I remembered. His stumbling gait, his zombie gaze, the way he stroked that thing in his pocket like he needed a hit. And Daeng, who hadn’t looked quite as bad, but had seemed sweaty and lonely and miserable at Montri’s party. I bowed my head, the horror of what I had done to him all hitting me at once. “I shouldn’t have used your blood against Daeng.”
Asa tipped my chin up. “It was him or me, and I’m sure as hell glad you chose me. But I hate thinking . . .” He swallowed hard and looked away.
“You’re terrified of being in a cage again,” I murmured. “Like he was.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“I’ll help.”
He took my face in his hands. “You can’t. You need to focus on getting yourself out of there. That’s your job. I mean it. Brindle’s not going to want to let you go, either.”
“But I’m not as vulnerable.”
“Hey, now.” He gave me a cocky smile. “Don’t underestimate me.”
“Why—do you have a secret weapon in one of your pockets?”
His eyebrow arched. “You sure you wanna go there with me?”
I snorted with laughter and lowered my forehead to his chest, knowing we were too close but unable to force myself to move away just yet. “Asa Ward, you are so . . .”
“Oh, I am, Mattie Carver,” he said faintly, his hand stroking over my curls. “I am indeed.”
My fingers balled in his T-shirt, and I didn’t move until I was sure he was asleep. It didn’t take long, and it was a heavy rest, the kind of sleep that descends when your body has to work overtime to put itself back together. He didn’t so much as twitch when I slipped from his grasp. Not when I used a wet, warm washcloth to clean the blood from his cheeks, his jaw, his throat, either, and not when I dried his skin with a soft towel. And certainly not when I lay on the couch across from him and stared at his face, sleep far out of my reach.
Ben had begged me to convince Asa to work for Frank, so that Frank would give Ben the magic he needed to heal his faulty heart.
But there was no way I could do that.
Whatever was going to happen when we returned to Vegas, I couldn’t be part of helping them trap Asa. I’d seen enough to guess what it might do to him, and to guess what he might do if he lost his freedom. He was less afraid of dying than he was of losing control of himself, of his own will. I knew him well enough now to understand how hard he worked to maintain his independence, from magic and from people.
Ben had told me he wanted to be free, but did he know that gaining his freedom would cost Asa his? After what had happened between them the last time they’d seen each other, was he really willing to take that risk? Surely Ben wasn’t even aware of the toll it might take on his older brother. He wouldn’t have asked me to do it if he’d known. In fact, he would have been horrified, I was certain. Maybe he would help me make sure Asa got out along with us. Maybe the three of us would walk away, and maybe it would give all of us a fresh start.
Oh, and I needed one, on so many levels. I tore my eyes from Asa and tried to focus on Ben, but his face had gone hazy in my mind, and every time I tried to picture it, he looked more like the man sleeping across the aisle. I glanced at Asa’s duffel, where I’d tucked the collar, but I refused to let myself move toward it. “Speaking of addictions,” I whispered. “No way am I going down that road.”
I stared at the ceiling until I fell into a restless doze, and awoke to Asa jostling my knee. “We’re landing,” he said, squinting out the window and frowning. “Hey,” he called up to the security guard. “This isn’t McCarran.”
McCarran was the Las Vegas airport. I sat up and pressed my face to the window. Bright sunlight streamed down on a short runway, mountains in the distance. “What’s going on?”
“We got diverted to North Vegas,” the blond security guard said as we touched down.
“Why?” Asa’s voice was sharp.
“Just heavy air traffic. No big deal.”
I could tell Asa wasn’t convinced. He was craning his neck to see where we were going as the pilot taxied off the runway and headed for a hangar. I looked out, too. The airport was set on a patch of sun-baked earth, ringed by suburban sprawl. The hangar was small, but I could already see the limousine waiting inside, the driver and another man, both dressed in black, watching our arrival as they leaned against the sleek car.
