should call Vivi. Make sure she found someplace safe to hide out.” Get in a few last words with her just in case they turned out to really be my last. It was late, but Vivi tended to be a night owl even when she didn’t have a recently-witnessed murder to ruin her sleep.
“I’ll give you the room,” Thorn said, and wavered away into the shadows to his own room without bothering with the door.
I hesitated over my Frequent Contacts, where Vivi’s welcoming face grinned up at me from the top spot. My stomach knotted.
Ten years ago, when I’d been barely more than a kid and she hadn’t been much older, we’d been glued at the hip. I wasn’t sure how I’d have survived this long without her friendship keeping me sane and human. The thought of someone putting a bullet in her still made my innards clench up with an icy panic.
But maybe she’d felt the same way about me potentially walking into danger. She’d screwed up and crossed boundaries, and I was still kind of pissed off about that, but at least she’d done it out of love rather than the intent to do harm.
I tapped the screen and lifted the phone. A few seconds later, my bestie’s voice pealed into my ear.
“Sorsha! Are you still okay?”
I ignored the ache in my shoulder. “I’ve had better days, but yeah. Are you? Did you get out of town like I said?”
“Yeah, I grabbed Gran, and we took off for a cottage a couple of hours away that belongs to friends of the family. I—I keep looking out the windows just in case someone’s coming.” Her voice dipped lower. “I’ve been worried sick about you. I wanted to call, but I didn’t want to interrupt you at a bad time. Obviously I’m not the greatest judge of when or how to interfere.”
“You shouldn’t have been interfering at all,” I couldn’t help saying, even though I hadn’t meant to restart that argument.
Vivi sighed. “Okay, that might be true. And I’m really sorry I went all stalker on you. But you shouldn’t have been lying to me. I thought you knew you could count on me… I wish you’d trusted me more.”
The dejection in her voice made me wince. I swallowed hard. “It’s not that I don’t trust or count on you, Vivi. I do, for all kinds of things. But you saw how dangerous the situation is, what kind of people I’m up against… With the things Luna taught me”—and the trio of allies who’d turned up on my doorstep—“I’m better equipped to take them on. I was trying to keep you safe.”
My best friend was silent for a moment. “I get that. I can even appreciate the thought. But Sorsh, what if I don’t want to be safe if that means I can’t help you when you’re in trouble? How do you think I’d feel if you got hurt and I hadn’t done anything to stop it? If we’re working together, at least we can split the danger two ways instead of it all being on you.”
“I don’t think it works exactly like that,” I said, but her words sent a twinge through me anyway. Had it really been right for me to take away her choice in the matter? I’d told myself she wouldn’t fully understand the danger to know what she was getting into—but part of the reason she didn’t was because of all the things I’d avoided telling her.
I hadn’t liked Thorn trying to send me off to keep me safe, and he’d at least informed me of that decision rather than going behind my back.
“I’m sorry too,” I added. “At this point, I think we’re both safest if you lay low, but once the immediate crisis is over, we’ll talk more. Okay?”
“That sounds like a compromise I can get behind. Are you… Are you looking after yourself?”
“As well as I can. And as you noticed, I’ve got some friends of another sort who’ve made that their business too.” I smiled wryly. “You don’t have to worry about them either. We’ve reached an understanding.”
“If you say so.” She gave a short laugh. “Ack, Gran’s calling for me. I’d better see what’s up. Call me again to touch base tomorrow so I don’t go crazy wondering what’s happened to you?”
“I’ll do that.” I’d be worrying about her too.
“Talk soon then. Ditto.”
My smile turned painfully bittersweet. “Ditto,” I replied.
I lay back against the pillow, Pickle snuggling into the crook