Page 61 of The Devil She Knows
“For a second, I thought you might be calling about … well …” She trailed off like Sam wasn’t sitting here hanging on her every word.
“Calling about what?”
Mom sighed, the sound explosive over the line, crackling in Sam’s ear like Mom’s mouth was right up against the receiver. “Have you talked to your sister? She said she was gonna reach out.”
Sam closed her eyes. She didn’t know.
“Kels?” she asked. “Or Jennie?”
“Kelsey. She was gonna try to get ahold of you.”
Try.As if Sam wouldn’t drop everything if either of her sisters needed her.
“What did she need to get ahold of me for?”
“I—Look, Sammie,” Mom said. “Maybe you ought to just call her.”
Her chest tightened and she just knew in her gut that something awful had happened. Otherwise, her mom would’ve spit it out.
“Tell me?” she begged. “Please.”
“It’s Pumpkin,” she said, and Sam’s heart stopped. “He’s not doing too well. UTI gone bad. We got him on meds, but it moved fast. The vet thinks the right thing to do would be … he thinks we should do it this afternoon, Sam.”
“No. Mm-mm.”
Sam shook her head, not giving a damn that her mom was more than a thousand miles away on the other end of the phone. Pumpkin washereat the vet, the one across the street from Trader Joe’s. He was getting his teeth cleaned. And Sam was supposed to pick him up as soon as they called, which should have happened yesterday, but in the chaos of it all, it had slipped her mind. She was going to call today as soon as they opened to find out why they hadn’t reached out, and then she was going to pick him and Nacho up and bring them home. Where they belonged.
“That’s not …” Sam pinched her eyes shut and sucked in a messy breath that turned into a hiccup. All she could taste was rust and salt. “Mom.”
“Kels knows you gave Pumpkin and Nacho to her, that you didn’t want—Well, she thought you might still want to say goodbye. Thought you could …”
Mom kept talking but Sam couldn’t hear a word she was saying.
She couldn’t conceive of a world in which she’d give her cats up any more than she could conceive of one where she’d lie or steal to get to the top.
This would never happen.
This wasbullshit, and Sam …
Sam called shenanigans.
13
ONE MOMENT SHE was on a park bench and the next she was sitting on a demon’s pink chaise.
Daphne stood across from her, leaning against the media console with her arms folded in front of her. Her eyes looked like twin storm clouds brewing in the distance, her stare steady and steely and, underneath, a little wild.
Sam dragged the side of her hand under her nose and sniffed. “Is Pumpkin okay?”
Daphne’s eyes softened a fraction and she nodded. “He’s fine. You know how it works. What happens within the confines of your wish is nullified the moment you call shenanigans. Clean slate.”
Fresh tears welled up behind her eyes. “I hope you know that was fucked up.”
Daphne looked away, a furrow between her delicate brows. “It was … unfortunate, yes. And I’m sorry you had to experience that—”
“Sorry?” Sam’s voice cracked. “You’resorry I had to experience that? Bullshit.”
“—but I have no influence over causality once a wish has been granted. Choices often have unforeseen consequences, and wishes are no—”