Asa had said Frank would send a Knedas to meet us, in the hopes of taking advantage of his weakness. I reached over and slipped my hand into Asa’s, and though he didn’t look my way, he squeezed hard enough to hurt and didn’t let go. I wasn’t sure if he was doing it for me or himself.
The pilot pulled the plane to a stop, and our guard headed for the front exit. “Welcome to Vegas,” he said to us with a friendly smile, then opened the door.
Even over the engine noise, the gunshot was audible. Our guard toppled backward and landed facing us, blood trickling from the small, neat bullet hole right in the center of his forehead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Fuck.” Asa shoved me toward the rear of the plane as the pilots began to shout and more gunfire cracked against glass. He grabbed the strap of the duffel and slung it over his head, then spun toward the emergency exit. As one of the pilots began to scream and another fell, shot through the head, on top of the dead guard, Asa ripped the rectangular hatch away from the window, revealing a circular exit onto the wing.
Asa pointed out the window. “Get onto the wing and slide to the ground. Careful of the engine.”
“And then what?”
“Run.” He turned abruptly at the sound of footsteps, holding the emergency door in front of his torso like a shield. Stunned and terrified, all I could do was stare. As the gunman stepped into the cramped space where two dead bodies now lay, Asa charged up the aisle, letting out a bloodcurdling war cry that brought the gunman around with wide eyes. He fired off a shot, but it must have hit the door, because a half second later Asa plowed into him, sending them both back into the cockpit with Asa on top. He raised the door and slammed it down, edge first, onto the gunman beneath him. Holding down the struggling man, he did a double take over his shoulder. “What the fuck are you doing? I said run, goddammit!”
I didn’t want to leave him, but I didn’t want to make it harder for him to do whatever he had to do, either. Shaking, I crawled through the round exit and onto the wing. I was on the other side of the plane from the limousine. Outside the hangar was nothing but bright, dusty sunlight, but I hoped there would be a building I could run to. Inside the plane, I heard shouting and slamming. I wanted to help Asa. Instead, I slid to the ground.
Hard hands grabbed my hair and yanked me backward, under the body of the airplane. I screamed, but then my attacker thrust me upward, conking my head on the metal underbelly. Pain and sparks exploded inside my skull as I was dragged all the way under the plane and out the other side before being forced to my feet. “You will stop struggling,” my attacker said between heavy breaths.
Jacks, baby. It was like I could hear Asa’s voice in my head. He’d said there would be a Knedas waiting, and I was betting from this guy’s calm, confident voice that he was a manipulator. But my head was hurting so much that it was easy to shrug his influence off.
Still, I stopped thrashing and glanced back at him—our supposed driver, dressed in a black chauffeur’s outfit, complete with a cap on his head. And a gun in his hand, pointed at the plane.
“I take it you don’t work for Frank.” I couldn’t think of a good reason for Brindle’s people to shoot at us. “You guys managed to divert us here for this.”
“Mr. Zhong would like to speak to Mr. Ward,” the driver said. “Ah. Here we are.” His hand tightened in my hair and he gave me a little shake.
My eyes focused on the plane as Asa’s tall, lean form stepped into the doorway at the top of the unfurled steps. He had a gun, too, with a long barrel—probably snatched from the gunman who had boarded our plane. The weapon was aimed at us. “Le
t her go. It’s me you want,” Asa said as he slowly came down the steps.
“It is you we want, along with any relics you might be carrying. So put the gun down or I’ll dispose of her.” The driver pressed the barrel of his gun to my temple, drawing a whimper from my throat.
Asa stopped about fifteen feet away. “Do that and your boss is going to cut you open and pour Strikon juice all over your guts. Mattie’s a reliquary.”
“Mr. Zhong has many reliquaries.”
“She’s loaded up.”
The hard pressure of metal against my temple eased. “With what?”
Asa gave the driver a ghostly smile. “Oh . . . it’s an original, my friend. One of the four most powerful pieces of magic in this world.” He took a step forward. “She’s got the juice, and I happen to have the actual relic. I think we can agree Mr. Zhong is going to want both.”
