Page 20 of Livewire Witch

“Speaking of your buddy Dante—”

She shakes her head before I can continue. “Nope. No. Whatever it is, the answer’s no. I already owe him more than enough favors and I don’t want to add to the tally.”

“But Silver.” Dropping to my knees in front of her, I whip out my best puppy-dog look. “We’re so lucky to have you on our team. Even more than we realized before, considering you’re actually a superhero.” I’m practically bouncing up and down, like an over-sugared toddler.

“And we need to find the shithead that cursed Fabian. Our last efforts didn’t go very well, as I’m sure you remember.”

There’s a chance Z, and I were a tad overeager in our effort to find the guy. We beat the shit out of a bunch of vamps and found absolutely no information.

“It’s not like you can walk around the city doing normal jobs at the minute, not if that asshole Felix Hawkshead has his eye on you,” Hanna says. “Plus, I’m guessing the pay will be absolutelystaggering for this kind of work. Now you’re a part of the in-crowd, right?”

I beam at her. If there’s one thing we’re not short of, it’s money. And if a bunch of cash is what Silver needs, that’s what she’ll have. Especially as I know the money from helping Fabian went straight to her family. She didn’t even save a bit to buy herself a fancy coffee every morning. That much was clear by the way she turned up at our door first thing every day to use our coffee pot.

“Sure. You just name the price,” I tell Hanna.

Might live to regret that one, but if it helps to persuade Silver to help us again, I’m game.

Step one in my master plan, get Silver to agree to spend all day, every day with me. Step two, earn the fuck out of her trust.

Step three is where she falls madly in love with me.

7

Silver

I’m pretty sure I had no chance of saying no to Roscoe. Not when he wanted to hear all my secrets, nor when he wanted my help with this new job they were hired for.

Yet, despite all of his puppy-dog eyed looks and soft whispered words in my ear, Roscoe doesn’t drag me to get to work as soon as my family has vacated the apartment. It takes most of the day until I can turf them all out. In the end, they only wind up leaving because three of them have shifts down at the coffee shop.

I never thought I’d see the day where they all had steady jobs. A regular income that’s not been cobbled together from dangerous work.

The next thing on my list is to find them somewhere new to live. Somewhere that’s not a total deathtrap. There’s a low-level guilt bubbling away when I think about how I’ve been living in swanky apartments for the past couple of months, while the rest of my family have been living amongst the mold and crappy plumbing.

Although, it doesn’t seem like such a good plan for them to move into anywhere in the Nexus District. We want as little connection between my family and Felix as possible. I fully expect him to hold a grudge against me, and if he can take it out on me by targeting my family, he will.

“We’ll find our own place. Don’t worry about it,” Hanna reassured me just before they left. “With that pile of cash you gave us, we can find someplace real swanky. Zero drug dealers in the vicinity. A working boiler. The whole shebang.” She then pulled me into a bone-crushing hug and smacked a loud kiss on my cheek. “I’m glad you’ve got these guys on your side. You deserve to have three shit-hot mages worshiping at your feet.”

“You li-ike them,” Ember sang under his breath.

“I told you,” Luna added with a huff. “You guys never take my Sight seriously. Things are all falling into place. You’re right where you’re meant to be, Silver.”

Hanna turned to her, propping her hands on her hips. “So when’s my prince showing up?” she asked. “You know, the one that’s meant for me and that I’m going to marry or whatever.”

Rook growled before things could devolve into bickering. “We should go. The coffee shop will fall apart without us.”

“Let me know if they fuck with you and I’ll fry their brains,”Ember said as he gave me a back-slapping hug in the doorway.

My family might be a bunch of misfits and outcasts, but we’re not powerless. We’ve just spent so long pretending to be, it might take a minute to get used to using our powers.

“Get your shit together and you’ll be having daily orgies by the end of the week,” Hanna chirped as she headed for the elevator.

I snorted loudly enough to draw the room’s attention. That was the point I ushered everyone else out the door and slammed the door shut before they could embarrass me any further.

That was about half an hour ago and my ears have just about stopped ringing from all the commotion. Still, their chaos was comforting.

There isn’t time to sit and veg out on the sofa, like I’d like to. Instead, Zeph gets a text and grunts.

“Halstead’s here to do the warding.”

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