Zara made a small whining sound. Callie needed to focus. She pressed the gauze more firmly against the wound. At least she was a human ice pack, but they needed real help for Zara.
Derek settled in behind the steering wheel. He was taking them to the hospital, but that only traded one problem for another. How could they save her mother and still have a chance to stop Nate?
“Wait,” Callie said.
The car was in drive, but Derek’s foot was still on the brake. “What?”
“Josh.”
“We can take her in, Callie. It’s okay.”
It wasn’t, though. If they wanted revenge for this. If they wanted the chance to follow it through. If they wanted any fucking assurance that Nate wouldn’t come after Callie’s family or Derek’s again, they needed to keep the cops out of it. The more police looking at Derek and into the Soul Charmer and into Ford’s death, the more likely it was they’d end up in jail. Callie used to think prison would be the worst outcome. Now she feared what would happen to her family, to her city if she and Derek were locked up. What kind of hell would Nate bring to Josh and Father Henry? What kind of shit could happen if he tried to take on the Soul Charmer?
“No—”
“We can call your brother from the hospital.” Derek flipped a U-turn and headed back toward Gem City.
“No. I mean, yes, we could, but he also could be the one to take her in.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The parking lot at St. Vincent’s Hospital had fifteen lampposts in its parking lot. Callie waited underneath the only one with a burned out bulb. Enough snow had fallen to cover the concrete in the lot. She let the shadows shield her from immediate judgment. The hospital glowed bright as a bastion of hope. She’d worked in a hospital once, and even knowing where the astringent was stored and the sharps were disposed of and even having visited the morgue, the place had never lost its shiny hope.
The people working inside that building were saving lives. They were good people. She used to be one of them. She sucked in the shadows, letting the muddy darkness fill those empty holes in her chest. Now wasn’t the time for sulking about missed opportunities. Now was about Zara. It was about family.
Josh had been waiting in the parking lot when she and Derek arrived. He hadn’t asked questions or berated her. Derek had extracted Zara from the car carefully when Josh wasn’t certain how to start. Bloody gauze and a few strands of Zara’s long black hair had clung to Callie’s palm. Her skin was warm again now, the cotton fibers long fallen away.
Josh had taken Zara inside, and about a half hour later had texted that their mom was going to be okay. He hadn’t said more.
Not yet.
So Callie waited.
“You want to get back in the car, doll?” Derek asked. His jacket was open, and the heat from inside his sedan teased her through the open window.
“Not yet.” She’d asked him to wait in the car earlier. She wasn’t certain how much time had passed, but her nose wasn’t completely numb yet. She needed the slap of the below-freezing temperatures to steady herself. She wasn’t so sanctimonious to suggest she deserved the bitter bite of cold. She just didn’t want to feel, and natural cold was far better at killing her senses than the magic-induced frostbite had been.
An ambulance screamed into the lot, and whipped around the corner to the brilliant red Emergency awning. The red and white flashing lights almost touched her, but no one at that entrance was watching the parking lot. They had bigger priorities.
Derek opened his car door and stepped out next to her.
“I promise I’ll come in soon,” she said, her tone flat. She’d come in once she had a plan. Callie had no idea what to do next. She needed sleep, but crashing out without knowing if Zara was conscious or what all was wrong wasn’t an option. She couldn’t go raging into the hospital to find out. She couldn’t go to work. The Charmer needed souls. Souls she’d brokered to get her mom back. She hadn’t even bothered trying to control her magic around her mother, which was a whole other problem. Moving into the car or into the light were her only paths right now, and so she stood still.
“Callie.” His hand was on her shoulder. “Your brother is coming.”
Sure enough, Josh’s lanky, slouched silhouette was gilded from the glow past the sliding glass doors. Callie and Derek were at the back of the parking lot. Josh shouldn’t have been able to see them yet, but he headed straight for them.
He scratched his head, tousling his hair. From the messy array, he’d only run his fingers through it before coming to the hospital. He approached quickly, but kept his gaze locked
