FOURTEEN

Dee was getting dressed when Gremma pushed into the room.

“Your dealer’s here,” she said. “He’s lurking outside of the building—he’s going to get the cops called on him if the dorm monitors see him.”

Dee froze in the act of clipping on her bra. “What?” Her robe hung loose around her shoulders, and any moment now it was going to slip off, exposing her damp and chill back to the air.

It was a Saturday—and she had planned on spending her day alternating between an English essay and watching old episodes of some medical drama with Gremma.

“Your dealer,” said Gremma. “He’s out by the courtyard, asking anyone who passes by if they know a Dee.”

Dee remained frozen, her robe slipping down one shoulder.

Gremma heaved a sigh. “He’s got brown hair that really needs a cut. He probably hasn’t shaved in a day or two. Kind of looks like a hot homeless guy. Any of this ringing a bell?”

Dee’s stomach bottomed out. “James.”

A light lit behind Gremma’s eyes. “You do know him.” She said the words with an almost childlike glee, as if overjoyed to have found Dee’s deep, dark secret.

Oh, if only.

“Yes, but he is not my dealer,” said Dee.

Gremma squinted through the window. “Really? Then… I don’t know. Bookie? Secret crime lord?” She wriggled her hips in a vague motion. “Man of the night?”

“We… sort of know each other through an acquaintance.”

Gremma’s face spoke volumes. “Sure. Well, I’d recommend putting on a shirt before you go out to meet him.”

 

Dee was wearing a shirt when she ventured out of her dorm. She also put on her second-best cardigan, skinny jeans, and flip-flops—hoping that perhaps if she dressed normally, maybe she could trick the universe into acting normally. Her knitted heart was shoved in her cardigan’s pocket.

The courtyard was a small stretch of concrete and potted plants between the Whiteaker and Grover dorms, mostly used by the seniors to try to sneak a smoke. The flower beds smelled of old ashes.

James leaned against an overlarge flowerpot, checking his nails. When he heard her approach, he offered her a friendly grin. “Glad to see word reached you. I forgot my phone and somehow throwing pebbles at random windows seemed like a losing strategy.”

“My roommate thinks I’m running drugs,” said Dee flatly. “And that you’re my dealer.”

James blinked. “At least she thought I looked enterprising.”

“She said you looked homeless.”

James straightened the sleeves of his orange leather jacket. “It’s vintage.”

“You’re going to get arrested for loitering,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

He nodded at the dormitory. “You free to leave?”

“It’s Saturday,” she replied.

He tilted his head. “You know, that’s not really an answer.”

“This is boarding school, not prison,” she said. “It’s the weekend—I’ve got parental permission to leave.”

“Ah.” He flashed her a grin, one that was far too chipper for eight in the morning. “Perfect.” He offered her his elbow, as if this were some old movie, but she made no move to take it.

“What are you doing?”

“At the moment, attempting to be gallant and gentlemanly. And apparently failing at it.” He dropped his arm and instead ran a hand through his rumpled hair. “Look, I’ve got to run an errand for the Daemon and this particular task is easier with more than one pair of hands. It’s not dangerous or even particularly interesting.”

She crossed her arms. “What is it?”

“Rock collecting,” he said, utterly deadpan. “Now, you don’t have to come with if you don’t want to. But I thought you might have questions you didn’t want to ask with Cora and Cal around. This would be an opportunity.”

She was about to refuse him—but James was smiling, so hopeful, and it suddenly occurred to her that he didn’t want to run this errand alone. He wanted someone with him.

Dee was too well acquainted with loneliness not to recognize it in another.

She sighed. So much for her relaxing Saturday.

They drove out of Portland. She watched the familiar sights slide by, in hues of gray and blue and green. Portland was a sprawl of city encroaching on tangled suburbs, but she liked it. There was a quiet hum of activity, a sense that there was always something going on beneath the surface. She rapped her fingers absentmindedly on the car’s door as James drove. He was a restful car companion—he didn’t blast the radio or try to roll down the windows.

“Where are we going?” Dee asked.

“A park,” he answered. “Don’t worry, I’ll have you back long before curfew.” He slid her a look, then his gaze went back to the road. “Speaking of which—you managed to get into your dorm all right after that void?”

Dee grimaced.

She hadn’t, actually. Cora had dropped her off at the gate and Dee had snuck through the brambles and bushes, and slipped on a patch of moss. Knees muddied, hair even frizzier than usual, she had nearly managed to get into her dorm—until a teacher spotted her.

Dee had made up some quick story about needing samples of pond water for a biology experiment—and thankfully she’d been let off with a warning.

She explained as much.

“Ah, boarding school,” said James, smiling. He glanced over his shoulder, then merged into a faster lane. They were southbound, heading down I-5. “That’s kind of cool. The only boarding school I know about is Hogwarts.”

“You are aware that Harry Potter isn’t real, right?”

He shrugged. “Well, I mean, in the movies the dorms looked cool.”

She shook her head. “I’ve never seen the movies.”

