“Holy shit, you’re here. I mean, thank fuck. I didn’t think you’d ever find me, and I figured I’d be stuck here in this rotten human city.”
“What happened to your weaver friend? Beattie?” I ask.
“Turned out she didn’t have the stomach for dangerous missions to save two people she’d never met before.” He jerks his head toward the building. “Wren and Cam are both in there. Trapped. I’ve been trying to scout out the place, learn those fuckers’ routines to come up with a plan.”
“You think Wren’s been in there the whole time?” I try not to think about what is happening inside.
“I’d guess so.”
My churning gut sours even further as I stare at the outer windows of Andrew's fancy-pants apartment building. Andrew, Wren’s ex-boyfriend. Or ex-fuck buddy, rather. The same one we visited weeks ago, whose fiancée was apparently one of Wren and Camellia’s biggest fans on their videos. She didn’t donate a lot of money, but she was enough of a repeat customer to end up on Cam’s list. They’d covered their tracks pretty well and her tech guy took a while to pull together the details.
“That’s why you called the other night?”
He nods, his focus distant as he stares at the building like it’s going to open up for him or they’re going to both step out, happy and unharmed.
“Cam and I were sending notes back and forth. I guess we both spotted something was up with these guys around the same time. In the last message Cam sent me, she said she had found something and was going to try to lure them out. I called to tell her it was a terrible idea, but she never got my call or it was already too late by then. I called you, but I’m guessing they already had her by that point, considering the background noise at your place.”
I frown, glancing over at Soren, who’s listening with an identical frown on his face. “You think they had something to do with the soul-eaters invading the garden?”
Leif gives me a look that tells me he thinks I’m stupid. Ugh.
“They have a karma weaver and a fate weaver. I reckon they could do anything they wanted at this point. Sending a few beasties your way to distract you from finding us would be pretty tame.”
“How about Madame picking Echo to send into our garden to look for Wren, while knowing that she was our mate and our destiny weaver?” Soren asks. “Fate, karma or something else?”
“Who the fuck knows, man?” Leif lets out a long, shuddery breath, seeming utterly defeated. “I don’t know how we can get them out without putting the two of them in danger. They’ve had Wren for weeks now and if they’re doing what I think they are, they’re going to be more powerful than any of us.”
“What exactly do you think they’ve been doing?” Soren asks, his voice strained.
“You saw where this guy lived before, right? Total dive compared to this swanky apartment in this neighborhood. Did you know he got promoted in the past month too? And he was named employee of the month after just recently joining the company?”
It takes a moment to click with what he’s trying to say and the moment it hits me, my stomach turns over.
“It sounds like things have been going his way a lot,” Brogan says.
“You think he’s been manipulating Wren’s powers? Using them so that everything works out for him?”
“Wren would never agree to that,” Soren growls.
Leif shrugs, although his tone is anything but nonchalant. “I can’t imagine he’s given her much choice.”
Oh, shitty shitstorms.
This is bad. So bad.
I wish that Wren had decided the weaver life was not for her and that she’d run off into the sunset with a hipster barista, or something. It’s the kind of thing they don’t warn you about at the academy since it’s a worst-case scenario. A total nightmare. We have to get Wren out of there. Who knows what Andrew has been doing to her to manipulate her and get her to use her powers for his gain?
Turning to Soren, I’m hit by the anguish on his face and my chest burns with the need to take away his pain. I know he feels responsible for everyone, butthisis not his fault.
“Can you sense them?” I ask quietly. “Their souls, I mean?”
As in, can he sense if they’re about to evacuate their bodies like he could with that woman back in the Elysian Fields?
Soren’s frown deepens for a moment, and then his expression goes hazy as I guess he taps into his reaper powers. It takes a few moments for him to come back to himself, and he slowly shakes his head.
“That’s a good sign, right?” I try to smile, to soothe a little of the worry he must be feeling and he just stares down at me, face blank, and I think that he’s going to brush me off without answering.
I know that sometimes, in crisis mode, overly positive people like myself can be less than helpful. Annoying. Like they think we can’t see reality. But, in fact, we see things just the same, but put a lot of energy into pulling the people around usupinstead of letting them sink into despair. It’s like swimming upstream and it can be exhausting and all you get for your trouble is a rolled eye or a brush off, since you clearly can’t take the situation seriously.
