“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Kyler’s frown deepened as he looked up from his phone. “No, Gabriel’s right. We’ve been through a lot of crap, sure, but it’s getting to her more than it used to. I don’t like hearing her talk that way either. But—maybe that’s how cutthroat we all need to be thinking right now?” He let out a sharp breath and rubbed his forehead. “If I could just find a point of leverage we could really use to end this, it wouldn’t matter anymore. You’d think with all those files there’d besomethingI could work with.”
“You’re doing everything you can,” Jin said. “And so is Rose. I trust her judgment. This is her world a lot more than it is ours.”
“It is.” I hesitated. “I just never imagined I’d see Rose be that vicious. You weren’t there in the cave the last time we saw her father. She trapped him in there with that demon, with no way to call for help. He could have died in there if he hadn’t been found. And she didn’t seem to care at all.”
“Why should she care about that prick?” Damon said. “He tried to force her to be chained to that thing somehow, doing whatever he and the rest of those shitheads want.”
“There’s a difference between not caring about someone, even being furious with them, and actively doing something that could kill them,” Kyler said.
“Exactly,” I said. “I know she’s been under a ton of pressure. I just hate that it seems to be pushing her into becoming someone who’d be that cruel. That can’t be what she’d have wanted.”
The first time Rose had tried to take on her father directly, she’d come to me freaking out that she might be enjoying the thought of briefly hurting him and his colleagues too much. Worried about the darkness her power might bring out in her. Back then, I’d reassured her that she was justified, that it made sense for her to want to hit back, that I knew she’d never take things so far.
That’d only been a handful of weeks ago. Could I have said the same thing now? She’d done things since then that I never would have believed her capable of.
That uncertainty sat like a jagged lump in my stomach.
“We end this fast, and then she won’t be under all that pressure,” Damon said. “Simple as that.”
“Simple enough tosay…” Ky said. He checked his phone again. “Still nothing from Seth. Maybe we should head out and look for him like you suggested, Gabriel. He’s more than half an hour late now. Not even a message—that’s not like Seth at all.”
I nodded, setting the other more ephemeral worries aside. “Do you know where he was working with your dad before he was supposed to come here?”
“Yeah, the Nelsons’ place, over on Haven St. I can swing by there.”
“I can go around by his house,” Jin said. “Check things out there.”
“Maybe we should pair up,” I said. “It’ll take a little longer to cover as much ground, but when we don’t know if he might be in some kind of trouble, extra manpower seems like a good precaution.”
My hand lifted to brush over the token Jin had painted and Rose had imbued with magic, which hung from its leather string around my neck. We all still wore them under our shirts as another precaution—a little extra magical protection. They couldn’t protect us from everything, though. We’d gotten hurt in the skirmishes on the road last month.
No wonder Rose felt as if she had to take on the Frankfords and their allies all by herself. How muchcouldthe rest of us even do?
Damon looked like he was about to argue—I wasn’t sure he knew how to take suggestions without automatic resistance—but Ky was already nodding. He started toward the door. “That makes sense. We don’t want to get careless. Roseneedsus.”
Those last few words shut Damon up. He loped to catch up. Kyler was just reaching for the door when it swung open from the outside.
Seth stepped into the hall. His T-shirt and jeans were so dirt-streaked it was obvious he hadn’t changed since work. He had a smudge on his cheek, and his expression was weary. There was something so defeated in the big guy’s stance that my heart skipped a beat before I’d had the chance to be relieved he was okay.
Rose darted out of the room she’d ducked into with Imogen, a smile springing to her face. It fell as she took in Seth’s expression.
“What happened?” Ky said. He had to be able to read his twin’s demeanor even better than the rest of us could. “Where’ve you been?”
Seth swiped a hand over his short hair, only managing to rumple it more. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was going to call when I realized I’d be late, but the battery died on my phone, and I was already on my way… I was at the hospital in Burns. They had to take Dad there.”
We all stiffened. Ky’s hand twitched as if he’d almost dropped the phone he was still clutching. “Dad? Is he—”
“He’s okay. At least he’s going to be. They think.” Seth cleared his throat. “The addition we were working on—the frame collapsed on him. He took a pretty bad blow to the head, and his shoulder is messed up… They had him sedated for most of the time, but when he came to he was talking okay. If I’d thought there was any chance he wouldn’t make it I’d have called you to come.”
“You should have called me anyway,” Ky said. “Jesus. What the hell— How did that even happen?”
Seth’s gaze slid to Rose. Her mouth tensed into a flat line.
“Magical interference,” she said. “Like the fire.”
“I looked at the boards,” Seth said. “I know how my dad works. I was there with him for most of the construction. There’s no way it should have collapsed like that under any normal circumstances.”