Page 50 of Dark OZ

Danny was quiet for a long time. I didn’t think it was possible, but now I was sure—Dandelion was keeping secrets from us. He looked over his shoulder to double-check that Thea was still asleep.

“I need the Wizard to help me with something. I’ve made requests before, but they’ve always turned me down. Now that we have the emerald, I have leverage that I’ve never had before.”

“Leverage for what?” Nick asked slowly.

Danny let out a long sigh and looked down at Thea again. “You guys know that I moved in with my grandmother after my mother died.”

“Of course. I told Thea that story yesterday morning. About the day we met and what a prat I was.” I watched him carefully, trying to discern where he was going with this.

Danny waited another long while before finally saying, “That wasn’t my grandmother. She told everyone to call her Granny, but I was placed in her home by social services.”

That was news. He was never close with his grandmother, but none of us were close with our families, so I didn’t think anything of it. Danny didn’t want to talk about it, and I respected that, so I never asked.

“When I was eleven, my entire family was…” Danny groaned. He was rattled. Whatever he was holding onto all these years must be something massive. “Fuck it. I’m just going to say it. The Farm raided the commune that my family lived on. They killed anyone over the age of forty and everyone under ten. The rest carted away in the back of Cyclone trucks.”

“Everyone?” Nick asked, eyebrows raised in shock.

Danny nodded, then looked back out the window.

My stomach churned with the knowledge, flip-flopping between the revelation about Danny’s history with The Farm and the brutality of what he was saying. Children. Fuck. I knew The Farm’s practices could be brutal, but killing kids was a whole other level of evil. When I thought of the scared little boy who walked into my classroom all those years ago and the hell I’d put him through just because he was a little different from the rest of us…Fucking hell.

“I’ve been asking the Wizard to help me with finding information about the people who were taken that day and what happened to my sisters. They always shut me down, but now with the emerald...We can’t make a run for it. The Wizard wants Dorothy, and I’m going to deliver her. Just like they asked.”

“Fair enough.” I ran a hand down the silken arm draped over my chest. Thea murmured a tiny sound that made my heart squeeze. “But if things get bad, I’m taking Thea and making a run for the border.”

There it was. I’d drawn a line. He could decide if he wanted to cross it. Conflict twisted Danny’s features. When he finally looked at Thea. It flickered between pain, rage, and fear.

“Danny… Thea isn’t Emily. You know that, right?”

“I know that now. But it doesn’t change anything.”

“No, it changes everything,” Nick’s voice snapped with a harsh whisper. “Eleven years, Danny. We’ve been in this together for eleven years, and this the first you’ve mentioned it.”

Danny twisted back to face forward. “It’s not really something I ever wanted to discuss…and that’s all I want to say about it now.”

“Cazzata! We could have done something. You didn’t need to shoulder this on your own. The day you pulled me from Eastin’s basement, we swore an oath. We are in this together until the end. You don’t get to decide when and how we uphold those vows.”

Danny’s head leaned against the glass, the strength he’d been holding on to leaving with a long exhale. “Just keep driving. The sooner we pass the Emerald borders, the better.”

Chapter 22

“Wecan’tstayinthis car forever.”

Thea’s voice abraded against my overtired nerves, rousing me from the little bit of sleep I was allowing myself.

“We need real food, I need new pants, and Ozma willing, some underwear.”

“I dunno, I quite like when you just lounge in the back of the car naked for days,” Crowe said, twisting from the front seat to scan over her curves. She wasn’t naked anymore, hadn’t been since she woke up outside Crystal City on the first day. She was wearing a set of the emergency shorts and shirt we kept in one of the compartments. But they were entirely too large on her, the shorts, in particular, slipping from her hips every time she shifted.

Thea pulled her t-shirt over her knees like that changed anything. Crowe has by far been the kindest to her, but the daggers she was glaring at him right now said she was done playing nice.

I stretched and cracked my spine. It had been an interesting couple of days.

“I’m serious, Danny. If I don’t get to have something hot in my stomach, clean water to wash my face, and a pair of pants that don’t expose my ass every time I shift, I will start making this drive very,veryuncomfortable for you.”

Danny flashed her a grin in the mirror. “Do tell,Princess.”

“Please tell me it involves putting on a show.” Crowe snickered, nearly climbing into the backseat. “I volunteer to assist. Two for one, you can reward me and punish him.”

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