“Malcolm Rook.” Jordan rolled the sounds around her mouth.
“Yeah?”
“Just saying it. Catching up, so to speak.” She had a lot of catching up to do. Darksight? Drowning? She couldn’t begin to process what that would mean for her life, except…change.
“You’re not angry I used the alias.”
“Well, I had covered my binder with Michael Reese and little hearts, so Maze will probably make fun of me.”
He grinned, ears going pink. Tough, scary Mr. Rook was blushing. “Nobody ever covered a binder with my name,” he said. “I dropped out of school early. Ran away.”
After his brother died, he must have been crazy with guilt. Grieving, too. He still carried the nightmare with him wherever he went.
Jordan had almost given in to tears earlier when he’d told her what happened. Almost, but hadn’t. He hadn’t wanted her tears. But she was going to bawl for him at some point when she was alone and had a couple of hours for the swelling in her eyes to go down. She’d suck the threatening tears back into her skull until that time, but yeah, she’d bawl. She might even let Maze join her.
She could piece together Malcolm Rook’s story. The accident with his brother. Running away. The cold, hard life thereafter with drugs and Rêve. Then at some point, Mr. Conner—or Coll—had found him.
For that, Coll would get one break from her, one benefit of the doubt. Because of him, Malcolm Rook had turned out okay. Well, mostly. With any luck, maybe Mr. Coll could do the same for wild Maisie.
“I grew up early myself,” Jordan said. “My second year at art school, my mom fell asleep at the wheel, crashed, and died before she reached the hospital. Maze was sixteen, but the courts let me take care of her through high school.”
“You’re a good sister.”
Well… “Honestly, I’m scared to be alone. If I don’t take good care of her, I will be.” She would never take her family for granted again. Not for a second. “She’s okay, so everything else will be too.”
“Maisie Lane is more resourceful than you think,” Rook said. “Coll has a file.”
Did he now? “I don’t think I ever want to see it,” Jordan mused aloud.
Rook chuckled. “That’s probably for the best.”
They were a couple of blocks from her place, near the park, when Rook slowed.
Suddenly he tucked into a parking spot along the street, just down from her favorite Chinese place, and leaned his arms on the top of the steering wheel. “Do you think you could dunk someone else? Dunk, not drown? I’d do it myself, but he’s a bit out of my range. I have a feeling he’s not out of yours.”
“What’s going on?”
One of those steep roller-coaster drops was coming, Jordan knew it. She looked around to find the source of Rook’s concern, but only saw a guy with his dog, some action at the cleaners, a couple of teens skipping school. Normal traffic for midmorning.
“Word is officially out on you. Had to be your stunt with Blackman.” Rook jerked his chin toward the park. “There’s a Reveler up ahead, one I know. He usually hangs out in the Rêves in Vegas. I can think of only one reason why he’d be here, and that’s if Vince Blackman failed.”
“I don’t think—”
“They’re another of your options, actually. Lots of money. Of course, these guys are a little more ruthless in their approach. Dumped the body of one of my friends in the Scrape. Person never opened their eyes in the waking world again.”
The whoosh of the roller coaster’s drop had a voice screaming in her head. She, however, was surprisingly calm. “I like Chimera, thanks.”
“We can’t go forward without his spotting us. He’s obviously posted as a lookout, which means that there are probably others waiting at your apartment. I think he’ll recognize me if I get any closer. One way street—we can’t go back, unless it’s on foot.”
“Who do I dunk, again?” Any idea how?
Rook leaned toward her, put an arm around her shoulders. “Relax your sight. Let your vision blur a little. Don’tconcentrate.”
Of course she was concentrating. No part of her was going to relax, especially with Rook leaning in like that, his breath on her neck, his scent—dark and sweet—swimming in her head. The temperature had hiked ten degrees with his nearness. He was totally distracting and at a very inconvenient time.
Nevertheless, up ahead, through passing cars and the corner of an obscuring building, she got the sense of a blurry person. It was as if he’d been drawn in charcoal and pastels, but the heel of the artist’s hand had accidentally smudged him.