“That’s because she is.” Mordecai turned away toward the fridge.

“Yes, Mordie, we know she is worth more than a basket of gold and chocolate. But usually we’re the only ones.” She moved closer to the table. “Then again, she’s a bona fide class-five magical worker.” She reached across the table for her clipboard. “We need to find out what someone like her is worth in the job market. He could be shortchanging us. That bitch already owes us money for the freak show thing. I haven’t forgotten. I’ll be damned if he’s going to get one over on us again.”

“That one’s mine, right?” Mordecai asked softly, glancing at the shaking packet in my hands.

I didn’t look up from the cover page. I didn’t want him to see my fear.

This packet would tell me if my inability to keep him stocked up on medicine had damaged him for life. That, or it would tell me there was still hope, but only if I willingly put myself into the hands of an egotistical, possessive Demigod who was about to be in a fight with his homicidal father.

“I’ll do the honors,” Daisy said softly, putting down her clipboard. She’d clearly noticed my expression and read the situation. She gingerly took the packet.

Mordecai turned to stare out the window, not seeing the curtain in the way.

She took a deep breath, pulled the cover page up, and then tucked it behind the rest of the packet.

“Read it out loud,” Mordecai said. “It doesn’t matter regardless. There’s no sense in beating around the bush.”

“Forty-four percent corrosive cells,” she read, her brow furrowing. “Seven-two percent responsiveness…” She shook her head and turned another page. Then another. “Ah. Here. A summary.” A relieved smile crossed her face. “Damage rate is borderline critical, but”—her smile widened—“likelihood of… I can’t pronounce this, but the procedure for people like him is ninety-two percent likely to prove effective!” She looked between me and Mordecai excitedly, then went back to the summary. “If he does not get the procedure, likelihood of his condition improving with continued medication…is dim, okay, fine, but…” She traced a line with her finger. “The likelihood of his condition staying stable with continued medication is a strong possibility.” She dropped the page, joy radiating from her whole body. “He’s okay! He could be better, sure, but as long as he gets his meds, he’ll be okay.”

Pain soaked through my middle and tears welled in my eyes. I turned away toward the coffee pot so they didn’t see. “Except I don’t have a job, Daisy. And now I don’t have the freak show. I have no way to earn money. What happens when the meds run out again?”

“You don’t need the freak show. We can take your act to the streets.” Daisy snatched up her clipboard. “There has to be a dark alley where your caliber of magic would really sing.”

Her enthusiasm was admirable, but it didn’t stop the tears from rolling down my face. Utter helplessness dragged at me. Fear for the future. Sorrow at what Mordecai was going through. I could end this. I could fix it.

What was a Demigod’s gilded cage if it saved a loved one from a life of pain?

“We still have that other medicine to sell,” Daisy said, her voice ringing with determination and confidence. “You can ask around at that bar you go to. From your stories, it sounds like those people would know how to unload it, or they may be in the market themselves.” I heard her pen scratching on paper. “I can still take a job with Denny’s dad. I won’t give myself away. I know I won’t. So that’ll hold us over for a while…”

“You’re not taking that job, Alexis,” Mordecai said softly, cutting through Daisy’s planning.

“No way.” Daisy’s pen smacked the paper. “Like, really? He’s going to try to blackball you, then deliver this, and expect you to just cower at his feet? No.” She was writing again. “I say we egg his car. Didn’t you say he had a really nice car? Well, eggs would ruin the paint. The punishment would fit the crime.”

“I would be down for that,” Mordecai said.

I blew out a long breath, letting my emotions run their course. Letting all this wash over me.

“We can make it,” Daisy said. “We can. I know we can.”

“I agree.” Mordecai turned away from the sink. “Next year, I’ll be sixteen, then I can get a work permit. I can get medical myself, or just help with the bills. We’ll have enough. We just have to get through one more year.”

