I peer through the peephole. It’s hard to tell, but I see the family minivan parked on the street, along with Kratos’s motorcycle. Reaper is there too, and… okay, yep, that’s Anastasia’s trademark red hair.
Right next to her is somebody completely unexpected.
I fling the door open and point at my sister. “What the fuck is Mel doing here?”
Mel regards me steadily. “You need help,” she says. Her mismatched eyes flick away from me, but then return. “I can’t do much, but I wanted to come.”
Anastasia pats her shoulder. “She’s good people,” she says.
“Really good people,” Kratos says earnestly.
“Daddy is going to fucking kill you,” I hiss at Kratos and Ares. “She’s sixteen. If she gets murdered because she can’t wield a knife or aim a gun, we’re all looking at ten years of solitary confinement and torture.”
“Are you going to let us in?” Anastasia asks, ignoring me. “It’s freezing out here, and your sister’s coat is more decorative than actually useful.”
It is. Mel is wearing one of her usual goth getups, a black dress with lace and ribbons at the chest, and she’s wearing a cloak instead of a sweater or something even remotely helpful against the cold.
Reaper finishes locking up his motorcycle and strides up to me. He doesn’t complain about the cold, even though his leather jacket is open in the front and he’s only wearing a t-shirt underneath.
“You want my help? Let us in,” he says. Then he pushes past me.
Literally pushes past me, sending me stumbling two steps into the entrance wall.
Rude.
“Fine, come in,” I say. “Make yourself at home. I mean, it’s not my home, but everybody’s already in the dining room with snacks and slideshows and stuff.”
Everybody piles in, and I take one last look outside before I shut and lock the door.
“Hey, dickbags,” I say to Ares and Kratos. “Come here for a second.”
It says something that they both stop and turn to me, because they absolutely know that they’re dickbags.
Mel only pauses for a second before continuing on to the living room with the others.
“What?” Ares asks. “Seriously, we’re here to help. We figured you can’t stuffbothof us into a box to send us home.”
“You know the more you tell us not to do something, the more we want to help,” Kratos says, flashing me a smug grin that makes him look way too much like Uncle Slayer. “We’re just like that.”
I scowl. “I don’t care aboutyou. But Mel? Seriously? She doesn’t do this stuff.”
Mel is the good girl. Quiet, demure, one hundred percent sane and normal and doesn’t need cards with phone numbers of discreet people.
Ares grimaces and leans closer. “She caught us sneaking out, okay? She said if we didn’t take her along, she’d snitch about where we were going.”
“And that snitch can’t get murdered,” Kratos adds. “So we didn’t have much of a choice.” He crosses his arms against his chest. “Are you gonna keep nagging us, or can we get to it?”
I can’t believe Mel threatened to snitch. Doesn’t she know our family motto?
“Fine,” I grumble. “But you’ll have to keep an eye on her. Don’t let anyone touch her, okay?”
“Duh,” Ares answers. “She’ll probably get scared and hide the moment anything violent happens anyway.”
“Why do you think something violent is going to happen?” I mutter as I lead the way to the dining room.
Kratos snorts. “Because we aren’t stupid.”
“Also, your main complaint was that she can’t shoot or stab.” Ares ruffles my hair, then dodges before my punch can connect to his side.
