Page 84 of Shades of Silver City

Tasia hesitates, glancing back and forth between her roommates.

The painter-girl sighs, uncrossing her arms. “I didn’t sleep with Reed,” she says, then narrows her dark eyes at me. “Can you go or something?”

After a few moments, Tasia jerks her chin toward me in what I interpret as a subtle “go on” movement.

I nod, shifting her duffle bag higher on my shoulder, but before I leave, I move toward Tasia’s roommates. Glancing at each of them in turn, I say, “You will not harm Tasia in any way. You will look out for her, always.”

The women go blank, blinking a few times before nodding in assent.

“Archer,” Tasia whispers, tugging my arm. “Stop being weird.” I pull back, giving her a wink.

I’ve been quite liberal with my use of glamour around Tasia. Not once have I made an effort to conceal my own abilities. In fact, she knows I can scent death before it happens. Yet she never asks questions, never acknowledges it. It’s sad that she’s stifled her own magic out of shame and fear, and it’s almost hurtful that she’s so willing to ignore mine.

Maybe one day she’ll ask, and I can give her my truth.

For now, I let her pretend with me. Pretend we are both normal, that we’re not two walking death sentences in a city full of people trained to despise us.

Her brow wrinkles in confusion, and she shakes her head. She hands me her father’s journal and shoos me away. “Go. Give me five.”

“I’ll be downstairs,” I say. Leaning in, I give her a quick kiss on the forehead. She stutters, blinking up at me.

I can’t help but smirk at the fact that I caught her off guard.

Once I’ve descended the stairs, I hide in the shadows of the stairwell, using my enhanced senses to listen to their conversation.

Even though the women are successfully glamoured and the ex-boyfriend is off the premises, I don’t feel comfortable leaving Tasia alone.

“I have somewhere to be,” Tasia says, her voice cold enough to freeze fire.

“Fine,” Alisha says. “Then go. No one is forcing you to stay.”

“Stop it!” Stace says, then sighs. “That’s not— We were worried about you, Tasia. You didn’t return my messages.”

“I’ve been busy. Don’t really have time for drama.”

“Drama?” Alisha says, scoffing. “I never hooked up with Reed, by the way.”

There’s a pause. Tasia’s heart rate picks up. I hate that such an ignorant boy could cause such a strong woman so much pain.

“I don’t care,” Tasia says. I sense an inherent honesty behind her words. She pauses, her heart rate slowing back down. “I’m with someone else now, anyway.”

“Yeah, the Crawler. We saw.”

“Alisha, stop being a bitch,” Stace hisses.

“I’m not being anything,” Alisha replies.

“Look, Tasia, you should probably lie low for a while,” Stace whispers. “There’s a reward for turning you in.”

“What?” Tasia’s breathing increases again. “What do you mean, a reward? I was on the UIS again?”

“Again?” Stace’s voice holds a hint of confusion. “There were flyers with your face on them—downtown.”

“They’re offering five thousand fucking silvers,” Alisha adds.

Shit.

I stiffen, quickly locating my cell phone. My fingers fly as I shoot off updates to Pixel and Godric, telling them to get teams on the streets—now. Sometimes flyers pop up around town with Godric and me on them, but our faces are normally unrecognizable, so we don’t worry about it…but if Tasia’s roommates recognized her on the flyers, it’s only a matter of time before someone else does.

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