“I’ve got him,” he told Grimm, then gave a tug. “Come on, Fitch.”

  I jerked away from him, stepping off the table onto the floor. “I don’t need a chaperone. Jesus.”

  Donovan pressed in close to me with both our backs to the seated men. Reluctantly, I let him set a speedy pace across the room. We made it several steps before he asked,

  “Are you drunk?” Disdain contorted his features.

  “You think I should be?” I kept in stride while swiveling to glare at him. “Would it be better if I was?”

  As we walked past the bar counter, I extended my hand toward the liquor bottles lined against the mirrored back wall. A blind grab looped and pulled the nearest thing through the air as though on a line. Nash—the only person outside the gang who hadn’t fled the chaos—ducked as the bottle whizzed past his head. It hit my palm and I uncorked it, not bothering to read the label before tipping it to my mouth.

  Donovan’s expression became even more scornful. “Whatever.” He looked away.

  The alcohol tasted like lighter fluid. I squinted at the label.

  “It’s Everclear, dumbass!” Nash called out, explaining what I could now see for myself.

  Under different circumstances, I would have spat it out, but I had a point to make.

  Ignoring Nash’s head shake, I muscled down another swallow. “Where are you parked?” I asked my brother.

  “Around back,” Donovan muttered.

  “Great.”

  We made it to the entry hall where I broke out ahead of him, leading the way through the front door and into the gravel lot outside. A clog just beyond the exit cleared with a swipe of my hand, toppling people like a house of cards. They shouted and scrambled as I passed, and Donovan trudged along.

  Rounding the corner of the building, a crisp breeze whipped by. Dark skies and moonlight reflected off the ocean waves stretching out from the bluff where the Bitters’ End perched. Small groups of people cluttered around the structure, and I recognized a few as rejects from the gang’s recruitment push.

  At the back of the whitewashed house, Donovan’s soft-top Ford Bronco was parked beside the dumpster. I waited for him to let me in, leaning against the front fender while taking another swig of the toxic waste masquerading as booze.

  “Hey, jackass!” A gruff shout drew my attention to a pool of moonglow at the edge of the building. A lone silhouette broke away from a group of people. It was too tall and stocky to be Donovan.

  I wasn’t even sure the other man was looking my way until he added, “Yeah, Marionette, I’m talking to you!”

  A prickle raced down my spine. I downed another mouthful of the swill, then let the bottle drop on the patchy grass. “Interview’s over!” I called back to the man, who squared his body with mine. “Thank you for your interest, but we’ve decided to pursue other candidates. Or none at all.”

  Donovan rounded the corner into view, stopping a few feet behind the other man. The scarce light showed confusion on his face.

  “Forget all that,” the man said. Something metallic flashed in his grasp, and the click of the slide informed me he held a gun. “I figure why bother trying to put a hand on you when I can put a bullet in you?”

  A burst of movement drew my eye as Donovan charged toward the gunman.

  Shouting my brother’s name neither slowed nor stopped him. He reached the attacker in seconds and grabbed the man’s throat with his left hand. The Hex mark on the back of Donovan’s hand began to glow. Fiery orange deepened into red, channeling magic I recognized immediately.

  The Bloody Hex’s namesake was a curse as descriptive as it was deadly. It guaranteed we were never defenseless and functioned as the gang’s official calling card. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen it used, and I couldn’t fathom the sight of my typically meek brother going for a killing blow.

  “Donnie, no!” The words ripped up my throat.

  The gunman’s eyes opened wide as blood broke loose in crimson tears. It streaked down his cheeks and mingled with streams gushing from his nose. He screamed, a garbled sound, but Donovan held on.

  I thought too late to stop it. A loop of magic through the air caught my brother around the wrist and jerked his hand back, breaking his grip on the other man. He tried to dive in again, but I raced forward, mentally binding him until I could pull him into my arms and pin him tightly against me.

  “Let go!” Donovan’s chest heaved with rapid breaths as he thrashed. “I have to do this!”