“You read the books, then,” he said, with a knowing little nod. “You would be a book reader.”

“I do read. But I never read Harry Potter.”

His fingers jerked on the steering wheel. “But everybody’s read those books.”

“Not me.”

He made a sound of distress. Actual distress. “I can lend you the books if you want them.”

She made no attempt to hide her own skepticism. “I don’t read fantasy.” It was too close to fairy tales. Trying to change the subject, she said, “So, are you a big reader, then? You in school?”

He laughed. “I dropped out when I was seventeen. And don’t look at me like that, I got my GED. It’s just… I didn’t really like school all that much. I went to quite a few of them. Moving around as a foster kid will do that to you.”

“Foster kid?” she repeated.

He nodded. “Parents gave me up. No idea who they were. It wasn’t terrible—I mean, I’m sure other kids had it worse. Some of the parents were fine, and others… well. It’s hard to feel like you’re wanted when you’re told you’re only there to up their paycheck. And I think I went to five different schools in as many years. After a while, I gave up. I ended up getting my GED and leaving.”

“How old are you?” she asked, confused. He didn’t feel that much older than her.

“Eighteen. Nineteen in two months.”

He pulled off the highway, taking them to one of the many state parks that bordered the Willamette. This park was situated with a parking lot and a long concrete ramp, leading into the river. Clumps of trees were clustered near several picnic tables, and there was a familiar large sign over a wastebasket, reminding them to keep Oregon clean.

James parked the car, then reached into the back and snatched up two burlap sacks. Dee frowned, confused. “And what are we doing with those?”

“I told you we were collecting rocks,” he said.

She took one of the bags and gazed at it. “I thought you were kidding.”

James began to laugh. “Come on. It’s easier with two people.”

She got out of the car and followed him toward the river. It was a rather nice day to be outdoors—streams of sunlight lit up the billowy clouds, and the greenery was still damp and fresh. The scent of the river hung heavy in the air. It being a Saturday, the park was already occupied. That made her feel safer; nothing truly bad could happen while there was a herd of toddlers trundling about like slightly drunken wildebeests. A bedraggled woman was attempting to corral them onto a worn blanket laid out on the damp grass. There was another person, a man with one of those large cameras, snapping pictures of birds in the overhead trees. And two twentysomething girls were perched on the rocks near the river, passing a cigarette back and forth.

James trotted down the inclined pavement, reaching to unlace his shoes as he went. He kicked them off, wading into the river with bare feet.

Which, considering this was the Willamette, was inadvisable. But Dee wasn’t going to lecture him on tetanus.

She kept her flip-flops on, her jeans rolled up to her knees. Stepping into the water was an act of will—it was painfully cold, and the pebbles felt unsteady beneath the rubber soles of her shoes. She kept wobbling, trying to stay upright despite the current and uncertain footing. “This is your idea of an easy errand,” she said, following him out until they were knee-deep in the water.

“Hey, we’re working for a demon,” James replied. “We could be disemboweling virgins or something.”

“That’s… a good point, actually,” she said reluctantly.

He beamed at her, then bent over at the waist and began scrabbling around in the water. “Try to find rocks about the size of your fist. Any smaller and they won’t have any effect. Any bigger, and whoever is carrying the load will get tired faster.”

Dee frowned, confused, but began fumbling about in the water. It was murky and a greenish brown, and the current flowed between her fingers, tugging at her. Her hand closed over a rock and she dropped it into the burlap sack.

It was… rather peaceful work. There was a rhythm to be found in bending down, rummaging through the riverbed, placing rocks into her sack, and then moving to a new place. The sound of the rushing water relaxed her, drowned out the nearby noises of traffic and children. Even the chill of the water seemed to dissipate, but she knew that was simply her skin going numb.

As she worked, she watched James.

He did not attempt to make awkward conversation or even look at her; he was consumed by his own thoughts and his task—picking up rocks, studying them, and then deciding to keep or toss back. He was more discerning than she was, but then again, she had no idea what these rocks were for.

She asked him as much.

“Oh,” said James, once she voiced her question. “I’m bad at explaining this part.”

One of Dee’s brows twitched. “You’re not going to tell me.”

“Oh, no,” he said cheerfully, “I’ll tell you. It’s just, you’re going to get different answers depending on who you ask.” He straightened, then reached into his burlap sack and pulled out one of the rocks. “All right. So when we explode one of the voids, it’s a two-part process. The first part is… well, the explosion. We have C-4 for that.”

She felt her mouth twist. “I know. I remember that harrowing car ride.”

“It’s fine,” said James. “It’s one of the more stable explosive materials. At least according to Cal. He’s the only one brave enough to prep the stuff. He sets it to a twenty-second timer—any shorter and we don’t have time to get out. Any longer and… whatever’s in the voids might have time to dismantle it. We place the explosives directly at the center of the void—and the explosives themselves are packed with these rocks.” He held up the rock. “Something about the explosion and the introduction of solid rock makes the voids go boom.”

“Is it like shrapnel?”

