"Which is why you're going to rest now," Jo-Jo said.
"You're going to need your strength for when I start healing you. Because it ain't going to feel good, darling. Especially your face. "
Sophia strode over to the vehicle. Jo-Jo opened the backdoor for her. Owen Grayson walked over and stopped the Goth dwarf before she could set me inside.
"I'd like to know how you got out of the mountain too," he said. "Maybe you'd like to tell me one night over dinner. "
I thought of Donovan Caine and the way he'd turned his back on me. I wasn't sure how I felt about the detective at the moment, much less someone new like Owen Grayson. But I thought of the way Grayson had looked at me - openly, directly, with no hint of judgment in his violet eyes. "Perhaps. "
"You have my number," Grayson replied.
I snorted. "Oh yeah, I do. "
"I'll be seeing you, Gin. Real soon, if I have my way. "
I wondered at the confident promise in his tone - and the strange bit of eagerness it stirred in me. The thought crossed my mind that maybe it would be. . . nice to be chased, to just be. . . wanted, without any guilt or strings or morals attached. Either way, I knew I hadn't seen the last of Owen. Whatever his interest in me was, it wasn't going away anytime soon.
He gave me another grin before Sophia put me into the back of the Cadillac, and our eyes locked. Gray on violet. Oh yes, I thought, staring through the tinted glass at him.
Owen Grayson was definitely someone worth watching.
Finn drove slowly, but it was still a bumpy ride down the access road. Every jar made my bones rattle together. Now that I was among friends, I could let my guard down, let go of that cold, hard will I'd held on to for so long. And it made everything hurt that much worse. I must have blacked out because the next thing I knew I was lying on top of the square counter in the front of the Country Daze store.
"What are we doing in here?" I murmured, staring up the ceiling fan spinning above my head.
Jo-Jo's face hovered over mine. "Because when you collapsed the mountain, it created a gigantic sinkhole out back. It's already filled in with water. It hasn't reached the house yet, but it might. So we brought you to the store where it was safer. Now, relax, Gin, as much as you can. Because this is going to hurt. "
Jo-Jo's eyes flashed a brilliant white, and her Air power rolled off her like invisible waves. The dwarf put her hand against my forehead. The hot pain of her magic filled me, and I knew nothing more.
The next time I woke up, I was lying in a bed that wasn't my own. I felt better, but bone-tired at the same time, which told me that my body was still recovering from the trauma I'd been through and being blasted with Jo-Jo's healing Air magic. I shuddered to think how much the dwarf had had to use to put me back together again. But while I'd been unconscious, someone had bathed and dressed me in a pair of oversize black sweatpants, a matching long-sleeved T-shirt, and thick socks.
I threw back the blanket on top of me, got to my feet, and stumbled over to the dresser in the corner. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I looked the same as always, dark chocolate brown hair, gray eyes, light skin, a few freckles on my nose and cheeks. I wiggled my jaw. Perfect as always, and all my loose tooth felt attached once more. However terrible I'd looked when I'd come out of the mountain, Jo-Jo Deveraux had healed me - all of me.
I'd have to get Finn to give the dwarf a bonus for going above and beyond this time.
I opened the door to the bedroom and looked around.
I was upstairs in the Foxes' house, from the look of all the pictures of Warren, Violet, and the rest of their family on the walls. I headed right and padded down a set of narrow stairs. I'd just stepped onto the landing when something shimmering outside through the window caught my eye.
The small creek that ran by the Foxes's house and country store had turned into a large pond. It stretched out perhaps a quarter of a mile, settled into a new dip in the ground.
Probably right over the spot where the cavern with the diamonds had been. The pond was another sign of how my magic had altered the landscape, of how I'd done this thing without even thinking about the consequences.
"Fuck," I whispered.
I shook my head and went down the stairs. Soft voices drifted out from the den, so that's where I headed.
". . . can't believe the amount of power she used, how much magic she was able to tap into. "
I stopped where I was in the hallway. Jo-Jo was talking - about me.
"I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't felt it," Warren T. Fox replied in his high, reedy voice. "Felt like the whole mountain was going to tear itself in two. Worse than an earthquake. "
"Gin's only just now coming into the full extent of her power," Jo-Jo replied. "She's only going to get stronger. "
"I'd hate to get on her bad side," Warren muttered.
I waited in the hallway, but the two of them didn't say anything else. So I padded into the den where they were sitting. Both of them looked at me. Sophia and Finn were nowhere to be found, and Violet was probably still at Eva's. The television flickered in front of Warren and Jo-Jo, showing scenes of the collapsed mine, although the sound was muted.