Page 53 of Dance for the Dragon
She slammed her suitcase shut and zipped it closed. Running to her closet, she got her coat. “How the hell did you get in here, Frank?”
“I used my emergency key.”
“That’s for emergencies only.”
“Well, right now my best friend is running around her room packing every piece of clothing she owns except for essentials—like underwear—and sobbing like someone just died. I’d say that constitutes an emergency.”
“I can’t right now, Frank. I have to go.” Sliding her suitcase off the bed, she pulled up the handle. It took her three tries to get it rolling correctly.
Frank let her pass, following her into the other room and watching her while she found her purse. “When you didn’t come get me after I heard your vampire leave, I thought I’d better come check on you. Hey.” He grabbed her arm as she passed on her way to the front door. “You don’t have any shoes on.”
Devon looked down at her bare feet. “Shit.” Dropping her stuff on the floor, she ran back into her room. When she came out, sneakers on her feet, Frank was holding her coat and purse. She tried to grab them from him. “I have to go, Frank.”
He held it up out of her reach. “And where the hell are you going, Devon? Were you seriously just gonna take off and not say a word to me? What’s going on?”
That’s exactly what she’d planned to do, because this was too damn hard. Then it hit her. She grabbed his shoulders. “Come with me. You have to come with me.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Where, darlin’? Jesus, Dev, you’re a mess. You look like you’re running from the mob.”
“Not the mob. Worse. Vampires.”
He dropped his arms back down to his sides. Her purse fell to the floor. “Oh, shit. He knows.”
“Knows what?” She could barely concentrate on what he was saying. Her brain was trying to pound its way out of her skull.
“He knows you sent Parasupe after them, Dev. What the hell else would it be?”
Devon stilled. “What did you say?”
But Frank was pacing now, back and forth, back and forth in front of her. “I told you it was a shitty idea.”
“Frank. What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t send anyone after Kohl or his friends!”
He stopped and looked at her with a worried expression. “Dev, we went to the library. You hacked into their system. You as good as gave them directions to the coven.” Suddenly, his face cleared. “Fuck me. You don’t remember. You don’t remember any of this, do you?”
Devon felt like his fist was wrapped around her heart, squeezing. He was telling the truth. She knew Frank. They trusted each other with their secrets. He’d never lied to her. “Tell me again,” she ordered. “Tell me exactly what happened. What was said. Everything.”
He did. Every detail. And with every word, she felt like someone was cracking open her skull with a pickaxe.
When he was finished, she sank down onto the arm of her sofa, leaned over, and put her head in her hands and rocked back and forth. “Oh my God.”
“You wanna tell me what happened now?”
“Parasupe raided Kohl’s coven tonight.”
“That would explain the blood.”
“And it was my fault.”
“Yes, it was.”
She looked up at her only friend. “What the hell did I do? He’s so angry with me.”
One hand on his hip, Frank rubbed away the lines of stress on his forehead. “And you’re running because you think he’s going to come back and hurt you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not Kohl. The rest of his coven. They know it was me.”
Frank threw his hands in the air. “Dev, what did you think was gonna happen?”
