“Are you all right?” Myra was there now, maybe had been for some time, her hand on my shoulder. The crowd was gone, Rossi was on his feet.
“I’m fine.” My voice was hard. It was mine, but I was beyond it somehow, still wrapped in fury and steel. “Get Bathin. I want him to see if there is a way to trace their escape.”
Myra hesitated.
“That’s an order, Myra.”
She pressed her lips together and gave me a short nod. “I’ll be right back.” She left, her phone already dialed and at her ear.
Crow had his arm around Jean’s shoulders.
“I’m fine, it was just a punch to the head,” she said. “Fucking doom twinges never give me enough time todoanything about them.”
“Do you want us to hunt him down?” Hera asked.
“Can you find him in the Underworld?” I asked.
Her vision sharpened, hawk-bright. “I can find anyone.”
“If you take up your power, you’re out of Ordinary for a year,” I said flatly.
Two girls, who looked like middle-schoolers, jogged into the room. Rossi was just fast enough to drop back into dead-body mode.
“He’s supposed to be dead?” one of them said. “He looks like a vampire.”
“Totally,” the other said. They trotted across the room and stared down at Rossi. “Vampire,” the second girl confirmed.
Rossi lifted his lip just enough to show fang, and both girls jumped, squealed, and ran, laughing, from the room.
Rossi sat and glared at me. “You’re not going alone to save him.”
“Did I say I was going alone?”
He held my gaze like he knew I was lying. “Delaney. You are not going alone.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I have weapons and a plan.” Voices in the hall grew closer. “You have a job to do. You’re supposed to be dead. Do your job. I’ll do my job.”
I could hear it, how harsh my voice was. I knew Rossi wasn’t to blame for Ryder getting kidnapped—
—a knife at his throat, his eyes wide as Patrick dragged him backward—
—stolen from me, his life reduced to a bargaining chip. But the anger in me was coal burning hot, and until I got Ryder back, until the King of the Underworld paid for what he’d done, there was no space in me for mercy.
“We should take this somewhere else, Delaney,” Crow said.
There were footsteps coming down the hall, and Rossi was prone, dead again as the happy people, sipping sodas, eating caramel corn, strolled into the room.
“Oh, look!” said a man who probably hosted all the barbecues on his block. “Someone has been killed. Murdered, even. Shall we search for the murder weapon?”
“The pitchfork isn’t enough, Carl?” a woman asked.
“We can’t jump to conclusions,” he admonished. He took in the surroundings, and startled a little when he saw me, Jean, and the gods.
“Is there…” He took a couple steps our way. “Is there a problem? A real problem? You’re a police officer, aren’t you? You look like the one from Baum’s video.”
I had done this before. Shoved all of my emotions down to deal with police business, to uphold the law, to keep the people in my town safe.
I’d certainly shoved my emotions and needs to the side to make sure that Ordinary’s secrets remained secret.
