For a Few Demons More(196)

Ford’s expression blanked. “Do you think you can?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

His brown eyes were distant, and the amulet around my neck went pearl gray. Taking a deep breath, he brought his attention back.

I couldn’t help but wonder at the misery of sensing everyone’s emotions all the time. Poor guy, I thought, and the amulet burst into blue. His lips parting, Ford blinked at me, clearly feeling my pity for him. The amulet shifted to red, and my face flamed to match it. Embarrassed, I reached to take the amulet off. “This isn’t going to work,” I said.

Ford’s hands enveloped mine, stopping me. “Please, Ms. Morgan,” he said earnestly, and I swear I could feel the amulet warming in our hands. “This is a tool. The reality is that people are far more adept at reading facial expressions than this amulet can indicate. It’s simply a way to make a data point of something as nebulous as emotions.”

I sighed, my entire body easing, and the amulet peeping between our fingers went a neutral gray. “Call me Rachel.”

He smiled. “Rachel.” His hands left mine to show that the disk was a silvery purple. Not the purple of anger, as when I thought of the I.S., but lavender. Ford liked me, and when I smiled, he went red in embarrassment.

Jenks snickered, and Edden harrumphed. “Can we get on with this?” the FIB captain complained.

Letting the amulet drop to where I couldn’t see it, I straightened, suddenly nervous. “Do you really think Kisten is still alive?”

His brow knitting, Edden crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. “I don’t know. But the faster we find him, the better.”

Nodding, I settled into the chair and glanced at Ford for direction. I’d been to family counseling with my mom when my dad died, but this was different.

Ford angled the chair so that his legs ran perpendicular to the table, rather than under it. “Tell me what you remember,” he said simply, hands folded.

Jenks’s wings increased in pitch, then went silent. I took a sip of coffee, closing my eyes as the liquid slipped down. It was easier if I didn’t look at the amulet. Or Ford’s eyes. I didn’t like the idea that I couldn’t hide my emotions from him.

“I left him at Nick’s apartment to wash his clothes,” I said, feeling a pang of heartache. “It was a few hours until sunset, and I had to move the car before it was recognized. I was going to go back.”

My eyes opened. If Piscary was right, I did go back.

“And you don’t remember anything after?”

I shook my head. “Not until I woke up in Ivy’s chair. I was sore. My foot hurt.” My inner lip was cut.

Ford’s eyes went to my hand clutching my upper right arm, and I forced my hand down. Even I was starting to realize it was my subconscious trying to tell me something.

“Don’t try to remember, then,” he said, and I felt some tension leave me. “Think about your foot. You hurt yourself, and that’s hard to wash away completely. Who did you kick?”

My breath exhaled slowly. I closed my eyes, and my foot seemed to throb. Not who, but what, I thought suddenly. My hair had been in my mouth, and it blocked my vision, making me smack into the archway to the door instead of the handle. The damn door was so freaking narrow, and it hadn’t been my fault. The floor had moved, throwing me off balance.

I felt my face go blank, and I opened my eyes. Ford had leaned forward, knowing that I had remembered something, and his eyes seemed to demand an answer. The amulet between us glowed a slurry of purple, black, and gray—anger and fear. I didn’t remember the night, but there was only one place Kisten would go with narrow doors where the floor would move.

“Kisten’s boat,” I said, standing up. “Edden, you’re driving.”





THIRTY-EIGHT


We sped down the paved road, hitting the potholes caused by last year’s frost and snowplows. The back roads outside of the Hollows didn’t get much attention as the cities grew larger and the country grew wilder. Edden had called in support, and we quickly found out that Kisten’s boat wasn’t at Piscary’s, but a FIB officer on patrol remembered seeing a boat matching its description downriver at an old warehouse dock.

That’s where we were headed, lights on and sirens off, speeding through the outskirts of the Hollows and beyond until we were at the edges of where even I wouldn’t go after dark. It wasn’t that the neighborhood was bad. It was that there was no neighborhood at all. Not after forty years of abandonment. Entire neighborhoods had been bulldozed under and left to go fallow when the survivors of the Turn fled to the cities. Cincy had been no exception.