“Put the gun down and we can talk.”
“You first, asshole.”
“Mattie, put your hand out. Palm down,” said the driver.
It seemed like a good enough idea . . . my toes curled inside my shoes. He was trying to put the whammy on me again, but if I didn’t obey, he’d know I wasn’t under his influence. I stuck my hand out. Staying behind me, the driver wrapped his fingers around my wrist and pressed the barrel of the gun to the back of my hand. “Shooting her here wouldn’t damage this supposed magic, would it? It would just destroy her hand.”
His finger curled around the trigger.
“Asa!”
“Fine,” Asa said loudly, putting his hands up.
“Put the gun down, Mr. Ward.”
Asa laid the weapon on the concrete, then straightened with both hands in the air.
“Kick it away from you.”
Asa did as he was told. The gun spun off to his left.
“Now tell me where the relic is.”
Something glittering and dangerous flared in Asa’s eyes. “My pocket.” He gave a tiny nod, and my eyes dipped to a lump in the front pocket of his bloody shorts. “Want me to bring it out?”
“Very funny. I’ve heard about you and your nasty tricks. Mattie, go get me the relic from Mr. Ward’s pocket. Do anything else, and I’ll shoot you.” He shoved me toward Asa, and I took a few stumbling steps before regaining my balance.
Asa’s eyes locked with mine. “Come and get it, baby.”
I closed the distance between us, then slowly slid my hand inside his pocket.
He smirked. “So you do want to go there with me.”
My hand closed over the relic—and something else. My fingers did a rapid dance over its surface as I thought about all the things I’d seen Asa pull from his pockets in the past week. It was the tiny bottle of baby oil—I was almost sure. I looked up at him.
“You did ask,” he whispered.
I had asked him if he had a secret weapon. And what he’d given me was baby oil. “I guess I did,” I murmured as I pulled the clunky gold necklace from his pocket, with the bottle of baby oil pressed between my palm and the spherical pendant.
I turned around quickly, flicking the cap open as I did. I cupped the necklace in my hands so Zhong’s henchman could see it was all I had, and he nodded and beckoned me to return. My heart hammering, I trudged back over to him.
“Hand it over,” the driver said as I got close.
“Here,” I said, holding it out. “It’s kind of ugly, but I—whoops!” I tripped over my own feet and pitched forward—squeezing the little bottle of oil as I did. It splashed onto the driver’s face and hands, and I leaped back.
I expected him to scream as Strikon magic hit his skin. Or moan and cry if it was Sensilo. Instead, the guy shuddered, and his face went slack. He sank to one knee, his mouth dropping open to let out a groan.
Then he jammed his hands down the front of his pants and began to stroke himself.
That was as far as he got before Asa strode up to him and clocked him with his extendable baton. “Make sure you don’t get that stuff on your hands,” he said to me as the guard landed in a sprawl at his feet.
I dropped the relic and the empty bottle of oil. The guard, with a huge goose egg on his forehead from Asa’s strike, had gone back to jerking off, seemingly oblivious to our presence. “Ekstazo?” I asked.
“I’d been saving it for a special occasion,” Asa said with a wink as he contracted his baton. “Whoops!” he said, mimicking my voice as he slid the baton back into his belt.
He pulled a pair of latex gloves from his back pocket and carefully lifted the relic from the ground. He bagged it inside one of the gloves and stuck it back in his pocket, then knelt beside the guard—whose hands were full—and pulled a set of keys from the guy’s pocket. “And now I think our work here is done. Shall we?”
He walked toward the car and opened the passenger door. “I’m driving this time. You’re kind of a screamer.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I got us to the airport, didn’t I?”
He grinned as he got into the driver’s seat. “Yep. Almost shattering the sound barrier—and my eardrums—in the process.”
I got in and fastened my seat belt. “Where are we going?”
“Mistika.” He pulled out of the hangar and slowly drove toward the exit of the airport, his eyes darting from side mirrors to rearview. “Bet you’re excited to see Ben again.”
