star for one year before she hurt her knee— one . Not nearly enough. Not at only twenty-six years old.
She stiffened her spine another notch. “I can dance, Kacie.”
“Only with a brace on,” Kacie reminded her with a levelheadedness Faith should’ve celebrated in her flighty sister.
Except she didn’t particularly care to hear anything logical right now.
“You can’t wear a brace onstage,” Kacie added unnecessarily.
“Well, I’m not ready to quit.”
Kacie stared down at the mushrooms.
Why wasn’t Kacie agreeing with her? Their opinions matched as inevitably as their appearance. “So here’s what we’ll do,” Faith said in the matter-of-fact tone that always got Kacie hustling along in the right direction. “We’ll fly out to San Diego next week and meet with this man. I’ll tell him about my knee and we’ll hear what he has to say. After that, we can travel to Los Angeles for Christmas with Aunt Idyll. We haven’t seen her in a long time, and we owe her a visit.”
Kacie chewed on her bottom lip.
Faith pushed to her feet, impatient now. If Kacie wouldn’t go, Faith certainly couldn’t. Her sister needed to stop hemming and hawing. Because Faith needed to go. “What harm could it do just to talk to this”—Faith glanced at the name at the end of the email—“this Raymond Parthen?”
“I guess it couldn’t hurt,” Kacie finally conceded. Looking up, she smiled tentatively. “Okay, let’s go.”
Chapter Seven
Topside: somewhere in San Diego, same night, close to midnight, Pacific time
Thomal breathed heavily through rounded nostrils, his teeth gnashed around the gag in his mouth. He probably should’ve been scared shitless, considering he was chained to a chair in a seedy downtown hotel room, and the Topside Om Rău ass-can who was in the room with him looked like he planned to do some serious tap dancing on his balls. But he could only muster pissed-out-of-his-skull. A slanting glance at Arc, similarly bound to a chair next to his, confirmed his brother was in an identical foul state. It didn’t help either of their moods that they’d landed in this goatfuck by seriously screwing up.
We’re only talking a few questions, right ? had been the absolute wrong attitude to take. Thomal had been way too chill about this mission, which had left him unprepared to find that lip-scarred Om Rău lunatic, Videön, already at Ria Mendoza’s house. Yeah, go figure . A Bătaie Blade had been used during the crime against Ria’s sister, so, surprise-surprise, an Om Rău had been at her house. Fuck me …
Videön had opened the door with a Taser gun already pointed and ready to deploy.
Thomal and Arc had proceeded to stand in place like a couple of dickless wonders and let the Om Rău take them out with about as much effort as shooting fish in a barrel. After that, they’d been tied up and transported to this shithole of a hotel room, then for some reason, handed over to Mürk. Maybe Videön’s schedule was too full of ripping the wings off butterflies and skinning live cats for him to waste time river dancing on the balls of a couple of dickless wonders. Maybe Videön knew how much Mürk hated Arc—Arc had viciously broken Mürk’s hand about nine months ago—and so he’d done Mürk a solid.
As far as hate went, the feeling was way fucking mutual on Arc’s end.
The hand-breaking incident had been in retaliation for Mürk shooting Arc: a little disservice that had made it impossible for Arc to save Thomal—and himself, for that matter—from a four-story fall down to some nasty pavement kissage.
All in all, as far as hate went, Thomal and Mürk had their own baggage. On the night of Tonĩ’s kidnapping at Scripps Hospital, Thomal had stabbed Mürk in the neck with a pair of medical scissors. So Thomal would probably have his own turn at the table for whatever Mürk was dishing.
Blah, blah, blah . Bottom line was: tonight was going to be filled with some major hurt. Kind of