James and Dee simply looked at her.
They were still sitting on his Ikea couch, the one stained with paint and charcoal. Her back was to the couch’s arm, her feet tucked beneath his thigh. The contact felt comforting. A box of pizza sat open on the coffee table. Cora had declined the food. She had also declined a seat in favor of pacing back and forth, much in the manner of a general at a war council. There was a fire behind her eyes, Dee saw, a burning that had not been there before. Her body was tight with pain, her face rough with sleeplessness.
Cora said, “This is wrong. We’re wrong. We were wrong to make deals and the Daemon was wrong to change us. He is going around turning us into these… things.” Her fingers touched a lump in her pocket—and Dee thought that must be where she was keeping her knitted heart. “This is wrong. He can’t do this to us. We’re all being kept alive on a string.”
“I think you mean our lives hang on a thread,” James corrected, as if unable to help himself.
Cora threw him a heated look. “I have been awake for nearly three days straight. Do you think I give a damn about the phrasing?”
Ah. So that explained her slightly unhinged appearance. “If you do not mind me asking,” said James. “Why have you been awake for three days?”
“I’m going to stop him,” snapped Cora. “I will not let him take another heart. I’ve been following the Daemon for three days. Or trying to. I’ve mostly managed.”
“How will you even find him now?” asked Dee, startled out of her silence. “If you’re here, and he’s out there…?”
Cora’s smile was a crooked, triumphant thing. “Demons still think we’re helpless. They treat us like livestock, like things to be herded and harvested for their own needs. But humans evolved in the last few hundred years—and we’ve got technology.”
A moment.
Then it hit Dee. Exactly how one might track the Daemon.
“You’re following his cell phone?” she said, aghast.
James gazed at Cora in unflattering amazement. “Wow. I mean, I knew you were ballsy, but this is… a whole new level.”
Her mouth twisted. “Shut up, Lancer.” There was no affection in her words, no blunted insult this time. Her voice was low, utterly serious, and for the first time, Dee did not see a benevolent leader. Cora looked… coldly calculating. She looked like a demon hunter.
This, Dee decided, would not end well.
“So,” said Cora, turning flashing eyes upon Dee and James. “Are you both in?”
The ringing silence was answer enough. Cora looked between James and Dee, her own face tight with anger. “You’re just going to let this continue?” she snapped.
“I don’t see we have a lot of choice,” said Dee quietly.
Cora did not say another word. She turned on her high heel and strode out of the apartment.
“I feel like an asshole,” said Dee.
“I’m impressed,” said James.
She frowned at him. “Because I said no to someone?”
“Actually, it was because you just swore in front of me.”
She used her big toe to poke at his leg. He made a squeaking sound and caught her bare ankle in one hand. “Seriously, are we horrible for not wanting to help her?” said Dee, after a moment of thought.
James shook his head. “You’re asking me if we’re horrible people for not wanting to break a contract with an immortal being, to deliberately set ourselves against him, to risk everything we have and everything we are—all so we might hypothetically keep another teenager from losing his or her heart?” He paused.
“We’re horrible people,” said Dee.
“Yes, we are,” agreed James. “But somehow I think I can live with it.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Days passed and the weather went from fair to foul. Sunlight was chased away by clouds, and the light took on a grayish quality. Torrents of rain lashed at the windows, making it look as though the entire building was being put through a car wash. But no one paid the rain any real attention; the teacher went on talking about irregular polygons—half of the students were taking notes and the other half were passing them.
Dee was averaging out the two heights of her polygon when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She jumped; she usually kept the thing turned off—but Gremma had overslept and Dee had ended up rushing her morning routine. As subtly as she could, Dee reached into her pocket and withdrew her phone. She tucked it behind her geometry book and eyed the screen.
