Tainted: Book Three - Enslaved

43. I Never Stood a Chance

Rome

Later that evening, I found Kerry sitting on the side of his bed with his face in his hands.

Uh-oh.

"Hinge says the shadow you drew is the same one who killed him." I sat on Jax's bed. "No one can get a hold of Amanda Greenaway, but Gigi texted a photo of your sketch to Kyo, and he said it's the same shadow he saw in her memory from when she was petrified."

It was only confirmation of what we'd already guessed, but he groaned as if I'd punched him in the liver, which, in case you've never experienced it, hurts.

"I ain't never gonna get her back, am I?" he muttered.

"That's your taint talking. We'll find her."

"Yeah? In how many pieces?"

He dropped his hands and raised his head, and I inhaled sharply. His eyes had less life in them than that corpse we'd found in the mountains.

Gigi was right. The rage either burned out or was smothered by hopelessness.

"She told you herself that she was safe," I reminded him. "Stop imagining the worst. Anyway, I've been thinking. Could we take a bit of Hinge's power? Just a smidgen to have proof of a miracle worker? He wouldn't be exposed to any risk, and we only need enough to convince Hubler. If we could use it to trick him into meeting with us, we'd have an opportunity to get the seal from him."

"Setting a trap didn't work so great last time. Why would it work this time?" He fell onto his side and threw his legs up on the bed.

"It would buy us time—"

"Time? What does time matter against demon princes and necromancers and djinn? Against corrupted wardens and traitors on the Council?" He covered his face with his hands again. "I never stood a chance of getting her back, did I?"

"Listen—"

"Lemme alone. I wanna sleep." His muffled voice cracked at the end.

A furious tiger was hard enough to handle, but a desperate one would require a kind of motivation that I feared none of us could provide. With a heavy frown, I got to my feet and went to find more rational minds.

#

Mira

"He's not good, Jax." Rome jerked his head toward the bedroom. "Maybe you should try and talk to him."

"Is he losing it?" Jax scrambled to his feet.

"Losing faith, anyway. Gigi, you were right. The fury finally ran out."

"I told y'all it would."

We trooped back to the boys' bedroom, where Rome sat on Jax's bed. One look at Kerry's face and I stayed next to Rome. Even looking as if his soul had flown out of him, Kerry was dangerous.

Jax wasn't so wary. He sat down on the end of his bed.

"Too close." Kerry half-heartedly shoved Jax's hip with his sock foot. "Go away."

Jax didn't budge except to pull Gigi down to sit on his lap.

"Dude," he said, "what's going through your head?"

It took a coupla minutes, and Jax had to prod him some more before he finally caved.

"What if she falls for him?"

"Who? Darius?!" Jax traded a look with Gigi. "Do you really believe she's so fickle, she'll fall for the guy who kidnapped her? An enemy who took her away from her friends and the guy she does love?"