“Remind me again why you two hijacked my job?” Mimi tapped her fingernails against the table.
“The Alchemists have become a nuisance.” Josef frowned at her. “We need to shut them down, or at least drive them from the metropolitan area.”
“A nuisance?” Blue smoke blew out of my nose in a rush and I knew cinders would fly when I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t hold back. “You call rape and murder anuisance?”
A ball of rusty orange whammed me square in my chest and it was only when I fell back into my chair that I realized I’d been standing at all.
I heard Jax ask Gigi to change seats with him, but was too busy shaking my head, trying to get my brains unscrambled, to pay attention.
“Go ahead, Mimi, while I hold him.”
“I think he’s out of it, Jax.” That was Mira’s voice. “He looks like you rung his bell but good.”
“Maybe.” Jax sounded doubtful. “But once he gets his shield up, I can’t reach him, so I’ll keep him down before he can.And don’t anyone get too comfortable. He can break free of my hold if he really wants to.”
“Kid’s been walking a tightrope for too long.” Rome shook his head. “I have no idea how he’s still doing it. I would have torn somebody in half by now.”
Gigi explained the whole story, all the way back to banishing the Hellhounds in North Carolina, and I listened, but my senses were dim and my thoughts slow. Jax couldn’t put me to sleep like Gemma could or do Chance’s apathy thing, but he’d gotten real good at holding me in what he called stasis.
I wanted to fight my way out of it, but there was no need to put that strain on him, especially as he was only trying to help me. The more I struggled, the harder he had to work to hold me. With a sigh, I gave in and stopped fighting him.
Finally,Mimi reached out for Astrid Kasparian.
Nothing happened—or so I thought.
“She’s here,” Mimi murmured, “but won’t show herself. Too many males present.”
“Should we leave?” Titus asked.
“She says she’ll speak to me.” Mimi shook her head. “I can repeat it aloud, if that is acceptable.”
“Why would we doubt you?” Rome waved one hand. “You have no reason to lie. Go for it.”
Through Mimi, Astrid recounted the worst—and last—date of her life. A boy in one of her classes had asked her out and she’d accepted, even though she was a freshman and he was a fifth-year senior.
“What school were you at?” Mimi asked, then answered in a slightly accented voice. “Columbia.”
“That’s weird.” Mira’s eyebrows flew up.
“His name was Christopher.” Mimi’s eyes rolled, seeing something only she could see. “I don’t know his last name, or I can’t remember it. He seemed nice and I was lonely. My fatheralways warned me not to trust strangers, but I never imagined dinner and a movie would kill me.”
She gripped the arms of her chair and went as stiff as a statue, and Titus fell out of his chair to kneel next to her.
“Mimi?” he murmured. “Are you okay?”
She blinked and seemed to come back to herself. Shivering, she nodded, and he rubbed his hands up and down her arms.
“He assaulted her, then killed her.” Tears flowed from her brown eyes. “He tossed her body in a garbage bin!”
Titus scooped her up in his arms and she clung to his neck, muttering in his ear.
Movement caught my eyes, which were all I could move under Jax’s hold, and I glanced over to see Josef rubbing his forehead with one hand. He looked a little green.
Is he trying to go off the protection charms? What would be the point of that?
“Harker,” he interrupted my thoughts, “do you know how long the Alchemists have been in operation?”
I looked at Gigi.
