Page 57 of Baking and Angels

She pinched her eyebrows deeper, and Rafferty wished he could use just a little bit of his demonic aura to make it harder for her attention to drift from him, to be more of a draw on her attention than her friend’s pain.

“Do you?”he pushed.

Helena looked back and forth between him and her friend, unable to choose. “Yes, I think so. This is a project Scarlet Promotions can totally handle,” Helena assured him as her gaze shifted backto Cindy.

“Dad, please listen—” Cindy’s face became more and more despondent.

Helena leaned over Rafferty to gently set her hand over the phone. The two friends made eye contact, tears welling at the bottom of Cindy’s. Quietly, she yielded the phone, and Helena pressed down on the hang-up button on the screen to do just that, cutting off the still-ranting voice. Helena then pocketed the phone so that it couldn’t hurt Cindy anymore.

The burning raged in Rafferty’s chest.

Above them, the overhead speaker binged three descending tones. “Attention all passengers. The train going north will be arriving in three minutes. Please stand back from the blue line for your safety. Have all baggage with you and tickets readyto board.”

“Let’s get on the train,” Helena managed to communicate over the announcement.

Rafferty and Helena gathered up their bags, but Cindy simply sat there, staring, as if she were numb and detached from all of it. Finally, Helena picked up her duffle bag to pass to Rafferty before taking her friend’s hand and tugging her up to her feet as the train rumbled into the station. Cindy let herself be led up into their waiting coach.

Helena handled passing their tickets to the conductor, waiting at the doors to punch. None of them said anything to each other outside of functional directions to their first-class private room, the fortuitous upgrade coming in handy again: Helena and Rafferty side by side on the two-seater and Cindy dropped in the single seat across, her gaze returning to staring out the window.

Helena’s fingers laced in between Rafferty’s, gripping hard enough to turn her knuckles white, while she watched her friend sink back into her own personal hell, the last few hours only a small rise above the surface. He laid his own hand over hers, squeezing, trying to communicate without words that there was nothing she could do. He had seen this sort of darkness before.

“Cindy? It’s going to be okay,” Helena said softly.

“Don’t say that,” Cindy responded, but she didn’t look away from the window as the train jerked into motion. “Just don’t.”

“I’m just…”

“I’m going to stay with Chris and Charlie when we get back to the city,” Cindy said, crossingher arms.

The hairs on the back of Rafferty’s arms stood up. He could feel the eerie energy coming off of Helena and knew intuitively what sheintended.

Digging in his pocket, he slipped out his phone. There were only two other numbers in it, one Helena’s, and hit he autodial on theother one.

A weak voice answered on the other end. “Hello?”

“Scarlet? It’s Rafferty,” he said loudly, capturing all the attention in thetrain car.

“Oh, yes, Rafferty. How can I help you?” she said, clearly speaking the words automatically, despite the fatigued undertones. “Oh, wait, you were just at that cooking competition event. How did it go?”

“I enjoyed myself. It has some real potential, but I will let Helena tell you about it.” He then passed the phone to her.

Her eyes glanced at her friend but put on the spot like that with her boss, she couldn’t not takethe phone.

“Hi, Scarlet,” she said into it, turning her guilty eyes toward the window.

As they launched into talking, Rafferty glanced at Cindy. She didn’t look at him, only settled back, her face clean of emotion. He recognized it, but he couldn’t let her drag Helena downwith her.

Chapter 22

Tendrils of

Doubts

Helena talked to Scarlet the whole way back to the city, going over her idea. They got into details and minutiae Rafferty barely understood. Cindy, for her part, stayed quiet and didn’t do anything to distract. Once they reached the station, Cindy parted ways with them, heading to Chris’s house to stay. While she continued to talk to Scarlet on the phone, Helena hugged Cindy, and that was just as well.

Over the next three days, Rafferty barely saw Helena. They were still staying at the hotel, but she would get up in the morning and leave for her work, eager to get out of the door while he remained in bed.

He spent much of his time sleeping. Sleeping was such an interesting experience. He remembered doing it in his first life, but not what it was like. Sleeping was not something a demon did. You simply existed. He felt like the exhaustion of all those centuries conscious was catching upwith him.

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