Raven was my choice to replace Archer, but I knew not everyone would feel the same, and I had concerns about what the others would think when I tried to leave. My biggest concern being Reaper. I was one thing—he had little ground to stand on by challenging me—but Raven was another.
Closing the door quietly behind me, I glanced at the screen before answering.
“Snake,” I answered, murmuring as I made my way downstairs.
“I got what you wanted,” Harper responded, as blunt and cold as usual, his emotions shielded again, unlike the last call I’d received from him. He hadn’t made it to the group meeting, neither had Bull.
“Good. I’ll come get it later today.”
“Fine. We’re even now.”
I laughed. “Not even close.”
“This is an expensive piece of tech, Coyote. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to—”
“You still owe me,” I interrupted. Expensive tech for someone like me probably, but it was nothing to a billionaire. I liked Harper,but I wasn’t letting him get out of debt to me that easily. He was a powerful person to have a favor owed from, and I intended to use it wisely.
There was silence for a long moment before he conceded with a sigh. “I can pay you.”
“This isn’t blackmail, Snake. I helped you, and someday you’ll help me. I don’t want your money.”
“I don’t like owing people.”
“Well, you should have thought of that before you asked me for help.”
Silence, and then another long sigh. “Whatever. Don’t take too long, I am very busy, you know.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“Hmm.”
The line went dead as he hung up on me. I rolled my eyes, returning to the bedroom to put on pants before heading to the kitchen to make Jonah breakfast.
Soon I’d be out. I’d take my Rabbit, and we’d get the fuck out of this place. We’d go somewhere no one knew us and exist only for each other.
The thought put an extra bounce in my step as I busied myself around the kitchen, feeling none of the unease that usually came with being in this room. Jonah had filled it and all the others with a new sense of home. Since the first night he’d stayed here with me, he hadn’t left. There hadn’t been a night we’d slept apart, and I wanted to make sure there never would be.
Bang bang bang bang
The echo of fists on the front door had my good mood evaporating, as I looked to the ceiling and prayed to a god that had never heard me before for patience. I’d expected that now most of the Strays knew where I lived they might drop in unannounced,especially with the agreement that we’d be staying away from the Strays’ house. I just didn’t expect it would happen so quickly.
I left the bacon cooking as I made my way to the door, expecting Matteo again, or Raven. So when I unlocked it and pulled it open, I was entirely unprepared for the way my heart plummeted like an anvil to my gut—lower, like the weight of it could send me crashing through the floor and down into hell itself.
I wished it had. I wished for anything else other than to have opened the door to the person standing in front of me.
“You just gonna stand there and look at me like you’re stupid? Move!”
A pointed fingernail stabbed at my shoulder, but I didn’t budge even though it stung. Because hell was real, and it was here, but I wasn’t its devil, my mother was. And the devil was home.
“Move, Dexter. This bag is fucking heavy.”
Jonah. All I could think about was Jonah. I stood my ground despite the years of instinct that told me to back down, to keep her happy or suffer the consequences. My bones seemed to shrink in her presence, her shadow distorting and looming until she felt so much bigger than I was, so much stronger.
“Move out of my way!”
“No,” I told her, my voice barely above a whisper. All other words evaded me.
I couldn’t protect myself from her—not now and not ever—but I could protect my rabbit. I could keep her out for his sake. I wouldn’t let her get to him.
