Asa gave him a pitying look. “Shake it off, Tao,” he said. “Zhong’ll have to forgive you. You’re too valuable to hurt.”
Tao turned his tortured one-eyed gaze on Asa. “Why can’t you just kill me?”
“Sorry, Tao. Not my style.” His tone sounded genuinely apologetic.
Tao bowed his head, sinking onto all fours. A shriek tore my gaze from the pathetic sight of him, though. It was followed by a chest-deep growl as Gracie dragged a woman out from behind the ticket counter by her pant leg. “Bomb!” screamed the woman—who I assumed was the Knedas agent who had made everyone in the station ignore us—as she waved her arms at us. “They have a bomb!”
This statement had a pretty dramatic effect on the few people in the station, and it would take only one to call the cops. “Come, Gracie!” shouted Asa as he grabbed Ben’s sleeve and shoved him toward the exit to the street.
But Ben didn’t follow. “You have a bomb?” he yelped as Asa scooted past him. “Mattie, he has a bomb!”
I struggled in his grip. “No, he doesn’t! Let me go!”
Asa was already several steps ahead of us. The guard who had ignored us earlier raced forward and started to draw his weapon, but Asa squirted him in the face as he ran by and yelled something about the bomber being in the first class lounge. “Mattie,” he shouted, glancing over his shoulder. “Get those little legs—”
“I’m trying!” I reached behind me and slapped Ben hard in the face. “Asa does not have a bomb, Ben,” I said, wheezing. “Now get us out of here!”
Ben hustled me toward the exit, firing questions at me about whether Asa might be a terrorist. Gracie easily caught up and moved to run next to Asa, a gray streak beside him. We burst into the hazy glow of dawn in the city and made for Asa’s van, which was illegally parked in front of a couple of seriously ticked-off taxi drivers. I worked to regain control of my legs, but my toes were barely brushing the sidewalk as Ben carried me along, his arms like steel cables around my middle, the pressure only ratcheting up the pain. By the time Asa flung open the door, I was whimpering.
“Loosen your grip, asshole,” he snapped at Ben. “She’s turning blue.”
Ben mumbled an apology and clumsily bundled me into the bench seat in the very back.
“Tao’ll call in reinforcements,” Asa said as he started the van. “Close that door, Ben!”
As soon as Gracie leaped into the back, Ben obeyed. Asa slammed on the gas, shooting us into the sparse Saturday-morning Chicago traffic.
Ben sat on the bench seat and pulled my feet into his lap. His hands were shaking, probably from the adrenaline and chaos of the last few minutes. I didn’t particularly want him touching any part of me, but I was too weak to pull away.
“Now that we’ve established that you don’t have a bomb,” he said, rubbing his hands over his face as if he were trying to scrub away the confusion, “Mattie told me you’re taking us to Joliet.”
“Change of plans.” Asa glared at his side mirrors. “Zhong is gonna lock down every single conduit in a five-hundred-mile radius. If any of them help us, they’ll be in his sights.”
I struggled to sit up. “So where—”
“I know a place.” Asa’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “Settle in back there.” His gaze shifted to his younger brother, and his eyes narrowed. “I’m pretty sure this is gonna be the road trip from hell.”
CHAPTER NINE
Asa pulled over a few miles down the road and beckoned Gracie into the front seat. She leaped onto it with her hind end wagging but kept still while Asa looped a harness around her body so she could ride safely next to him. Then he unfastened the heavy collar from around her neck. Sweat ran in rivulets down his temples as he gathered the collar with its dangling pendant in a cloth and carried it to the cargo area just behind my seat, where he enclosed it in a padded metal case, which he then tucked into another case, this one with thick walls lined with some kind of dull metallic material. Lead, I wondered? When he saw me looking, he muttered, “Remember what Daeng said about Strikon magic?”
“It covers up the presence of other magic. You put a relic on Gracie so Tao wouldn’t notice you creeping up on him.”
He nodded, and our eyes caught. I wondered if he was remembering that night when I took down Daeng, the magic sensor of Bangkok, and used a relic to heal the almost-fatal gunshot wound he’d given Asa. No one’s ever fought for me like that, Asa had said afterward.
