Page 78 of Walking in Darkness

It was tiny, but bright and airy. Gossamer curtains bracketed a window over the sink that also overlooked the backyard. The cabinets were old and painted white, the floor checkered black-and-white tiles. There was a little jut out of the countertop that created a bar, separating the kitchen and dining area, and two stools were placed on this side of it.

She was already digging into the pantry when I stepped in. “What kind of tea do you like?” she asked.

“What do you have?”

She blew out a laugh. “Pretty much every kind. My mom gets me tea for every birthday since she doesn’t know what else to do with me.”

She pulled out a wooden box and lifted the lid to reveal a bunch of slotted spots stuffed with different tea packets. “Pick your poison.”

“Earl Grey?”

“Living on the edge,” she said with a grin. She moved to the sink, filled a kettle, and placed it on the stove.

“That’s pretty much been my motto of late,” I said.

She bit down on the inside of her cheek as if she was trying to halt the vision of it, speared by the reality of what had been happening while Pax and I had been on the run.

Then she turned toward me, the slight frenzy she’d been riding shifting to reverence. She blinked with her big, vibrant eyes. So big they seemed to take up half of her waifish face as she stared at me where I hovered at the end of the bar.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered, the words hitching in warmth. “That you came here because you were worried about me. Aria, that seems ... dangerous and imprudent. God, what were you thinking?”

My laughter was hoarse. “Did you think I wouldn’t do anything to try to protect you? And don’t you dare tell me you wouldn’t do the same for me.”

She sighed. “I know. It’s just ...” Her attention dipped before it was back on me. “You’re important.”

“And so are you, Dani. Every single one of us is. But you know you’re especially important to me. I don’t know what I would have done without you growing up. You taught me so much. You were there through so much of my confusion and questions. You’ve always been my best friend.”

Affection ridged her expression. “And you’ve always been mine.”

Dani paused, glancing around as if she were trying to find an anchor, before she turned her gaze back to me. “I still can’t believe you’re standing in my house. This feels ... insane. Like maybe I’ve finally lost it.”

She shook her head a little, her hair a strike of pink beneath the rays that slanted in through the kitchen window.

I fiddled with the hem of my sweater and shifted on my feet. “I thought I’d been losing it my whole life ... And then there was Pax ... and now there is you.”

She blinked, and a tear slid down her face. “I’ve been so scared. Knowing all these Laven have been dying. Being here by myself and completely helpless. Not knowing what was happening. To my family. To you and Pax. To Timothy.” She could barely get his name out around the knot that bobbed in her throat. “God, I hate this.”

The kettle started to whistle, and she crossed back to the stove and filled three mugs that she’d pulled from a cupboard and set on the counter. She tossed tea bags into each one, grabbed a container of sugar, and set everything out on the bar. “There you go.”

“Thank you,” I told her as I pulled out a stool and sat.

I could feel Pax’s presence. His stealthy movements as he came to lean his hip against the end of the wall that separated the kitchen and the hall on the other side.

Quiet and furiously protective.

Dani stood on the opposite side of the bar, and she stirred a teaspoon of sugar into her mug, lost in thought. The words were thin when she asked, “So, he’s coming for me? I’m next?”

“No. You’re not next.” It shot out of me. “That’s why we’re here. We aren’t going to let that happen.”

“But you saw it ... My death?”

I didn’t want to give her the details, but I had no right to keep it from her, either.

“I think that’s what he wanted me to see, at least. Whether it was the actual plan or a manipulation to send me on a different path than the one I was on, I don’t know, but there was no chance I was going to take that risk. We came as fast as we could.”

Steam wound up from my mug, and I blew it before I brought it to my lips and took a sip. Warmth spread through my chest and into my stomach.

Her brow pinched. “How did you see it?”