Page 79 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)

Bryant is busy brandishing a spatula at her studio apartment’s refrigerator and futilely hoping the food will just cook itself when her phone vibrates with an incoming text message. Relieved for the distraction, she snags it off the counter and squints down at the screen.

CHESTER: Hey! Just wanted to see how the multiple breakdowns are going? I can stop by with takeout tonight, if you want!

And that is much less of a relief. Bryant lets out her breath in a hiss, tapping the spatula idly against her leg as she thinks.

It’s been three days since she was violently dragged from her bedroom at the Sanctum, branded a dissident, had her soul cocktail-shaken together with a demon’s, was rescued by her friends-turned-enemies-turned-apparently-friends-again, and ran into a different dimension to help save a demon god.

That sequence of events took less than four hours, and in Bryant’s esteemed opinion, it’s more than enough events for at least two weeks. She doesn’t want another Event now .

Especially when that Event would involve her hanging out with the person who got her branded as a dissident in the first place. Sighing, she taps into her messaging app.

brYANT: Everything’s okay thanks for the offer but I already made dinner, rain check maybe?

She tosses her phone back onto the counter, scowling at her fridge. In truth, not only has she not made dinner yet, but she’s also been trying and failing to cook her own meals for the past three days, giving up and ordering in each time.

She even screwed up toast. How does anyone screw up toast?

Her phone buzzes again. She glances down at the preview text.

CHESTER: Okay! I’ll check in tomorrow. :)

A smiley face, huh? Chester doesn’t normally use those in texts. He’s really trying to get back on her good side, apparently.

Not that he’s on her bad side, per se. Honestly, Bryant has no idea what side Chester may or may not be on, to say nothing of the rest of their recent and not-so-recent defectors.

At this point, Bryant just wants to stay as far away from the found family of fugitives as possible.

Grimacing, she pulls open her fridge and scrutinizes its contents. Bread, eggs, milk, and a single sad tomato. She doesn’t need to eat as much nowadays?—“perks” of having half of Magdalena Khan’s soul?—but it’s still an altogether depressing spread.

But she could try making scrambled eggs again. And maybe she could put in some cut-up tomato, although combining ingredients sounds like a dicey proposition at this delicate stage. She could even add toast to the mix, provided that she doesn’t set off the fire alarm again.

She can totally manage that. Totally. Nodding firmly to herself, Bryant reaches for the eggs.

Without warning, a shiver runs down her spine?—a telltale sign of magic revving to life nearby. She whips around, sees a purple-gold rift billowing open in the middle of her studio, instinctively reaches out a hand to grab her bow and arrow from their gap in spacetime??—

Nothing happens. Her stomach plummets. She almost forgot that her half-demon soul tanked her spellcasting abilities. Now, all she has to defend herself is this stupid spatula, and??—

She braces herself for a fight just before Chester Locke, of all people, stumbles through the rift, overbalances, and topples gracelessly to the floor, like someone pushed him. “Hey!” he says indignantly, scrambling to his feet and yelling through the rift.

His boyfriend’s impatient voice floats back out. “Talk to each other, you morons,” Obie says, and the rift disappears before Chester can protest.

“Oh,” Bryant says. “Huh. Does he do that often?”

Slowly, reluctantly, Chester turns to face Bryant.

His expression is torn between mortification and another emotion that Bryant can’t quite identify.

“I am… so sorry about this,” he stammers, his voice wobbly and unsure.

“I?—I know you need your space right now. You’ve been through a lot recently, and I want to respect that, and??—?”

His posture is tense and his shoulders are hunched like he’s steeling himself for a blow. And, all at once, Bryant realizes what the second emotion on Chester’s face is.

It’s fear. Chester is genuinely scared that Bryant is going to react badly to him being here.

Maybe even badly enough to pick a fight.

Did her friends ever really know her at all? Sighing explosively, Bryant flops down on one of her kitchen chairs. “It’s fine. And tell your boyfriend that he can at least buy us dinner if he’s going to play relationship therapist.”

Chester pauses. “Yeah? I?—I thought you already made dinner.”

Suddenly, it occurs to Bryant that she’s still holding the spatula.

“I was lying,” she says breezily, waving the spatula in question around.

“Welcome to my apartment, I guess. It’s only one room, so you can see everything without the grand tour.

Bathroom is through the door on the right; the outside world is through the door on the left. ”

Chester turns in a slow circle, nodding to himself. “It’s nice. Definitely bigger than the bedrooms back at the Sanctum.”

