A sniffle and a glare.
The corner of my lip lifts. “I gave you the fuel. You’re gonna light him up.”
The Ascension
Psalms 139:8 King James Version
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
Sixty-Seven
SEBA
Everything is going too smoothly.The other shoe is going to drop any second now. I’m holding my breath, on the edge of my seat, checking around every corner— if it’s a cliche, I’ve done it.
Three weeks ago, I gave Detective Montague the boxes of evidence from Dr Larson’s mansion. It’s been radio silent since. Ashby hasn’t heard anything either; he’s more wound up about it than me. When I finished my shift at the grove to find him waiting for me in front of Carl’s office, I knew something had happened.
“This is it,” Ash insists, rubbing his buzzed hair as he paces in tight knots around the storage shed. “Blocking off a section of campus? You know the athletic department would’ve covered it up if they could. I’m telling you whatever they have is solid.”
“We’ll see.”
“Take your negative ass outta here.”
“I’m not negative, I’m skeptical.” My nails bite into the tough skin of a fresh orange. “They’re careful and ruthless. They’ll sacrifice anyone and everyone to avoid consequences.”
Ash grunts, face scrunching and head tipping toward his shoulder. He spits. “Cockroaches, the lot of them.” Thenmassages his bruised knuckles. He’s been fighting again. Catching me staring, he drops his hands. “Bet Kitty Cat will be thrilled to hear there’s movement. She warming up to you yet?”
With an amused huff, I shuck the peel and tear the fruit in half. His nickname for Andrea is shockingly accurate— she’s very much a feral cat. Instead of admitting she’s starving for affection, she gives me serious attitude… while simultaneously showing up at my apartment regularly. She says it’s for the free food and Cade, but when he fell asleep early the other night, she stayed curled up in the recliner with a book. Granted, shewaseating the cookies I helped Cade bake. (If I hadn’t stepped in, he would’ve set the entire building on fire.) But then she started borrowing books and replacing them with new ones. The real breakthrough happened last night. She’d tapped the spine of the returned book and said,“This one was fucking nuts. I’ve got a mad crush on the queen of hell. She’s a bad bitch. And the cat demon with his idea seeds. I’d love to recruit him to take down the self-ordained Jesus’ Spawn.”
We stayed up until the early morning hours in a heated discussion about it. I almost kissed her. I wasso fuckingclose. But I was petrified to snap the delicate olive branch.
“And Manic Pixie Daydream?”
I roll my eyes. Late nights with Ash over the years, plotting and trading intel over beer and cigarettes, segued into the inevitable conversation of who we’re doing all this for. At first, I was hesitant to share details of my relationships with Cade and Andrea, but after Ash opened up about Cassius, I realized I wasn’t the only one in desperate need of a judgment-free friend.
“Cade might look like a pixie, but he’s the fucking devil.”
“That make you a Satanist? ‘Cause you worship that crazy fucker.”
A laugh gusts out of me. He isn’t wrong. I worship Cade in every sense… and heisfucking nuts. Especially when he’s bored while I’m at work.
“He climbed on the roof of our parents’ house yesterday.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I guess the lighting was better for his vlog or something. Mom called 911 instead of just asking him to come down. Then, when the paramedics showed up, the menace just chilled with them for a bit, talking about his new YouTube channel. Declan basically threw him at me when I showed up.”
“It’s Pixie’s world and we’re just living in it,” Ash chuckles. He was Cade’s third subscriber— after Andrea and me. What started as a suggestion from his therapist as an alternative to journaling has evolved into his latest hyper fixation.
“Ain’t that the truth,” I sigh. “Speaking of the troublemaker, I gotta rescue him before Declan offers to take him to his appointments later.”
“He doesn’t want his dad there?”
“Nah, he’d rather stop at the apartment first.”
Ash drops his head back with a groan. “Can’t you just go one day without reminding me how much sex I’m not having?”
I chuck an orange wedge at him. “It’s been me and my hand for the majority of my life, asshole. Call it making up for lost time.”