I wondered if I was imagining the edge in his voice.
“I am excited,” I said. But that feeling was dwarfed by dread. “Right now, though, it’s just you and me.”
Asa’s fingers tightened over the steering wheel as he looked over at me, his eyes full of questions.
“What if we did this on our own terms?” I asked. “We have a chance, thanks to Zhong’s little ambush.” My mind was spinning now, hope sparking off the gears. “You don’t have to go back to Frank. He wants you, but he wants the relic, too. And that was the thing he bargained Ben’s life for. So I’ll take the relic to him.”
Asa shook his head. “You still have to go through the transaction. I’m not letting you do that on your own.”
“I’m sure Frank has skilled people who’ve done this kind of thing before.”
“Doesn’t matter. For you, getting it out will be harder than putting it in.”
A chill went down my spine, even as I said, “Asa, this is your out.”
“I make my own outs.”
“You can save your brother and keep your freedom!”
“Not the point,” he yelled.
“Then what is?”
His nostrils flared as he let out a long breath. “Mattie, they care about the relic. They don’t care about you.”
“And you do,” I said quietly.
“Shut the fuck up.”
I suppressed a smile and looked out the passenger window. “I’m stronger than you think.”
“No shit. Changes nothing.”
I wanted to shake him. He was willing to risk his freedom just to make sure I made it through the magic transfer. But I was also shamefully relieved. I needed him. I didn’t want to admit it, not when his life and sanity were at stake, but it had been my trust in him that had made surviving the initial transaction and its aftermath possible. Jack, the old conduit who’d known my grandpa, had said Asa would sell his own mother for a profit, but now I knew that to be completely false. If I ever saw the old man again, I would ask him where he’d heard . . . “Jack,” I said suddenly.
“Jacks?”
“No, Jack. What if we got our own conduit and did the transaction first? Then I can take the relic to Brindle.”
Asa looked thoughtful. “Not a lot of conduits would take this job. But he has more experience than most.”
“He told me I could call him if I ever needed anything. He knew my grandpa. He said he’d look out for me.” I glanced down at my blood-smeared clothes. “But I don’t have his number.” It was somewhere in the luggage I’d left at the hotel. I wasn’t even sure which hotel at this point.
“I know how t
o reach him,” Asa said, pulling into a gas station and scanning his surroundings. “This could work.”
I leaned forward and raised my eyebrows. “I’m smarter than you think, too.”
He bowed his head against the steering wheel, laughing. “Dammit, Mattie.” Then he threw open the door and headed toward the gas station’s convenience store.
I rubbed my chest as I watched him go, my heart beating a little faster as I thought about the pain to come. But Asa would be there, and he would get me through it.
Then we would part ways for good.
“The sooner the better,” I murmured as he ducked into the store. “For all of us.”
Asa had it arranged in less than half an hour. Jack was going to meet us halfway, in a Utah town called Salina. Both Asa and I were feeling the effects of jet lag, but we hit the road immediately, terrified that Frank’s people—or Zhong’s—would be on our tail. The only stop we made was at a hardware store. Asa went in alone and came out lugging a paper sack full of supplies. He tucked them into the trunk and got back in the driver’s seat, tossing a small red package onto my lap.
Twizzlers. “They were at the register,” he said as he put the car into gear. “But seeing as there’s not a single natural ingredient in them, I don’t know why you’d want to put them in your mouth.”
I read the wrapper. “Sugar seems kind of natural. There’s salt in here, too.”
He laughed and rolled his eyes. “You have really low standards.”
My gaze traced over his profile. “But I know what I like.”
He was quiet after that, and I leaned against the window and watched the gorgeous, harsh landscape go by, trying not to think about what would happen tonight. But the sun was relentless in its descent, and the lower it got, the harder it was to avoid those thoughts. I would have to let go and allow the pain to flood me on its way out of my body.
And it wouldn’t stop, because then I would have to say good-bye to Asa.