Page 29

Bree

I had never been one for long showers, but I hadn’t spent so much time in the ocean since we’d first arrived on land, either. For once, I’d even used warm water to soothe my aching muscles.

Sure, I’d gotten a ride across the ocean in a whale’s mouth, but the stress of my near marriage to Zephyrion had left my muscles stiff. Not to mention all the time with and beatings from the sea witch.

Feeling like a new woman—albeit with random patches of purple scales shimmering along my arms—I rejoined Calvin and Marissa in the living room. They sat side by side on the small couch that also moonlighted as my bed.

Finley had passed out almost immediately in his tank when we’d gotten home. The poor little guy might have been a magical powerhouse, but he was also young and tiny. His body needed some time to recover after his heroic rescue.

I needed to get him something super special as a thank you. Maybe some fresh crab meat instead of canned.

First things first.

"I think it’s about time I made things right with Frankie," I announced.

Marissa continued typing something on her phone. "I don’t know. She’s probably going to say she never wants to see you again."

My heart dropped like a stone into the pit of my stomach. "Really?"

Not that I would blame her. I had lied to her, made her think I was saving the gym and her home, only to do the complete opposite and then ghost her. Never wanting to see me again was the best I could hope for.

"No, you dork." Marissa glanced up from her phone with an amused smirk. "She’s going to smack you over the head for ever thinking that."

"But I?—"

"No buts, Bree." She set her phone down. This was getting serious. "You have this weird black-and-white thinking with this stuff. Frankie may be hurt, but she’s like family. She’s probably long since forgiven you, if she was even mad to begin with."

"She’s right,” Calvin added. “Although, I wouldn’t put it past Frankie to make you do extra jobs for her for a while."

"Oh, for sure." Marissa nodded, sending her red curls bouncing. "And don’t even think of asking me to help."

The wizard elbowed her in the side.

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Okay fine. I’ll help. But only between classes."

Relief crashed into me so hard it left me momentarily lightheaded. I had prepared myself for rejection, for the cold finality of a burned bridge. Instead, I got this. A teasing, almost exasperated certainty from two people I knew I could trust.

I could point out that Marissa also ghosted Frankie and should share any extra tasks by default, but it had been at my behest. I couldn’t risk anyone finding out where Marissa and I had gone.

Opening up a line of communication with the fae woman when we left would have made it far too easy for her, or anyone else, to track us down.

We had gone into full incognito mode.

"Okay, so where can I find Frankie these days?" I asked.

"Her usual haunt," Calvin said.

I frowned. "Subliminal? She still visits even though the Satos took it?"

"Oh, I forgot you don’t know. Frankie manages the place still. As far as I know, though, the Satos still own it."

"I told you we should have let Cal keep us up-to-date." Marissa shot me a pointed look. "Information is power."

Maybe so, but the temptation to return had been too great for me. I had to cut all ties to stay away. I’d given the wizard strict orders not to mention anything about the Gifted world, and also not to give into any of Marissa’s bribes upon pain of death.

Just kidding. Unlike with my little sister, I knew I didn’t have to threaten him.

But my brain was stuck on what Calvin had said. Frankie working for Ichiro Sato was as likely as the tide refusing to rise. She hated that man with a fiery passion that could dry up the oceans.

There was only one way to find out what in the cursed currents was going on.

"To Subliminal it is then," I said with more confidence than I felt. Despite my trust in their words about Frankie, I was nervous to see her again. I hated not knowing for sure how she felt. "I need to warn her about the GIG."

Calvin nodded and stood. "I’ll head into the office to see if I can dig up anything else about what they’re planning. Your intel has given me a few ideas about what to look for."

"Thanks, Cal." I grabbed my bag from the hook by the door and turned to say goodbye to Marissa, only to find her right behind me. I jumped and nearly dropped my bag. "Seriously, Rissa? I thought you’d stopped trying to scare me after we left Subliminal."

She snickered. "Consider the hiatus over."

"You headed to class?" I slung my bag over my shoulder so I wouldn’t risk dropping it again.

"I’m coming with you."

I glanced at my phone’s clock. "I thought you had class soon."

She shrugged. "I probably do."

I gave her a hard look. "You need to?—"

"There is a zero percent chance you’re talking me out of not seeing Frankie again. Today. Now." She crossed her arms and gave me a look that nearly made me cower. Impressive. "I can miss one day of class."

While I was sure she had missed more than one day this month alone—maybe even this week—I also knew there was no swaying my sister when she put her foot down like this. Plus, she’d told me to let her deal with her own mistakes and consequences.

I sighed. "Fine. Off to the gym we go."

