you.”
She opens and closes her mouth like a fish, but no more words escape.
“Lucky for you, I’m not interested in making you suffer with that burden,” I say, my hands itching with the need to finish this. I wrap them around her throat again and lean in close, offering her one last grin. “I’d rather just choke you to death. Goodbye, Janelle.”
I press my thumbs against her windpipe.
“Baz!” she coughs out. “Don’t!”
“Sorry, what’s that? I can’t hear you.” I press harder, power coursing through my veins. Not magick, but power. Dark and hungry and ready to feed.
Kill her. Crush her. Take your revenge…
An explosion of stone and wood overhead shakes me out of my killing trance. Before I can even process what the fuck just happened, Carly’s standing in front of me.
“How the fuck did you get through my wards?”
“Magick,” she snaps. “Now come back upstairs with me. Stevie’s making tea—we can all talk about this like adults.”
“Adults. Right. So you and Stevie are friends now? What’s that all about?”
“At the moment it’s all about saving you from making the biggest dumb-ass mistake of your dumb-ass life.”
“Thanks, but I’ll pass. I liked it better when you two wanted to claw each other’s eyes out.” I turn back to Janelle, eager to get the job done, but Carly’s not giving up so easily.
She steps in front of me, wedging herself between me and her mother’s cot, her hands firm on my chest.
“Listen to me, Baz. I don’t blame you for wanting her dead. Hell, I want her dead. But—”
“Carly,” Janelle whispers. “Carly, do something.”
Ignoring this, Carly pushes against my chest. “Just come back upstairs. We don’t have to talk or drink tea if you don’t want to. We can just—”
“Baby, please,” Janelle croaks. “He’s crazy. He’s—”
In a move I couldn’t have predicted with all the psychic power in the Academy, Carly straight up sucker-punches her mother in the mouth, knocking the bitch out cold.
“Goddess, I thought she’d never shut up.” She shakes out her hand, flexing her fingers. “Wow, that really hurt. They never tell you that, do they?”
“Did you just… did you seriously just punch your mom?”
“Says the guy who was about thirty seconds from killing her?”
“Yeah, but I’m an asshole.”
“And I’m not?”
“Fair point, but Carly, you? You don’t go around punching people. You roll your eyes and make snarky comments and critique people’s wardrobe choices.”
She puffs up her chest. “Maybe there’s more to me than meets the eye.”
“So it seems.” I can’t help my smile—I mean, seriously, that punch was pretty epic—but the levity doesn’t last. This whole situation is so beyond fucked, they haven’t even invented a curse word that covers it.
“Are you coming,” she asks, “or do I have to sucker-punch you too?”
I blow out a breath and lean back against the table, crossing my arms over my chest. Most of the fight is gone, the hunger for vengeance subsiding. I don’t know whether to be grateful or pissed.
“What are you doing here, Carly? Really.”
“I was with Stevie and them when they found Ani. They thought I’d be safer back at—”
“I don’t mean here in this house. I mean here in this basement. Here with me, busting through my wards, trying to save my ass from the same fate that befell my fucked-up brother. Why?”
“Why do you think?” She rolls her eyes, a move I know all too well.
Goddess, I wish we didn’t have to have this conversation. I wish we could just keep ignoring it until her infatuation finally burns out, or she finds a guy who can give her what she needs. What she deserves.
It’s not me. No matter what kind of wishful thinking she’s engaged in, she has to know that by now. Even if she chose to ignore me all the times I told her as much, all she has to do is watch me whenever Stevie walks into the room.
Even an idiot can see I’ll never look at anyone the way I look at the woman I love.
“Carly, look. I don’t know what your deal is with Stevie. One minute you’re warning me not to get involved with her, the next minute you and your mean girl posse are damn near trying to drown her, now all of a sudden you’re buddied up on this rescue mission… My head is fucking spinning, okay?”
“I know it’s… unexpected. But Stevie and I—”
I hold up my hand, cutting her off. “There’s only one thing I need to know, and for once in your life, I