  The other man slumped, oozing blood. The gun fell away with a muted thump.

  Donovan struggled as I locked him in a constricting grip. Gradually, his struggle slowed, but I didn’t release until I heard him gasp. He fell, coughing, onto the ground.

  28

  Aftermath

  I gaped at the fallen man as though I’d never seen a corpse before. His friends stood in similar shock, their mouths hanging open and hands stifling gasps.

  Below me, Donovan shoved to sitting and took rapid, recovering breaths.

  “We need to go,” I murmured. “Get up.”

  My brother’s eyes darted from the downed gunman to me, then back again. “Is he dead?”

  I nodded. My stomach churned.

  “I did it,” Donovan whispered.

  He was still on the ground, so I caught him by the collar of his shirt and hauled him up.

  “I said let’s go!”

  A shove toward the Bronco sent him stumbling while I lingered, watching the dead man’s friends swarm around him. One of them screamed.

  I bolted then, racing to the driver’s side of the car and the door Donovan had opened. The keys jingled in his quivering hands. I snatched them away, then shooed him across the center console into the passenger’s seat.

  “You can’t drive,” he sputtered. “You’re drunk.”

  “Shut up, Donnie!” I jammed the key into the ignition.

  The Bronco revved. I stomped for the clutch before remembering it was an automatic. The headlights were on and drive was engaged, but our path around the building was blocked by the dead gunman and the crowd around his bloodied body.

  I pumped the gas again, hoping the engine’s roar would stir them. No luck. Instead, they shouted while pulling out cell phones to call or snap pictures of Donovan and me through the bug-smeared windshield.

  The phones were the next casualty, telekinetically ripped from outstretched hands and crushed in midair. Their owners shrieked and jumped back, searching near for the cause when I was still dozens of feet away.

  I laid on the horn, then let off the brake. The car lurched forward, closing the gap to the small crowd in seconds.

  People scattered. Everyone made it out of the way except the dead man, whose lifeless body formed a speedbump we rocked over on our turn into the gravel lot.

  The Bronco fishtailed onto the paved, single-lane road leading away from the Bitters’ End. Exceeding the speed limit by fifteen miles per hour and climbing was no way to avoid attention, but going slower gave response time to investigators who would flock to any call involving murder.

  Beside me, Donovan swiveled all the way around, watching the carnage he’d created as it faded from sight. Finally, he turned and sat with his back against the cracked leather seat. I kept my face forward, seeing all I wanted of him out of the corner of my eye.

  “What were you thinking?” I blurted as we raced through the rural countryside. “There were witnesses everywhere. Why would you do that?”

  “I saved your life,” he breathed.

  “I didn’t need you to.”

  Didn’t want him to.

  I swallowed down swells of nausea. The drive-thru burger plus Everclear made a gnarly combination.

  “The gang will cover for me,” Donovan said. “They’ll take care of it.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” I replied.

  My mind swirled with bad plans and worse fears as I navigated the familiar road home. It should have been a relief to see the glowing neon sign and squat edifice of the Lazy Daze Motel cresting the horizon, the homecoming I’d craved after days spent feeling profoundly displaced. Instead, I steered the Bronco into a parking space while fighting a growing sense of dread. Exhaustion—emotional as well as physical—made me feel like I was in chains again as I stumbled out of the car.

  “Gimme your keycard,” I told Donovan. “All my shit’s at the jail.”

  He handed over the microchipped card and I walked ahead of him around the outer perimeter of the building to our shared room. Boxed hedges butted up to window AC units, their rattling hum a shared sound that chased us down the sidewalk.

  Near the back corner, I stopped at our door and slid the keycard into the reader. With a click and beep, the lock turned, and I shoved my way into the motel room.

  It looked the same as I’d left it. A pair of double beds crowded the wall opposite a particle board dresser and flatscreen TV. Clothes spilled out of the closet and piled on the small table and chairs beside the window. Trash got picked up during infrequent visits from housekeeping, or we would have been buried in it by now.

