I slump back against the wall beside Rook who is standing stony-faced with his arms folded. Hanna stands beside him, looking bored as sin.
“She’ll keep going forever if we let her,” I say.
“Dude, you make her sound like a toddler, not a grown woman.”
Seeing Ember the other week seriously did a number on Silver. I’m pretty sure she’s been feeling guilty ever since, even though she hasn’t done a single thing wrong. Her heart’s toofucking big for her not to take this on as another thing resting on her shoulders. And I hate seeing her upset like this. It makes me want to put my fist through a wall.
But she’ll prioritize finding a solution to help those people over everything else, including her own health.
She’s so damn used to working alone, she just gets on with things and the rest of us are left standing around with our thumbs up our asses.
“Silver learned pretty young. You gotta keep moving or you die,” Rook says in his gravelly as hell voice. It’s hard to make him out over the music and... all the moaning.
Fuck.
I hate this place.
Seems I’m not the only one, either.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I don’t want to see another bare ass or jiggling tits. It’s making me kinda nauseous, man,” Ro moans.
Hanna snorts. “Guess you’re a one ass and tits kind of guy now.” She then stretches her arms above her head, glancing over at Silver again. “Look, guys, we’re gonna head out. We’ll do some more research at home, see if we can find any answers.”
“Take care of her,” Rook grunts, nodding in Silver’s direction.
A few minutes after they’ve headed out, our witch finally returns to the corner where Ro and I have been skulking like a couple of party poopers.
“Any luck, sweetheart?” Ro asks.
She’s not smiling, so I’m pretty sure I know the answer.
“Not so much. I think I can see in the dark now, but I don’t think I’ve picked up anything useful. And Ember’s not turned up. I’ve tried messaging him, but he’s ignoring me.” She sighs and leans against my side as I tuck her into my body. “No one’s even thinking about the statues or the vamps, either. I’d say thiswas a bust. Everyone’s too horny or distracted to care. Or maybe the word about the statues hasn’t spread that widely yet.”
“Speaking of horny and distracted—”
“Dude.” I elbow Ro in the gut.
“What?” He widens his eyes, all innocent. “Silver needs a break and a distraction. And I need some brain bleach, so I don’t have to be haunted by that guy's hairy ass cheeks when I close my eyes.”
Silver laughs, and the sound sends my gut flip-flopping like a land-bound fish. “We should head upstairs and talk to Dante, anyway.”
“Sure,” Ro says. “And if our clothes fall off on the way, then we’ll just have to deal with how the cards fall.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Pretty sure that’s not a saying.”
We make our way through the throngs of people, and as soon as we step out of the main section of the club, we all breathe a little easier. My ears ring as we walk into the quiet of the employees only section and the stairs leading to Dante’s office.
“Hanna and Rook headed out?” Silver asks.
I grunt and wrap my arm around her waist, letting the contact ground me against the chaos that’s running through my insides right now. “Yep.”
“They’re headed straight home, right? Hanna’s not going to try out her plan of locking the doors to the vamp mansion and setting the place on fire, is she?”
“She’s got Rook with her.” Hopefully that’s enough. There was a long conversation earlier where Silver had to persuade her sister that it wouldn’t end well if she murdered a bunch of vamps in cold blood, no matter how much they deserve it.
Silver sighs and leans into me and I can’t help pressing a kiss to the top of her head and breathing in her scent. It’s like stepping into a fucking meadow in comparison to the stench of sweat and sex I’ve been breathing in for the past hour.
“She doesn’t seem to understand that you and I got our asses kicked when it was just us against Simpson. We can’t go in all guns blazing. We need a plan.”
