Page 96 of Throwing Shade
I nodded, black spots dancing in my vision. My chest was too tight to take a breath and answer.
Ava took my keys and bundled me into the car. “We’ll figure this out.”
Delilah rose up with a furious whoosh, blocking out the dashboard. The pounding in my head urged me to go to Blood Alley and end BatKian for daring to threaten my baby girl. It would be reckless and I not only didn’t care, I relished the idea of spilling his blood.
Ava stood at the driver’s side door, watching me warily.
I exhaled sharply, uncurled my fists, and shut my magic down, my skin hot and tight. “Nothing is more important than Sadie’s well-being.”
“We’ll call in the Lonestars.” Ava slid into the driver’s seat and started the car.
“We can’t.” I shook my head.
Ava drove back to Stay in Your Lane like this was the qualifying round for the NASCAR finals. She took her hand off the wheel to gesture expressively while she drove. “They’re threatening a kid.”
“A Sapien kid and the Lonestars already sided with the vamps once.” The first time that Laurent wanted to go after Mei Lin.
Little by little, I locked down my emotions into a tight box before they swept me under, all to the upbeat disco classics CD that I kept in my car. I had to be smart, not emotional, because power-wise I was no match for BatKian. No matter how I decided to proceed with my friendship with Jude, everyone in my current inner circle was coming out alive and unharmed.
“Ooh, Kool & The Gang.” Ava sang the first verse of “Ladies Night,” then nudged me. “You need a plan.”
I opened the app on my phone. “A new to-do list.”
“To-do lists are the bomb.”
We exchanged a look of perfect agreement.
I typed as I spoke. “I need proof that Jude didn’t betray the vampires.” Proof that she hadn’t gotten some God-like taste of power and decided she craved more.
“Are you sure she didn’t?” Ava said kindly.
“Mostly? Jude is impulsive but willingly fucking over deadly supernatural beings seems extreme, even for her. Then there was the fact that her studio was trashed.” I sighed. “Unless the vamps did that.”
“You have the name and address of the person who ordered that shipment of clay. If Jude was forced, hand that person over instead. The vampires will get the truth out of them.”
“That’s condoning murder,” I said. Did all supernaturals operate on an entirely different moral scale, only following Sapien laws for the sake of keeping magic hidden? How was I supposed to live a world like that?
Ava braked at a red light. “There’s no good solution here. Only what you can live with.”
“And if I can’t live with any of these choices?”
Ava grabbed Sadie’s photo off the dashboard and handed it to me. “Then you’ll lose everything anyway.”
I hadn’t reconciled myself to any particular plan by the time we’d reached the bowling alley.
“Come inside for a while,” Ava said.
“Thanks, but I’d better not.”
We got out of the car to switch places.
“When all this is over,” I said, “you and your wife should come for dinner. Meet Sadie.”
“Okay, but I’ll bring dessert. I make a mean chocolate mousse.”
“To-do lists, disco, chocolate, where were you when I wanted to get married?”
Ava blew on her fisted nails and rubbed them against her sweater. “I’m a catch.”