  At the other end of the room, the bathroom sink counter was cluttered with hair products, Donovan’s stacks of books, an ashtray, and whatever miscellany came out of our pockets at the end of the day.

  Those who believed life in the Bloody Hex was glamorous, or even very comfortable, were sorely mistaken. As the saying went, crime didn’t pay. Killing cops and pilfering through their belongings was hardly a money game.

  But this was home, the same home I’d shared with my brother for over a decade, and it made my heart ache to know I had to kick him out of it.

  Moving to the closet with its mirrored doors, I dug into the mound of laundry. Mostly clean garments neither of us bothered to fold or hang tumbled aside as I rapidly sorted Donovan’s clothes from my own. A weathered duffel bag wedged in one corner was added to the pile I created as I tossed items onto the foot of the nearest bed.

  We kept a modest amount of cash in the safe on the closet shelf. I punched in the combination and pulled the metal door open, grabbing a wad of bills and letting them flutter to land amidst the clothing.

  The flurry of thought and action had me breathing hard by the time I paused to see Donovan standing against the closed door, staring at his tattooed hand. His dark hair stuck to his forehead, sweaty despite the air conditioner pumping drafts into the room.

  I straightened, watching his expression in the light cutting through the blinds.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  The mixed feelings playing across his face settled into sobriety as he looked up at me. “Are you sure he was dead?”

  I raised a brow. “Before or after I drove your car over him?”

  Donovan’s body shuddered with a dry heave. He dove toward the small trashcan beside the dresser and coughed loudly into it.

  As the sounds morphed into retching, I moved to the sink counter, hastily grabbing Donovan’s toothbrush, toothpaste, and the latest set of travel body wash and shampoo, always dutifully restocked.

  I hadn’t noticed the return of quiet until Donovan spoke again.

  “That guy was gonna shoot you.”

  In the mirror’s reflection, I saw him perched on the edge of the far bed with the trashcan pinned between his knees.

  “I stopped him,” he said.

  My grip squeezed too tight on the toothpaste, popping off the cap and sending it tumbling down the uncovered drain. Muttering a curse, I dropped the tube. He’d have to go without it.

  When I dumped the collected toiletries into the duffel bag, Donovan became aware of the present at last.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Packing.” I stuffed clothes into the bag. “And you should help. We don’t have much time.”

  He set the trashcan down, then tugged up the hem of his shirt to wipe his face. “Where are we going?”

  I caught a hand in my hair and pulled till my scalp stung. I wasn’t as drunk as everyone seemed determined to believe. Despite those last gulps of alcohol, I was sober enough to feel raw and to know I was losing control when I should have been getting it back.

  “There is no ‘we,’” I replied. “Not anymore. It’s you on your way to a beautiful, boring life, and me.”

  “And you what?”

  For that, I had no answer.

  After a prison stint, threats of execution, Capitol plea deals, a prison break, and a not-guilty verdict that still had me reeling, surprisingly little had changed. And, as for my—as Jax called it—“very clean slate,” I didn’t believe for a moment it would stay that way.

  Scooping up the bloated duffel bag, I tossed it onto the mattress beside Donovan.

  “Anything you wanna take with you, you’d better grab now,” I said.

  Rather than springing to action, he stared with his brow scrunched and his lips parted with a protest several seconds in the making.

  “This again?” He shook his head. “You’re too late. I’m in the gang, Fitch. I earned it. Fair and square.”

  “It’s not a fucking trophy,” I retorted. “And I’m sorry Grimm turned it into one. Really, I am. You deserve so much more…”

  I failed to pull my thoughts together before Donovan stood and walked forward.

  “You know what?” The swagger in his step did not elude me. He must have felt like a big man right now. Like the tough guy he thought he should be.

  He stopped within arm’s reach. “If you think it’s so bad, why don’t you leave?” he asked. “You’re a free man, right? Innocent. Legally. Why don’t you go?”

