“Aw, fuck it,” he declared. “I don’t care.”
Finn wrapped his arms around me in a fierce bear hug and lifted me off my feet, making me laugh. One by one, the others piled on, until we were all cheering, talking, laughing, yelling, and crying at the same time. Finn put me down.
Bria nudged him out of the way, and her arms went around me just as tightly as his had. “I thought I’d lost you again,” she mumbled.
“You’ll never lose me,” I whispered in her ear, returning her hug with an even fiercer one of my own.
Eva, Violet, and Catalina were next. Then Roslyn and Xavier, and Phillip, Cooper, and Warren. Even Silvio gave me a firm, lengthy pat on the shoulder, which was about as demonstrative as I’d ever seen him be.
Jo-Jo was too choked up to say anything as she hugged me, but so many tears streamed down her face that they made her waterproof mascara run. A hand grabbed my shoulder, turning me to the right, and Sophia pulled me into her tight embrace.
“I . . . can’t . . . breathe,” I wheezed.
She loosened her grip. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Hug me again so I can really feel it this time.”
Her raspy laughter rang out through the kitchen.
One by one, the others fell back, until it was finally Owen’s turn. He slowly crossed the kitchen and stopped before me, his eyes sweeping over my body from my dark, matted, coleslaw-dusted hair down to my muck-covered boots and back up again. His relieved sigh was as soft as a whisper, but it made my heart quiver more than a joyous shout.
Owen reached out and cupped my face in his hands, carefully stroking his thumbs down my soot-smeared cheeks and staring at me with ferocious intensity, as though I were a most delicate thing of absolute beauty and wonder, instead of just covered with more dirt, filth, and grime than any person had a right to be. Tears pooled in his eyes, making them gleam like violet stars in his rough, rugged face. Without a word, he drew me into his arms and crushed his lips to mine, even as our friends hooted and hollered and clapped and cheered all around us.
It was one of the best moments of my life.
* * *
It took a while—it took a long while—but everyone finally calmed down, and we trooped back into the beauty salon. The area looked a bit worse for wear, given all the paint chips and pieces of paneling that littered the floor and all the holes that had been punched through the walls during that phony health inspection. But it was still more or less intact, right down to Rosco, Jo-Jo’s basset hound, snoozing in his basket in the corner. The sight cheered me.
I sank down onto one of the padded, cherry-red chairs, with Owen still right beside me, holding my hand. He hadn’t let me go since he’d kissed me, and I didn’t want him to.
Jo-Jo washed her hands in the sink, then pulled a chair up to me. She reached for her Air magic, and a familiar, milky-white glow filled her clear, colorless eyes, as well as the palm of her hand. She moved her hand back and forth and up and down my body, looking for injuries, and I felt her Air power prick my skin. But the sensation didn’t bother me at all tonight. I was far too happy to be alive, to be with the people I loved, to care about anything else.
After a minute, she let go of her magic and dropped her hand. Jo-Jo shook her head, making her white-blond curls fly out before they settled perfectly back into place. “Looks like you already took care of everything, darling. I can’t find anything major to repair.”
Finn cleared his throat, and we all looked at him. “Well, if you’re done with Gin already, I could certainly use a caffeine fix.” He waggled his eyebrows at Jo-Jo.
She laughed and got to her feet. “All right, another pot of chicory coffee coming up for you. Gin, everyone else, how about some hot chocolate?”
“That would be great,” I said.
The others murmured their agreement. While Jo-Jo went into the kitchen to fix the drinks, I leaned back in the chair and told my friends everything that had happened since I was arrested at the police station and carted off to the bull pen.
I was just finishing up when Jo-Jo returned with a large tray. She passed out the drinks, handing me a mug of dark hot chocolate piled high with miniature marshmallows and sprinkled with dark-chocolate shavings.
“Just like you like it, darling,” she said, winking at me.
I nodded and held the mug between my hands, letting the warmth seep into the spider rune scars in my palms. Then I slowly took a sip, enjoying the decadent richness of the dark chocolate mixed with the frothiness of the melting marshmallows. The sweet concoction slid down my throat, then spread its pleasant heat through my stomach and out into the rest of my body, chasing away the last of the night’s lingering chill.
Finn slurped down half his coffee in one gulp, then shook his head. “Only you would think of using boxes of frozen peas to survive a fire. And then hiding in that Dumpster, almost in plain sight, while all the cops and firefighters walked right by you.”
“Believe me, it wasn’t by choice,” I muttered. “So what happened on your end? What’s been going on?”
Bria looked at Finn and Owen, then at me. “The three of us were at the station for hours, along with Silvio, Sophia, and Xavier, trying to bail you out, but of course not having any luck. Dobson was nowhere to be found, and Xavier texted me to say that he’d heard a rumor that there was going to be a fight in the bull pen. We all knew it was you. But there was no way that we could get to you, not without getting into a firefight in the middle of the station.”
“Which was probably exactly what Madeline wanted,” I murmured.
Finn shot his thumb and forefinger at me. “Winner, winner.”
“So we were trying to figure out a way around the cops,” Bria said. “Then we heard and felt this huge explosion, and I could sense you using your magic.”
“After that, everything was a mess,” Owen chimed in. “Cops shouting and yelling, and everyone inside the station running everywhere. We’d heard that you escaped, but by the time I got your call, and we drove over to the Pork Pit, the restaurant was on fire, and there was no sign of you.”
His voice cracked on the last few words, and his hand tightened around mine. No one said anything for several seconds.
Finn cleared his throat. “After that, it was a lot of running around and screaming at people. We tried to go into the restaurant to find you and get you out of there. But Madeline and Emery were running the show, and they told the cops to keep us back, even if they had to shoot us. So we stayed by the restaurant all night until . . .”