“Easy,” Daisy said. “We just need to figure out this dark alley idea until we can get into the new freak show. I know, what about—”

I laughed silently through my tears. They were resilient, these kids. True survivors.

“Okay,” I said, marshaling my resolve. “Okay. We’ll do this as a family. But…” I wiped my face really quickly and turned toward them with my finger held out. “If we run out of medicine again, I’m taking that job.”

“We won’t.” Daisy gave Mordecai a comforting look. “We won’t run out. We’ll keep you steady until we can get you that procedure. We’ll do it.”

I nodded as determination rose through me. Followed by anger.

That meddling Demigod asshole thought he could strong-arm me into getting what he wanted. He thought he could play Mordecai’s condition against me.

But he didn’t realize that, in my moments of weakness, I had two awesome kids to band together and raise me up.

“Keep that egging idea on the back burner,” I said, my natural fire and aggression coming to the surface. When life gave you lemons, find someone to chuck them at.

Even if that someone was a Demigod.

“What are you going to do?” Daisy asked.

“I’m going to tell a Demigod where to shove it.”

I grabbed a sweatshirt from my room and marched toward the door.

“Keep your clothes on this time,” Daisy yelled after me.

39

Alexis

“Any of them in the yard?” I asked Frank as I slung my purse, now misshapen as well as discolored, across my body.

“Yes, ma’am, there is. Right over there.” Frank pointed at the overgrown shrubs hugging the corner of my house.

They weren’t thick or extremely high, but if it hadn’t been for Frank, I never would’ve guessed some big guy lurked within them.

I stalked that way, Frank at my side. “Should I check in with the eyes at the rear?” he asked, clearly digging this bit of spy speak.

“No need.”

Donovan, with his perpetually tousled hair that worked so well for him, looked up with haunted eyes, his smile long gone. He wasn’t nearly as excited about his job as Frank was about leading my surveillance team. Then again, he had been kicked in the keister by a ghost.

He stood slowly, knowing the jig was up. He didn’t bother asking how I knew he was there.

“Tell your boss I’m on my way to meet him,” I said without preamble. “I assume the location in that envelope is good?”

Donovan looked down at his arms before shivering. His hairs were probably standing on end. He felt Frank’s presence. “Yes. He’s already there.”

“Is he, now? So sure I’d accept his offer?”

“Do you have any choice?” Donovan shrugged. “It benefits everyone. Why wouldn’t you take it?”

“Oh, I don’t know, because he’s manipulating me? Because he’s trying to trap me into giving him what he wants?”

“If you want to beat the player, you have to learn how to play the game,” Donovan said with a smirk.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Kick him again, Frank.”

“With pleasure.” Frank rubbed his hands together.

I spun and stalked across the grass to my car.

The meet-up wasn’t far, on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. I parked as close as I could, next to his shiny Ferrari that sorely needed a key scrape down the side and a few eggs, before hiking up the hill toward the brick wall enclosing the magical zone. The paved path ended and a dirt trail took over, turning sandy as I wound around a couple of trees and along the steep cliff.

A mostly broken wood and wire fence leaned badly, warning people and dogs alike from going too near the cliff’s edge. Huge sections were missing, and others dangled down, falling as the cliff eroded away.

Not far in the distance, the non-magical fence sparkled silver in the late afternoon sun. Coiled barbed wire looped on top and little white signs hung at chest level, their words lost to the distance, but I knew they warned of a life-threatening shock should anyone touch the fence.

I checked the map Kieran had sent, then followed the curve of the cliff through another outcropping of wind-whipped trees. My shoes sank into the sand and the cold ocean breeze bit my cheeks. At the edge of the tree line the world stretched out before me, blue water reaching from one side to the other. Cold gray sky sank until it met the ocean in the distance.

A small green bench sat in the middle of a flat area overlooking the magnificent view. Ten feet beyond, the land dropped abruptly, and no fence stood in the way of that expanse of land and sky.