“I need a first aid kit,” Ben said curtly.
Asa’s expression turned stony as he reached back and came up with a soft-sided bag, which he tossed across Ben’s lap. “There are antiseptic wipes in there. Bandages, too.” He went back up to the front and leaned down to kiss Gracie on the top of her head before settling into the driver’s seat again.
I have no idea how long Asa drove, only that I huddled on that bench seat, trying my best not to throw up or scream every time he hit a pothole or bump. Ben busied himself with my feet. He switched into vet mode, cleaning all my little cuts, covering each with a bandage. The skill and gentle strength I felt in his hands made my throat constrict.
I must have dozed off, though all I remember is a hazy, throbbing pain that made breathing a chore instead of a relief. I lurched awake to a beam of blinding sunlight in my eye. Ben peered out the window. “Asa went to make a call,” he said. “He said he needed to set things up for tonight.”
“Did he say where we were going?”
Ben shook his head. “But we’re just south of Toledo. Headed east.”
I sat up and looked around. We were at a station, gassing up. “Where’s Gracie?”
“With him.” He chuckled. “Asa always had a thing for animals. Birds with broken wings, stray kittens, one-eyed puppies, you name it. He related to them better than people. Looks like he still does.”
I leaned against the window, closing my eyes at the feeling of sun-warmed glass against my oddly chilled skin. “Gracie’s like his service animal.”
“So she keeps him mentally stable?”
I let out an exasperated sigh. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”
“He cares more about her than about us.”
“Can you blame him?”
“A little,” Ben said. “He said the cops might be looking for us, so we had to stay here. But I kind of need a trip to the bathroom. And a bottle of water. You could use one, too. You’re probably dehydrated.”
My mouth was like cotton, but I merely sank down into the bench seat again, grimacing as the pain in my chest flared. “He thinks we did it together,” I said softly. “He thinks it was my idea.”
“Taking the relic to Brindle?”
“Trying to smuggle magic in general.”
“And is he mad because you didn’t offer him a cut first?”
“I don’t know.” All I knew was that Asa seemed to hate me, but it wasn’t actually me he despised. It was some other Mattie he’d built up in his head. Still, it hurt more than I wanted to admit.
“I can talk to him,” said Ben. “This is all my fault.”
“Don’t bother.” If it was so easy for Asa to believe I would leap back into the magic business with both feet—and without him—he didn’t know me at all.
“Mattie”—Ben cleared his throat—“I’ve held back on asking you about this for the longest time, maybe because I didn’t want to know the answer, but . . . did anything happen between you two last year?”
I let out a slow breath, my nostrils flaring. “What I went through to get that relic we exchanged for your life—it was intense, Ben. Can you get that?”
“Yeah, sure, but—”
“And Asa is the only reason I got through it. Can you get that?”
“I do, Mattie, which is why—”
“Stop. Asa and I worked together for one reason—to save you. And then we went our separate ways. If I say his name in my sleep sometimes . . .” I swallowed, and it felt like rubbing two corn husks together. If I said his name in my sleep
sometimes, it was probably because the image of him staring at me while he slid his hand into the panties of a barely clad masochist conduit in Bangkok had been haunting my fantasies ever since it had happened. “I’m probably just having nightmares about the transactions. It was pain magic.”
“So it hurt more than the Sensilo magic you have in there now.”
I rubbed my chest. “Going in, yeah.”
“Oh, good,” he said with a little smile that made me want to slap him, and he must have read my face. “I get it, Mattie—I do. I know you didn’t want to transport the magic. I feel terrible, but I was so panicked, and all I wanted to do was get us to safety.”
“I don’t need to hear your explanation again.”
“But I need your forgiveness! And if telling Asa that all this was all my idea will help, I’ll do it.”
“Telling Asa doesn’t matter,” I snapped. “He’s obviously willing to help regardless of what he thinks.”
“For a price.”
“I don’t care! I need this magic out of me, and he’s the only one I trust. So leave it.” I pulled my feet off his lap, drawing my knees to my chest.
“Do you want me to leave?” Ben asked softly. “If you can’t forgive me, then I could just—I don’t know—catch a bus back to Wisconsin.”
