Page 85 of Rattle the Cage

“A handful,” I laughed. “Keeping you in line all these years, no wonder Cyrus is such a hardass.”

My face flushed as the words left my mouth. Why was I defending her?

“Maybe.” Blade hit me with a knowing grin, but didn’t press the point.

The woods really were getting to me. I was losing my mind. Clearing my throat, I paced across the clearing. “Anyway, enough about Cyrus. I want to know what else I’ve missed the past few days while I was⁠—”

“Hiding?” Blade raised a brow.

“Preparing.” I glared. “What’s going on with the DMT sitch?”

It was as if the word activated her. With a snap, Blade hopped to her feet, knocking over the bucket of future victims in her haste. “Good reminder! We’ve got somewhere to be.”

43

NASH

I lifted my wrist, rolling my eyes as I saw the time.

Blade is late. Again.

I don’t know why we trusted her to be here on time. She rarely was, especially when Tess was involved. But someone had to get my Sweet Lamb, and someone had to babysit Cyrus. Didn’t take a genius to figure out who drew the short straw here.

As I leaned back against the hood of the Cadillac, I could feel Cyrus glaring daggers into my head through the windshield. She could be mad all she wanted about our little trick, but it had worked. She’d had to use her words.

And she finally got to play with her little Ragdoll, so I don’t know what she’s acting all huffy about.

Just when I was starting to think I might have to go into the park and find Blade myself, she appeared from the fenceline, guiding Tess along behind her. “Sorry we’re late! Lost track of time with my toys.”

I raised an eyebrow, unsure which ones she meant. But it didn’t matter: if we didn’t get into the car now, Cyrus was likely to run us over.

Sliding into the shotgun seat, I couldn’t help watching Tess through the rearview. She was beautiful: skin glowing, hair pulled back into a low pony, eyes bright as they flicked around the car. When they landed on me, I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face.

“Where are we going?” she asked: the first time she’d spoken to me in days.

“To get answers,” Cyrus murmured, whipping the car into motion.

Despite my excitement to hear Tess’ voice again, it was hard not to roll my eyes at Cyrus’ cranky act. We’d all heard what she said back in the safehouse. But I gave her a pass, hoping her grumpiness would fade once she made up some time on the road.

Leaning my elbow on the console, I turned to face Tess and saw Blade playing with a strand of her hair. Blade looked enraptured, single-mindedly fixated on her Trinket. But at this point, Tess was too used to Blade’s eccentricity to take note of it.

As she tilted her head, I explained. “Dom’s helping us out since the Oracle won’t play ball. She set up a meeting for us with a couple of sorority sisters from Atwood who should know more about the DMT. Or former sorority sisters, I should say.”

“Sorority sisters?” She scrunched her nose. “What are a bunch of co-eds going to know about drug dealing?”

Blade tugged on Tess’ hair teasingly. “I mean, they probably have a dealer. Maybe they can score us some skunk weed.”

“Very funny,” Tess glared, pulling away from Blade’s pestering grip.

But I shook my head. “I don’t know. Dom says the Laniidae sisters are plugged in though.”

“And do we trust Dom?”

No.

No offense to Violence, but frankly, I didn’t trust anyone outside of this car. Especially the way things were going in town. But Dom had information, connections. Things we lacked, things we desperately needed if we wanted to make any progress here.

And so far, Dom and her biker gang hadn’t given us any reason to doubt her.