Page 34 of Of Flame and Fury
“I am,” I reply. Her behavior bothers me. She’s struggling to focus. I continue only when she appears to settle. “I can sense him. Maybe because I was the closest to him out of all of us.”
“I can sense him a little too, dude,” Shayna agrees. Unlike me, she doesn’t appear to notice a change in Celia. “I didn’t know who he was, not at first. But there was something familiar. Once all the, you know, killing started and the body parts began flying, and you told us it was him, I knew you were right.” She wipes her nose irritably as if she can somehow still smell Johnny. “I think it’s because he’s muffling and meddling with the magic like you said.”
“I think so too,” Celia agrees. She adjusts her weight against the door. Whatever she was feeling appears to have passed.
I quiet, thinking back to the last time Johnny and I faced-off. We beat the absolute shit out of each other. I had a chance to kill him and should have burnt him to ash. But as hard as I fought, I couldn’t cast that final blow. Maybe it was because in the little time we knew each other, I became his closest friend.
Friend. I repeat the word in my head as I think how much we’ve lived through. What a fool I was to think of him that way.
Guilt ravages me. It’s the first time I’ve allowed it to. The whole “trying not to die thing” squashed it down earlier, but now it’s here. Like a corporeal being, it points a nasty finger at me.
“I should have killed him.”
The words just come out. Celia angles her chin, scrutinizing me in the same way she does when I’ve suggested something crazy. “If you think this is your fault, you’re wrong, Taran. Johnny is the one sending all these Nytes.”
“Only because he’s alive to do so,” I add. I take a chance and remove my shoes. It’s a mistake. My feet swell instantly. No way will I be able to slip them back on.
Shayna changes posts, this one slightly closer to us. “No worries, T,” she says quietly.
My brows quirk up to my hairline. “No worries? You’re kidding, right? Do you see the mess we’re in? Have you calculated the body count? All these powerful beings in one place, I should have just tied a bow around our necks and turned us over to Johnny.”
“That’s not what I mean, dude,” Shayna tells me. She cracks her neck from side to side. “Back then, Johnny wasn’t the same Johnny he is now. Yeah, he murdered his fans, cost us our people, and tried to take us out.” She shrugs. “But he was a desperate little ol’ Fate. Desperate people do desperate things, you feel me? Who knows what we would have done in his place? If things were different, if we didn’t have each other? Maybe we’d have chosen different paths.”
I smirk, knowing she’s trying to make me feel better. “You don’t mean that.”
Shayna winks. “Nope. But it’s not easy to kill someone you called a friend. I’m glad I wasn’t in your stilettos, T. I like to see the good in others. Whether you want to admit it, you do too.” She smiles, for the first time giving me a glimpse of the wolf residing inside of her. “Except now you know there’s no good left. Not after all this. No one will blame you for what comes next.” She blows a breath hard enough to flutter her bangs. “He’s made his own deathbed. Time for us to tuck him in.”
Shayna is granting me permission to kill. It’s not something someone as perky and goodhearted as her would typically do. But I need to hear it.
Silence crawls along the area, allowing us to hear the gentle breeze sweep through the pines and Celia’s growling stomach.
She groans, her features reflecting that same tension again. “Sorry.”
I frown. “You didn’t get a chance to eat, did you?”
She rests her head against the door. “I had some snacks before we left and in the car on the way over.”
Celia is constantly “snacking” on burgers, epic milkshakes, and slabs of venison. Her inner tigress always gave her the appetite and metabolism of a few linebackers, but since the start of her pregnancy, I’ve started keeping bacon in my purse. Let’s just say Celia gets a tad bit hangry.
The tension darkening Celia’s delicate features return. Okay. Now I know what’s what.
Emme rises, backing away. “You want me to scrounge up some berries or something?”
I slip away too. Celia is famished. A hungry Celia is ascaryCelia. “There aren’t any fruit trees in the greenhouse,” I say. “Just herbs and such.”
It sucks to share this not so great news. Especially when Celia meets me with a glare that demands bacon.
“Would you like me to gather some mint, possibly basil, or maybe cilantro?” Emme asks.
It occurs to me Emme has forgotten where we are. “They’ll choke you,” I mumble.
Emme tilts her head. “What will?” she asks. “The mint?”
“And the basil, and probably the cilantro too if the broom humpers grew it.” I recall how badly those little saplings hate being bothered.
Emme glances from me to Celia. “Please tell me you’re joking,” she says.
“I wish I was,” I say, cautiously. Any trace of Celia slowly dissolves in her features. Behind her eyes lurks her beast, and that beast is licking her chops.