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“Obviously. Why else would they have been on the roster? You are wasting both our times, Miss Valence. Restore my peace and return to your assigned administrative station immediately.”
I slammed my hand on the table. Clave had the drug baggie in his desk. He knew something, and he was purposefully obstructing the investigation. “There are lives on the line. I’ve never had love for archangels, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve safety and security. Benjamin didn’t deserve being gutted and strung up like a martyr. What are you going to do when the next one gets tortured, huh? I know you’re hiding things. Castile is a fucking fool to trust you. I certainly never will until you stop bullshitting and actually help.”
His lips tightened, eyes drilling into my flattened hand. The air in the room seemed to chill. “You will remove your palm from my desk. You will remove yourself from my office. Refuse to comply, and I will physically remove you myself without an ounce of kindness.”
“But—”
“Out!” he snarled.
I’ve risked using my truth-telling power on students. On Quinn, even. But something told me that I wouldn’t get so far with Clave.
That didn’t mean I didn’t think about trying.
With a disappointed sigh, I ‘removed myself’ from the chair and stood. “I hope you can cope, Clave. When the next one dies, that blood will be on your hands too.”
After the door closed behind me, I added, “Especially if you’re the one behind it all.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Friday morning, the school was unsettled, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why.
Quinn wouldn’t stop talking about it all day. “Can you believe that one snuck in?” She shuddered. We sat together in the office break room with two other counselors. “I mean, we have the Gate for a reason. Barrier Island exists for a reason. How did one demon slip through? He doesn’t look that smart even, does he? Set up? Who is going to believe that? I bet he was sent here on a mission to attack members of our governing body and disrupt our world from the inside out.”
She sipped on her tea intently while the counselors nodded their agreement.
“Don’t you agree, Isra?” one asked.
Swallowing my anger, I gave an uncaring, “You’re probably right.”
An incubus had lured a Divine senator into an underground pub and attacked him. The incubus’s pretty face was offset by his leathery tail, tipped with a wicked spike. He’d claimed that he’d been set up but wouldn’t explain how, why, or by whom.
Just that he had.
Everyone talked about it that day. Everyone had their phones out, and that incubus’s beautiful, mournful expression shone across thousands of screens.
Don’t argue with them. Don’t do anything to give them any clue that you’re—
I added, “I wonder if they’ll do a full investigation or if everyone will be comfortable watching him burn at the metaphorical stake without sufficient proof.” Godsdamn. Couldn’t just keep my mouth shut, could I?
They all stared at me with equal expressions of shock.
Quinn asked, “Are you saying you think he’s innocent? A demon?”
“They’re all guilty of something,” Daniel, a counselor, reasoned like a fucking moron. He bit into a celery stick with a wise and solemn nod of his head.
I clarified, “So, you’re saying that he’s not a person? Just to make yourself clear. Because, demon or not, that looks like a person to me, and people deserve respect and due process no matter who they are.”
The silence boomed like thunder.
“Isra,” Quinn gasped. “Are you feeling well?”
“Fucking dandy. I’m eating in my office.” I picked up my lunch and walked out without another word.
All day, no one had been asking the right questions. Like, why would a senator be found with an incubus? A well-connected, powerful senator. The answer was as obvious as a fucking yellow duck.
The senator’s been sleeping with the incubus and framed him the second they were caught. Why was I the only one who saw that?
Closing my office door felt like enough of a buffer between me and the stupid opinions of ignorant people. Did they ever consider that maybe the Demonic races were just different? Not evil?
