Bria laughed again. “And that is exactly what makes you you. No matter what, you always protect the people you love. And I didn’t do that. Not today. Not for a long time now.”
More tears trickled down her cheeks. The salty drops slid off her chin and spattered onto her primrose rune, smearing the bloodstains on the silverstone.
I stared at her rune, the symbol for beauty. “You know, a wise old man once told me that everyone makes mistakes from time to time.”
“Fletcher?”
I nodded. “And he was right. You made some mistakes. We all have, by not listening to each other. But you’re lucky—we’re lucky—in that you still have a chance to fix them.”
She gave me a wry smile. “And how do I do that?”
“You find a way to take down Benson and keep Catalina safe. With some help from me, of course.”
Bria threaded her fingers through mine. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I squeezed her hand tightly. “And neither would I.”
24
Bria and I were still holding hands, enjoying the easy quiet between us, when another person opened the door and entered the stateroom—a dwarf wearing a string of pearls and a pink dress patterned with large white roses.
Jolene “Jo-Jo” Deveraux marched over to the bed, planted her hands on her hips, and stared at me with a critical gaze, her clear eyes almost devoid of color except for her black pupils. She clucked her tongue at my sorry state and shook her head, although the motion didn’t so much as ruffle a single one of her perfect, white-blond curls.
“Sorry I haven’t been in to see you before now, darling,” she said. “But I had to wait until that nasty drug was completely out of your system.”
“No worries. It only hurts when I breathe.”
Jo-Jo let out a hearty laugh, then went into the bathroom to wash her hands. Bria got up, and Jo-Jo came back out and took her seat next to the bed, scooting the chair even closer to me. The dwarf’s eyes began to glow a pale, milky white, as did the palm of her hand as she brought her Air magic to bear. She leaned forward, and a series of invisible pins and needles began to stab their way up and down my body. Air elementals like Jo-Jo used oxygen and all the other natural gases in the air to clean out infected wounds, mend broken bones, and stitch up ripped skin.
Feeling myself being put back together again was never pleasant, especially since Jo-Jo’s Air magic was the opposite of my own Ice and Stone power. The dwarf using her magic on me in any way would never seem right, just as being around my power when I was actively using it would never sit well with her.
But what made it worse today was how much it reminded me of Benson.
The pins-and-needles sensation made me think of the phantom sandpaper I’d noticed when Benson had murdered Troy and then again when he’d been reaching out, trying to feel my emotions in Northern Aggression and in his lab. Even though Jo-Jo would never use her magic like that, would never, ever hurt me, a low warning snarl rumbled out of my throat.
“Gin?” Bria asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said through gritted teeth, my fingers twisting in the silk sheets. “Do me a favor and distract me. Tell me about Silvio. How did he help you?”
“It was all his idea,” she said. “After Catalina and I made it to Xavier’s car, I didn’t want to leave you behind, but some vamps rolled up in an SUV, and Xavier had to floor it to get away from them. Xavier and I had just gotten to the riverboat with Catalina when Silvio texted me. I had no idea how he had my number, but he told me that Benson had captured you and that he had a plan to help you escape. I didn’t believe him, but Catalina told me that he was her uncle and that he was telling the truth. Silvio told me how to get past the guards to make it to that patio and said that he would be there waiting with you. He said that jumping off the bridge into a boat would be the quickest way to get you away from Benson, and he was right.”
She sighed. “I wish he would have come with us. Benson’s probably killed him by now.”
I had my doubts about that, but another uncomfortable wave of Jo-Jo’s magic sweeping through my body kept me from answering. It took the dwarf another five minutes before she leaned back and released her hold on her magic. The white glow faded from her hand and her eyes.
“There, darling,” Jo-Jo said. “Good as new.”
I flopped back against the pillows, panting for breath, sweat streaming down my face. But slowly, the memory of Jo-Jo’s magic faded away, and I moved my arms and legs. Just like she said, everything felt brand-new, including my previously shattered ankle.
I could have lain there and drifted off to sleep, but I forced myself to sit upright. “I need that bag, the one that was tied to my arm when you rescued me.”
Bria frowned, but she went over, grabbed the bag from where it had been sitting on a coffee table, and brought it over to me. I ripped through the plastic. My knives lay inside, along with my spider rune ring, but I was more concerned about what was in the very bottom of the bag: the black leather-bound book that Silvio had slipped inside.
I pulled the book out and started flipping through it. And I realized that it wasn’t a book so much as it was a ledger, one that chronicled Benson’s entire drug operation.
The first half of the ledger was gibberish, at least to me. Chemical compounds, formulas, and equations for Benson’s drug cocktails. I quickly flipped past those sections.
The back half of the book was much more interesting, featuring rows of columns, numbers, and, most important of all, names—names of everyone who bought drugs from or sold them to Benson. They were even ranked, in terms of how much money they made or cost the vampire.
I recognized many of the names, including some of the other underworld bosses like Lorelei Parker and Ron Donaldson. The ledger was practically a who’s who of bad folks in Ashland. I flipped to the very back and the most recent entries. I scanned down the rows of names of Benson’s drug suppliers until I found the one I was looking for.
“What’s that?” Jo-Jo asked.
“Insurance.” I repeated what Silvio had said to me in the lab, and I finally realized why he’d given me the ledger. “Benson won’t kill Silvio. Not yet. By now, he will have realized that Silvio slipped me this. He’ll want to know what I plan to do with his little black book before he kills Silvio.”
I snapped the ledger shut, then looked at Bria. “What do you say we mount another rescue mission? You and me together this time.”