All of this I can completely deal with. And I can keep coping because not one of them has mentioned fires erupting from unexpected places or a mysterious figure in a crimson three-piece stalking up Olive Street. That assurance, as well as the fortifying man who hasn’t let me go for an hour and a half, keep me settled next to him on the couch with a reasonably normal heart rate. After a little, I’m even smiling as he pulls a blanket out of the nearby storage chest and wraps us together in warmth.
I snuggle into Maximus’s side with a contented sigh, telling myself this is all I need—until my stomach informs me otherwise in the form of a long snarl.
“Damn,” he mutters. “Did you eat at all while you were…there?”
I shrug, appreciating the uncomfortable hitch in his query. “My appetite was the last thing I was worried about, you know?”
His lips compress as his gaze softens. In his own way, he does know—and I’m beyond tempted to kiss him because of it.
Before I can act on the impulse, he says, “Let me see what I’ve got. Might be just peanut butter and jelly.”
My answering groan is thick with ecstasy. “Yes, yes, yes, please.” The idea of sinking my teeth into all that favorite goo from childhood is even better than listening to the news experts drone on.
But Maximus is only halfway to the kitchen when another quake has the building, and him, reeling. He swears softly before backing against the support wall. “Stay where you are, Kara. It’s a big aftershock.”
But it feels like nothing of the sort. Three more seconds go by like years as I roll up in the blanket and burrow against the cushions.
The fault lines have decided they deserve their own war game handles.
And are going to celebrate that fact right now.
For the better part of a minute, I actually do wonder if strange societal factions have decided to go to war—or a worse scenario, involving the god in the crimson suit. It feels like someone’s tossed a bomb against the building, with the windows shattering, the horizon weaving, and a bunch more of Maximus’s books now flying to the creaking floor.
“Holy crap,” I rasp while covering my head with both hands. I curl up, expecting chunks of the ceiling to hit me any second.
Eventually, the building stops swaying. The walls settle. One by one, the alarms in the streets below are silenced.
I gulp hard, not moving. The quiet guts me nearly as deeply as the quake did.
“Kara?”
“Still here,” I croak.
Maximus releases a relieved whoosh. “Good. Me too.”
I peek around the edge of the couch to watch him push back to his feet. When he spots me, he dips his head to the side and smiles.
“You okay?” he murmurs.
“If I said I’ve never been better, would you stand there for a little while longer?”
“No. I’d say I don’t believe you.” He chuckles it out in response to my little come-hither stare. But the next second, his brows draw together. “You’re really pale. Are you sure—”
A phone buzzes incessantly. Since I’m certain mine is still in my purse back at Rerek’s hellmouth beach house, I look around for Maximus’s device. As soon as he pivots and eyes the screen on the butcher block next to him, his own color drains by several shades.
He grabs it quickly, activating the call as well as the speaker.
“Mom?” he queries. “Hey. Are you—”
“Maximus,” she cuts in with bold bluntness. Maybe that’s a mother thing, not just a Veronica thing. “Oh, thank God. You’re all right, then? Where are you? At the bookstore? It sounds so loud.”
“I’m home. Looks like the last hit might’ve taken out a few of my windows.”
“But you’re okay?” she demands. “You’re not hurt at all?”
Maximus gives me a private peep show of his adorable eye roll. I crawl a little higher on the couch, propping my chin on the back edge. No way am I going to miss a second of this. I haven’t met Nancy Kane yet, but from the pictures he displays around this place, I grasp the irony of her charge. The woman is barely bigger than me, and she’s concerned about his welfare?
“I’m fine. I mean it.” He steps over to stroke a big hand over the top of my head. “Are you okay? You’re at home, right? Monday’s your day off.”
But it doesn’t sound like she’s at home. Especially not as her end of the line is suddenly muffled, giving me the impression that she’s speaking with someone besides Maximus.
No, not speaking. Yelling.
“Mom?” he demands again. “Hey. Are you—”
“Max. I’m so sorry. It’s just…getting crazier here.”
“Here where?” A deep V forms between his brows. “Is everything okay?”
“The first responder agencies are setting up disaster response centers across the city. They sent out a text asking for volunteers. Didn’t you see it? One of the biggest centers is here on campus. At Alameda.”
Maximus’s expression darkens. “I haven’t been on my phone much today. We’ve just been glued to the news since everything started shaking.”
“We? Are you…with Kara?”
There’s tension around her tone, but she hasn’t exactly spat my name like a cuss word. It’s more like a demand. An urgent one.
“Why is that important?” he finally asks.
“Please, just answer me, son. Is Kara with you right now?”
Maximus cocks his gaze in my direction. I answer him with a consenting nod.
“She’s right here. Why do you want to know?”
“Because they just checked in a new patient here.” She pauses, giving away her vacillation between professional calm and sympathetic worry. “Kara…I’m sorry, honey. It’s your sister, Kell.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Maximus
“Thank you, Mrs. Worthington,” I say into my cell as Kara yanks the strings taut on one of my old pairs of gym pants. Though the workout gear is bleached out and shrunken past fitting me again, she turns it into a trendy-baggy look by pulling up the leftover pant strings and cinching a knot where Mr. Fluffy’s crossbow cocking stirrup should be. “I guess I owe you the cookies now,” I tell my neighbor after she promises to be up here in a few minutes with all the materials to board up my busted windows. The woman is hiding a superhero cape somewhere, I’m sure of it.
But right now, Mrs. Worthington can’t be the only hero in the building. As soon as Kara finishes getting dressed, I have to step up and be hers.
The vow spurs me forward, rushing to cover the space to the spot where I ordered her to stay put. She has nothing more than a thick pair of my socks to protect her feet, so I don’t want her padding through unexpected broken glass.
But protecting her only starts at the bottom of her feet. Nothing between them and the follicles in her scalp is past my concern. With her shoulders trembling in my grip and her eyes glimmering with impatient agony, I double down on the promise.
“Damn it,” she whispers. “Why don’t I know a spell for just blinking us there?”
I squeeze her tighter before dipping my head, compelling her stare to stay on me. “Pretty sure you’d need more than twenty-four hours of practice to pull that off.”