Page 26 of Lower World
“Nowhere.” Her eyes darted around. “I was just checking to make sure everything is okay. It is, so …” She gave me two thumbs up with a strained smile on her face.
“Alice, stay away from Johnathan.” Nudging her away from the trapdoor of the basement, I had to force her to take a seat. “He will only provoke you to do something silly, and you’ll get hurt. Trust this as the truth; I’ve known him for a very long time.”
“I just have this feeling that he might say something to me that he won’t tell you.” Shoving her glasses up, she chewed her lip. “It’s just like … I don’t know, I just know it. Something not even your juju can make him say.”
“I wish you would stop calling it that.”
“And I wish you would stop treating me like a useless member of our group, yet here we are.”
“I don’t think you are useless.” Cocking my head to the side, I examined her, and she kept avoiding my gaze. “Is that what you think?” Crouched down so she didn’t need to crane her neck to look at me, I nudged her leg good-naturedly. “That you are useless in my eyes? Alice, you made the pendant come off my neck, something I never thought possible unless I was dead. And, may I remind you that you also healed me while providing an escape route and a safe place for us to hide. You are anything but useless, my friend.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. You know what I’m talking about.” Her breath huffed as she crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s always ‘Alice hide, Alice run, Alice don’t do that, Alice you’ll get hurt,’ and I’m tired of it.”
“I only want to protect you.” The defensive tone in my voice should’ve been indication enough, but it wasn’t.
“Because of guilt,” she hissed, and I jerked my eyebrows, raising them all the way to my hairline. “Don’t look at me like that it’s making me more angry. I know you, Brooklyn. While you’re too busy killing anyone that breathes wrong in my direction, avoiding your feelings for Dominic and acting like a one-woman mission, I pay attention, unlike some people around here. You feel guilty for Veronica dying, for those assholes killing Dominic’s family, and for me being involved in all of it.” Her shaking finger pointed at my nose. “You think it’s all your fault. Well, newsflash girl, it’s not. So, how about that, huh?”
My chest was too tight, and all I could do was stare at her.
“It’s. Not. Your. Fault.” She pronounced each word slowly. “Just like me, Veronica was an adult capable of making her own decisions. And you didn’t kill her or force me to come along. She could’ve stayed out of it, and I could’ve left you two when all this started, but I chose to stick around. Me. I made that choice myself, with my human monkey brain. Don’t take credit for my actions.”
“That is not what I am thinking—”
“Oh, no? And you don’t feel like you need to pay the price for the jerks killing Dominic’s family? It’s not your fault, woman. I’ll keep saying it until it gets through your thick, stubborn skull. You didn’t kill them.”
My ass hit the hard floor, which was thankfully cleared of all blood and gore after Alice put Dominic to work with a mop and a bucket. Lungs shriveled in my chest, I watched her face as she kept eye contact, unflinching in her statement. It wasn’t like she didn’t have a point. Guilt was one constant riding me hard through all of it. It startled me when she reached out and tucked some stray hairs that escaped my ponytail.
“If it’s true that your mother was a witch, maybe that’s why you have this fire red hair.” Her forefinger was twisting the ends of my hair around it as she muttered it. At my inquiring look, she shrugged. “More books, but human lore is full of witches with red hair and green eyes. Just like yours, actually.”
“That is why I need you to stay away from Johnathan and stick with Dominic.” I figured the time was as good as any to tell her my plan. “I have to get inside the Syndicate and see what I can dig up about his claims. The shifter will protect you until I come back; he won’t harm you.”
“I’m not afraid of Dominic. He is all bark with no bite. He likes me, he just doesn’t know it, yet.” A smile tickled her mouth, but it was gone in an instant. “I don’t think you should go there, but I won’t be a hypocrite, so I’ll keep my mouth shut. If anyone can do it, it’s you lady Wonder Woman, Your Grace.”
“What?” I could tell she was about to burst if I didn’t let her say her peace.
“I don’t need to ask you if you are telling Dominic where you’re going because I know you aren’t. I don’t blame you because he is worse than you when it comes to others making their own decisions. Just …” I waved a hand to prompt her when she hesitated. “I think I should go down to see Johnathan before you go. It feels important that I do that.”
“I see what is happening here.” Gaze narrowed on her, my lips pressed in a firm line. “You were softening me up to get things your way. Is that it?”
“Did it work?” She arched an eyebrow, shamelessly grinning at me.
“I know I’m going to regret this.” But she wasn’t listening.
Alice was already up, jumping off the chair and bouncing on the balls of her feet. After a harsh clap, she rubbed her hands, smiling from ear to ear while I unfolded myself off the floor. I really needed to slink out before Dominic caught a whiff of what I was doing, and if allowing Alice to come down to the basement assured her helping with that, it was a good plan. As far as insane and dangerous ones go, at least, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and all that.
“You are getting good at manipulation tactics,” I told her. “Too good.”
“I aim to please.”
“It is not pleasing to me to be manipulated.”
“You have a one-track mind, Brooklyn.” She was vibrating from excitement as she moved along with me toward the trapdoor. “Protect. And everything else gets lost in the cracks. That’s why you have me. I got that shit down pat and made it my bitch.”
“The things you say sometimes.” Shaking my head, I yanked the door open, ready to follow the stairs down, but she stopped me with a hand on my arm. I looked up at her from my crouch.
“Can you kind of stay on the stairs so he doesn’t know you are there?”
“I need to wake him,” I reminded her. “He will see me.” She was gnawing on her lip again, so I waited.
