“Hey,” a voice said, a body appearing in front of me, blocking my way. I frowned, went to thrust past that, but he moved to stop me again. Warm hands went to my shoulders stopping me from trying further. “What happened?”
“Not now,” I snapped. “I need to find Jen. I need to know if he’s got them.”
“OK.” A hand took mine, and I grit my teeth. “She’s just down here.”
I let him draw me farther down the hall a little way. Johnno, not him. I felt that rush of warmth, the same rasp of the calluses on his palm, those same strong fingers. I hated that wave of comforting familiarity. I had not earned it. He stopped in the middle of the corridor, moving so he was in my line of sight, and let me go.
“If I’m making you feel worse, I can get one of the other guys. Aen, Marlow?”
“No.”
“You’re angry.” He shifted uncomfortably at that. “There’s too many bloody reasons for me to guess why. I hate that.” I listened to his sigh. “What do you need Jen for? Who are you looking for?”
“Mum, Dad, Nan, they’re gone. Been gone for some time, if the garden’s anything to go by. I spoke to Mum, when I was on tour…” I frowned, feeling the pressure build in my head. Buzzing, buzzing bees.
Johnno nodded. “And you’re worried?” He searched my face for evidence that this was true and didn’t find it. “You’re not.” He nodded. “You’re worried because you’re not worried.”
My teeth locked down, unwilling to loosen to let me speak.
“This is part of being fae, where all the myths of these cruel creatures who mess with humans come from. Human relationships don’t survive transition. Though what’s happened with Mark…” He shook his head. “You can’t feel guilty for what you are. You didn’t choose this. You can’t go back in time and tell your parents to dump you in an orphanage or something.”
The bees just buzzed louder, not wanting to hear Johnno’s gentle words, that husky rasp of his voice, and especially not to see the softness in those golden eyes. He was offering me something I really fucking wanted, but I didn’t want to take it. Didn’t think I deserved to.
“They’re still the people that raised me. They put up with my shit, put a roof over my head, spent so much time and money on medical treatments. They’re owed my loyalty, my care, even if I can’t give them my love.” I grabbed a hank of my hair and pulled on it, the pressure easing the one in my head somehow. “Rutherglen threatened to attack them, but I haven’t thought twice about them until now.”
“You think Rutherglen has them? He didn’t say he already had them, just that he would.” I frowned. “You think Jen might have some clues?” Johnno asked.
“I don’t know who else to ask.”
“Hey, babes, come in, come in!” Jen said, opening the door to the room she shared with Vervain. It was a suite really, rooms branching off the living area, a kind of industrial, New York loft look going on with a wrought iron bed and distressed wood furniture. Someone had been asking Aragide for her favourite pieces from interior design magazines.
“Wanna a drink, Kira?” Vervain asked from the kitchen, pausing filling the kettle when she saw my face. She put the jug down and went to Jen’s side.
“What’s happened?”
“Mum, Dad, Nan, they’ve all gone missing, for some time it looks like. I saw your dad last night.” Jen hissed at that, and Vervain pulled her closer. “He said he can’t hurt me, but that he can hurt the people that are important to me. Is hurting a lot of people I don’t even know.”
I looked at the two of them, letting that sink in.
“He mentioned my family. Soraya’s been keeping an eye on the house, and from the footage, it looks empty.” I looked up, meeting both their gazes, Jen’s distraught, Vervain fiercely protective. “I know your dad was…being Dave, and you would have been on tour when it happened, but did you hear anything? See anything?”
“No. Dad—” she paused, then frowned. “David didn’t always share things like that with me. Maybe he wouldn’t with your parents for obvious reasons, but I saw a lot of people go in and out of the house when I got home, some going into the…” She shook her head. “Not your mum and dad or your nan.” She wrapped an arm around Vervain’s waist, to soothe her lover, to support herself. “Look, why don’t you come and sit down?”
I didn’t want that either. Not their concern, Vervain moving to make tea. Not the gentle rationalisations they’d give me to get me off the hook. I frowned until Jen said, “Please, Kira.”
“I thought we had more chairs than this,” Vervain said, returning from putting the kettle on, plopping down on the sofa next to Jen. I watched her arm slide around her lover’s shoulders.
My eyes slid to Johnno, taking in the old T-shirt and well-worn jeans and the body beneath it. His expression was almost shy when he caught me looking, but I yanked my focus away, moving into the girls’ lounge room.
“We did,” Jen said with a little smirk, eyeing the walls as if the building itself could explain. That still left Johnno and I sitting down on the now tiny two-seater couch.
“Sorry,” he said when his knee touched my thigh with the bloody leg spread dudes seemed unable to control. Probably because he’s got a whole lot going on between his—
I pinched off that thought and felt him shift beside me in a futile attempt to get comfortable. I stared at that muscular thigh, inspecting the faded denim way too closely. I felt his arm land across the back of the chair and looked up.
“Why don’t you tell us what’s happened?” Jen said, her eyes softening. I remembered this expression, the one of love and pity all mixed up together, and felt a pang it was back again. Wasn’t I past this? Wasn’t I some kind of freaking badass now? I had Liam falling to his knees beneath me and wondered where the fuck that Kira was right now.
Still here, Lilith purred.
I swallowed, hard, leaning forward, my elbows on my knees, and I told them.
I scratched at my face. “I started a fucking war with Dave getting you and Vervain, getting Marlow out. I didn’t think… I didn’t consider the consequences of what I was doing. I could have drowned the room in darkness and just retrieved the lot of you. I could have helped someone else do it, but when I was there, I saw what he was doing and I wanted—”
“To kick his fucking ass,” Vervain said. “To pluck his balls off like grapes and then crush them beneath your heel. To cut his dick off and grab that and all the other pathetic symbols of the patriarchy he seems to love so much and ass fuck him with them until he was dead.”
We all blinked at that for a moment, but Jen went to mush as Vervain tugged her infinitesimally closer. Obviously, someone liked it when their partner got all growly and protective. For some reason, my eyes slid to Johnno, who I caught watching me closely.
“I need to make sure Mum and Dad are safe, but then what? I don’t feel… I’m not their daughter anymore, and I don’t know how that can be, but I’m not. I’m not.” My vision quickly sharpened to show me my twitching hands, which I abruptly stilled. “Then there’s this situation with Ashanti and her people. I started this shit, but she’s having to fight it. Is she going to need to lock everyone away in here forever? And there’s all those kids they were bringing in, and the women, who were just dots on a map, but every single one of them…”