“You’re talking to the motorcycle?” Evan asked.
I’d nearly forgotten about him.
“Yeah,” I said. “My motorcycle.”
“You have a motorcycle?” he asked. The enthusiasm was so clear I couldn’t help but smile a little. It was like a perfect reflection of the little boy inside me who had first given me the push to consider the thing.
“I guess I’m introducing you to my life,” I said. “This is my bike, and this building is my home. I count many people in here as family.”
“You’re related?”
“Not by blood. But we’re good friends. Family supports, back each other up. Accept the inconveniences. Sometimes that means a mom wipes a baby’s ass, even though it’s gross and boring. Sometimes it means you give a brother-in-law a place to stay. Sometimes it’s just a listening ear you wouldn’t give to a friend, but you have to give to them because the bonds are that tight.”
“Yeah,” Evan said.
Fuck me. I was rambling, and I was probably making him miserable. He was whatever the opposite of an orphan was.
“Sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“It does. But it’s okay. It’s interesting to think about, and it makes me miss my parents. But not in a bad way.”
“That’s sort of what family is, isn’t it? It doesn’t always feel great, but that feeling of connection kind of helps fill a hole, doesn’t it?”
“Sorta.”
“Well, these guys backed me up when I needed it. They’re more family than my family-by-blood were.”
“Can they back you up now?”
“Maybe a little. But I can’t tell them about magic without putting them in danger.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The tour… apartment lobby. My landlord and good friend Joel’s apartment is down here on the ground floor.”
“Uh huh.”
I limped to the elevator.
I’d come here for a reason. It was only dawning on me now what that reason was.
I needed more strength to go up against Conquest. This was it. Nourishing me. Building up the reserves I’d spent when I’d spilled my own blood and sacrificed a part of myself to revive Rose.
“Third floor, my apartment. A friend helped me get set up-”
I stopped short.
Said friend was there, sitting by my apartment door, back to the wall, legs crossed, phone in her lap.
“Stay out of sight a bit?” I asked.
A light flutter of wings, transformation into a ghost while midair, and Evan disappeared through the wall.
The flutter seemed to get her attention.
“Blake,” Alexis said. “Holy shit.”
“Hey,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Where the hell have you been?”
“The police arrested me. I thought they quizzed everyone I know.”
“I know,” she said. She climbed to her feet. “You’re bleeding?”
I looked down. I’d taken off my coat to wrap the arm, and my sweatshirt sleeves were brown and crusty with blood.
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I only kept looking down.
“Let me text Joel,” she said. “He’s been worried sick.”
I nodded. I wanted to say no, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak around the lump in my throat.
A part of me had believed that I’d come back to find only an eviction notice. That radiation of some sort might have caused me to lose my ties to friends and home.
“There. Are you okay?”
I shook my head a little. My voice came out hoarse with sudden emotion. “No.”
“You didn’t tell me it was that serious. Holy fuck. They framed you for murdering some kid?”
No doubt in her mind?
I’d been playing subtle mind-games with myself, falling into Duncan’s trap, believing that my friends might abandon me.
“Yeah,” I said. “They tried, anyway.”
She was closer now, looking me over.
“But your arms,” she said. She reached out, as if compelled, then stopped. “Can- can I see?”
I knew that the images wouldn’t line up, that they wouldn’t fit.
But I couldn’t say no. Not really.
She stuck her hands in her back pockets while I rolled up one sleeve. My right arm’s sleeve, so I could hold the jacket and demon arm without making the locket too obvious.
“Oh no,” she whispered.
I looked. The heads were attached, the images distorted, and the blood that had crusted over masked the colors.
But long cuts still marked the backs of each arm, and some, despite my efforts with glamour, intersected my tattoos.
“We can fix that,” she said.
I nodded.
“Was it police brutality?” she asked.
“It was just one of them that was a real bastard.”
She glanced at me, then at my apartment door. “Your apartment, they totaled it.”
“Yeah.”
“We put what we could back in place.”
I nodded again. “Thank you.”
I heard the elevator ding. Joel.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
Where had I been?
I’d had thoughts on want and need earlier. This was the flipside. I needed this, but I didn’t want it. The genuine caring about how I was doing.
I wasn’t sure how to answer the question.
“Trying to survive,” I said.
“People do crazy things for money,” Alexis said.
“Power more than money,” I said.
She nodded. Taking it at face value.
Taking me at face value.
“You look like hell,” Joel said. “Why are you bleeding?”
“Police did it,” Alexis said.
While Alexis got Joel up to speed, I stepped to one side and opened my apartment door.
Sure enough, I could see things out of place. Damage. My sanctuary disturbed. One of the closet doors had been taken off the roller mount, set to one side. Things in the closet were out of place. There were stacks of paper on the coffee table that were supposed to be in a box in the other room. Scattered by the police, no doubt, and set in place by my friends.
I needed to plan, to prepare, to get my ducks in a row and my weapons out and loaded. Whatever those weapons were supposed to be.
I needed to recharge my personal batteries.
I needed the emotional support, at a point when I felt lower than ever, and damn hopeless.
I needed to act, to help Rose, to help myself.
There wasn’t any clear path in front of me.
I thought of what I’d just been saying to Evan.
“Joel?”
“Yeah?”
“Before, you were telling me that friendships didn’t have to be even. That sometimes they were lopsided.”
“Yeah. I was being hard on you. I didn’t realize you were in the middle of something this messy.”
“How do you know which side the scales should tip? When it’s lopsided, how do I know if I’m serving the friendship or serving myself at the expense of the friendship?”
“I’m not sure what you mean, but… trust your gut?”
“Uh huh,” I said.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I need help,” I said.
“What kind of help?”
I leaned against the wall. I couldn’t look at them, so I looked the same way I had with the demon. “The selfish sort.”