offers her wallet and a ride back to her place where he can dry off.
She does not extend the same offer to me. Either the suit really plays down my game, or she’s firmer in her sexual preference than most humans turn out to be.
Julian gently turns her down, but takes her number, promising to give her a call.
After he makes the call, we munch on a free order of french fries and share a coffee while we wait for Philip to come pick us up.
The minutes tick by with every beat of my heart, and I wonder how the guys are doing, how worried they are, and how much trouble I’ll be in when I eventually make it home.
Twenty minutes later, a familiar white van pulls up outside, the HelloHell Delivery logo splashed across the side panel.
We sprint back out into the cold rain, Julian aiming for the front passenger door while I wrench open the sliding back door. We tumble inside, close the doors, and heat envelops us in an instant.
Philip twists to give me a halfhearted leer, the expression so wrong on his baby face, before he turns to Julian. “Where to, boss?”
“House Pond,” he directs, his voice tired.
My wings rustle with satisfaction as he labels the house as mine.
Philip sighs heavily and pulls the van back onto the road. He doesn’t ask where we’ve been, or why we’re dressed so oddly. In his line of business, I’m sure he’s seen more surprising things.
With the downpour, it takes a while to reach my house as we inch along in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The air inside the van turns humid, and Philip flips on the a/c to stop the windows from fogging.
I shift restlessly on the bench seat, the suit sticking to my skin and leaving me uncomfortable. I want to be home, dry, and in my own clothes.
My stomach cramps with a sucking sensation and, for a moment, I worry Victor Hesse is trying to yank me back to the interview room. In the front seat, Julian shifts and fists a hand over his stomach, and my heart lurches with fear, but we stay in the van, safe within its thin walls.
Rain beats down on the windshield, lightning flashing across the sky, and a new worry fills me. I need to be with Kellen right now, making sure he doesn’t give in to the siren call of the storm.
I thump the back of the driver’s seat. “Can’t you go faster?”
Philip glares at me through the rearview mirror. “Sure, just make the cars in front of us move out of the way, and I’ll get right on that.”
While he’s not serious, I’ve seen Tobias do that before without effort. Of course, he’s a catalyst demon, so he just needed to tip the scales in his favor. Curious, and impatient, I spindle out a thin line of Tobias’s power. I haven’t had the time to fully digest what he gave me earlier at the office, which means it still retains his catalyst nature.
Pressure builds at the base of my skull, the world suddenly tipping left. The car to our right slams on its breaks as the truck on its right swerves into our lane. Philip slams on his breaks, and I nearly fall off my seat.
As he swears and lays on the horn, I tip the world to the right.
The lane next to us opens, and Philip darts into the gap just as all the lights on the street turn green.
“Finally, some luck,” he grunts as he taps on the accelerator.
The cars ahead of us pick up speed, and while they don’t move out of our way the way they do for Tobias, we hit normal cruising speeds.
When we reach the street I live on, I let the energy go, the pressure in my head now pushing at the backs of my eyes. That’s not something I’ll be doing often. Tipping the outcome of the world around me is way harder than Tobias lets on. Or he’s just had a thousand years to figure it out.
As we pull up in front of the house, my heart lurches again when I spot a tall figure standing on the roof. The clouds roll behind him, blending with his wings, and lightning flashes, turning his hair into a halo of fire.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I scramble to yank the door open.
Screw not expending power. This is an emergency.
Energy floods my limbs, the world blurring around me as I hyper-speed across the strip of grass