“Nope.”
“So you wanna tell me what the fuck made you latch on to that dragon the way you did? It was damn impressive, but risky as all hell, considering you’re a human. Do you have a death wish or some shit? Because if that’s the case, that makes you dangerous, and I won’t have you risking everyone else’s lives just because you don’t feel like you have anything worth dropping your feet on the floor for every morning.”
Toni swatted at a stray tear with her thumb and inhaled, stooping to grab a thin limb. Did she have a death wish? Had she been that reckless because she was alone in the world and there was nothing left anywhere for her? Was she unconsciously looking to end it all?
Toni fought that notion even as she denied it, trying to keep her voice light. “No death wish, promise. I can’t explain what happened. It just happened. I just instinctively knew what to do to disarm the dragon. And I guess I’m not so human anymore if I’m breathing fire, huh? Does that make me one of you?”
Nina grunted and yanked up one of her ripped sleeves. “I don’t know what the hell it makes you, but I’d sure like some answers. Usually when we have a client, we have a source that’s bigger than just making a random wish in your lady brain.”
“A source?”
“Yeah, like the person who ends up accidentally turned had tangled with someone or something to get in the fix they’re in. Case in point, Wanda’s yappy, rambling bookworm sister, Casey. She had demon blood spilled on her at a bar when she was chasing after her out-of-control twin charges. Poof. Instant demon. But you have an entire realm doing this to you, an unseen entity. How the fuck do you fight that?”
Yeah. Good question. How the fuck?
Pushing her tangled hair from her face, Toni nodded and turned around. “I’d like to know, too. Listen, I don’t know if I thanked you properly for saving me today. I would have been a grease spot if not for you. I guess I didn’t think the whole thing through, but it was like not being in control of all my faculties. Brawn over brain or something…Anyway, thank you. I’d have never survived without you.”
Nina stopped gathering limbs for the fire and looked her directly in the eye. “The best way to thank me is to not wander off by yourself. There’s obviously some crazy shit out there, and I don’t know if it was luck or what that saved your sparkly ass, but we might not be so lucky next time.”
“Who’da thunk a Starbucks could cause so much trouble?”
“You do realize the Starbucks was basically Snow White’s apple, don’t you, Boogie Shoes? A metaphor or some such shiz?” Nina asked, her gaze hard and unflinching as her wings pumped softly.
She’d thought long and hard about it as they’d continued their walk to the campsite earlier today. “I do now. I guess at the time, because I was desperate for coffee, my impulse control got the better of me.”
“From now on, just stay close. I can’t protect you if I can’t see you, dipshit.”
Toni chuckled, bending at the waist to arrange the limbs. “Is that what you’re doing? Protecting me? You’re not such a bitch after all, huh?”
Nina cracked a branch in half, the sound harsh in the silence, reverberating off the trees. “I’ma say this once. Respect for having the balloon-size clangers to stand your ground with me. I like a chick who can handle her own shit. You’re in a small class of people who’ve lived to tell the tale. But do it again? Die. And it’ll hurt. Oh, Jesus and your lady brains spattered from here to kingdom come, it’ll hurt.”
Toni shivered, wrapping the blanket Jon had given her from his pack tighter around her. She didn’t doubt Nina meant what she said. She also didn’t doubt there was much more to Nina than met the eye.
Nina came around to her side of the fire and plopped down on a fallen tree trunk next to her. Pointing to the pit they’d made together, she said, “Breathe, Fire Starter.”
Tension coiled in her stomach. “What if I can’t do it again? Or worse, what if I can?” What if, for the rest of her life, she was going to set things on fire? Like Marty’s hair again? Or a house?
Not one to mince words, Nina looked right at her, her pale face sharply contrasted by the dark night. “Then you’ll deal. We’ll help you.”
Help. No one had given her much of that in a long time. Not the police. Not the people she’d once worked with. No one. “Why would you help me? You don’t even like me. I’m the one who’s responsible for this whole mess. You should hate my guts.”
“It’s just what I do. It’s what we all do. I bitch about it plenty. I complain. I swear. But I do it because the other two windbags need me to do it. We’re ride-or-die partners for life.”