An ugly feeling festers in Bryant’s gut. “Bigger than most of the bedrooms,” she says shortly. “Not mine.”

Chester winces. “Right. This… is actually smaller than your old suite, right?”

“Yep.” Bryant jabs her spatula at the chair across from her. “Wanna sit?”

“That’d be great,” Chester says, gingerly easing himself into the seat. “So, um. How are you doing?”

“Could be worse,” Bryant says. “I could be, you know, dead or in prison or something. Small victories. How about you?”

Chester’s shoulders hunch again. “I’m, uh. I’m okay.”

Bryant arches an eyebrow. “Just okay? I thought your boyfriend had tentacles or something.”

An embarrassed grin jumps onto Chester’s face. “He does. So the sex, I suppose, is fantastic, and everything else is just okay.”

“Cool. Glad you have something going for you,” Bryant says, and she doesn’t realize how bitter the words sound until they’re already out of her mouth.

Apparently, Chester notices, too. His smile wavers. “Bryant, I’m so sorry about everything,” he says quietly, looking down at his hands. “I feel really awful about it.”

Briefly, Bryant considers the words. “Not to be mean,” she says, “but you kind of should.”

Chester flinches. “Bry??—? ”

“Did you?—??” Bryant scrubs a hand down her face, frustrated. “Did you seriously not even think to talk to me, Chester?”

“I did think about it.” He looks miserable. “I thought about it all the time, actually. But I?—I didn’t think you’d believe me. About any of it.”

Bryant presumes that “any of it,” in this case, is referring to the fact that the Sanctum is allegedly in cahoots with the Chain, and also that they were the ones who put out the hit on Chester’s and JJ’s families.

She might be pissed at him right now, but she can see how that would’ve been a bit of a nonstarter.

“So you just decided you’d lie to me, instead?

Use the purebred’s access codes to find proof of your little conspiracy? ”

“Bryant?—?” Chester leans forward, his eyes serious.

“Bryant, I never thought that would get traced back to you, okay? I didn’t think they’d dare to audit you, not as a purebred.

And I?—?” Abruptly, his lips press together.

“I was just trying to find enough proof to convince you. I would’ve left a month ago, but?—but I wanted enough proof to convince you. ”

Bryant blinks at him, startled. “What? Why?”

Chester stares back at her. “Because I wasn’t leaving without you,” he says. “Obviously. Not after JJ and Roma. I wasn’t going to leave you behind.”

Bryant’s heart squeezes. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Chester looks back at his hands. “But I never found the evidence I needed, and then I couldn’t let Maggie get hurt, and then…” He trails off. “You know the rest.”

“I do,” Bryant agrees softly, and she leans back in her chair, considering him.

Obviously, that changes her perspective somewhat. She was halfway convinced that Chester was just using her for her credentials in the course of his duties as the Conspiracy Coalition’s inside man, but??—

But, apparently, he was trying to make the best of a bad situation. And, thinking back, Bryant can recall a handful of times when Chester broached the subject of whether she truly thought the Council was always in the right.

She doesn’t quite remember her responses, but she can only assume they didn’t inspire much confidence in her treason-committing abilities.

She lets out a slow breath. “Okay. I get it. Just… don’t do it again.

Don’t keep me in the dark, okay? Tell me things, even if you think I won’t like those particular things. ”

Chester nods readily. “Of course.”

“I still don’t trust you.”

The words slip out without Bryant entirely meaning them to, and Chester’s wince tells her that they hit home more than she intended. “That’s… fair,” he says, avoiding her eyes. “I??—??”

“But I accept your apology,” Bryant interrupts, “and I think we should move on to more important topics now.”

Chester’s eyebrows furrow. “More important topics? Like the conspiracy?”

Bryant wrinkles her nose. “Of course not. I mean the tentacle situation, dude. You need to tell me more about banging a god?—or a former god, or whatever Obie is.” A horrible thought occurs to her. “He still has the tentacles, right? Even though he’s not a god anymore?”

Chester looks almost affronted. “Of course he still has the tentacles. They’re ninety percent of why I’m dating him.”

“Oh, that’s so valid,” Bryant says solemnly. “Tell me everything.”

Chester considers her closely before leaning forward, a devilish gleam in his eyes. “Okay, so how explicit are you comfortable with this conversation getting? ”

Bryant grins back. “Give it to me X-rated, man. Spare no details.”

“In that case,” Chester says, “let’s start with the fact that our first time was on an interrogation table.”

Bryant drops the spatula. “It was what?”