“I can’t get into this with you right now,” I mumbled. The pain was all-consuming. “Do whatever you want.”
“Okay. I’ll stay. I have no idea where Asa’s going, anyway. We don’t know if it’s safe.”
“I can almost guarantee it isn’t.”
I flinched as the van’s door slid open. “Got you a disguise,” Asa said to Ben. He offered a red T-shirt.
“‘Michigan still sucks—go Bucks!’” Ben read. “Do I have to wear this?”
I opened one eye as Asa handed him a trucker’s cap. “And this,” he said with a wicked smile. “To cover that pretty-boy hair of yours.”
“‘If I wanted to listen to an a-hole, I’d fart,’” Ben read in a monotone. “You’re doing this just for a laugh.”
“Asa never does anything just for a laugh,” I muttered.
“Damn straight,” Asa said, though he seemed pretty pleased with himself. “If you need to piss badly enough, you’ll put on the hat like a good boy and keep it low over your eyes.”
Ben mumbled under his breath as he hopped out. A moment later I heard the jingle of Gracie’s collar and something blocked the sun from my eyes. I opened them, expecting to see her doggy smile, but instead I jerked back—Asa was squatting right next to me, peering at my face like a kid might stare at fresh roadkill.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I said.
“Serves you right. Maybe you shoulda looked in the mirror a time or two while you went on whatever greed-driven magic-smuggling spree led you to this.”
For the second time in the last ten minutes, the desire to slap one of the Ward brothers was almost overpowering. “Do you try to end up sounding like an ignorant bastard, or does that just happen naturally?”
“I’ve been around for years, honey, and I call it as I see it.”
“Right. And you couldn’t ever—” I hissed and bowed my head. It felt like a bird of prey had closed its talons around my heart.
Asa’s fingertip was warm as he ran it along my cheek, but he drew back quickly. “We’ll have this outta you by tonight, okay? You’re gonna feel a lot better.”
“Can you feel it?” I asked. “Is it leaking?”
“Maybe a tiny bit. Nothing huge.”
“Not yet, at least.”
“You need to turn off your brain. It’s not doing you any favors.”
“Easier said than done.” I couldn’t. But he could . . . Suddenly, I wanted him to take me by the throat, to command me to stop thinking about it, to call forth another side of me, one he had created: Eve. He’d done that for me before, and it had felt like the difference between slow suffocation and breathing free.
But the silence stretched between us, and he didn’t lean closer or smile or soften. I drew in a shallow breath to try to keep from awakening the agony. Gracie whined from the front seat. “Where are we going?” I finally asked.
“Virginia.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Nope.”
“So, just like before, I guess? You’re keeping me in the dark so if something happens, I can say I have no idea what’s going on?”
Asa’s eyes narrowed. “I’m keeping you in the dark because I don’t trust you or Ben to keep your fucking mouths shut. You two lovebirds are dangerous to a lot more people than just yourselves now.” He turned away to go back up to the front, but I managed to grab his wrist. His jaw clenched.
“Asa, I don’t know what I did to piss you off this much, but I’m sorry. And I appreciate that you’re helping me.”
He looked down at my fingers wrapped over his tanned forearm. “Dammit, Mattie.” He pulled out of my grip and headed to the front. After Ben returned, Asa got back on the highway, and I drifted off, still in the fetal position, lulled by the white noise of the road and the unrelenting weight of fatigue.
“. . . but she’s down to skin and bones and looks fucking terrible. You have any idea what could happen to her if she breaks?” Asa’s voice was low but harsh, and its rough edge pulled me up from oblivion. I kept still, though, with my eyes shut, hoping he would give some hint as to what was going on.
“She was sick before,” Ben mumbled.
“What?”
“She’s looked bad for a while. I mean, not that it’s any of your business, but she’s had problems ever since we got back to Wisconsin. This transaction, though . . . It would have set us up for life, Asa. It still could.”
“Life? What if she’s dead by the time that happens? Because you know that could be the result, right?”
“She’s supposed to be this überstrong reliquary.”
