Page 82 of Shadow & Stars
The back door opened. I jumped in, joining Darcy. Grandma was in the driver’s seat, an injured woman—an ADU agent—in the front. She appeared to have a broken hand seeing as fingers weren’t meant to be at those angles.
Ouch.
“Where’s Xavier and young me?” I asked, my anxiety going through the stratosphere. I dug fingernails into my left palm, tapping my left foot.
“I gave him an address,” Darcy responded. “We’ll meet him there because he’s quicker and that boy seems to be the key.” He nodded at the blade in my chest. “Thought it best to get him into hiding quickly.”
“Good thinking.”
Margarite and Lizard Guy climbed over me into the two seats behind us as Grandma gunned the engine.
“But the towers…”
“He’s fine. He cleared the street with no problems. It’s all going to work out.” He offered me a reassuring smile.
I really wanted to pull him into a hug. Hear him let out a ratty squeak under my crushing.
“I’m so sorry I killed you,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean it.”
He chuckled. “Sounds so silly when you hear it out loud.”
The car lurched, speeding off down the street.
“Hold on to your socks!” Grandma cried.
“Can you handle this?” I asked her, my mouth dry over seeing her again.
She threw me a mischievous grin and tore through the London streets like a racing driver.
“I’ve told you many times,” she said, avoiding a red light. “Never underestimate me.”
Point well taken.
For real this time.
24
XAVIER
With the teenager on my back, I hurried through the night with the address the witch gave me engraved in my mind.
What am I doing? Why did I go through that door to rescue this boy? Yes, I understood why I was here, what this all meant to a degree. But it didn’t shift my bemusement or bring to life any feelings from my future.
Me in love with a human witch? Sounded like madness to me. I’d moved to the human realm to escape drama, to live in relative peace.
To mourn Ismael day after day…
My feelings for my lost, sleeping love were raw and barbed within me. Seeing him again burned like the hottest of flames, only with a strangeness diluting the hurt.
Roman…
I picked up speed, leaping over a low fence circling a community green space. Protecting this teenage boy was paramount now. My instincts and the chaos told me so. I wanted this to be over, to go back to my life until the time came to meet my future.
Roman is your future…
“It’s fucked up, right?” the boy said into my left ear.
“Correct.” I crossed the green space.
