Page 112 of Fool Me Twice

Roma takes a quick step away from Ez’s piercing gaze. “I know my assignment,” she says brusquely, dropping her duffel bag on the porch.

“Same,” Sawyer says, and she gently takes Naomi’s hand. “Come on, love. There’s nothing more for us here.”

“I‍—‍” Naomi stares at Roma for a few seconds, tense like she’s grappling with a decision, before looking away. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Gregorio flicks open a rift. “We’ll reach out in a few days. Later,” he says, and he strides through without a backwards glance. Micah lets Naomi and Sawyer go in front of him before bringing up the rear, closing the rift behind them.

Cass wraps his fingers around JJ’s arm. “JJ‍—JJ, come on,” he says, and with one last guilty glance at Roma, JJ lets Cass pull him back into the house and guide him through a rift.

“Ez?” There’s an edge to Obie’s voice. “Ez‍?—‍”

“The counterspell to stabilize the Deep,” Ez says, and she steps into Roma’s line of sight, forcing Roma to meet her gaze. “This isn’t just about us, Obie‍—Redwater is still in danger fromthe mega-rift epidemic. We can’t just leave all the humans, all thecivilians‍?—‍”

Roma’s heart hurts. “I gave the Sanctum our counterspell and all our notes,” she says quietly, and Ez snaps her mouth shut, her jaw tightening. “They’ll probably reach out to the Chain for a demon spellcaster. It’s being handled.” She attempts a smile. “Not as efficiently as we would’ve done it, but‍—but it’s being handled.”

Ez lets out a shaky breath. “Roma‍?—‍”

“Ez.”Obie’s voice has a note of steel in it now. “I’m not leaving you behind, okay? So we’re either getting out of here and meeting up with Cass and JJ, or we’re staying behind to fight. Which is it?”

For a long moment, Ez searches Roma’s face. Roma holds her breath, hoping against hope that maybe‍—justmaybe‍—Ez will stay to fight with her, that she trusts Roma enough to believe her this time, that she forgives her‍?—

That maybe the two of them still have a chance.

A chance to defy the Sanctum, and a chance to try again.

And then Ez turns away, and the little bubble of hope shatters. “Let’s get out of here,” she says tiredly, and she strides through Obie’s rift with her head bowed and her shoulders hunched.

Roma’s heart feels like it’s splintering. Swallowing hard, she nods at Obie. “Later, Obie.”

Obie hesitates before waving open a second rift‍—one to a pocket dimension. He reaches into it, grabs whatever is inside, and pulls out his hand to reveal‍?—

An ax. Roma’sfavoriteax, she realizes with a start‍—the one she left behind when she betrayed JJ all those months ago. “Here,” Obie says, holding it out. “Ez stripped off the corrosion spell, but it’s still as sharp as ever. You want it back?”

Roma’s throat feels tight. Gingerly, she takes the weapon. “Thank you.”

“Good luck,” Obie says, and without another word, he steps through the rift and snaps it shut behind him.

Leaving Roma alone on the porch of an abandoned safe house with nothing but a duffel bag of clothes, the weapons in her holding space, and a hollowness in her chest that she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to fill again.

But that’s okay. She probably won’t live for long enough to worry about it, anyway. Carefully, she eases herself down on the porch step, digs out her cell phone, and taps open the stopwatch app. Takes stock of her weapons, decides against pulling them out in advance, and sets just her favorite ax next to her, instead.

Rests her forearms on her knees, fixes her eyes on the street in front of her, and counts down the minutes until the Sanctum arrives.

Rift-hopping is a tried-and-true method of shaking off Sanctum trackers that Ez has mastered over the years. Having another demon with her‍—namely, Obie‍—makes it even easier, letting them take turns opening rifts to avoid fatigue and maximize their spellcasting stability.

Which is good, because Ez’s mind is spiraling and her heart feels like it’s shattering into pieces. “Stable” is the last word she would use to describe her magic‍—or herself‍—right now.

“You good?” Obie asks the moment they step out of the first rift from Redwater, striding towards a spot twenty feet away.

Ez doesn’t even bother looking around. It’s an abandoned clearing somewhere, a place that Obie knows but Ez is probablynever going to see again. “Yeah, I’m good,” Ez says shortly, and she peels open a rift to Thailand, leading the way through it.

Obie impatiently waves it shut behind them. “Are you sure? Because you sort of look like a wreck,” he says, casting a cursory glance around before walking across the street and flicking open another rift.

Ez’s hackles rise. “I’mfine,Obie,” she snaps, stalking through the rift after him and getting slammed by a blast of cold air. Antarctica? The Arctic? Ez can’t even bring herself to care. “In case you didn’t notice, we just went through a very emotionally traumatizing ten minutes to top off averyemotionally traumatizing two weeks. It’s a lot. I’m entitled to sort of look like a wreck.”

She snaps open her own rift‍—to somewherewarmthis time‍—and pointedly motions for Obie to go ahead of her. He complies with a scoff, but the second they’re both on solid ground in Ecuador, he starts talking again. “And Roma?”

Pain lances through Ez’s chest. “Roma made her choices,” she says haltingly, and she clears her throat, gesturing for Obie to keep moving. “Next?”

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