“She was. But whatever you two have been up to, it’s fucked her up. I can feel that magic inside her without even trying. You’re supposed to care about her. And you let her—”
“I’ve been trying to take care of her for months. Taken her to all the specialists, got her any prescription that seemed like it might help. She wouldn’t even take the pills.”
“You think pills are the answer here? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re only here to make money. Do you actually care about Mattie herself, or is she just a useful object to you?”
Yeah, Ben, I could ask you the same question.
Asa was silent. I cracked an eye open to see him basically trying to strangle the steering wheel.
“If I had my choice, she never would have called you,” Ben muttered.
“And yet it was probably the smartest decision either of you geniuses have made in a long time.”
Ben chuckled. “Do you know how much you sound like Dad sometimes?”
A chill went down my spine as I felt the van swerve. We came to a halt so quickly that I would have fallen off the bench seat if Ben hadn’t caught me. I pushed myself up to sitting. Asa slammed the van into park and turned in his seat. “Guess what?” His glare was a knife, slicing through the space between him and his younger brother. “You’re taking up space and oxygen that could be spent on someone who actually has the ability to be useful. Get the fuck out of my ride.”
I glanced around. We were on a long, empty stretch of highway with forest on one side and farmland on the other. A sign about fifty yards ahead indicated we were thirty-six miles from Hagerstown, Maryland.
Ben’s hands closed around my calves, which he’d pulled across his lap again. “You can’t be serious.”
“Gracie, help Ben out of the van.” Asa swept two of his fingers toward his brother, as if giving her permission to attack.
Gracie growled, deep in her chest. Luckily she was still harnessed in the front seat.
“That’s irresponsible, Asa,” Ben said, using the same voice he did whe
n lecturing pet owners about spaying and neutering. “If the dog bites me, then she’ll be put—”
“Threaten Gracie and I’ll shove a Strikon relic so far up your ass that you’ll choke on it.”
Ben’s mouth snapped shut, his nostrils flaring. “I’m not leaving Mattie.”
Asa’s gaze met mine, and I wanted to say so many things, but the storm in his eyes kept me quiet. “My ride, my rules.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “But we’re in the middle of nowhere. Please, Asa.”
He ran his tongue over his teeth as he stared at Ben’s thumbs stroking my calves. I wanted to scream at Ben to stop, but it felt like one sudden move and Asa would explode. “Fuck this,” he muttered, then turned in his seat, shifted the car into drive, and stomped on the gas pedal. We peeled off the shoulder and shot into the lane fast enough to make my stomach swoop.
Ben was smart enough to keep quiet after that, and Asa was clearly in no mood for conversation, either. I pulled my knees to my chest again, curling in on myself. My fists were tucked up under my chin, the diamond from my engagement ring poking at the soft skin beneath my jaw. No part of me didn’t hurt, but my heart was the epicenter, a throbbing, raw mess. Broken.
Asa thought this transaction would break me.
But maybe the damage was already done.
Ever since I was a little girl, I had imagined my wedding day. Lace and flowers and so much happiness that I couldn’t hold it all in. I had imagined my life—a little house, a few kids, the PTA, lawn parties at my parents’ lakeside house. And love. So much love that my days would burst with it. Romance that made my toes curl, adoration that lasted until we took our final breaths. Simple and conventional, yes, but that was what I had craved. It was what I thought I’d had. From the way Ben had clutched at my legs, from the strident desperation in his voice as he’d begged for my forgiveness, it still seemed like that life was on offer.
Except now it was warped. Tarnished. Dented and torn and splintered.
I glanced at Ben, who was dozing with his head tilted back, his mouth half-open. Had he truly panicked in the hotel room? Had he really been thinking only of my safety as Zhong’s people closed in? Or had he been thinking of the money he needed so desperately to keep the clinic afloat? Even the clinic, though . . . He’d said he wanted to save it because of me. I’d put pressure on him, told him it was something I needed. Was this whole thing my fault? Had he been driven to this out of a desire to please me, to meet the perfect, fantastic standards and wishes I had happily babbled about as we’d planned out our life together? Had I ever once said, “Love is enough for me”? And if I had, would we have been here right now? Would my grandpa still have been alive?