Infinityglass (Hourglass 3)

Join forces, my ass. My dad didn’t play well with others.

The man’s shadow grew smaller, his voice louder. He had to be inches away. I reached into the side pocket of my bag. The timing needed to be perfect.

Heels clicked on the concrete floor. “If you came to work for me instead of him, I could make it worth your while.”

“I’m not interested in working for anyone,” Poe said. “I’m telling you—”

“Tell me this,” the man said. “Are you interested in being alive?”

I raised my stun gun and stepped around the corner. “Are you?”

The man’s eyes went wide when I tagged him in the chest. He hit the ground like a full sack of groceries, his limbs akimbo, still twitching. A wet spot spread across the front of his pants.

I looked up at Poe, who exhaled in relief. He had a fat lip and a trickle of blood coming from the corner of his mouth, and his left wrist was handcuffed to a doorknob.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I ported into the worst possible place. The guy was on me in seconds. He’s the only one I saw, but I’m pretty sure he was waiting for backup.”

“I hit the backup in the head with a stool. He shouldn’t be a problem.”

“That’s my girl.” Poe used his bloody right hand to gesture to his left. “I’m going to need a little help. Our friend with the bladder control problem made damn sure I wasn’t going to get close enough to a veil to port out of here.”

s certainly mine.

“Is that a blue topaz?” I asked.

He squinted at the ring in question. “Aquamarine.”

I checked my phone again as Danny leaned over to open the case. Nothing from Poe. An uneasy feeling stirred in the pit of my stomach.

Danny cleared his throat, and I realized he was holding out the ring for me. I dropped my phone into my bag. “How much?”

“Three hundred and fifty.”

Broke College Me had let it go for a hundred.

I took the ring and held it up to the light. “Do you have an appraisal?”

He snorted. “Hello. You’re in a pawnshop.”

“Who sold it to you?” I asked.

“We have a privacy policy.”

I didn’t budge.

He looked from me to the ring and back again. “Two hundred.”

“Is that how much you paid for it?”

“Two. That’s the price.”

“Fine.” I dug around in my bag under the pretense of looking for my wallet so I could check my phone again. My heart did a flip when I saw Poe’s name on my screen.

I opened the message.

Help.