Page 28 of Magic Betrayed

A picture that existed only in my memory.

So while I started sketching hastily on a page torn out of one of Ari’s coloring books, Callum stepped into the next room and called our hacker. He was on the phone for a surprisingly long time, and when he returned, he wore an expression of grim satisfaction.

“You ready?”

I held up my awkward, lopsided drawing. “No, but I think I’m as close as I’m going to get.”

“It’s fine,” he promised. “I managed to secure an in-person meeting, so we can search for the van without having to wait to hear back.”

My heart sped up at the same time my stomach sank. This was good news—the best—but what had he sacrificed in exchange for the privilege? Hackers were secretive by necessity. For one of them to agree to actually meet with us, Callum had to have made it worth his while.

“Callum, what is this going to cost?”

He didn’t flinch, but met my challenge squarely. “Far less than the value of three lives. I have no regrets.”

There was nothing I could say to that. In my heart, I agreed—a life was beyond price—even as I wondered how greatly this would add to the intangible sense of debt I carried towards the shapeshifter king.

We left the apartment in silence, and I fought back a rising tide of despair as I closed the door on the remains of the new life I’d hoped to build. Like a house of cards, it had swiftly collapsed due to a single, unforeseen enemy.

If it was this easy—if our safety was still so fragile—how could we ever live in peace?

When we found where Ryker parked the SUV, Callum opened the back door and gestured me forward with a slight bow. As if there was any chance I would allow him to play chauffeur.

“Knock it off,” I muttered, stepping around him with a glare and sliding into the front passenger seat. “I’d rather walk.”

He just shrugged and grinned a little before taking the driver’s seat and pulling out onto Main. After about half a block, he took a right on Classen and headed north.

We both seemed lost in our own thoughts as our drive took us towards northwest Oklahoma City, to a largely abandoned fourteen-story apartment building just off the Northwest Expressway. A broken neon sign proclaimed it had once been the Ackerman Luxury Apartments, but from the weed-choked parking lot to the handful of shattered windows, it was clearly no longer luxurious—more like barely habitable.

“Don’t worry,” Callum said, apparently reading my dubious expression as doubt in the capability of a professional forced to live in such squalid conditions. “Draven promised me a reliable expert. Our hacker lives in the basement. Probably hijacking the electricity and piggybacking on someone else’s internet.”

“I was actually a little more worried about being lured to our deaths or hunted by renegade trolls,” I informed him, “but thanks for adding a new fear to my collection.”

He parked the car, then paused for a moment before opening the door. “If anything threatens you, I hope you won’t hesitate to fight back,” he reminded me. “With deadly force, if necessary. Whoever we’re looking for either kidnapped your family or tried to, which means they’re willing to play as dirty as it gets. But I know what you’re capable of, and thanks to Blake, so do a lot of other powerful people. If they’re smart, they’ll be terrified of getting in your way.”

His confidence was oddly satisfying, and I reminded myself that Callum wasn’t exactly helpless either. Together, we were a formidable team.

We got out of the car, and I must have shivered a little too loudly, because Callum took one look at me, rummaged around in the passenger compartment, and then threw me a coat. It was huge and heavy and smelled like Callum, and I froze for a moment with it in my arms, wondering if I dared put it on.

“Aren’t you going to need this?” I asked dubiously.

“Dragon, remember?” He offered me a slightly smug smile. “The coat is just for show. I don’t get cold very easily.”

He didn’t have to offer twice. The wind was icy and his coat—while three or four times too big for me—felt like a hug.

No. Bad Raine. No thinking about hugs, especially not now.

Trying desperately to free my hands from the sleeves, I trailed Callum around the front of the building, following a cracked sidewalk choked with overgrown weeds. On the far side, we found a set of stairs leading down, ending at a steel door.

“Don’t step on the stairs,” Callum warned. “Only every third step is safe. I’m going to jump down and then I’ll catch you.”

Excuse me?He what?

But it was too late to object. He’d already taken the leap and was looking back up at me expectantly.

I eyed the drop. It would probably be fine. Only about twenty steps. So I jumped, very deliberately not at him, and landed…

…with a grunt as he snatched me out of the air and set me on my feet, so quickly I didn’t even have time to protest. And even if I had, there was not a shred of repentance on his face as he turned to the door and eyed the metal sign fixed just above my eye level.

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