Ever After (The Hollows 11)

Nick turned to face me as Ivy pointedly sat in the chair across from him. "I made a mistake. I'm trying to fix things," he said, but his tone was too hat-in-hand.

Jenks laughed bitterly. "So is Rachel. Actually, she's trying to save all the demons and the entire ever-after, so what's your point, crap for brains? Didn't you expect the deranged, freak-of-nature demon to turn on you?"

I didn't like Jax being so close to Nick, and I put my hand down for him to climb on so I could move him to the end table. "I'm sorry, Ms. Rachel," he said as he got on and sat down, tattered wings tickling my palm. I said nothing, mad at all of them as I set him under the table lamp and turned it on to warm him. Still angry, I sat in the chair beside him and snatched up the remote, turning the TV on for any news that would indicate we were in worse trouble than before. Setting the remote clattering onto the end table, I traced my cheek where Nick had slapped me. Not hurting him for the hell of it was harder than I thought it would be.

"I knew you wouldn't believe me," Nick said, and Ivy shoved the coffee table into his shins to get him to shut up. "I want to help."

This time it was belligerent, and Jenks laughed. "Help!" Jenks exclaimed, and Jax hunkered down under the light, his back to his dad and looking miserable. "No fairy-farting way!" he yelled, and his kids who had been hovering vanished. "You are not switching sides. You are lying! Rache, why are we even listening to this? Nick put the lie back in believe."

"I don't know," I said listlessly. "Maybe because if he's sitting in front of me, he's not coming behind me with a knife. Besides, there's nothing on TV."

Nick pushed the coffee table away from his knees, and Ivy pushed it back. Clearly at the end of his patience, he tossed the hair from his eyes and held his wrists up, asking to be released. I shook my head, and he lowered his bound hands. "Ku'Sox dying is the only chance I have of surviving this."

"You think?" Jenks said, but I could feel Nick's eyes on me as I watched the news-nothing so far about surface demons at the park, not even a teaser for the end of the broadcast.

"I was mad," Nick continued. "I thought . . ." He hesitated as my teeth clenched. "I was trying to get back at you, okay? It went too far."

My eyes flicked to his, holding. Jenks's wings clattered, and he rose. "Too far?" he said. "Destroying the ever-after and magic to tell your old girlfriend-who doesn't even like you-that you were mad at her was 'too far'?"

I didn't have to say a word. Jenks was doing all my yelling for me. I appreciated it. It freed me up for more important things, like watching the latest insurance commercial. But even so, my anger grew. Because of him, Ray would never know her mother.

"I was wrong," Nick said staring down at the table, his hands in his lap. "You were right."

At that, I couldn't help myself. "I'm the better bet now, huh?"

Relief slipped into his expression as I finally talked to him. "I'm trying to survive."

"Rachel doesn't owe you crap, you lying sack of toad shit," Jenks said.

I put the arches of my feet on the edge of the coffee table. "I don't owe you crap, you lying sack of toad shit." That one, I wanted to say.

Nick pressed his thin lips together, his stubble showing strong when he flushed. "Fine. I'll leave."

He shifted forward to stand, getting no more than three inches before Ivy stood, the pointy part of her sword touching his chest. Looking at it, he sank back down. The tension was getting thick. I didn't have a clue what to do with him, much less what I was going to wear tomorrow. "Let him go, Ivy," Jenks said bitterly. "We don't need him."

"He can't go," I said as three of Jax's sisters brought the miserable pixy a blanket. Damn it, he was crying silver tears. I was going to smack Nick into the next dimension for having misled Jax so badly. "He'll run back to Ku'Sox and tell him how I'm going to smear him into demon pate."

"Is that what you think I'd do?" Nick said, his words clipped. "Go back to Ku'Sox?"

I leaned over the table. "If the crap stinks, wipe your ass."

"I made a mistake!" Nick's gaze was fixed on mine, and his words were precise. "Throw me a goddamned life preserver, will you?"

My eyes went to the low ceiling, remembering thinking that myself so many times before. His mistake had cost Ray her mother. Lucy, too. "Nick? Shut up."

Sullen, he pushed back into the cushions. Jax was staring across the room at Belle. She'd come in and was standing beside Rex at the archway, her bow strung and her expression severe. Rex had been Jax's cat, and I'd give a lot to know what Jax was thinking, both about the cat and that Belle, a fairy, was living under his father's roof.

