His face fell. “I—”
I slashed a hand through the air. “I don’t care about your excuses or your reasons. I don’t care about anything except letting you know that you are grounded until further notice. No phone, no games, no TV, no fun, no freedom, no DUDE.”
When his gaze jerked upward, it was sharp as daggers. “How are you going to enforce that, Kate?”
The bald rebellion in his expression stole my breath. This boy, this rebel, used to be a sweet little toddler who’d give me sticky kisses and bring me crushed dandelions he’d found in the sidewalk cracks. Now he was staring at me with the defiance of an enemy combatant.
“Watch yourself,” I said in my best cop voice.
“I mean it,” he said. “You’re never here. I could invite an entire coven of wizards over and you’d have no idea.”
My fist slammed into the tabletop like a gavel. “You spoiled little shit. You think you’re tough? You wouldn’t last five minutes in the Cauldron. Those wizards you admire so much would eat you alive and leave your bones for the Ravens to pick over.”
“John isn’t like that.”
“Grow up, Danny. He’s worst than most.”
Danny stood up so fast, his chair flew back and skittered across the floor. “It’s not like that! At least he talks to me.”
My eyes widened. “You said you haven’t been talking to him.”
Danny threw up his hands. “I lied!”
“Well, that’s just fucking great.” I slammed my hands on the tabletop. “I’ve been out busting my ass to keep us housed and fed and you pay me back by lying?”
His eyes narrowed. “Sorry I’m such a burden. Say what you will about John, but at least he gives a shit.”
His words were like fists attacking my most vulnerable spots—the ones where I kept all my insecurities about raising the kid. They also made it clear Danny had been lying about the extent of their interactions. “If I didn’t give a shit about you, I would have started teaching you magic years ago. If I didn’t give a shit about you, I would have let you stay in the Cauldron in Uncle Abe’s care. If I didn’t give a shit about you, I wouldn’t be so angry right now that I want to punch something.” I swallowed hard. “John Volos is not your friend, Danny. He wants you to think he is because he wants to use you somehow.”
Danny crossed his arms and set his jaw in a stubborn angle I recognized from my own mirror.
“You can’t trust a wizard, Danny. Especially not that one.”
“You used to be one, too. Does that mean I can’t trust you, either?”
Another crack. This time I felt it in my conscience.
No, he couldn’t trust me, I realized. Maybe John had flattered the kid, but I’d lied to his face. But my sense of self-preservation reared up and reminded me that I’d lied for the kid’s own good.
And your own, my traitorous conscience added.
I pulled out my phone. “Call him and tell him he won’t be speaking at DUDE next week.”
His teeth ground together with tectonic plates. Teeth I’d paid a fortune to straighten when he was eleven. “No!”
“Call him or I’ll call Mr. Hart and tell him you’re grounded from DUDE for the rest of the year.”
“I hate you!”
“Join the club!” I shouted back. I wasn’t sure who else exactly I included in that club, but my inner voice had an idea and I didn’t like what it said about my mental state at all. I swallowed that uncomfortable realization and thrust the phone at Danny. “Call him.”
He snatched the phone and punched the numbers so hard I was worried I’d have to raid the curse jar to buy a new one. Then the phone was at his ear and his toe tapped angrily against the linoleum. He sat there long enough for me to realize the call was going to voice mail.
“Hi, John,” Danny said in the most put-upon voice I’d ever heard. “It’s Danny. Can you, like, call me back and stuff? Bye.” Then he punched the End button.
“Happy?”
No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure how long it would be until I was again, but it wasn’t worth pointing that out to the little shithead.
“Go to your room until I call you for supper. We’ll discuss the rest of your punishment then.”
The look he gave me before he stomped out made my heart sink. A seismic shift had occurred in the foundations of our relationship, and damned if I knew how to repair the damage.
Chapter Twenty-Two
October 29
Waxing Gibbous
The call came just after midnight. One minute I was dreaming about swimming away from a beast with sharp teeth, and then next the shrill ring of my cell woke me. Getting away from the dream was a relief, but the information Morales called to tell me was not.
“Chaos at the college. Pick you up in fifteen.”
“Wha—”
“Wakey, wakey, Sleeping Beauty. We’ve got an orgy to stop.” With that he hung up.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. My brain wasn’t working at full thrusters yet so I was basically moving on autopilot. I threw back the cover and went to pee and brush my teeth. I made it all the way to washing my face before the words really sunk in. I reared up, splashing water droplets all over the sink. “Orgy?” I said out loud. “What the fuck?”
I glanced at my phone for the time. Now I only had eight minutes before Morales came pounding on my door. I threw on a pair of cleanish jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with my boots. Over that went the leather jacket I’d snatched at a yard sale a few years back.
By the time Morales pulled up out front, I’d already gone to tell Danny. Music seeped out from under his door, but when I knocked he wouldn’t open it. The only response I received was a grunt when I told him I was leaving. I’d called Baba, too, and she’d said she’d head over in a few minutes to stay with him.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said, my guilt rising once again.
“Nah, it’s fine,” she’d replied. “I haven’t been sleeping well because of my arthritis. Besides, there’s a marathon of Blue Devils on tonight.”
Blue Devils was her favorite cop show. Since she didn’t own a TV, she usually didn’t mind hanging at my place—she could catch up on all her stories.
At fifteen minutes on the dot after he called me, I locked the kid inside and jogged out to Morales’s car. When I climbed in, he handed me a large coffee and watched me gulp down a few steaming mouthfuls before he spoke. “Better?”