Page 79 of Midnight Auto Parts

“Yes.” Her brow pleated. “How did you know?”

“I overheard the Morgans talking.” I exhaled. “Whatever you do, don’t eat the fruit.”

“No worries there.” A laugh burst out of her. “The Morgans won’t share.”

The nature of the Morgans’ work, their eagerness to help others, would have made it easy for Ankou to tempt them through pleas to their god. The blasted thing had been planted right across the street from where the GWC met. This had to be it. Ankou’s tree. We had found it.

“Okay.” I filled my lungs to buy a moment to think. “I’ll see what I can do from the outside.”

“Please.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I want Keshawn out but?—”

The purple swirl of energies surrounding Vi engulfed me as she took my hands in hers. “We have to go.”

“Please don’t leave her here.” Tameka lunged for me. “I don’t want her to be next.”

More warmth, more pressure. Kierce was signaling me, and I couldn’t ignore him if I wanted him to trust me the next time. As much as I wanted to linger, to learn more, I took one look at Viand withered under her knowing glower that warned she would cross state lines to paddle me if I didn’t follow her orders.

“Let him bring you home” was all she had to say before a weighted layer of reality settled over me.

Opening my eyes, there was Kierce, his fingers laced with mine, his lightning crackling over our knuckles.

“Hi,” I rasped, glancing around for Vi. “Where is…?”

A text chime echoed through my head as I settled into my body. Kierce put the phone in my hand before I could ask him to pass it to me. I struggled with holding it, my fingers weirdly numb. After a frustrated nod from me, he took it and read the message.

“Vi made it home safely. She’ll call you in four hours and warns you better sleep until then.”

“Thank God,” I mumbled, tingles spreading through my body as my limbs woke.

I had so much to say, so much to tell him, but unlike when Dis Pater summoned me, I was ragged with a bone-deep exhaustion. Vi must have known to expect this, but she let it sneak up on me. Which was fair. Had I known a fight was ahead of me, I would have prepared for it. I would have battled it, for a moment or two at least, when it was clear I required the prescribed rest.

As it was, I could only curl around Kierce’s arm and sink into the welcoming darkness.

Four hours almost to the minute, I woke from my nap to find Josie and Kierce preparing a late lunch in the kitchen. She was walking him through how to toast bread for BLTs made with garden-fresh veggies and her homemade sourdough. As I lay in bed, watching them through slitted eyes with a warm feeling in my chest, I tried picturing her beside Harrow with such ease and failed spectacularly.

A heartbeat, maybe two, and the image disintegrated beneath my doubt those two could be allowed in a kitchen together where knives were on clear display. As I looked within myself, searching for any signs I wished I was experiencing the fantasy instead of the reality, I found nothing left for Harrow but regret. Had he not come after Matty, we might have reconnected in a new way. As friends. But it wasn’t meant to be.

“Why are you asking me?” Josie crunched on a lettuce leaf. “I’ve never been in a serious relationship.”

“You’ve been in relationships,” Kierce countered, buttering more bread. “Why does it hurt?”

The wanting.

That was what he meant.

“You should ask Frankie.” She coughed into her fist. “Then again, no. Don’t do that. She’s only ever loved Harrow, and that’s like saying cheddar puffs are an actual cheese product. Which they arenot. You don’t want those details. The Harrow ones, not the dietary ones. No good has ever come from hearing about your girl—or boy—friend’s ex. Or, since we’re on the topic, from reading the ingredient list on anything boxed or bagged.”

Kierce was quiet for a moment, focusing on his tasks, and then he sighed. “I considered killing him.”

“Please don’t count on me to be your conscience.” She groaned. “I would bring popcorn to the show.”

For a second, he appeared to contemplate if that was permission. “Have you always hated him?”

“No.” She set to work on three small salads. “I never liked him, but he earned my hate. He was isolated with his uncle, you know? He was brimming with magic and had no outlet for it. He was ashamed of it.” She shook up the dressing. “He saw Frankie practicing out in the open, and he was envious. Not that he knew that. For him, she was like a taste of the forbidden. A way for him to have it both ways. To experience magic without doing magic. As long as it was her fault for tempting him, he got to keep the moral high ground.”

The raw honesty in her words, so different from how seething they came out whenever she talked to me about Harrow, tightened the muscles in my stomach. I thought she hated him for breaking my heart. She had never specified, and I had never asked for clarification. She was soangryat him. All the time.

And now…hearing her unburden herself to someone else…I began to maybe understand why.

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