'Are you okay?' he asked, and I forced myself to stop.
'I don't know,' I said, feeling my life end. 'I'm sorry for dumping this on you, but I can't go to the I.S. I think Tom's doing this with their blessing.' I looked at the last spot I'd seen him in, hatred briefly overpowering tears from the adrenaline crash.
'She's alive,' Glenn said off the phone. 'No, I'm talking to her. You got the house number? You got the number?' There was a crackle of static, and he was back. 'We'll be there in five minutes,' he said, his deep voice soothing. 'Sit tight. Don't move unless you have to.'
I slumped to the floor with the phone to my ear. I felt worse than the woman, who was chewing at her duct tape. 'Sure,' I said listlessly. 'But Tom is gone. Watch Betty. She may look stupid, but she probably knows some nasty stuff.' I felt dizzy. 'Anyone who kicks their dog is nasty.'
Glenn sighed in frazzled frustration. 'I'm on my way. Damn it, I'm going to have to leave this phone. Talk to Rose until I get there, okay?'
I shook my head, drawing my knees to my chin. 'No. I have to call Ivy.'
'Rachel…,' he warned. 'Don't hang up on me.'
But I did. The tears slipped down, cleaning the grit of ever-after from my face, but nothing could clean the shame from my mind. A demon. Trent's dad had made me into a freaking damned demon?
Miserable, I sat where I was with my knees to my chin. A light touch on my shoulder jerked my head up, and the woman, who had freed herself, jumped back. Her eyes were wide, and she was shaking in her jeans and red top. 'I thought you killed them,' she said, her gaze darting over the destruction. 'They're asleep?'
I nodded, only now realizing what my attack on them must have looked like. Relief cascaded over her, and she dropped down in front of me, looking like she needed a shoulder to cry on but was afraid to touch me again. 'Thank you,' she said, shivering. 'You look just like me.'
I sniffed back my tears and wiped my face. 'That's why they kidnapped you.'
Her head bobbed. 'You're stronger, though.' Smiling, she flexed her bicep. Her smile faded, and she clutched her knees to her chest. 'How did you get in that circle? You must be a really powerful witch.' She hesitated. 'Are you?'
My eyes shut and I clenched my teeth. 'I don't know,' I said, eyes damp when I opened them. 'I really don't know.'
Thirty
Glenn's black car wasn't my style, but it was nice in an FIB sort of way. The back was full of file boxes, which made it hard to recline my seat enough to close my eyes and take a nap as he drove me home. The clutter was unusual. Glenn usually kept his car as tidy and together as himself, rigorously fastidious.
I was so tired, but sleep was impossible. Tom had gotten away, and now he had a vested interest in seeing me dead. My look-alike was safe in custody and would be headed home as soon as the med guys checked her out. She told me she was going to take some martial arts classes so Tom couldn't hurt her again, and that, combined with Sampson sitting on her lap in the back of a cop car, assured me she'd be okay.
My fingertips were sore from the burn I'd gotten by trying to take Tom's compromised circle, as was my palm from scraping it in the ever-after. I winced when I toggled the switch to crack the window, but the pain was worth hearing the sounds of the kids playing hide-and-seek in the dark, the squeals and shouts of protest coming in unseen soothing me. My eyes shut, and I tried to follow the car's path by its motion. When it got out that an I.S. operative had been summoning demons and letting him go to trash charm shops and terrorize citizens, the I.S. would have to publicly disapprove of Tom, dissolving his contract and moving his name from payroll to most- wanted. Privately, he would likely get a nasty slap and a boot out the door as they tried to disguise his public failure to tag me. I wasn't on their active list, but I knew they wouldn't mind seeing me on a granite table. But at least I wouldn't have to pay for the damages to the charm shop anymore.
The whine of Glenn's window cracked my eyelid, and the increased wind made my almost-dry hair flutter against my cheek. My red curls stank, the scent of burnt amber obvious in the tight confines of the car. No wonder Newt was bald.
Glenn cleared his throat, sounding decidedly peeved, and I shut my eyes. I knew he wasn't happy with me, thinking I'd taken on the entire coven without letting even my roommates know. 'This wasn't my idea,' I said, bracing my knee against the door when we took a turn. 'I didn't mean to do this. It just happened.'
Glenn cleared his throat again, this time in disbelief, and I opened my eyes and sat up. The passing streetlights lit his face to make him look older than he was. Tired. 'Backup would have increased your chances of getting that wacko,' he said tightly, accusingly. 'Now he'll be twice as hard to find.'
Guilt warred with fear, and my teeth clenched. I couldn't tell him I had been summoned into Tom's basement from the ever-after and I thought I was a demon. My elbow went to rest against the door, and I cupped my chin in my hand. 'It was an accident,' I muttered. 'I was working on something with Trent—'
'Kalamack?' The FIB detective glanced from the road to me and back again, his dark hands gripping the wheel tighter. 'Rachel, stay away from him. He holds a nasty grudge and has a lot of money.'
Crap, I miss my dad. My breath came and went. Maybe I could give Glenn some of the truth. 'I was helping Trent with an ongoing project—'
'The same thing that killed your fathers?' he asked, and I shrugged.
'Sort of. I was in the ever-after, and I got pulled into a demon's summons by mistake. I showed up in Al's circle, and when I got out, I let them have it.' Breathe in, one two three. Breathe out, one two three four. 'Trent is still stuck there.'
'In the ever-after? Damn it, Rachel,' Glenn whispered, and I stared, drawn by the unusual curse coming from him. 'Does anyone else know he went there voluntarily?'
Glenn's worried expression came at me in flashes of streetlight, and my eyebrows rose. I'd never dreamed this might look like me getting rid of Trent. Though the press labored under the assumption that we were secret lovers, everyone in a uniform knew we hated each other. That I continued to take his money was just weird. 'His bodyguard,' I said, not knowing how Quen was going to react. 'Ivy and Jenks. My neighbors—the ones that don't exist?' I finished dryly.
Glenn's grip shifted, and I knew he wanted to reach for the radio and call something in.
'It was an accident,' I finished, putting my knees together as I said it again. 'What was I supposed to do? Let them bleed that woman to death?'
'There are always options…,' he cajoled as we turned down my street.
'Tom admitted he called Al with the intent of letting him go to kill me. Said he would get a raise. The girl heard him. Ask her.' I dropped my chin back into my hand and stared at the passing night. Fear gripped my heart at a recurring thought. I had been summoned out of the ever-after like a demon. Would I be drawn back into it when the sun rose?
A huge ache filled me. I just wanted to go home, surround myself with the people I loved, and hide, reassuring my subconscious that I was alive and home, even if I might be dragged back to that hell of an existence in a few hours. That Trent was still there, trapped in a tiny black cell waiting for a horrible, degrading future, didn't help.
I didn't like Trent. Nothing could excuse his murdering, drug-lord past, and I'd seen nothing that convinced me he would change that part of himself. But it bothered me; all the good and bad he had done shouldn't end so uselessly. I was shocked to realize that I cared what happened to him. He was responsible for a lot of good, even if it was for selfish reasons.
Staring out the window as we passed Keasley's dark house, I rubbed my arm, almost able to feel Trent's grip there, his last chance to touch someone lingering on me still. He hadn't asked me to save him. He hadn't asked me to stay and fight. There'd been no anger or frustration that I was going to be free, pulled to where he couldn't follow and leaving him to suffer both our punishments.
In the moment when everything had fallen from him, he'd asked me to make sure his people survived. His words had been free of the guilt I now felt. He only sought the reassurance that his people would live, that his life would amount to more than running drugs and murder.