Calvin’s phone buzzed as we all left the house. "Oh, shit…" His voice dropped, eyes widening as he looked up at us.

Something about his expression sent a spike of unease through me. "What?"

"The GIG just sent out an emergency alert. Someone attacked Subliminal. Bombed it."

I barely registered the words before he held up his phone. The screen glowed with a single image—a ruined building, swallowed beneath smoke and debris.

My heart slammed into my ribs. No.

Even with the destruction obscuring the view, I knew that place like the scales on my arms. It had been my home. My sanctuary. The place I had spent nearly every waking moment in for over a decade and it was just... gone. Obliterated.

It couldn’t be.

"What in the deep abyss…" My shaking voice barely sounded like my own.

I forced myself to swallow, to breathe, even as the questions battered my skull. Why would anyone bomb a gym? Was the GIG behind this?

And more terrifyingly—who had been inside?

Dread shot through me, turning my veins to ice, but my brain refused to fully process what I was seeing.

Frankie.

If something had happened to her—if she was in that wreckage—I would never forgive myself. I should have never run away. At the very least, I should have faced her. Tried to make things right long before now.

Oh, goddess, was I too late?

By the time the three of us reached Subliminal—what was left of it—the police had blocked off the street, only allowing emergency personnel through. A crowd gathered around the barricades and mostly blocked the gym from view, but smoke and dust still drifted from the ruins.

"I can get us closer," Marissa said. "Follow me."

With a little help from her sharp elbows and winning smile, she led Calvin and me to the front of the crowd.

I gripped the barrier, my eyes searching through the rubble for anything that might tell me what happened to Frankie. If she was in there, hurt, or worse…

I swallowed hard. No, I couldn’t think like that. She was a fighter. A survivor. If anyone could walk away from a bomb, it would be Frankie.

"Do you think I should ask one of them where she is?" Marissa tilted her head toward the police officers who were guarding the street. Normally, I would have assumed she wanted to flirt with the handsome men, but genuine concern marked her expression.

Before I could answer, a gruff voice behind me asked, "You guys looking for Frankie?"

"Hey Vince, good to see you in one piece, man," Calvin said to the older man and shook his hand.

Vincent was one of the gym’s longest-standing regulars and a wolf shifter. As glad as I was to see him alive and well, despite the layer of dust and soot covering his tanned skin and clothes, I needed to know if Frankie was alive. "Is she okay?"

His smile fell and my stomach along with it. "I told her it was a bad idea to go there. But you know her. Never listens to the likes of me."

Marissa gasped and pressed a hand to her mouth, her eyes glistening. "She’s dead?"

Sound faded away as the world all but collapsed around me. A hollow, aching numbness spread through my chest, leaving me weightless and sinking all at once. I might not have set the bomb, but I felt like my selfish actions had led to this. Had gotten one of my closest friends killed.

More than a friend. I’d lost a sister.

If only I’d confided in her fully, treated her as an actual friend, we might have devised a way out of the mess that was my life. Now, I’d never have the opportunity to make things right.

I’d never hear her cackle at something that only she found funny. Never laugh as she howled over some trashy reality show. Never have another late-night conversation about nothing and everything.

My eyes and nose tingled, my throat locking up as grief curled around me, suffocating, crushing, all-consuming.

"Oh Luna, no. I’m not sure anything can kill that woman." Vincent chuckled, shaking dust from his hair like he hadn’t just shattered my world again in the span of a heartbeat.

A moment passed, my mind sluggish, refusing to catch up.

"She’s at The Tipsy Cauldron."

His words slammed into me. The suffocating weight vanished. My lungs jerked in a ragged inhale, my heart stuttering painfully against my ribs.

Frankie was alive.

Alive !

A sound wrenched from my throat—half-laugh, half-sob. I didn’t know whether to slap Vincent for making me think she was dead or hug him until his ribs cracked.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Vince!" Marissa gave him a small shove. "You just scared the absolute shit out of me."

I blinked. Not at the cursing—I was over that—but at the sheer force behind her words. The raw panic in her voice made my stomach drop all over again. I was on one heck of an emotional rollercoaster.

Marissa caught my look while brushing tears from her cheeks. "Oh, don’t even. You were as scared as I was. I just voiced it."

Vincent rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry ’bout that. I just meant she doesn’t handle her booze well, and after this, she’s going to drink the place dry."

"With that heart attack out of the way," Calvin shot a pointed look at Vincent who grimaced, "I’m going to head into the office. I’ll let you know if I find anything on…that other topic."

As the wizard slipped back through the crowd, Vincent edged away from us.

"Oh, no, you don’t." Marissa caught his arm and dragged him closer. "You owe us a drink after that. Lead the way."