scholarship application that Aaron had partially filled out, I signed my name to it, also signing the form giving permission to release my daughter’s academic records from Hope Ridge.
There. Done. I swallowed tightly, handed the pen back, and left.
It was just one small step, I told myself. Just to see if she’d even qualify. It didn’t mean I’d made a decision.
It was only a baby step.
5
I spent the rest of the day checking out the residences and workplaces of the suicide victims and talking to friends and family before heading into the office. There’d been no notes, no hints from family or friends that either
Walking across the back lot of Station One, a sense of defeat settled over me. I was tired. Anxious for a call from Alessandra. Worried about my sister and the other potential victims.
How did you fight something you couldn’t see or weren’t sure existed in the first place? How did you protect someone you love from an unknown like that? I shuffled up the steps and into the building, heading robotically toward the elevator that would take me to the fifth floor—home to my tiny office set amid a sea of overflow office equipment.
Hank and I no longer worked for the Integration Task Force of Atlanta. I’d gone rogue to save my kid and Hank had joined me. I’d known at the time it would cost me my job and end up in jail time.
Ask me to do it again and I would in a heartbeat.
What else could I have done? Tell my kid I couldn’t break the law to save her life? That I just had to sit back and let her die? Please. I’d give my
The decision had been a no-brainer, but it was that decision which gained us the attention of the covert bigwigs in Washington. It was either take the job or go to jail. We took the job.
There were teams like us in every major city. Anywhere there was a gateway into the other worlds, anywhere there was a large population of off-worlders you’d find two detectives like Hank and me willing to go above and beyond.
The elevator doors slid open with a whisper. My stomach growled as I walked down the hallway, reminding me that I never should’ve skipped lunch. I slid my key card into the lock and then made my way through the maze of discarded office equipment and furniture before coming to our nifty space in the back corner. With a heavy exhale, I dropped into my chair, laid my arms on the desk, and rested my forehead on my arms.
So tired—my stomach growled again—and hungry.
If only I could feel normal. Stop feeling so drugged out all the time and like I had to eat like a sumo wrestler, stop hearing random voices whenever I finally relaxed and stop seeing visions … My insides were being pulled in random directions all the time. I wanted to be normal again. Human again. At this point, I’d even settle for my evolution—as Aaron called it—coming to a close and leaving me in whatever state I ended up in.
The door to our office clicked open. I didn’t raise my head. The air of calmness trickling through the room and the scent of mint and lavender told me all I needed to know.
I didn’t know what it was about the jinn hybrid that brought about this sense of tranquility. When I first saw Sian in Grigori Tennin’s strip club, she’d had the same effect on me and everyone in the place. I wondered if all jinn hybrids possessed that ability or if it was just something unique to her.
“Oh, good, you’re back,” she said, entering our nook and bringing with her the scent of food. My stomach twisted. A stack of files dropped beside me. “Here’s everything on the
I finally lifted my head and looked at her tall, cloaked form. “Hank called?”
“Uh-huh.”
I waited for more, some message for me, but she continued on, going to her desk by the window, dropping her canvas bag and an armful of files before removing her cloak and draping it over the hook on the wall.
I grabbed my cell and checked it. No missed messages from my partner. What the hell was going on with him?
“You okay?” Sian straightened her black pencil skirt as she came back to my desk carrying a large brown bag.
The scent of dough, freshly baked and wonderful, wrapped around me like a warm blanket. Sian’s white eyebrow rose, and she lifted the bag. “I think I should get a raise for supporting your eating habits.”
Hunger pains radiated through my gut. I motioned with my fingers. “Hand it over.” My hand shook as I sat back and dove into the bag, pulling out an everything bagel. The first bite was pure, one hundred percent, Grade-A pleasure. “Bless you,” I muttered, cheeks full.
She parked her hip on the edge of Hank’s desk, which was pushed up against mine. She wore a thin cashmere turtleneck in dark gray, much darker than her light gray skin. Her snow-white hair was pulled back into a braided bun and her indigo and violet eyes held a note of apprehension.
Sian was gorgeous—high cheekbones, full lips, almond-shaped eyes … Yet she didn’t go outside of her home or the office without covering herself with her cloak.
Bias and racism was alive and well even in the off-world community. And while the jinn prized the extremely rare product of jinn and human offspring, the rest of the Charbydons and Elysians did not, nor did some humans.
I wanted Sian to hold her head high, to ignore the criticism and step out into society as the beautiful, alluring, and harmless being that she was, but after a life spent growing up in the confines of the jinn underground, she had miles yet to go. There was one good thing about being forced Topside and taking this job—she was slowly gaining confidence.
After I’d wolfed down the first bagel, I went in for another. “Thank you,” I told her. “So you gonna keep staring at me or tell me what’s on your mind?”
Sian’s father had used a blood debt against me to secure his daughter a job within the ITF so she could feed him information. He gained a lot of useless fluff instead. Sian didn’t have the cunning chops of dear old dad. He knew this, refused to accept it, and had placed her here anyway. Grigori Tennin used everyone and everything, even his own daughter.
“I have no loyalty to my father now. And I don’t want Daya’s death to be for nothing. I want the Sons of Dawn stopped. I don’t want war. For anyone. She’d want me to do this.”
“Do what exactly?”
Sian was still mourning the death of Daya Machanna. And Tennin had no idea his involvement with the Sons of Dawn and Llyran had resulted in the death of someone Sian had loved. Their relationship had been a secret: totally forbidden, since Sian was a jinn and Daya was an Elysian whose life force had been sucked dry and stored in Solomon’s Ring along with Aaron’s and those of the others Llyran had murdered. All to raise the Star, the First One …
“I’m in the perfect position to keep an eye on my father.”
Ied chewing and considered her words.
In the end, I didn’t think it was my place to deny her the opportunity to get some closure for Daya’s death, and if this was how she wanted to do it … “I wouldn’t want you to play spy. No riffling through his things or anything. But if you want to take a mental note of who comes and goes, keep your ears open, learn his routines … I think that would be okay. You’ll have to clear it with the chief.”
“I’ll talk to him as soon as he comes in. I can tell you already that he’s the one who hired the Pig-Pens to go after you at the club last night. One came early this morning to report to him, and she mentioned the sidhé fae you asked me to research, but neither she nor my father seemed to know why they were in the club. They think the fae are also after the sarcophagus.
“My father doesn’t believe it was destroyed. He’s convinced you know where it is. Is he right, Charlie? Was it
