“Aunt Lily is staying with Mom at the hospital. I’ll go by after work.” Josh’s rasp was gone.
“Visiting hours will be over,” she said automatically.
“Since when do we care about visiting hours?” Mischief sparkled around Josh. The good kind.
Delight percolated beneath her diaphragm for a moment, and Callie almost laughed. “Since never. Give Aunt Lily a hug from me.”
“I’ve got them. You do what you need to, sis.” This was the Josh she remembered from when she was fourteen and hungry.
Callie wished she could cradle his soul a little longer. After this was over, she’d have to find out if there was a way to repair broken souls. She gave him another quick hug. “Thanks.”
She took two steps away before reeling her magic back in. She pretended she didn’t hear his harsh gasp, and kept walking until she was back inside Beck’s car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Callie parked Beck’s car outside the mouth of the alleyway. It was close enough to the streetlight not to get jacked, but also as close as she could get to dart inside. Electricity in the dry air made the night sharper, and she was not about to get cut.
The alley was empty of people, but full of garbage. The quick meal place on the corner had started leaving their trash bags next to the dumpster. Not that she’d ever rat on someone to the landlord, but it did make the journey to sinful escape a whole lot less desirable. The Soul Charmer said the seedier, the better when it comes to offering an out on guilt. If the competition was willing to roll up to wherever you were with a van full of goods, though, laziness probably trumped the visceral delight in doing something dirty. Speaking of vans, the black one wasn’t parked on the street, and it wasn’t tucked around back as best she could tell.
She pushed the dilapidated door to her workplace open, and found Derek waiting for her alone. He was leaning against the counter, a single boot pressed back on the front surface. It would have been a casual rebel pose, if his eyes hadn’t flashed to her with heat and danger. Derek didn’t scare her, but in that moment she could see what their clients did. He was a mountain. This bulk of stony muscle. Every limb poised to strike, every angle of his body aggressive. His jaw clenched and released. She watched the muscle tic in slow motion. This customer-facing room still bore the Soul Charmer’s hallmarks of Cortean artwork, overwhelming incense, and aging everything, but it wasn’t the same room she’d left. The miasma of worry and violence and fear and regret in this room singed her sinuses and shot burning rubber behind her tongue.
Others would have bolted from the room. Callie launched herself forward. Her chest slammed into Derek’s. His torso was unforgiving. She didn’t care. His arms dropped around her body. Her lungs strained to take a deep breath, but she didn’t dare tell him the hug was too tight. Whatever had put him on edge, he needed this. She nuzzled his chest, as if she could somehow get closer to him. He chuffed.
“Thought I was going to have to come find you.” The sound vibrated against her cheek before she could process the words.
“Thirty minutes or less. Your girlfriend promise.”
“Better than a pizza.” He released the embrace, but took one of her hands in his. Soft, steady, and undemanding contact was exactly what she needed.
“Did Beck not make it back?” she asked when she thought he could handle the question.
“He’s downstairs.”
She nodded like those two words were more helpful than they were. “Where’s the van?”
“Moved it four blocks up. We don’t need Lexi’s crew to find her too soon.”
“Lexi? Is that the woman’s name?”
“That’s what her wallet says.” Derek didn’t bother hiding his amusement at someone working a dealing job carrying identification.
“What has she said?” Was this woman another plant sent to fuck up Callie’s world? She shook off the thought. The card in the basement hadn’t been left to Callie, and they hadn’t called from her phone.
“Not much. It was hard to wake her.” Derek shot a furtive glance toward the back curtain. When he spoke again it was in a low rumble. “What did you do to her anyway?”
How was she supposed to answer that? She’d reached the bottom of her barrel of fucks to give, and now she’d started making demands of the magic. The Soul Charmer was MIA and it was like her abilities decided it was time to pick up the slack. The Charmer had infused her with the skill. Maybe this was him? Maybe he was dead and she was getting residual magic? She had no fucking clue. “Honestly? I don’t know how to explain it, but I knocked her out.”
His brow furrowed like she’d handed him a calculus problem. “You punched her?”
“Not exactly. Maybe? It was more like a mental shove.”
He nodded slowly. “Like what you did to Savannah?”
This had tasted different. It’d been on purpose. Examining that decision now wouldn’t help her mental state. “Close enough.”
“She was damn hard to wake either way. Beck is keeping her company for now. He might have gotten something out of her.” Derek’s lack of optimism wasn’t a good sign.
“As long as she can answer questions soon, that’s fine.” She needed to know what Nate was up to, what this woman knew.
“You going to tell me what happened earlier?” He squeezed her hand, and that’s all the push he’d give.
He deserved truth. “Adam showed up at Josh’s work. Asked how Zara was doing in the hospital.”
“Josh told him?”
“Josh didn’t realize it was fucked until Nate showed up. After that he realized maybe his sister was right—like always—and he should have been avoiding Adam all along. So he called me.”
Derek took a half step backward, and
