The third note, I folded and slid into my back pocket while I watched them sleep, the friends and family I’d put through hell just by virtue of their connection to me.

Then I closed my damp eyes and blinked out of their lives.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The school cafeteria was somehow even creepier than I’d remembered. Maybe because my errand was creepier this time. Or maybe because I was breaking a promise to people I loved. Or maybe because I knew that even if I got what I wanted out of this midnight errand, I wouldn’t really be getting what I wanted.

There was no way for me to win this game. I’d lost the moment I started playing.

In the massive, stainless steel kitchen, I pulled a small knife from a now-familiar drawer, then sat cross-legged on the floor in a pool of moonlight shining through the window. I peeled the bandage from my left palm. Explaining another cut wouldn’t be a problem this time, so I sliced my skin open again. I gasped at the raw pain—still couldn’t get used to that—and a line of dark red blood welled parallel to the one scabbed over half an inch away.

This time, I let the blood pool in my cupped palm, and with the knife on the floor at my side, I dipped my right index finger into my own blood and wrote Ira’s name on the dingy linoleum tiles. Then I sucked in a deep breath and tried to purge my fear while preserving my anger, which Ira would want to taste.

I had no problem with the anger part. Letting go of my fear was much harder.

I stared at the three letters on the floor, glistening dark, dark red in the moonlight. And for a second, I thought about backing out. Then I closed my eyes and whispered Ira’s name into the night.

My eyes opened, and a second later the hellion appeared in front of me, mirroring my cross-legged pose, staring across his own name at me. “Ms. Cavanaugh.” On his tongue, my name sounded like the clash of swords, wielded in timeless fury.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he continued while I struggled to focus through the anger emanating from him, settling into my bones. Into my hands that wanted to form fists. Or to pick up the knife.

“You owe this pleasure to Avari, but I’d rather reverse the charges so that he owes you. And I think I know how to make that happen.”

His dark brows rose. They were the color of my blood slowly drying on the floor and now dripping from between my fingers. “I’m intrigued....”

“So there’s no misunderstanding, I have a proposal. I’m here to make a deal.”

He nodded. “Of course you are. State your terms—first, what you need from me, then, how you’re willing to pay. But you should know that tonight you reek of fear and sadness, as much as anger, and while I can and will feed from both of those emotions, they do not command as high a price as your rage.”

“Acknowledged.” It scared me even more to realize that I was picking up the lingo. “But if you agree to myterms, there will be plenty of anger for you—and it won’t just be mine.”

Another arch of a single dark red brow. “Do continue.”

“My first demand—” I’d considered calling them requests, but because they were nonnegotiable, “demand” felt more accurate “—is that you deliver my uncle and Harmony Hudson to the human world without inflicting any further harm on them, and that you make no attempt to contact them or to reacquire them for the duration of our agreement.”

“You’re assuming I know where they are?”

“I am.” I nodded firmly and tried not to notice that blood was still pooling in my palm. “I’m further assuming that you have them in your possession. That maybe you’ve had them since shortly after Tod and I found bloody bandages in the Netherworld version of the local hospital.”

“Clever girl...” Ira smiled, clearly delighted, and I had to remind myself that his approval meant less than nothing to me. “How did you know?”

“I know from experience that Avari is powerful and his resources are vast. Yet he doesn’t have them. The only reason I can think of for him not to have found them is that you found them first.”

“Or they’re dead.” He watched closely for my reaction.

“If they were dead and Avari knew about it, he would have told me, just to feed from my suffering. You, however, understand that I suffer just as much—if not more—by not knowing where they are or what shape they’re in. And you’re not shortsighted enough to kill them before you’ve gotten all possible use out of them as living hostages. Right?”

Please, please let me be right....

“So far, so good,” he said, and again I was surprised by his vernacular speech. Was anger that much closer to the general heart of humanity than envy? I didn’t want to think about what that said about us as a species.

“My second demand—”

“Can you pay for a second demand?” Ira said. “I’m not sure you truly understand the debt your first request has already accrued.”

I might not know what he’d want as payment, but I knew what I was willing to give. And that was all that mattered.

“My second demand,” I continued, without acknowledging his warning, “is that for the duration of our arrangement, you will protect my friends and family.” He started to object, and the first spark of anger I’d seen from him flashed in his dark eyes. “Specifically,” I said, talking over him. “Specifically, all of my blood relatives, as well as Emma Marshall, in any body her soul inhabits, Sabine Campbell, Luca Tedesco, and Harmony, Nash, and Tod Hudson.” I couldn’t risk him deciding on his own that any one of them wasn’t a close enough friend to warrant protecting.