He smiles against my lips. “Lord help me, I do.”
I collect my red deck from its hidden place in the cabinet. I pull the cards from their case and start shuffling. I can feel the right one humming, and I can almost predict exactly when it jumps. It lands on the ground, face up.
The Star reversed.
Of course.
I dip my finger in the pool of Phoenix’s blood and carefully draw an X over the face of the card.
Another monster down. Another X in my deck.
It might have nearly gotten me killed this time, but damn do I love my side gig.
chapter twenty-two
LUCKY
The world finally stopped burning,but I still smell the smoke.
I don’t think my hands have stopped shaking since my family erupted my show. They’re steady enough to drive, to hold her hand as we walk to the elevator, but now, standing in the quiet of the penthouse, they tremble like the adrenaline’s a permanent resident in my blood.
I don’t know how to feel, being back here in the penthouse. I should be able to relax. It’s over. The bastard is gone, Willow is safe. But I’m having a hard time pulling my whole being back into the present.
Willow should be dead. I know it. Every rational cell in my body knows it.
But she isn’t.
She’s alive, warm, soft. My miracle in black.
The sound of a hard rattle draws both our eyes to the cage where Hattie is impatiently waiting for attention.
“Hi, beautiful,” Willow breathes as she crosses to it. She opens the cage door and extracts the ball of white fur. “Did you miss me?”
Willow hugs Hattie into her chest, pressing her face into her fur. I just stand here, leaning against the wall, watching them. My chest does that stupid achy thing it does whenever she does something unbearably human.
She almost died last night—killed by a monster pretending to be holy—and the first thing she does when she gets home is coo over a rabbit.
That’s Willow. A hurricane with a heart.
I run a hand down my face, feel the grit on my skin, the ache deep in my knuckles. The mirror across the room catches my reflection—bruises blooming, dirt-caked eyes too wild. I look like I crawled out of hell.
“I need to shower,” I say as I push off the wall and step toward the bedroom. My voice is hoarse, scraped raw from screaming her name in that desperate drive from the desert to the hospital.
Willow looks up, still cradling Hattie, like she’s coming back into her body one slow blink at a time. “Go,” she murmurs. “Careful with your knuckles. They look one flex away from splitting open.”
I just smile at her concern, watching my girls for a beat longer.
The fight’s over. Phoenix is gone. My family’s handling the body disposal, the mess—and if there’s one thing Torvik’s are good at, it’scleaning up messes.
You can relax now,I try to tell myself.Everything is finally under control.
I strip my shirt off as I head toward the bathroom, the fabric sticking to my skin. The plastic liner of the trash can crinkles asI drop my shirt straight into it. My body aches everywhere, deep and low.
Steam curls up around me, the sound of the water roaring in my ears, too loud, too clean after everything that’s happened. I brace my hands against the tile and bow my head, watching the filth run off me in thin brown rivulets.
It’s not just dirt. It’s blood, dust, smoke, the desert. Him.
Phoenix.
