I give his biceps a little squeeze, hoping the contact punctuates my point. Tad just stares at me, his eyes unsure but analyzing. He looks like he doesn’t know what to believe. I can see that he wants to but that it’s just too much to even hope for.
“I swear on Rufio and the epic love you two would have shared if he hadn’t died inHook,” I tell him, not an ounce of humor in the declaration, because weneverjoke about the great loves of our youth.
Tad’s hands shoot up to cover his mouth, a small gasp escaping before he can hide it behind his palms. He shakes his head, like reality is just too much to take in right now. Then all at once, shaking arms wrap around me, tightening to a bone-crushing pressure that grounds my soul and tells me that he finally gets it. He believes.
“Rufio died a hero,” Tad sobs after a couple of minutes.
“Bangarang,” I confirm, my own tears once again dripping down my face as we hug.
“Even Hook knew he fucked up. He stopped fighting and everything,” Tad goes on, hugging me even tighter.
“I mean, he’s no Spot Conlon,” I counter, picking up on an age-old argument as tranquility settles over me.
Tad scoffs, pulling away to clear the tears from his cheeks and wipe his nose on the inside of his shirt. “Oh please, Rufio would have swept the floor with that Newsie. A slingshot just isn’t going to cut it against seasoned sword skills.”
“Spot is abrawler,” I defend for the thousandth time. “That’s why all the other Newsies were afraid of him, and don’t even start with how he was probably too short for me.”
My cousin’s eyes are alight with love and happiness as he takes me in, and things suddenly feel right. Like it doesn’t matter that the Order could be hunting me as we speak or that maybe Rogan could feel differently about everything now that I’m back. Tad isn’t hurting anymore, and that’s all that matters to me right now.
“How?” he asks, taking me in, his voice and visage filled with awe and confusion.
I turn to the attached bathroom and set my clothes and the almost empty bag of muffins on the counter. “It’s a long story,” I warn, turning on the water in the shower before shutting the bathroom door behind me.
“I ain’t afraid of a long story, spill the tea...and don’t leave out any details,” he shouts through the door, and I chuckle.
“Well, it started when a tall, dark, and dickish man of mystery walked into my life…” I begin dramatically, shouting through the door and filling Tad in on every single detail as I step into the shower and wash away the last remnants of death and resurrection from my skin.
3
“Holy shit,” Tad exclaims for about the thousandth time.
“I know,” I agree, as I scrunch product into my curls and open up the drawer that houses a diffuser attachment.
“Demons are no joke,” he warns, as though I didn’t just witness that fact firsthand.
“You’re preaching to the choir,” I shout over the whir of the blow dryer. “I love that you’re more concerned with the demon part of that story than the fact that I came back from the dead,” I tease.
“Oh, I have every intention of freaking out about that. All in good time, Leno. I’m just trying to process the manageable parts of your story, and demons run screaming to the top of that list.”
“Fair enough,” I concede with a chuckle.
I probably shouldn’t feel so lighthearted right now; the Crone knows my life could turn back into a clusterfuck any second now, but I’m clean, my belly is full, my loved one isn’t suffocating on heartache anymore, and I just feel...good. Better than good, really. Power is humming through my veins, and the gnawing unease that’s been tugging at me since I woke up is suddenly calm and replaced by determination and relief.
“But how the hell did that bitch get one to cooperate? A demon would gut you nine times out of ten instead of listening to one word of why some no-name ex-witch would have summoned them,” Tad states evenly, his observation pulling me from my innerit’s good to be alivereflection.
I can tell by the way he’s staring at the wall that his question is more for him than me.
“Demons don’t fuck with Lessers or Mancers unless theyreallyhave something they want. So, what the hell could Magic-Stripped Barbie have that a demon would want badly enough to get involved in the serious shit show she created?”
Tad’s musings reverberate through me like the off-key ring of a damaged bell. A shiver runs through me as I recall the first time I saw Jamie, with demon marks branded all over her and nothing but madness swimming in her eyes. “From the looks of things, whatever she was working with liked to fuck her,” I throw out there, shaking my head to clear it of the images and sounds that filled the church when Jamie first summoned her demon.
“Na, that kinda shit is more a play for dominance or a smoke screen when it comes to their kind. They care more about power than pussy or penis.”
“How do you know that?” I ask, a little bewildered by his matter-of-fact statement. I flip my head to the other side and start scrunching those curls and drying them as I wait for him to explain where he’s getting all his info from.
“Remember that magic adjacent group I told you about, the one that I meet up with?”
I think back to Tad lecturing me on how being tethered to Rogan or anyone else was a very bad thing, and nod my head.