"Rache, this is dumb," Jenks said, wings going full tilt as he landed on my knee. "Call the I.S. to come pick him up so we can get on with what we have to do."

Standing before Nick, Ivy shrugged, which told me she agreed with Jenks. I thought for a moment, my gaze lingering on Jax, miserable as he huddled under a blanket his mother had made. "I'm not happy about this either," I said, "but the I.S. can't hold him if Ku'Sox can pop him out."

"I told you-" Nick started.

"Shut up!" I snapped, and Jenks dusted a heavy black to pool on the floor. "I used to listen to you, but you lied and I walked." Leaning forward, I caught his eyes and held them. "Tell you what. I'll keep Ku'Sox off you if you stay in the church. That's it."

"Rache . . ." Jenks complained, and I held up a hand. Like I believed for one second that he would stay in the church?

"Set one toe out of it, and I don't care anymore."

Nick exhaled loudly, clearly wanting more. He wasn't getting it.

"I have stuff to do." Heart pounding, I looked at the clock on the cable box. "Excuse me."

Nick's expression became alarmed at the prospect of my leaving him with Ivy, and sure enough, Ivy smiled to show her teeth, her motions slow and sultry as she almost crawled over the couch to sit beside him. "Can I leave you two alone for five minutes?" I asked as I looked down at her, not altogether kidding, and she smiled even wider.

"I want to talk to you," Jenks said, rising up with an aggressive wing clatter.

"Sure," I said, the memory of Jax's tattered wings swimming up. Behind me, I heard Nick tell Ivy to fuck off. Either she would kill him or she wouldn't. To be honest, I was more concerned about what I was going to wear tomorrow than Nick's survival. "How are you doing, Jenks?" I said as went into my room, despairing over finding anything in my closet.

Wings clattering, Jenks landed on my dresser, his gaze on the wall as if he could look through it to see his son. "Peachy damn keen," he grumbled.

I could hear the gargoyles in the garden rumbling like elephants as I shut the door. A feeling of pity swept through me. Ivy was annoyed-but Ivy often was. I was angry-again, understandable. Jenks had parental guilt mixed with a strong streak of protection, and he was having the hardest time. "I'm sorry about Jax," I said as I opened my closet door and shoved everything to one side. Maybe there was something at the back that I'd missed, but the only things there were the clothes my mom hadn't wanted to take with her and were of too high a quality to give away.

Jenks's expression lost its anger, and he sat, slumped on a perfume bottle, wings drooping. "I didn't think I'd have to face Jax again," he said softly, and my heart nearly broke.

"I imagine that's what he's thinking," I said, and Jenks met my eyes. I pulled out a filmy scarf, drawing it through the air and letting it settle on my bed, thinking it might make a good sash. Maybe I should start with the boots and work my way up.

"I just want to . . . smack him," Jenks said, gesturing weakly. "He doesn't know how short life is. He's throwing it away. He could be so much if he'd . . ."

"Come to the dark side?" I said, trying to lighten things up. Jenks was silent, his wings slowly regaining their usual color. Not the white leather dress. Not the black leather pants. My fingers trailed reluctantly off my usual leather. I'd be the same person I was before in it-I had to be different tomorrow. I felt different. My clothes should reflect that. I wanted something that said power, and everything I had said power and sex. Maybe Newt had the right idea with her martial-arts outfits and androgynous hairstyles. I wasn't going to shave my head, but something more masculine might get the demons to stop looking at me like I was nothing but a pair of X chromosomes.

"Why don't you ask him to come back to the church?" I said as I lingered over an off-white linen leisure suit of my mom's from the '70s, the entire era a bastion of post-Turn fashion freak-out. It had bell-bottoms, but it was also form fitting and flowing, the vest showing off my curves without screaming sex. In sudden decision, I pulled it into the light. "For good."

"What?"

Draping it across the bed, I kicked off my boots to try it on. "If he's through with Nick, ask Jax to come back. Maybe he's afraid you don't love him."

"Don't love him . . ." Jenks's eyes were wide, and his mouth gaped.

There was a pop of air from the back of the church, both familiar and surprising, and I froze, Jenks and I looking at each other. Al? I wondered, and then my heart pounded at Newt's voice screaming Latin. Newt?

Oh God, they'd come for me.