“No. If there was a connection, I did not want an audience to observe it. Just as you’re rattled, I was afraid of others being rattled and the possible ramifications. If word gets out that it throws off a rainbow, all they need to do is look at your hair to know there’s some link.”
“If word gets out…” I scoffed. There was no way it wouldn’t, but we both knew that. As soon as two people know a secret, it’s not a secret, and a lot more than two knew. Besides our group, we’d had an audience at the end of the alley.
I didn’t need to ask if this was going to become a bigger issue. It would. Impossible for it not to.
“Will our alliance hold?” Half of Xest hated me enough to dream of murder. I couldn’t afford to lose the other half, not even a fraction of it.
“It will hold even if I have to make it hold.” The placating tone was replaced by steel. This was a Hawk that was much more familiar.
“If you had told me…” The woulda/couldas were piling up in my head so high that I’d be scaling a mountain before I slept tonight.
“We already covered this. I wasn’t getting in your head over a guess. No one knew what was going to happen.”
But some of us had guessed better than others.
“There’s one good thing that came out of this,” he said.
I waited for him to continue, hoping he had something good. I needed a silver lining in this cloud like a person getting pounded by a category five hurricane on the slippery rocks of the coast.
“We don’t know what Dread is, but if we follow the connection back, figure out where your magic originated, we might be able to find Dread’s origin. If you know what a thing is, you can destroy it. Tonight did serve a purpose. Bibbi was right. This was our first step toward getting Dread.”
“Yeah, it proved I’m connected to this monster somehow.” I waited for shock, condemnation, revulsion, something that mirrored the dredged-up feelings shifting inside me.
He continued to sit there, staring at me, no change in his expression.
“Well? You’ve got nothing to say about that?” I asked, daring him to speak the truth, that I might be a monster as well.
“No. I thought that a possible connection was an obvious problem.”
I took a step closer, still waiting for the disgust I was feeling to show on his face. What was wrong with this man? Couldn’t he put two and two together? Had he failed math completely?
“I’m connected to a monster.” Did he not understand what that meant? The worst evil Xest might’ve ever known, and I was linked to it.
“I know.” Still as calm as ever.
Screw it. I was going to have to spell it out. “What if I’m not just casually connected but from it somehow?”
“You mean you think your mother slept with the invisible evil?” He cocked a brow, not looking sold on my theory. Then, to top it off, he scoffed and shook his head.
Really? Did he think it was impossible?
“It could’ve happened,” I said, waiting for him to finally wake up. My own mother had called me evil. Maybe this was why.
“I’m not arguing about this. There is nothing you can say that will make that believable.”
That was what he thought. Telling me not to argue only meant he wasn’t taking this seriously enough. He might as well have waved the flag for me to start my engine.
I leaned toward him, bringing my fist to my chest. “You saw the colors. I could very well be half monster, and you can’t say otherwise. I might be genetically programmed to be half evil.” Why couldn’t he admit that it was possible? That I could be?
“Even if somehow you were part of that monster, I’ve told you before and I’m telling you again, you’re not evil. I’ve stood toe to toe with evil. I know it when I see it. The positive is that at least this gives us a lead.”
If my connection was a silver lining, it was the most pathetic sliver of tarnished metal I’d ever seen.
It was hours later when I put my ear to my door and listened. Nothing, finally. With this place constantly crawling with people, there wasn’t a minute left to get Helen alone. I made my way downstairs, forgoing shoes or anything that might add noise. I closed the door as softly as I could and then sighed as it shut.
Her gears hummed as I walked over to the wall she covered.
“Helen, we need to talk.”
Her gears sped up for a second before slowing down again.
“Glad you agree. I’m guessing you know what happened tonight.”
She made a clicking sound.
Of course she knew. Helen knew everything that happened.
“This thing out there, it doesn’t like me. I already knew that.” I hopped up and sat on Zab’s desk, knowing this next part was going to be the big one. “It looks like me and Dread, well, we might be linked somehow. Is there anything you can say about that?”
Her gears didn’t move—nothing hummed, no clicks or ticks. I gave her another few moments, in case she needed some time to think, but it was becoming clear quickly that she wasn’t going to reply.
“I know we’re not exactly friends, but I’m lost. I was just hoping…” I shrugged before dropping my gaze to the floor.
A slip flew out. This one landed on the desk beside me, face up.
I’m sorry, but I can’t speak of it.
“I’m on my own with this? Nothing at all to add?”
No slips. No grinding. My stomach clenched. All I got was silence.
8
Bertha put out a plate of buttered rolls and another platter of brownies on the table. We were like a barely restrained pack of wolves as we all grabbed for our favorite. If the others were freaked out by the color display last night, no one had shown it so far. No one had even brought it up, which was a little strange, but I hadn’t seen a reason to complain.
“Do you have anything booked tomorrow?” I asked Zab right before I ate half my brownie in one bite.
“Not too much. I think I’ve got one client still willing to come in. Word of our lists are spreading, and everyone is afraid to end up on one side or another if they’re in the middle.”
“Not the worst thing ever. I could use some vacation time. Haven’t taken some time off in decades,” Musso said, leaning back with his brownie.
Bibbi reached past me for a roll and then took the seat next to me, and proceeded to not eat the roll. I could feel her attention on me as she broke a tiny piece off and still didn’t eat.
“I wanted to talk to you if you had a second.”
Pre-glowing alley revelation, Bibbi would’ve just spoken. Now she stared at the roll, waiting for an invite.
“We live together,” I said. “You can’t start walking on eggshells around me or it’s going to be hard to coexist. Whatever it is, spit it out.”
That was all it took. She dropped her roll to the table and turned to face me directly. “I’m sorry if I looked at you like you were a freak last night, but that was just sort of surprising. I mean, you, it.” She lifted a finger toward my hair. “You understand, right?”
Everyone else in the room froze. Seemed there was a lot of interest in my reaction.