James grinned. “This is where it gets interesting. Technically, the rocks shouldn’t do anything other than get blown about. But according to the Daemon, we can’t destroy a void without them. When we asked him why, he refused to explain. Said we were mere humans and couldn’t grasp the finer details.” He shook his head ruefully. “Cal theorizes that the voids themselves are simply non-space and they cannot create their own matter. When the explosion goes off, there’s nothing to explode. The rocks are there so the explosion can actually be destructive.”

Dee nodded. “Is that what everyone thinks?”

“Cora disagrees.” James dropped the rock back into his sack. “She’s of a more… well. She thinks that the element of stone disrupts the energies of the voids.”

He gave her a significant look. “The voids only started appearing after the demons declared themselves. Cora thinks… well, she thinks the voids are here to counter them.”

“Angels,” said Dee, for the second time. “So Cora thinks there’s some kind of… supernatural war going on?”

“And that by doing the Daemon’s bidding, we’re on the wrong side, most likely,” said James, his cheerful tone at odds with his words.

“But Cora works for him anyway?” said Dee.

James gave her a look. “The Daemon has her heart. He has all our hearts. Tell me, are you simply going to tell him to eff off?”

Dee considered it. “No,” she admitted.

She’d thought when she made a deal with a demon, that would be it. Lose a limb, gain a wish, and be done. Isn’t that what other demons did? But this drawn-out contract, this taking of hearts and sudden introduction of a war—it was far more than she’d ever expected.

A laugh burst free of James. “Yeah, but there’s still no disemboweling, remember? In comparison, rock collecting and setting off explosions in magic portals seems tame. And besides”—he slid her a knowing smile—“it’s not like we’re doing it for free.”

That was also true.

“You look green,” James told her. “Take a breath. Go… sit on that boulder or something.”

She wanted to tell him that she was not going to throw up; she was fine, she was totally fine—

But her fear became a knot in her throat, choking back anything she might have said. She’d managed to stave off the fear, to ignore the implications of it all, but now it felt as if her empty chest was filling with panic.

She tried to recall the old stories, to remember any scrap of wisdom that might get her out of this. People who panicked in fairy tales ended up doing something stupid and getting themselves devoured by wolves or making bread crumb trails or chopping off body parts. In those stories, the survivors were those who managed to keep a cool head, who could outwit the villains.

The problem was, she still didn’t know who the villains were.

She needed to stay calm, to think this through. Her hands fisted, nails biting into her palms. She took a deep breath of air and then another, gulping as if she might never breathe again. “Hey, hey,” said James, hastening over to her. He reached out as if to touch her, then appeared to think better of it. “Look at me. No, look at me.”

She looked at him.

“I’ve been at this for a while now,” he said, “and I’m still here. You will be, too, so long as you’re smart about this.” He held her gaze, intent and focused, and when he spoke, it was with the cadence of one talking someone off a high ledge. “You want to know a secret?”

He obviously expected an answer, so she forced a nod.

“Whenever I panic, I think to myself, I chose this,” he told her.

She stared at him. “That’s it. That’s your self-affirmation right there. I chose this? Not Everything’s going to be all right or all things pass?”

“I’ve never been all that good at lying to myself,” he replied, smiling. “Somehow I think you’re the same.”

She huffed.

He looked out at the river and the rocks at their feet. “Most people feel like their lives are out of their control. Like everything could change in a moment, depending on luck or chance. And while that’s probably true, I like to think that I was the one who made the choices that brought me to this moment. They may have been bad or good choices—I don’t know. They might have been mistakes. But all I know is that I’m the one who made them. I brought myself here. I chose this.”

“And that makes you feel better?” she asked, intrigued despite herself.

“It means that I can’t blame my life on circumstances or chance,” he said. “It also means I could make another choice, make another change. It keeps me in control.” He looked around, as if searching for a way to help her. “What do you do when you panic?”

“Generally, I just panic,” she said, her throat tight. “But—my roommate vivisects teddy bears when she’s stressed.”

He blinked. She had a feeling that people didn’t surprise him all that often. “Your roommate. Vivisects. Teddy bears.” The look of shock on his face snapped her back to reality. “No wonder you haven’t panicked until now.”

I chose this, she thought. I chose this.

And something in her stomach settled.

That was unexpected. But not unwelcome.

I chose this.

She thought the words again and again, held them like a talisman against her missing heart, and slowly she felt herself unwind. The panic faded.

James watched her. She looked up, expecting to see pity or even disgust for her cowardice. But rather he looked… satisfied. “Better?”

Wordlessly, she nodded.

He took a step back, as if to give her space. “You know, I think we’ve collected enough. You want to get out of here?”

She could not feel her feet anymore; she wriggled her toes beneath the cold water, thought it might be a good idea to stand on dry land again. She followed him up the concrete incline, past the toddlers and the college students, to the parking lot. He didn’t press her to speak, even when he vanished around the back of the car and reemerged with a towel. She used it to dry her feet and ankles, then passed it back. Once inside the car, he cranked the heater to full and directed it at their legs.

It took several minutes, but she began to thaw.