  I recoiled. “Go where? I can’t leave the city. There’s a wall, in case you forgot.” My gesture to the barrier miles away drew a frown from him. “And I’m a witch.”

  Less than two weeks ago, I had killed a man to maintain that status quo. Continued isolation was the basis of the Bloody Hex’s political platform. Donovan knew that, just like he knew how he and I were affected differently by it.

  “I’m stuck in this place,” I continued. “With these people. I’ll never get away from it.”

  “But you want to.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  My discomfort grew along with the tension in the room. Finally, I stepped back. “Stop making this about me.”

  “Everything’s about you.”

  Whatever space I’d given, he took back. “You keep saying you want to be honest with me, but maybe you should be honest with yourself,” he said. “Do you want to be in the Bloody Hex, or not?”

  I stared at him for a long moment. Had his eyes grown harder? Sharper? Was the loss of innocence so immediately profound?

  Pulling the Bronco’s keys from my pocket, I stepped around him on my way to the door and flung it open.

  “Get your shit and come on,” I growled.

  “I’m not leaving.” Donovan squared his shoulders. “You can’t make me.”

  I raised my hands. Not in surrender, though. The exact opposite.

  “I absolutely can.”

  His nostrils flared an angry inhale. “Do it, and I’ll never forgive you.”

  An unfortunate consequence, but one I could live with. It was better that he hated me—even blamed me—for his life if that meant saving it.

  But I didn’t say that. And I didn’t grab him and drag him from the room, though I wanted to.

  I’d been forced, coerced, and trapped too many times by men more powerful than me, and I did not want to become any more like them than I already was.

  “Actually, forget it,” Donovan said after we’d stood in silence too long. He zipped the duffel and shouldered it. “I’ll go. Just to get away from you.”

  29

  Unlikely Ally

  After pacing the motel room, swearing, and barely pulling free of the barbed hooks of a panic attack—I hadn’t had one of those since I was a teenager—I pushed my already taxed brain into overdrive. Drawers were ripped out of the dresser, pillows unstuffed to litter the floor with cottony debris, and oversized art pieces yanked from the walls. My nose started bleeding so badly that I got in the shower clothes and all, then stood there watching water run pink down the drain.

  In the wake of all that, I collapsed on my bed and didn’t stir until a knock on the door roused me the next morning.

  Stumbling to answer it, I hoped to find my brother on the other side. Repentant or reveling in his newfound villainy, it didn’t matter. It turned out the idea of him loathing me was less tolerable than I’d first believed.

  Dragging aside the chair I’d used to block the entrance, I pulled the door open. Blinding sunlight framed a short, scrawny silhouette that I knew immediately wasn’t Donovan.

  I blinked and squinted, rubbing the blur from my eyes until Ripley Vaughn’s countenance became clear.

  “May I come in?” he asked. The English accent and the attempt at propriety grated on me.

  Scowling through a mockingly grand bow, I stepped back to let him enter.

  He stopped just inside, and his head turned in a visual sweep of the space. “What happened here?” he asked, giving me cause to reassess the damage I’d done to the room.

  “Redecorating,” I replied.

  “Ah.”

  I moved to the bedside lamp, switching on both shaded bulbs before heading to the upset of clothing left from last night’s sloppy sorting. Grabbing a long-sleeved thermal, I gave it a sniff and found it clean enough to tug over my bare torso.

  A glance back found Ripley clearing the seat of one of the floral-upholstered chairs, awkwardly picking up garments and moving them to the adjacent table.

  With a snort, I swept my hand through the air, dumping the pile onto the floor.

  He turned and sat without so much as a questioning glance, and I began a search for jeans to replace the flannel pants I’d crawled into after last night’s impromptu shower.

  “Where’s your pet zombie?” I asked with my back to him.

  “She’s asleep,” he said. “And I’d appreciate it if you called her by name.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Remind me?”