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“I-I-” My jaw clacks shut. Do I?
Everyone has beauty and life inside of them, no matter who they are. Everyone deserves to be saved. Don’t they? A warm hand lands on my shoulder, and another smaller, softer, pillowy hand works its way into mine. I have Gabe on one side, Grammy on the other and it's almost like I have a devil and an angel on my shoulder. Except I’m unsure who is the devil and who is the angel.
“Brenna?” Dima presses, his accented voice low in the room.
Percy is a damaged vessel. Soulless. Perhaps something awful happened to him and he’s ended up this way, or maybe it was taken from him. Either way, he took something from me that changed my life fundamentally and now he wants to take more. I’m a forgiving person, looking for the good in everyone. But not this time.
“No. I don’t think he can be saved.”
Fuck yeah, Bren.
Dima’s brows raise slightly, and Kristie grins at me before clapping her hands once. “So, how far are you willing to go?”
All the way to hell.
Gabriel
“You sure about this?”
I knew she was coming. Kristie may be tiny but she walks like a fucking baby elephant, her unsocked feet slapping on the wood floors behind me as I drink a glass of water in her kitchen. I’m still creeped out by her place. The grandma decor of the kitchen is at odds with my punky sister.
“If it’s what Bren wants, then I’m sure.”
“That’s not what I asked.” She leans her hip against the kitchen counter, crossing one foot over the other. “I asked if you were sure about this.”
I stare at her, searching her face for…something. Disappointment maybe? Apprehension? I’m not sure.
Kristie lets out an obnoxiously loud sigh and flops forward, letting her arms dangle. “Dude, you’re killing me here! Any answer will do! You’re either sure, or you aren't. I need to know so I can adjust appropriately.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She looks up at me, lips pursed. “Do you remember Operation Hedgey?”
My brows pull low. “Huh?”
“Operation Hedgey. I can’t remember how old we were, but you had an afro and shaved a slit in your eyebrow and were so lame it was embarrassing for me.” I growl at her and she rolls her eyes. “Anyway, we had that little girl who could move things with her mind, staying with us.”
My lips twitch. Lara was a cute kid. I don’t know where she came from, but she lived with us for around a year. She’s was so fucking cute. All chubby little legs and dark hair and huge eyes. She’d always want horsey rides from me and to sit next to me at the dining table. “Lara. Lara Little. ”
“Yes! Remember the time she found a hedgehog in the yard and wanted to keep it as a pet but Mama Celene hated hedgehogs? Was like, deathly afraid of the prickly fuckers.”
“Vaguely,” I reply. It sounds familiar but only just.
“She wanted to have a pet so bad and I wanted her to have a pet so bad because I wanted her to love something that wasn’t me in case she died cuz, hello? You loved her too but you didn’t want to get her hopes up so you spent like ten minutes telling us it was a bad idea and stuff but we didn’t listen and hid him under her bed. We decided we’d run interference but your heart wasn't in it so I had to do double the amount of work to keep Mama Celene out of Lara’s room. Causing distractions, that sort of thing. At the last minute you came in and made a big fuss about something or other and Mama was so bewildered she just let it slide and Lara had that hedgehog until the end of the year when she moved to Saskatchewan or something.”
I stare at my sister. I love her so much, but she’s not the most hinged person I’ve ever met. “I have no fucking clue what you are talking about.”
She rolls her eyes. “I need to know if you’re on board from the get go and will be like, fucking presidential level safety and security around Bren or you’re going to um and ah and sit around with your finger up your ass because you’ll be all stuck in that giant head of yours being all emo about how much you luuuurve her that she’ll inevitably be kidnapped by the souless asshole and I’ll have to fight off the baddies until you pop that finger out of your ass, get with the plan and save the day.” I blink once, twice, trying to digest that word salad. “So, how much stretching do I have to do?”
“None. I’ve got this. No one is touching a hair on Brenna’s head. Or Frank’s.”
“If Frank had hair,” Kristie adds because she’s a pain in the ass.
“Whatever.”
“OK, well I’m glad we sorted that out. Now we can move on to logistics? He’s alive, so can we just like stab him and be done with it?”
And this is the part where gifts are tricky. I have no fucking clue what he’s capable of. If I’m honest, I have no fucking clue what me or Kristie or Dima are capable of either. I mean, we know enough to be able to do our jobs, keep people safe, or in my case, send them to hell. But anything outside of our usual jobs? No clue.
