Riley lifted his hand to her mouth and pressed her lips to his knuckles. What if, in her inexperience, she’d missed something, and his brain was swelling or bleeding? What if his electrical system was all messed up, or he had permanent psychological damage? Worse, what if the power he’d taken in had overwhelmed him, and he was lost forever?
Except Riley couldn’t find Marley’s power in him. Not a trace of it. And even more, not a trace of anything else. No residue from Tanda or Chloe, or even remnants from Beth. When Sam used his power back in the Numina apartment, he’d reduced it to a nearly unusable level. But Riley had still been able to see the residue, to know where Sam was at any given moment. Now, there was nothing. She could barely detect him at all.
The only thing keeping her from going off the deep end was that his signature was the same as Nick’s, the only other fully non-powerful human in the apartment.
“Riley, dinner’s ready.” Tanda hovered in the doorway. “We’re going to have a meeting. John’s here.”
She sighed. She didn’t want to leave Sam, but whatever they decided they were doing next, she would be part of. After everything that had happened, she had to be.
“I’m coming.” She stood and laid Sam’s arm across his abdomen. Tears pricked behind her eyelids and she blinked them back, suddenly angry. Sam could have told her he loved her, dammit. Instead of laying his guilt on her, apologizing for whatever he thought he’d done wrong. But she could have done the same. Could have put herself out there instead of protecting her heart, a stupid, immature hesitation that might have cost her what little comfort that sharing could have brought her.
She kissed him on the forehead and joined the others in the kitchen. They were already seated around the table, an oak rectangle inlaid with painted ceramic tiles that matched the ivy tiles on the backsplash and the pale green walls. She sat next to Marley and accepted the bowl of pasta Nick handed her.
“How is he?” Quinn asked.
“Same,” Riley managed.
“He’ll be okay,” Tanda tried to assure her, but the words were hollow. Riley nodded anyway. Marley passed a basket of garlic bread to Riley, her eyes lowered. She took it hesitantly, wondering what was wrong but not wanting to ask in front of everyone. Not that it was her place, anyway. Marley had been with Quinn all afternoon, and if she had any problems, she’d tell her sister, not Riley.
“We need to talk about Numina,” John said once all the food had been passed. “I had a pow-wow with Jeannine.” He ignored Nick’s snort of derision. “Her term is almost up, which has made her…reluctant to initiate any real action, even with the possibility that Numina, or Tournado’s snot-nosed group of them, anyway, might have infiltrated us.”
Riley watched Tanda’s hand tighten on her fork, her knuckles going white. Marley kept her head down while she toyed with her pasta, and Riley wasn’t sure she was even listening. Quinn carefully didn’t look at anyone, but Nick had stopped eating and stared at her.
“Um, what about the president elect?” Riley asked. “What’s her take?”
“We kind of don’t have one,” Tanda said. “But it’ll be Quinn.”
Quinn dropped her fork. Riley jumped, alarmed, but understood immediately that Quinn had done it on purpose. She stared back at Nick. Riley could almost see the words zipping back and forth between them.
“Aren’t you going to tell me I’m too weak?” Quinn asked him.
“Are you?” Nick smirked and glanced at Riley. “She’s stuck. She can’t use the excuse of being too sick, and then tell me to back off because she’s fine.”
“I wouldn’t tell you to back off. I’d tell you to take his job.” Quinn jerked her head at John, who grinned.
“Dinner and a show. How lucky are we?” He nudged Tanda, who laughed.
Marley stood and walked out of the room, a swirl of blackness following her that confused Riley. She automatically checked her as she had everyone else over the past several days. There was only Marley’s signature emptiness.
The bathroom door closed, and everyone sat awkwardly for a moment before continuing without comment.
“I’ll take his job if you take the one you were elected to,” Nick shot at Quinn.
“Wait, what?” Riley looked around the table. “You said there was no president elect.”
“Quinn refused to run,” Tanda told her. “We elected her anyway. Jeannine wouldn’t hold a special election or appoint anyone because we were all hoping she’d give in.”
“I was off politics,” Quinn said.
“Was?” Nick asked, his voice low, his gaze steady.
Quinn sighed. “I guess. It’s better timing now. Maybe.” She raised an eyebrow at Tanda. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine. Normal. The real normal.”
“I called Jennifer an hour ago,” Nick said. “Still fine.”
“And Chloe sent me an e-mail that she’s got another date with the new guy.” Tanda smiled. “Looks like everything’s fine there too. Like we keep telling you.”
“Yeah, well,” Quinn said wryly, “people—including me—have been saying that for three years without it being true. You can understand my skepticism.”
“So there you go,” Nick told John. “So what’s the plan?”
“We’ve met with a few of Numina’s legitimate leadership. We’ve proceeded cautiously, not knowing what they were up to, but after all this we need to formalize and expand.”
“We need to do research first,” Quinn cut in. “I want to know more before we launch a task force.” She went quiet suddenly and picked up her fork again. Nick’s eyes flicked to the hall, and Riley realized they were thinking about Sam. Their resident research geek.
The distraction the conversation had provided disappeared, and Riley tried to wash down the dry bread lodged in her throat.
John cleared his. “We know the faction going after goddesses has had another setback, with Anson disappearing.”
“Do we really know that though?” Riley asked. She wasn’t afraid of Anson anymore, not after seeing what he’d become. What the poison had done to him. What it was doing to Sam. She couldn’t sit here anymore. As important as all this stuff was, she wasn’t. They didn’t need her for planning.
“Where are you going?” John asked when she stood without paying attention. She’d probably interrupted someone mid-sentence.
“Sorry. I was going to check on Sam.”
“So does that mean you don’t want to be part of the task force?” Quinn asked.
Riley flushed. “No. I mean, well, sure. But why would you want me?”
“Well, let’s see,” Nick said sarcastically. “Why would we want a brave, smart, independent goddess who already knows more about Numina than anyone else in the goddess world, and oh, yeah, can physically detect them?”
She felt herself go a deeper red. “None of that really means anything. I have no idea what a task force does.”
“We’re not asking you to lead it,” Quinn said, not unkindly. “Just work with us.”
“Of course.” Riley shoved aside her insecurities and saw the value in what she could bring. “Thank you.”
“Planning without me, huh?”
Riley spun at the raspy, tired, but gorgeously deep voice behind her. Sam stood in the kitchen doorway, one hand on his stomach, a sheepish look on his face, and his hair a tousled mess.