Page 37 of For Love and Blood and Fury

Elena’s face was a twisted mask of contempt. “Or she was there to finish the job and?—”

“And what? She set up an attack on herself? For what?” Marisol gave her back to Zuri as if shielding her with her body. Fair skin flushed an alarming red, she was as angry as if Elena were accusing her of attempted murder. “If I hadn’t been there, she would have bled out, and you’d both be dead. What kind of plan is that?”

Wielding the facts and a rage Zuri had never seen before, Marisol was surprisingly confident. Maybe she was too ignorant to know how quickly Elena could kill them both. Even injured. Bambi was either fearless or stupid, Zuri hadn’t decided which. Elena’s anger seemed to falter, her gaze darting between them in a way that made her seem lost.

Staring at Marisol, outrage momentarily forgotten, Zuri considered her words. A wave of warmth, unexpected and potent, spread through her chest. Marisol was fierce in her own right. She had saved her life. If Marisol hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t sprouted those disconcerting wings and done the impossible…

Elena’s gaze softened, the monstrous edge fading a fraction as if remembering how Bambi had saved them both. She looked at Zuri, then at Marisol, a flicker of confusion crossing her face. “I don’t know what’s true,” she admitted, anger giving way to heartbreak.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Vibratingwith anger and all the I’m-about-to-turn-this-car-around energy of an irate soccer mom, Marisol slammed her foot on the golf cart’s accelerator and wished it would move faster. Wished that it could travel at the speed of her irritation instead of five inadequate miles per hour.

Marisol jumped out of the cart while it was still rolling. She stalked away before stopping short, turning around, and helping Zuri get Elena back into the house. She’d never been so pissed off that it blurred her vision before. The moment they were inside, she stormed into the living room, her bare feet slapping against the floor.

“What the hell was that?” she shouted, whirling around to face Elena seated in the armchair. Standing next to her, Zuri’s dark gaze was fixed and evaluating. “You two are acting like children! Screaming at each other like?—”

She stopped, her anger momentarily forgotten and replaced with exhaustion. She was at her breaking point, terrified and utterly lost.

“I’m stuck here,” she said, voice cracking despite her efforts to keep it steady. “With two complete strangers. I have no idea what’s happening. No clue when I’m going to get back to mylife, no way—” Her voice broke. Tears welled up in her eyes before they were forced out by the gnarled tangle of incomplete thoughts and crush of reality. “And you two are seriously going to behave like this?”

Elena, her anger morphing into a look of concern, reached out a hand towards her. “You’re not alone,” she said, her voice soft. Despite only having known her for a few days, Marisol knew that the gesture was unnatural. And if she didn’t know, Zuri’s what-the-hell expression would’ve given her the context clue.

“Not alone?” Marisol laughed, the sound brittle and hollow and more than a little maniacal. “I’m completely alone. My entire life has been ripped away. I have no one to turn to, no one to—” She choked back a sob, her body trembling with the force of her emotions. The ones she’d been shoving away because there was nothing she could do about them. She shouldn’t make herself any less helpless or ignorant or adrift.

Zuri, her expression softening, stepped closer to Marisol. “You’re not alone,” she repeated, her voice gentler than Marisol had ever heard it. “I know this is a lot?—”

“Which part is a lot?” Marisol was a rearing horse, kicking and braying and wild. She couldn’t find the will to tamp herself down. “The whole vampires are real thing? Or, wait, is it the vampires are real, and I made out with one, and then a whole other one tried to kill us and neither of you seem to know why the heck that is!” Her pulse was racing, tangling her tongue and obscuring her thoughts. “Don’t know whothatguy is, if he’ll find us while we sit here and all we have to protect us are some dream catchers that look like they came out of someone’s ‘shroom-fueled nightmare.” She glanced at Zuri. “No offense.”

“She can see them?” Elena asked, voice low and aimed at Zuri.

Without taking her attention away from her, like she feared what Marisol might do if she looked away for a blink, Zuri nodded.

“It’s tough luck you didn’t know about all this before.” Elena looked at Marisol like she was ill prepared to talk anyone off a ledge. “You know now, and you can join Zuri’s coven. They’ll teach you?—”

“No,” Zuri interrupted. “She can’t.”

“Oh, don’t be such an asshole right now, Zuri.” Elena’s anger flickered back to life. “The girl is?—”

Zuri turned to Elena. “No, I mean, she’s not a witch.”

“What?” Elena’s brow furrowed. “Then what the fuck is she?”

“I don’t know. She’s?—”

“She’s standing right here,” Marisol thundered. “Stop talking about me like I’m a child. Just because I don’t know all this stuff you two do doesn’t mean I’m like… some annoying little kid?—”

“To me you’re both a bit juvenile,” Elena joked, like that was going to make anything better. “It’s a good thing I’ve always liked my partners?—”

Marisol’s thoughts were a freight train. “What do you mean, I’m not a witch?” Her gaze darted between Zuri and Elena. The universe of things Marisol didn’t know expanded like a supermassive black hole swallowing a galaxy. Staggering backward, she was drowning in frustrating confusion. In the hopelessness of being even more alone than she realized. “What the hell else is there?”

Exchanging looks like parents debating whether to admit the truth about Santa, they glanced at each other then back at Marisol. Zuri inched closer to her. “I don’t think knowing what else goes bump in the night is going to make you feel any more in control, Bambi.” She took another step. “But I’ve never heard of anyone who can”—she gestured huge wings with her hands—“heal anyone the way you did.”

“So why didn’t you tell me I’m not a witch?” Marisol let her anger ebb, even if it meant the return of her grief and confusion. “We spent hours together?—”

“I know,” Zuri admitted, taking another step. “I didn’t want to freak you out.”

“And here I am anyway,” Marisol snapped. “I’m only a few years younger than you, you know. You’re not my mom, so stop…” She searched for the right words, but she was too angry. Too tired. “Stop trying to shield me, or whatever it is you think you’re doing. I’m a grown ass woman.”

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