“Fine,” he said. “I’ll come over to your house. We’ll get it done.”
Relief washed over me for an instant, soothing and clean before it was gone. “Good. Thank you. I’m here now.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen. I expect the door to be locked when I arrive.”
“Promise.”
I parked the Jeep and sat there for a few minutes, just thinking.
Myra and Jean would kill me when they found out about this. I knew that. They were already angry that I’d been attacked—not my fault—and even more angry that I’d traded my soul for Dad and Ben—totally my fault. It had been my choice and I still didn’t think it had been the wrong thing to do.
But this?
Shit.
I lowered my head until it banged softly against the steering wheel.
This was wrong. Not telling them was wrong too.
And all the justification I was talking myself into, all the logic that pointed out itwasn’twrong, that powering through and taking action was the right course to follow was falling apart the more I thought it through.
Bathin was a demon. He’d tricked Dad into giving up his soul, tricked me into giving up mine. Jame wasn’t wrong. Bathin liked pain.
But he’d saved Ben for me, for Jame. He’d brought him back as whole as he could. That had to stand for something, didn’t it?
He could be playing a long con. He might want something more than just my soul and the freedom to walk around Ordinary.
Hell, he might want me dead. And he might have just found a way to talk me into helping him kill me, by making me arrange my own death.
Holy shit, that was slick.
I pulled out my phone, stared at the screen, then thumbed through my contact numbers. I needed to call smarter people who had souls and could trust their instincts and their minds better than me right now. I needed Myra’s calm logic, Jean’s sharp insight. I needed Ryder’s decisive confidence.
I needed my family.
I hovered my thumb over who to call first, then pressed the picture of Ryder in his painted mask.
The phone rang once. “We got this.” It was a weird way to answer the phone.
“Good? What do we got?”
“Whatever you’re worrying about.”
“Who said I’m worrying?”
“I know that look on your face.”
I closed my eyes for a second, and sighed. Then I looked out the window. “Where are you?”
He stepped up and tapped my side window. His phone was held up to his ear. “Roll down the window.”
I could hear him on the phone and through the window. It was silly. And made me smile.
Thatmade him smile, easy and warm.
I wanted that Ryder. Wanted to be the one who put that look on his face. But in order to do that, I’d have to be able to feel things. To have a soul. To have emotions.
Also, it’d be helpful if I weren’t dead.
