the eyes.

All but blinding me, it had caught my attention, and I knew right then and there, it had to be the final stop on my apology tour.

As I’d peered through the windows, I didn’t spot the soon-to-be recipient of said apology behind the counter.

Which meant bathroom or smoke break out back.

I’d watched to see who came out of the restroom, Ryder at my side.

“You can go. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I’d told him, once confirming their identity—not the person I needed.

I’d stepped around my narrow-eyed companion, who’d moved to cross his arms and gripped the skin so tightly I could see the red mark of the indent.

Yes, Ryder, I had the audacity to dismiss you, and I’d been feeling way too bitter to sugarcoat it.

That stung him a bit, but I’d needed to do this next part myself.

He’d get over it.

Disappearing behind my place of work, a twinge of fear curled my spine as bits of gravel and glass crunched beneath my feet.

I hadn’t forgotten that the last time I walked this dumpster-lined corridor I almost didn’t make it out.

Then Ryder found me.

Shaking my head, shaking him away, I remembered what also found me that night.

I shuddered, but the pit on my left fluttered with the yellow vests of construction, not a pair of glowing red eyes within unending darkness.

Chalky dust and metallic sparks billowed from the jobsite and mixed with the alley’s air, blending with the smoke from the cig’s lit end, which its user dangled between their right pointer and middle fingers.

Shanley took a drag and leaned against the brick, using her foot as a spring.

I took her in: The baggy jeans, the plaid flannel around her waist, the braless off-white tank behind the discolored apron.

The plump rosy lips, the cool complexion, the fade beneath the tress of waxy dark blonde hair.

Not the look of a stone-cold predator—but when her icy blue stare landed on me, I stopped cold, and all I saw was the monster within her.

“River?” she said. My breath lodged in my throat.

“Hey.” I expected a snarl of words, but they came out…

subdued. The cig dropped to the pavement.

She crushed the butt, not my bones, not under her claws, but her Converse.

An exhale slipped past my lips and that instinctual part of me that had me reacting like prey clicked off.

Shanley wasn’t the beast I needed to run from.

If anything, I was.

“Hey.” I copied her stance against the wall.

Not for cool factor, for sheer support.

If the vision of a massive werewolf didn’t bring me down, then my nerves most certainly would.

My voice cracked with the blaring cement cutter as I went to say, “I’m sorry,” but she beat me to it.

“What?” I spun on my heels to face her.

“What are you sorry for?! I’m the one who caused this whole mess. If it weren’t for me, Chet wouldn’t have gone all bloodthirsty. I shouldn’t have provoked him when we got to the party.”

Shanley scoffed at the name.

“ Chet was going to do what he did regardless, because people like Chet have zero respect for others. I should have nipped the situation sooner”—no pun intended—“but I admit I’m a little rusty. We haven’t had a situation like that in a long time, and even then…I wasn’t even born, so I’m not totally sure how they dealt with it.”

Right.

Vampire takeover, eighties.

No Hunt Order. Something I’d actually been briefed on.

Although Ryder didn’t reveal much outside of that phrase.

Shanley dropped her chin, her top locks a curtain across her brows.

“It looks like I need to start screening the guest list again. Those bonfires have gotten pretty unruly anyways. Too many people, too many volatile young bucks. Way too much liability. I’m sorry,” she repeated, stepping towards me.

“You shouldn’t have seen that.”

I knew the lilt behind her plea meant more than just witnessing the hunger, the violence, the chaos of Chet’s turning.

Because that same lycanthropic spell had been mirrored in her —in her feral blue stare, in her raised ashy hackles, in her curled bloody flews, in her claws and fangs and growls—and she was my friend, not my enemy.

To try and ease any lingering tension, I said, “Eh, I’ve seen worse.”

Shanley grinned, her eyes crinkling.

“So, it seems you are one of us.”

An assumption that’d already been made, I realized, when I’d seen through the facade of panic and locked eyes with that monster within.

Or this convo would be going in a very different direction.

She leaned back against the brick, eyeing me with a suspicious smirk.

“Didn’t take you as this brand of misfit. What are you, exactly?”

My brain stumbled on the question.

“Still trying to figure that one out.”

“Well, welcome to the club. Hope the bonfire wasn’t your initiation.”

