Page 56

Rome

Later that evening, I found Kerry sitting on the side of his bed with his face in his hands.

Uh-oh.

“Hinge says the shadow you drew is the same one who killed him.” I sat on Jax’s bed. “No one can get a hold of Amanda Greenaway, but Gigi texted a photo of your sketch to Kyo, and he said it’s the same shadow he saw in her memory from when she was petrified.”

It was only confirmation of what we’d already guessed, but he groaned as if I’d punched him in the liver, which, in case you’ve never experienced it, hurts .

“I ain’t never gonna get her back, am I?” he muttered.

“That’s your taint talking. We’ll find her.”

“Yeah? In how many pieces?”

He dropped his hands and raised his head, and I inhaled sharply. His eyes had less life in them than that corpse we’d found in the mountains.

Gigi was right. The rage either burned out or was smothered by hopelessness.

“She told you herself that she was safe,” I reminded him.

“Stop imagining the worst. Anyway, I’ve been thinking.

Could we take a bit of Hinge’s power? Just a smidgen to have proof of a miracle worker?

He wouldn’t be exposed to any risk, and we only need enough to convince Hubler.

If we could use it to trick him into meeting with us, we’d have an opportunity to get the seal from him. ”

“Setting a trap didn’t work so great last time. Why would it work this time?” He fell onto his side and threw his legs up on the bed.

“It would buy us time, at least.”

“Time? What does time matter against demon princes and necromancers and djinn? Against corrupted wardens and traitors on the Council?” He covered his face with his hands again. “I never stood a chance of getting her back, did I?”

“Listen—”

“Lemme alone. I wanna sleep.” His muffled voice cracked at the end.

A furious tiger was hard enough to handle, but a desperate one would require a kind of motivation that I feared none of us could provide. With a heavy frown, I got to my feet and went to find more rational minds.

#

Mira

“He’s not good, Jax.” Rome jerked his head toward the bedroom. “Maybe you should try and talk to him.”

“Is he losing it?” Jax scrambled to his feet.

“Losing faith, anyway. Gigi, you were right. The fury finally ran out.”

“I told y’all it would.”

We trooped back to the boys’ bedroom, where Rome sat on Jax’s bed. One look at Kerry’s face and I stayed next to Rome. Even looking as if his soul had flown out of him, Kerry was dangerous.

Jax wasn’t so wary. He sat down on the end of his bed.

“Too close.” Kerry half-heartedly shoved Jax’s hip with his sock foot. “Go away.”

Jax didn’t budge except to pull Gigi down to sit on his lap.

“Dude,” he said, “what’s going through your head?”

It took a coupla minutes, and Jax had to prod him some more before he finally caved.

“What if she falls for him?”

“Who? Darius?! ” Jax traded a look with Gigi. “Do you really believe she’s so fickle, she’ll fall for the guy who kidnapped her? An enemy who took her away from her friends and the guy she does love?”

“What does fickle mean?” Kerry asked.

“Wishy-washy.”

“Nah, she’s not that.” Kerry heaved a sigh. “She said he bought her yarn and crochet hooks so she wouldn’t be bored.”

“If he’s the honorable man Mingo said he is, it goes against his principles to use an innocent girl as a hostage,” Jax reasoned. “He’s being nice to her because he feels guilty about it.”

“He told her she talks too much.”

Gigi’s hand flew up to her mouth to hide her smile, and I bit my bottom lip for the same reason.

“She probably does. Whining and pestering him to let her go, or prattling on and on about you or books or you or music or you.”

Jax’s humor bounced off Kerry as we all knew it would. He was quiet for a second, then, with his eyes full of child-like hurt, he looked up at Jax.

“She called him by his name and said he was sweet,” he whispered.

Ah. The most grievous wound.

“Come on, dude. She’s been with him a few days. She wouldn’t keep calling him Mr. Djinni, would she?” Jax smiled. “Besides, even if he falls for her, that doesn’t mean she has to love him back.”

“Lilas said she ‘kithed’ you a lot in your dream,” Rome spoke up. “That doesn’t sound like she’s ready to ditch you for him. You shouldn’t doubt her.”

I choked on a giggle at his impersonation of Lilas’ lisp.

“Oh, yeah. That dream.” Kerry rubbed his chest with one hand.

I grinned.

Musta been a real good dream to make his taint flare up!

“I can’t believe you’re worried about this now,” Jax groused. “She had guys all over her at the Sanctuary, and you were never jealous.”

“What do you mean, she had guys all over her?”

“I mean, guys were interested in her. Well, until word spread that you two were dating. You didn’t know?”

“She only told me about some boy named Remi. She said he asked her out after he upset Gigi.”

Jax narrowed his eyes at Gigi, and his voice flattened out into a monotone.

“You didn’t tell me he upset you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She waved one hand.

“What did he do?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“What. Did. He. Do?”

“Pulled her hair.” Kerry swung his feet off the end of the bed and sat up. “Kept bothering her after she turned him down.”

Orange backlit Jax’s eyes.

“When we get back, I’m going to have a little talk with that French-speaking—”

“He apologized,” Gigi said. “Let it go.”

From Jax’s expression, I knew there was no way he would let it go.

Whoever Remi is, I have a feeling he’s gonna get busted up.

Rome nudged my arm with his. I glanced up and my eyes followed his and—

“Uh, Jax?” I tipped my head toward Kerry. “Not to downplay this disruption to your domestic harmony, but let’s focus on the here and now.”

“Gigi, do you have your phone?” He waited until she slid it out of her back pocket, then said, “Bring up The Photo, please.”

You could hear the capital letters in his voice, and curiosity nipped at me. I leaned over to see a photo of Gemma staring at something out of the shot. Her smile was soft and her eyes said that whoever she was looking at had her whole heart in his hands.

“Look at your lady. Look at her face. Now, even as oblivious and blind as you are when it comes to girls,” Jax ignored Kerry’s growl, “surely you can tell what she’s feeling.”

“Who is she looking at?”

“Uh-uh. You did not just ask me that.” Jax shoved Kerry’s shoulder, which I thought was either very brave or very stupid. “You know who she’s looking at.”

Kerry sucked in a juddering breath, his pain palpable.

“I miss her so much,” he breathed.

I stood and walked over to him. He raised his eyes to mine.

Careful, my girl. He’s delicate. So very delicate.

“I’m going to hug you,” I warned him. “Don’t freak out.”

He sat like a statue as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and squeezed. I let my cheek touch his scarred one for a second, then straightened up and stepped back.

Gigi took my place. She had a huge smile on her face.

“I’m going to hug you. Don’t freak out.”

Chuckling, I moved back to my spot next to Rome and watched Kerry squirm in Gigi’s tight grip. After a minute, she let him go with a giggle. Before she could resume her seat on Jax’s lap, Jax slid closer to Kerry.

“I’m going to hug you. Don’t freak out.”

“What?! No.”

Ignoring his protest, Jax slung an arm around his shoulders. Kerry rolled his eyes, but didn’t push him away. When Jax released him and pulled Gigi back into his arms, Kerry looked over at Rome with resignation painted all over his face.

“Nah, man. I’m good.” Rome held his hands up.

“ Thank you.”

Right then, Rome’s phone dinged with a text. He scanned it, then turned the screen to face us.

“It’s official. Hank said the Council issued a lockdown order. No going back now.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Kerry rumbled.