14
The one area where I was never planless, never lacking, was in Colby’s security.
“You stay in the SUV,” I told her. “I’ll leave a window cracked in case you need to make a quick exit.”
“Make that two,” Clay chimed in. “Four might be better.”
His overprotective streak where Colby was concerned warmed my black heart. It was nice to share the—not burden, no, caring for her was a privilege—responsibility for her safety. Plus, he gave good advice.
“Okay,” I agreed with him, “four windows will be cracked in the event you need to beat a hasty retreat.”
A shudder rippled through her, quivering in her wings, and she lifted an inch from its intensity.
“I’m okay with staying here,” she was quick to assure me. “I have my laptop and my phone.”
“That spider freaked you out, huh?” I rubbed her back. “I’ll have to remember that the next time I want you to stay put without a fuss.”
“I’m a moth, Rue, a moth.” Her fuzz stood on end. “It was a giant spider.”
“I get it, I get it.” I raised my hands in surrender. “You saw your natural predator and froze.”
“Nothing about me is natural.”
The comment slipped before she caught it, and I could tell she regretted it by the instant hunch of her shoulders, but it was out there. It was proof she was still fighting to love this new life, her new self. The face-off with the spider must have tapped into instincts that weren’t—or hadn’t been—hers. It was clear she still felt raw from the experience and didn’t care to repeat it a second time.
“I want to sympathize with you,” I teased, aware laughter was the best way to yank her out of her spiral, “but that thing almost ate me.” I lifted a finger. “And then, then, you, the light of my life, took photos of my shame and sent them to Aedan. Now he’s got dirt on me. He can blackmail me. How does that feel?”
Willing to be cheered, she scrunched up her face. “Not bad, actually.”
“That was brutal.” Clay high-fived her. “You’re stone-cold, Shorty.”
“Keep an eye out.” I pointed a finger at her. “Call if anyone comes in from the road.”
“I will.” She settled in behind her computer. “How will I know if you need me?”
“How will I know you won’t bring a camera?”
Dark cloud lifting, Colby laughed at my mock scowl. “I promise not to film your next walk of shame.”
“Next?” I opened my door. “The nerve of that kid.”
“The nerve,” Clay said with a wink at Colby. “What a little terror.”
We each cracked our windows then shut our doors and locked the vehicle. I left Colby with the keys. The weather wasn’t too bad, but I wanted her to have the option to crank the SUV if she needed cooler air. It would draw attention to her, but I doubted Delma, or whoever showed for our rendezvous, would drive up and park beside us. More than likely, they were already lying in wait.
“She’ll be fine.” Asa came up beside me. “You’ve trained her well.”
As much as I wanted to grab hold of the compliment, I never wanted her trained. I didn’t want this life for her. Afterlife? Some days I wasn’t sure how to classify her status. She had died. Horribly. She was a shadow of her former self crammed into a new body with untold powers and a former black witch as a caregiver. I had been the fun aunt, the good-time grownup, and I enjoyed spoiling her, but now she was my familiar. We were linked soul deep. Forever. And I was her mentor in all things magic.
Shut my eyes, and I could picture the room where I was taught as a child. Hear the crack as Grandfather’s cane hit my hands and reverberated on my small wooden desk. The familiar ache in my joints had never gone away, but I wasn’t sure if that was my imagination or if he had broken my fingers too many times for even magic to heal them properly after a while.
Probably it was in my head. I didn’t think of it for weeks or months and then I spent days rubbing my hands to rid them of the arthritic sting.
How did a person taught as I had been educate a child like Colby without falling into the same traps?
It kept me up at night, the worry. Not that I slept much. But it drove me to distraction, the fear I would turn into my grandfather. That magic would sink its hooks in me until I shoved Colby to the brink of the same breakdowns I had suffered in order to feed that gnawing ache in my gut for more, more, more.
More power.