bed and out the door. Crank and I exchanged smiles. Then I got started. “The most important part of a makeover is to stay . . . you. You’re a fixer, a driver, a hell of a mechanic, right? So we don’t want to lose that, just change your look a little. If you end up liking it, great, but if you’re more comfortable the way you were, then don’t sweat it. Sometimes the most attractive thing about a person is that they’re comfortable in their own skin. They own who they are, you know?”
Crank looked down at her stained overalls. “These
“Then leave them. They’re tough, and guys like a girl who can take care of herself. I bet whenever a guy sees you with a wrench in your hand, he’s instantly intrigued. Like, who is that girl?
“So, some days maybe you lose the hat or do your hair different. Maybe add a little mascara if you want to go that route—just don’t overdo it. Sometimes subtle changes are best. It’ll make him want to figure out what you did differently. That can be more powerful than something glaringly obvious, you know?”
“I have mascara,” Violet said, returning mid-exchange and dumping an armful of gowns on the bed. “I have a whole bunch of makeup in my room.”
Crank wrinkled her nose at the gowns. “So not wearing those.”
“They’re not for you, silly,” Violet said. “They’re for me.” And then she was off again, her tiny footsteps echoing down the hall.
“It would look cool to try some bracelets, a little bling,” I suggested. “A nice contrast to the overalls. Something that says tough, but feminine, too.”
Crank seemed excited and hopeful. I scooted closer to her. “First let’s see what we have to work with here.”
As I undid one of her braids, Violet came back, pulling a large cardboard box filled with makeup and scavenged jewelry. She climbed onto the mattress, out of breath and happy, and started undoing the second braid.
“I’ll show you how to do a messy twist,” I said. “That’ll look pretty with your hair.” And it would. Crank had beautiful wavy hair.
“I like those stick things you put in yours sometimes,” she said. “Those kind of look girly and kick-ass.”
I laughed. “Now you’re talking.”
I lay in the bed later, hands tucked behind my head, staring at the plaster medallion on the ceiling as I relived the makeover Violet and I had just given Crank. Besides my last foster parents, I never had many ties to other kids or adults growing up. Being passed around from one foster home to another wasn’t exactly bond- inspiring. Now it felt like I had a family, sisters, two unruly brothers, and a father who loved me.
And Sebastian . . . I didn’t know what we were anymore.
I couldn’t help but wonder if deep down, no matter what he said to the contrary, he harbored resentment for me. I was the one who’d made him take blood, who’d given him the first taste. He’d been drained and starved to the brink of death. And I couldn’t watch him die. Of course, Athena had planned it all along, had put me in that cell with him, knowing the outcome.
But he’d never wanted my blood. He’d said he’d rather die.
Had our roles been reversed, I knew Sebastian never could have sat back and watched me die either. I pressed my palms to my eyelids, suddenly thinking of my mother and wishing like hell she were with me. I couldn’t remember her face, her smell, her laugh, anything. I had a vision of her in my head, but I’d been so young when she left me that I didn’t know if it was real or not. More like wishful thinking, a phantom I’d made up over the years.
A figment of my imagination. A ghost without a grave. My mother never had a proper funeral, thanks to Athena taking her body back to her temple.
Not liking the direction of my thoughts, I dressed and armed myself. Sleep wasn’t coming to me anytime soon, so I might as well get some work done.
I sat in the living room for a while, cleaning my gun and letting my thoughts wander. The front door opened. I stilled, staring into the hall.
Henri appeared.
“Hey.” I returned to my cleaning as he plopped onto the couch opposite me.
“Caught sight of your friends a little while ago,” he said.
“Friends?” Most of my friends were upstairs sleeping.
“Yeah, you know, the hot hunter and the ghost?”
I raised my brow. “Menai and Mel are still in the city?”
“Looks like. I was doing a little recon around the square. Keeping tabs on Josephine for you, and I saw them on Presby’s roof.”
My pulse leaped. “They’re zeroing in on the jar.”
“From what I hear, Athena has everyone looking for it,” Dub said, shuffling in with a yawn. “Overheard some big-time witch talking about it in Spits’s shop.” He slid into a chair and let his head fall back as though it was too heavy to hold up.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I asked.
“Bad dreams. Lots of fire.”
I returned the clip to my weapon and then shoved the gun in the holster. I stood, wrapping the holster around my waist. “Too many people will be after the Hands now.”
“Where are you going?” Henri asked.
The Hands are
Henri shot to his feet. “I’m going with.”
Dub waved us away, letting his eyes close again. “You kids have fun.”
THIRTEEN
WITH EVERY STEP WE TOOK toward St. Charles, my muscles screamed their soreness. I’d overdone it with my workout, but I didn’t regret it. The emotional distance I’d gotten from it had helped immensely, even if I was paying for it now.
We caught the streetcar, and I found a bench by myself as Henri took the one across the aisle. I swiveled in my seat and asked him, “How’s your side doing?”
“Aches sometimes, but it’s getting better every day.”
It was a miracle Henri hadn’t been killed when Athena shot him and dumped him off the side of a cliff.
We rode in the rhythmic rocking of the car for a few moments.
“What’s bugging you,
How to answer? Everything was wrong, and a lot of things were right. Sharing wasn’t usually my thing, but I found myself saying, “I just want this all to be over and done with, you know? I want . . . ”
“What?”
“I want Sebastian to get better. I wish none of you had ever gone to Athena’s temple.”
“Yeah, well, you couldn’t have stopped us. Bastian and I would have done anything to get Violet away from Athena. We
I knew without a doubt that Sebastian felt the same.
“Sometimes you’re a real hard-ass, Henri,” I said. “And then you go and say shit that makes me like you.”
A lopsided grin appeared on his face. “Girls say that to me all the time.”
I shook my head at him, unable to keep from smiling back. But then I turned serious. “Why are you so hard on Dub all the time? I mean, I know he needs to control his gift and everything, but . . . ”
Henri’s smile died. “Dub reminds me of me at that age. I did a lot of stupid stuff. Got in a lot of trouble. I see
