Page 19 of Ice

“About?”

“My aunt…” She presses her lips together, long fingers gripping the cup without seeming to feel the heat from the liquid inside.

“You haven’t heard from the others?”

“Not since they got there.”

I take my phone out of my pocket. As I look at the screen, it lights up. A text from Sam. I’m here… will let you know when I’m with the others.

“Me neither.” I pocket it again and cross to the cupboard beneath the sink. Taking out the whiskey bottle, I add some to my coffee and sigh as I drink.

Rev sighs back at me but I ignore her.

“Should we be worried? What was happening the last time you spoke to them?”

“They’d found the professor and he’d agreed to help them. They were putting together a plan. That’s the last I heard.”

“Call them?” Rev’s tone has changed. It is laced with worry now and, despite the fact she and I have never been particularly close, I feel a pang of sympathy for her.

Nico is not in a good place right now. He’s working for the Bureau to ease his own guilt, but they’re working him hard and the stuff he’s doing is dangerous as fuck.

She’s shouldering a lot, and with Nova and Mack out of the country she doesn’t have anyone to talk to about it.

I put my hand on her arm. It feels strange and uncomfortable and she frowns at me so I take it back. “It’s going to be okay.” I clear my throat and retrieve my phone. “I’ll call them now.”

10

MACK

My head is spinning. It feels the way it feels when I’m part-way through a shift. Like everything inside me is twisting and contorting except there’s no end to it. It never blooms into something bigger. It doesn’t crack open or die down. It just stays there, beneath the surface.

Snow feels it too.

And it’s getting worse.

When he was hit with the crossbow, I thought I was going to lose consciousness.

Fuck knows how I made it back to the museum.

And now I’m having to watch Lucien and Sam prowl around staring at one another like they’re ready to tear each other’s throats out.

To be fair to Sam, he didn’t start it; Lucien is the one with the predilection for devouring werewolves. I’d heard rumors of British vamps not getting along with weres, but I didn’t realize the hatred ran this deep.

“Can you two simmer down? It’s making my head hurt.” Tanner groans at them from the corner of the room. He’s downed his third glass of water in as many minutes and is looking paler and paler by the second.

God damn England.

This place isn’t good for any of us.

“I was merely suggesting the werewolf should have something useful to add, seeing as he came all this way.” Thornfield waves his hand at Sam in a way that makes Sam growl in the back of his throat. Sensing the rise in tension, Snow gets up and plods over to me. He sits next to me and tips his head.

I’m about to step in when Sam’s phone starts to ring. He lifts it to his ear, mouths, Luther, at me and barks, “Hey,” into it.

There’s a pause, then Sam puts the phone on speaker.

“Rev’s with me,” Luther says – no pleasantries. “She wants an update.”

I don’t have the energy to be the one to respond, so wait for Tanner to step in. Repeating what he told Sam a few minutes ago, he fills Luther in. When he gets to the part about Miranda being forced to do spells for Zephyra, Rev inhales shakily. I want to offer words of comfort. God knows, she’s done it for me enough times. But I can’t even muster the energy to speak to her.