Page 60 of Dead Beat

“You left me alone in that hospital so you could get your dick wet,” Alex spat. But it wasn’t her voice. “You left my fortieth birthday party early to fuck one of your groupies. And you convinced me it was my fault.”

Her fingers closed around a pair of scissors on Girard’s desk. She jammed the blades beneath his jaw.

Alex barely had time to yank Heather back. He deserves it, but I’m not doing time for you.

I loved him. I love him so much.

There was sympathy and then there was stupidity. You chose him. Again and again. Now let go.

She forced the Gray to relinquish her grip and recede. Heather gusted out of Alex in a wail, vanishing into the winter afternoon.

Alex tossed the scissors onto the desk.

“Stop fucking your students or I’ll let her come back and finish the job.”

She had her hand on the door when Girard said, “You have no idea what’s coming for you. Alban Reed already owns you. He’s one of the richest, most powerful men in New York.”

Alex was frightened. She couldn’t deny it to herself. But she wasn’t going to let him see it.

“We’re not in New York, Professor.”

“You’re really too stupid to be scared, aren’t you?”

“Maybe. But you just pissed your pants in your fancy office chair. Tell Alban Reed I’ll be waiting for him right here in scenic New Haven.”

22

Alex felt crazed as she left the office, her body thrumming with adrenaline. She was going to knock down a building. She was going to burn a forest to the ground. She was dimly aware of the sound of her boots on the stairs, of the weight of her bag across her shoulders. But her mind was spinning, remembering Alban Reed’s threats at the Yale Club, the smug look on Girard’s face.

Alex had survived by keeping herself hidden. She’d learned quickly and cruelly how the world viewed difference, how little anyone wanted to be confronted with someone else’s suffering. So she’d slid into the margins, invisible and unwanted, and no matter how many times her mother had tried to pull her back onto the page, she had refused. She had vanished into Len’s miserable little kingdom, an anti-Avalon shrouded in the haze of cheap weed. And when she had emerged? When she’d let herself become solid once more? It had all ended in blood.

That was when Lethe had gotten a glimpse of her, and Sandow had offered her a new disguise. College student. Rehabilitated youth. She’d seized her chance and she’d understood she would have to disappear once more into a lie of who she was supposed to be. The lie kept her safe. The lie meant that when Yale and Lethe were history, she’d have something to show for it, a sane, employable Alex who could live long enough to forget the life that came before.

Alban Reed was threatening all of that. Girard knew she was a Wheelwalker and that meant that others knew. Even if she dealt with both of them, she had no way of knowing how far her secret had spread. Alex had power but it was specific in a way that money and influence were not. No doubt there were spells that could render her pliable, cells that could keep her captive where she’d never be found. Girard would report back to Reed, everything she’d said—though no doubt he’d sanitize it—and everything she’d done. She’d revealed too much, but she’d needed to wipe that smirk off his face. She’d needed to see him scared.

Now Alex was going to have to tell Darlington, Dawes, all of them, just how stupid she’d been, how out of control. Because—and this was the worst of it—Turner was right: She couldn’t do this alone. Even if they got the remaining pieces of the golem, even if they defeated Golgarot and closed the door to hell, even if they somehow neutralized Reiter or better yet eliminated him, what about all the skunks and bastards left behind? What about Alban Reed and Professor Girard and the alumni who could pull strings to have a man quietly assassinated at a hotel pool?

The cold knocked her back into her body as she strode across campus, the moist feel of the air, the bare trees fading into shadow as night fell.

She needed normal, just an hour or two in the common room, listening to any record Lauren wanted to put on, eating handfuls of potato chips, and reading Forster. If Mercy wanted to be mad at her, that was fine. She could sniff and sneer all she wanted so long as Alex could just sit on their beat-up couch and not think about monsters and millionaires for a night.

Lauren was in the recliner when Alex entered, Miles Davis on the turntable. Alex felt something in her relax. This was the promise of Yale, safety and quiet, surety and calm, if she could just hold on and see it fulfilled.

“Want to order Thai?” Alex asked. “My treat.”

Lauren batted her lashes. “If you’re hoping I’ll put out for pad see ew, I most certainly will.”

“Let’s see if Mercy wants in.”

“She’s not here. She might be doing dinner with her church group?”

“More for us.” She would find a way to make things right with Mercy, through groveling and quality noodles and whatever else it took. She supposed Girard might blab to her about what Alex had done, but she hoped he was too shaken to consider it.

Alex paused in the act of unwinding the scarf from her neck, her attention caught by a stalk of hydrangea lying limply on the couch, its fragile cluster of white blossoms just starting to wilt and turn brown.

“What is that?”

“I don’t know. I was going to throw it out, but then I thought Mercy might be using it for some arts-and-crafts thing and I didn’t want to get yelled at. She has been so moody lately.”