“What did you do that would make him infatuated? Did you kiss? Did you hold hands?”
His voice had taken on a distant tone, but there was a slight edge of heat to it.
“I gave him a peck on the cheek. It wasn’t sexual. He was trying to get me to run away with him, and I didn’t want to rebuff him so hard that he’d slam the door shut. I still have to bring him in.”
“Then why is he infatuated?”
“I don’t know why,” I said, exasperated. “Probably because I’m chasing him and I said no. He can’t comprehend that I’m chasing him because MII will throw my family out on the street. His House has been on top forever and he can’t even picture someone doing that to them, let alone try to understand what it would be like. He probably thinks that I’m pursuing him because I’m secretly fascinated with the glittering jewel that he is.”
Oops. Said a little too much. I didn’t really want Rogan to know that Montgomery held us by our throat. There was no telling what he would do with that information. I straightened. “Look, right now there are two people in this kitchen. One is an overindulged, filthy-rich Prime, and the other is me. You have more in common with Adam than I do. Why don’t you tell me why he’s doing things?”
Mad Rogan looked at me, his eyes clear and hard. “I’m nothing like him.”
On that we could agree. Rogan was nothing like Pierce. Adam was a teenager in a man’s body. Rogan was a man, calculating, powerful, and stubborn.
Bern walked into the kitchen at a near run and stopped. I realized that I was standing about two inches from a half-naked Mad Rogan, who was looking up at me.
“Should I come back later?” Bern asked.
“No,” I said, stepping away from Mad Rogan. “He was interrogating me while I patched him up, but we’re finished.”
Mad Rogan glanced down at his side. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Bern put a laptop on the table. “I found it.”
On the laptop, a video feed played an image recorded with the regular camera at the front door. The time stamp said 20:26. Twenty-six minutes after eight. It had to be just a few moments after we arrived.
A pair of teenagers came skating down the street on their boards, one in a blue shirt and one in black. They looked like typical Houston kids: dark hair, tan, about fourteen or fifteen. They shot by the Range Rover and kept going. The clip stopped with the kid in a black shirt holding a cell phone to his ear as he rolled off.
Bern clicked the keys. The image rewound in slow motion, and I saw the kid in blue bend ever so slightly as he jumped over the curb and toss a small object under the Range Rover.
“Is that . . . ?”
“It’s a bomb,” Bern confirmed. “He must’ve remotely detonated it.”
“He used children to place a bomb?”
“Yes,” Bern confirmed.
“Children?” My mind couldn’t quite wrap around it.
“And one of them called him to report.” Mad Rogan’s eyes iced over.
I sank into a chair. “What if it had detonated early? Who hands a bomb to kids? And for what? To make a lousy point?”
Mad Rogan tapped his phone. “Diego? He used children. Yes. No. Just let me know.”
He hung up.
Two young boys had skated by our house, holding a bomb. What if one of them had fallen? What if someone had been in the car? What if one of us had gone to the mailbox? Then we would have had more dead bodies. The death count for today would have been more than six. Six was more than enough, especially because three of those six deaths happened because of me.
My chest hurt. I killed people today. I took their lives. They would’ve taken mine, but somehow that didn’t seem to matter right now. My grandmother barely survived. My house had almost been burned to the ground, then two children threw a bomb under a car parked next to it. It all crashed down on me like an avalanche.
“Are you alright?” Mad Rogan focused on me.
“No,” I said.
Bern was looking at me too. “I can make tea,” he said. “Would you like some tea?”
“No, thank you.” I turned to Mad Rogan. He was a Prime, and right now we couldn’t afford to pass up on whatever protection he could offer. “Can you do any magic at all, or are you completely dry?”
“It’s coming back,” he said. “I’m not helpless.”
“Can you stay the night?” I asked.
“I can,” he said.
“And if Pierce shows up or something happens . . .”
“I’ll take care of it,” he said.
True. He meant it.
“Thank you,” I told him. “I’ll see you both in the morning.”
I left the kitchen and went to my room, almost running. I closed the door, sat on the bed, and pulled my knees to my chest. There was a big, gaping hole inside me. It was growing bigger, and I didn’t know how to close it.
A knock sounded on my door. It was probably my mother. For a moment I considered pretending that I didn’t hear her. But I wanted her to come in. I wanted her to hug me and tell me everything would be okay. “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” my mother called.
“It’s open.”
My mother walked in carrying a tablet. She was moving slower than usual. Her leg was really hurting and I felt it because she climbed the stairs. She sat beside me on the bed and swiped her hand across the tablet. A video clip came on. It had been taken with someone’s phone. On-screen, Adam Pierce, his phantom spikes and claws glowing, belched fire. The side of the tower where Rogan and I had our little adventure loomed on the right.
The front entrance of the tower blew out with an ear-splitting thunder. The building shook. A man gasped, “Holy shit!”
The video switched to a view of a hand. Whoever had been filming had grabbed his phone and hightailed it out of there.
“Were you inside?” Mom asked.
I nodded. “Adam was a diversion. While he was spitting fire, a team went into this building to retrieve some sort of trinket hidden in the wall. We stopped them.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Mom asked.
I shook my head.
“Can I help?” she asked softly. “Can I do anything?”
I shook my head and leaned against her. She put her arm around me. I wouldn’t cry. I was twenty-five years old. I would not cry.
“Rogan’s people are analyzing the jewelry we found,” I said, my voice sounding dull. “I sent a picture of it to Bern. He’s looking too. There is something really big and nasty going on, Mom. I feel like I’m on the edge of it. It scares me. I scared myself today.”
“You’re doing what needs to be done,” Mom said and hugged me to her. “Remember the rules: we have to be able to look ourselves in the mirror. Sometimes that means doing terrible things because there is no other choice. Are you doing the right thing?”
“I think so. It’s just spun out of control so fast. Pierce was willing to burn down a building to get that thing. He gave a bomb to a kid Leon’s age. Who does that?”
“Someone who needs to be stopped.”
“I keep thinking, if MII didn’t get involved and call me into their office, this would be happening to someone else. We would be watching all this on TV and going, ‘Oh my God, isn’t that crazy?’”
“You can’t go there,” Mom said. “That’s how you’ll drive yourself nuts. Trust me on this: wondering, What if this didn’t happen? never helped anybody. It just drowns you in self-pity and makes you less alert. There is no backing out now. Nevada, view it as a job. As something you have to do. Get the job done and come home.”
“I think Rogan is using me as bait,” I said.
“Use him back,” Mom said. “Throw him at Pierce and let him take him down.”
“What if he kills Pierce?”
“Bigger problem if Pierce kills him,” Mom said. “But if he kills Pierce, it becomes a matter between House Pierce and House Rogan. Let them sort it out. Your primary objective here is to survive. Then to bring Pierce in, if possible.”
I rested my head on her shoulder. “I’m going to need more ammo.”