Tears slid down my face. I shouldn’t have been crying, I should have been fighting. I should have been helping my friends as they swept in and drove the tonton macoutes army off.
I crumpled where I was, my body broken and done. But my heart . . .my heart was overflowing. Never in my life had anyone truly looked out for me besides Gran. I’d always been the one my friends looked to for help and rescue. The one who took care of Alan.
No one had rescued me.
Not ever.
And yet here I was, lying useless on the ground while my friends—my family—came to my rescue. For once, I didn’t have to be the strong one.
I stared as they cleared the area around me. But one man held my eyes as he made his way through the tonton macoutes. Crash held two swords and wielded them with a deadly accuracy that had the undead stumbling away from him. Face grim, his magic flared around him and shoved the critters back farther.
The fight was over in a matter of minutes, the undead either gone or laid out as flat as me. Crash ran to my side, his swords disappearing into thin air. I’d have to ask him about that trick later.
“Bree,” his hands hovered over me as if he wasn’t sure where to touch me. I reached a hand up and snaked it around his neck.
He scooped me up into his arms, which put me on eye level with my friends. I looked for Sarge first. “You came back.”
The werewolf gave a sheepish grin. “Well . . .the thing is, I realized about halfway back to Savannah that Corb was wrong. You were right. And—”
“Don’t tell me you owed me,” I said.
He gave me a wolfy grin. “I realized you needed me a lot more than he did.”
My lips trembled, and I saw tears welling in his eyes before he looked away. “Don’t make me cry.”
I dashed a few tears away. “You all came back for me.”
Crash gently tightened his hold on me. “Bree, you aren’t in this fight alone. You aren’t.”
And just like that, the world was a little better. At least for that moment
Back at Penny’s house, Charlotte’s laughter rang in the air as Eric entertained her. They’d called her mother right away, and she was on her way to meet us here to get her daughter. I took the hottest bath I could stand. I had my ankle propped out of the hot tub, an ice pack tied around it. The bruising was nothing short of spectacular, and it was spreading from every point where the gator’s teeth had tried to tear into me. “I need to give Gerry a bottle of whiskey.” I’d been enjoying some whiskey of my own, so the words came out a little slurred.
Penny sat on a stool next to the tub, watching over me. “Her clothing is the best, but I think whiskey isn’t her flavor. She’s more of a rum girl. Pirate blood, you know.”
That Penny knew Gerry shouldn’t have surprised me, but the whiskey I’d been sipping had been dosed with what I suspected was a very small dose of something loaded, and I was kind of out of it.
The next thing I knew, I was wrapped in a warm blanket and being tucked into bed, a pair of rather well-muscled arms wrapped around me and a hard chest against my cheek.
“Thank you,” Crash said with a chuckle, and I realized I might be saying everything I was thinking, which would be dangerous.
“I lost both knives,” I whispered.
“I’ll make you more.” He kissed me on the forehead and the light flicked off. “You need to sleep, let the potion Penny gave you do its work, and tomorrow we’ll find Celia.”
I yawned and snuggled deeper against his body. “I know where she is, and I think I know where the wings are.”
He startled against me. “You do?”
“Hmmm.” If I wasn’t so tired I’d lick him, but as it was, I let whatever they’d given me do its work and drifted off to sleep.
My eyes were closed, my body relaxed, but I was having another vivid dream.
I blinked and found myself standing at the front door of Marge and Homer’s house. I walked forward, opened the door, and looked around the room. All the voodoo dolls were strewn about, scattered, bits and pieces missing, heads with no bodies.
The wounds on the voodoo dolls reflected what my friends