It was and it wasn’t.

The supernatural had always been coming for me; last night I’d just decided to stop hiding from it.

“So, when does my members-only jacket come?”

Her cackle was a blast of warmth, but it was my own laugh that really surprised me—for a minute there, I’d thought I’d never smile again.

It faded quickly. “Can I ask…where is he now?” The name didn’t need repeating.

Shanley’s gaze lingered on the activity across the alley.

“He’s awaiting his tribunal.”

I raised a brow.

“The Pack Elders will sentence him, and those complicit, at the next new moon. If they have time for it.” She ran her hand through her hair.

“There’s a lot of shit to sort through these days.”

The weight of Shanley’s tone, her fidgets, they didn’t escape me.

“What will they do to him? And those they find guilty?”

“Time will tell, but my ass is on the line. It happened under my watch, my rule.” Another cigarette loosed, the lighter shaking on the path to ignite it.

I stated the obvious.

“You’re worried.”

Shanley shook it off.

“Best not to dwell on worst-case scenarios. As the Pack Leader, I’m always going to be involved.” Her words didn’t match the restlessness of her bouncing heel.

The silence had me figuring we’d moved on from the topic when she added, a bit breathless, “If you want to testify…it’d help the case. It could also impact the type and severity of his punishment. Only if you’re comfortable, though.”

Wow.

The only thing better would be delivering Chet his sentence myself.

I imagined his stupid pretty face on the stand, orangey tan faded from weeks out of the pool, sweat dripping from the fringes of his grown-out buzz cut, standing so scared and so small even at six feet tall compared to the pillars of wolfen muscle surrounding him.

Chet Jennings: water polo star, scholarship awardee.

Those words would mean nothing there.

He would mean nothing there.

“What do I have to do?”

“Go in front of our Elders and some witnesses, and tell them what happened,” Shanley blew out the smoke.

“They’ll want to know everything.”

“Everything?” My muscles tensed.

“Every little detail.” Each of her words could have been their own sentence, they came out so purposeful and slow.

A warning or a heads-up, or maybe she was alluding to my trick, the whole summoning-the-ocean-and-flooding-the-clearing thing.

Whoops.

Or maybe she was referencing my and Chet’s obvious history.

I didn’t know if I could relive all that, let alone aloud, and in front of Elders— strangers .

Even if I told every single truth, served my shattered heart as proof…

What if no one believed me?

What if his charm superseded it all?

It seemed to always get him what he wanted.

“I’ll think about it.” I cut off my snowballing thoughts.

“You still haven’t answered my original question, though. Where is he?”

“He’s in a holding kennel. Yes, you heard that right. Kennel.” Shanley turned to me, and I swore the tip of a fang glistened in the sunlight.

“Try not to hide your shock too much.”

I couldn’t even if I tried.

The corners of my mouth twitched, fighting a smile.

“For all intents and purposes, Ch— he’s just a pup. He has no control. Not that he had much before, clearly.” She curled her lips over her teeth, up to the gums, lowering them quicker than they rose.

“But now, it’s like learning to walk again. He’s flickering back and forth between man and wolf, and he’s completely engulfed by his new urges.”

“Sounds like the same guy to me,” I mumbled as we walked in stride to the dumpster, where she tossed her cigarette butts.

“How long can you keep him for? Surely not…forever?”

Shanley’s look told me I’d be surprised.

Then she shrugged. “Likely no, but his parents are too wealthy and aloof to notice his absence for now. At least he’s eighteen, or this could have been really messy.” And she added for emphasis, “We’d still hold him accountable.”

I didn’t know which night with Chet she was referring to now, but I nodded.

As the dwindling afternoon light reflected in her eyes, I realized: she meant both.

“Hey.” She slowed to a stop.

“It wasn’t your fault. You’re not responsible for anyone else’s behavior. You know that, right?”

“Thanks.” I gave her a tight-lipped grin.

Even with what I wasn’t saying, Shanley understood the fear, how important hearing that was to me.

“So,” I breathed, “he’s in the doghouse. Good.”

The image of him crammed into a red-roofed, uninsulated shed with rusty water bowls was enough to bring us both to hysterics—exactly what I needed before venturing off to find the psychic and discover more about my half-angel heritage.