The Shattered Dark

I stop suddenly. I share my Vegas hotel room with Shane. How the hell could I have forgotten about him?

“What?” Paige asks.

I look over my shoulder at Trev, ignoring the sharp pain in my side when my torso just barely turns. “Did Shane make it out of the club?”

A long pause, then, “Lena has someone looking for him.”

They don’t know where he is. Damn it, I should have stuck around, looked for him before I left, but the club was crazy, and I’d caught a glimpse of Paige. Then the police officer was there…

Shit. Shane was briefly in the building with the dead humans, too. His fingerprints might be there. He might be in a British jail.

But that’s a better option than the alternatives. If he was trampled by the crowd or captured or killed by the remnants, I’ll feel at least partially responsible. He wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for me.

“McKenzie?” Paige says.

“It’s nothing. Here. This one’s empty.” I open a door that’s two rooms down from mine. It’s bigger than where I stay, more luxurious, too. A freestanding desk and sofa are arranged on the left side of the room. Two beds with silver, wrinkleless blankets are on the right. In between them is an open doorway to a bathroom. It’s dark in here, though. Only the light from the hallway allows me to make out the furniture.

“Trev, could you…?”

He mumbles as he enters the room. It doesn’t take more than five seconds for him to send his magic into the sconced orbs. They glow a soft blue, lighting up the room.

“Thanks,” I tell him. “If you’ll do the same in Lee’s room.”

“I’m staying here,” Lee says, walking inside.

“The hell you are.” Paige crosses her arms. Trev mumbles something under his breath, then moves down the hall to the next room, leaving me to sort this out.

“There are two beds,” Lee continues. “I think I can manage to not touch you.”

“I don’t want to breathe the same air as you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Paige,” he says. “These fae aren’t your friends.”

“You said the same thing about Tylan.”

“And I was right about him,” he says, his voice rising. “He lied about McKenzie being a prisoner.”

“Who’s Tylan?” I interject before they take each other’s heads off.

“He’s the first fae I met,” she says. “After this asshole injected me with the serum, I went by your place just to make sure there wasn’t any truth to his crazy talk about faeries.”

“Fae,” Lee corrects, taking off his cloak as if he actually thinks he’s going to stay here.

Paige rolls her eyes, and continues, “I was going to file a police report, but when I was about to leave, Tylan fissured into your living room. He told me you needed help.”

The way she says his name makes me think she likes him. Not in a romantic way but in the same way she likes all of her guy friends.

“My living room?” I ask, thinking he could be the ward-maker who booby-trapped her purse. “So what happened at your apartment? It looked like there was a fight there.”

She juts her chin out in Lee’s direction. “Him. He didn’t ask if I wanted to be injected. He just did it.”

“I get it, Paige,” he says. “You hate me. You’ll never forgive me.”

She turns on him. Paige angry is a scary sight. She’s a good foot shorter than Lee, but she gets right in his face and very loudly lists every reason he has no right to expect her to forgive him. I don’t blame her. If I knew nothing of the fae and someone injected me with something claiming it would let me see them, I’d be pissed off, too. But something makes me think there’s more to this. Sure, they appear to hate each other, but the way they’re staring each other down makes me think they’re seconds away from a kiss, not from clawing each other’s faces off. So, I focus on the ceiling, all but whistling, until I hear Paige say, “What are your daddy’s orders now? That’s who’s been texting you, right? He told you to murder your brother. What are you supposed to do afterward?”

His dad has been texting him?

“Shut up, Paige,” Lee says.

Could he possibly still have his cell phone on him? We had to make a mad dash to the gate. After we fissured here, I so brilliantly ordered the fae not to touch him or Paige. Neither one of them have been searched.

“Give it to me,” I order.

Lee’s face hardens.

Paige sits on the edge of one of the beds, wrinkling the cover. “He won’t let anyone touch it.”

“Give it to me,” I say again.

“I don’t have it,” he lies.

I meet Paige’s gaze. I doubt I can get his cell away from him on my own, but with her help…

She knows what I’m asking. “Go for it.”

Now that I’m looking for the phone, I see the bulge in his left front pocket. My ribs aren’t going to love what I’m about to do, but I reach for it.

As expected, he grabs my wrist. “I said I don’t have it.”

I brace myself then ram my shoulder into him. It takes him by surprise. He staggers backward and loses his balance when he hits the bed.

My ribs scream as I fall on top of him, but I get my hand in his pocket as he tries to fling me off. He’s too careful about it, though. He has the opportunity to hit me, and doesn’t take it. Kudos to him, having trouble hitting a woman, but I knee him in the side. He grunts, then grabs ahold of both my arms. That’s when Paige darts in and gets his phone.

“Damn it, Paige.” He releases me to go for her, but she tosses the phone over his head.

I catch it, then backpedal until I’m in the hallway.

“What’s the problem?” Trev demands, drawn by the scuffling.

“Keep him back,” I order. The phone is damp from Lee’s fall into the Thames. I’m afraid it might not work, but the screen turns on. Drawing in slow, shallow breaths, I bring up Lee’s text messages. I have to blink back tears to see the screen. My damn ribs hurt.

Trev scowls at the phone, but keeps both humans from leaving the room. A quick glance tells me Lee’s given up the fight. Good. I can take my time reading.

It pays off. We don’t need to send Naito back to Earth. His father—who does indeed want his brother to kill him—has a place in Boulder, Colorado. And I think I can make it easy for us to get it. I key in a text message. Lee doesn’t use any capitalization or punctuation when he types—it’s extremely annoying—but I force myself to leave out the commas and periods for authenticity’s sake. I just need one more thing, a picture to attach.

“Where are you going?” Trev asks, as I walk away, holding my side.

“I’m going to go get Naito to play dead.”

NINETEEN

I FIND NAITO in his room, flipping through a jaedric-bound sketchbook. He closes it when I enter. It looks nothing like the Earth-made sketchbook Lorn gave me in Nashville—the one filled with drawings of Kelia—but it reminds me of it just the same. I’m supposed to give it back to Naito. Problem is, it’s still tucked into the pocket of the cloak Aren made me take off in Rhigh. Aren fissured out with it when he told me to count to thirty. Presumably, that’s when he talked to Daron, the illusionist who created the fake lightning storm. Maybe it’s with him.