This was why I had let him in. That was all I wanted, and I wouldn’t get it. Damn it!
“Do you know that what you did was wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you keep doing it? Did you ever think about leaving? Running away?”
He raised his head to look at me. “Why? Benedict doesn’t force me to do things. He lets me do things. I like to kill. I like to feed. I would kill you if I could and I would enjoy it.”
That was it. There was nothing more to ask. I pulled my power out of the circle. The last remaining sink—the fourth one must have shattered while I interrogated him—vomited magic to the sky. The circle faded slowly, collapsing. We fell to the ground, softly at first, then faster. I landed in a blanket stretched under me. The people who held it gently lowered me to the ground.
Louie crashed on the hard pavement ten yards from me. A ring of people surrounded us, Heart’s soldiers, Mom, Grandma Frida, Arabella . . . The familiar faces were turning fuzzy. I’d overextended.
Someone pushed through the crowd and walked over to Louie. Red hair—Runa.
“You killed my mother,” she told him.
Louie bared his teeth at her. Magic lashed from him, but the butcher had nothing left. His strike cut Runa’s cheek. She touched the cut, looked at the red staining her fingers, and smiled.
I would remember that smile till the day I died.
Deep green magic flared like a glowing ribbon between Runa’s bloody fingers. It snaked out and kissed Louie’s cheek.
The assassin screamed.
I sat on the curb, wrapped in a blanket and drinking a cup of hot tea, Shadow curled by my feet chewing on a stick. Arabella had found my phone among the rubble and brought it to me. A big crack split the screen, but miraculously the phone still worked. Alessandro still hadn’t replied to any of my messages.
The warehouse was wrecked. The entire corner where my room used to be and everything under it was gone, as if a giant had looked at the warehouse from above, decided it was cake, and carved himself out a piece. I could see straight into our house. Heart’s soldiers had declared it unsafe and made us stay back fifty feet.
To the right, across the street, Bern stood with a despondent look on his face gazing at the collapsed floor between him and the Hut of Evil inside. We had no idea if any of our servers survived. On his left, Bug tentatively touched his shoulder, the way you would do to comfort someone at a funeral. On his right Runa was talking. I couldn’t make it out, but I understood her expression. It’s not that bad. I’m sure it will be fine, you’ll see.
It would not be fine. Before all of our modifications and insulation, the warehouse was a single steel building. The integrity of the structure was likely compromised. The electric wires, the pipes, and the walls themselves looked neatly cut. A stream had formed on our street, where water had fountained out of the severed pipes before someone shut it off.
Our water bill is going to be huge.
I didn’t know why, but that thought almost pushed me over the edge. If I had any strength left, I would have cried, Head of the House or no, but I was too tired.
Where would we find the money to repair this? Where would we live? Theoretically, we could split up and move into other buildings we owned, but the warehouse had been our home and now it was gone.
A chunk of the roof the size of a garage moaned with a metallic screech and plunged to the street.
I couldn’t even. I wasn’t sure I could ever even again.
On the bright side, we had no insurance to pay for any of this.
I had gambled everything on finding Halle and I lost. I was so sure that Benedict would send another warped assassin after me and it seemed so logical that they would know where they had been altered. I was wrong.
Mom came over and sat next to me.
“I destroyed the house,” I told her.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You tried to save a child. We all went along with it. Nobody could have anticipated this.”