“How was that?” she says, and hands me the bottle.
“My crippled grandma hit me harder from her deathbed.”
I take a mouthful of the flounder juice and hand her back the bottle. She drinks and passes it to the next person in line. It goes all the way around the pack.
“Welcome to the family,” says Daja.
I nod to everyone. They’re better about it than I expected. Hard, but friendly punches on the arms and chest. The twins get on either side of me and peck each cheek.
The PTA mom says, “Do you have a knife?”
I take out the little pocketknife I took off Doll Man.
She laughs and hands me one of the butcher knives from her belt. Wags a finger at me.
“Don’t go cutting yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
I slip it into my jacket, where I used to keep the black blade. Thing could cut through anything. Thinking about it makes me think about the world, though. This isn’t the time to start feeling sorry for myself. The rest of the pack moves off to smoke and argue about who got in the hardest shots at me.
I spit some blood on the ground, and when I look up, I spot Traven watching me from the back of his hellhound. He looks me over as I limp up to him.
“What was that about?” he says.
“I get to sit at the lunch table with the cool kids.”
“Is that what you want?”
“For now. And I wasn’t exactly in a position to say no.”
“I know the feeling,” he says, and I imagine him in Blue Heaven going through his library, deciding which books to save before the Magistrate ordered the havoc to burn the place to the ground.
“Listen,” I say. “I’m going to come see you tonight.”
He sits back on the hellhound.
“Is that wise? I’m not sure your friends would approve of you spending time with a librarian.”
“Fuck them. Have your bread and salt ready.”
“You’re going to let me eat your sins?”
“No. We’re going to bake brownies. Just have the stuff ready.”
“I will.”
He looks past me.
“I think your friends want you over with them.”
“I should go. Have you heard anything interesting from the Magistrate?”
“He’s very excited about finding what we’ve been looking for soon.”
“I bet he is. By the way, what’s under the tarp is a gun.”
“A gun?” he says. “That’s strange.”