Silver (20 page)

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I sit in the back room at Hunter's, waiting for Blake to finish up a poker game. Fishnet, who is apparently Sierra, sits with Jonah two tables away. They make no effort to include me. Every now and then Sierra makes a point of looking in my direction just before she whispers something in Jonah's ear and laughs. It's all very mature.

Portia serves drinks to the poker players, but I have to get mine directly from the bartender, an old guy who makes a face every time I ask for refill on my Diet Coke. I try to ignore the way Portia touches Blake when she gets near him. A hand on his back, his shoulder, his arm, so casual I can almost believe she's just being friendly or supportive.

If Blake notices, he doesn't react. At the card table he has a singular focus. His attention never wavers. It's easy to see the predator in him as he watches his three remaining opponents.

Mr. Stevenson pushes a large stack of chips toward Blake. Colonel Lydon and Mr. Basker fold.

My role here is simple. I'm a living mood regulator, close enough to ease the ever-present ache when we're apart, far enough away to avoid the distracting hum of pleasure while Blake works. It's Thursday night, but Blake promised to have me home well before midnight. I don't plan to be anywhere near this place when my birthday rolls around. Like Cinderella in reverse, at midnight I'll go from humble servant girl to belle of the ball, no faerie godmother required. Of course, there's always the risk I'll turn the handsome prince into a pumpkin. And that would be letting him off easy.

Joe ambles into the room in a black leather bomber jacket. He nods at Jonah but keeps walking, sliding into the seat across from me.

“How's he doing?” Joe nods in the general direction of the game.

“He has the second highest chip count, and Mr. Stevenson is on tilt, so he'll probably be out soon.”

“You follow poker?”

“My dad watches it when there's no golf on.” I don't tell him how I used to make a game of calculating the odds of each player winning the hand before they showed the numbers on the screen. True geek confessions will have to wait another day.

Joe still watches the poker table, but his words are only for me. “You know it's not too late to get away from here.”

It's not like I haven't given it some serious thought. “Are you trying to get rid of me?” I ask.

“Nah. It's been a long time since things were even halfway interesting.” Joe pulls out a pack of cigarettes and sets it on the table.

Something about the distant look in his eyes triggers a thought. “How long have you been with the Sons?”

“A generation or two.” We both know he's lying. “You lose count after a while.”

So I'm guessing the
giolla
aren't historians because of their scholarly pursuits—they live the history they report. No wonder Joe is behind the times. I feel a little sorry for him. It can't be easy staying the same while the rest of the world grows up around you.

“Have you known others?” I ask. “
Bandia
, I mean.”

“Goes with the territory. Last time was nearly eighty years ago. She wasn't around long, mind you, but she killed three Sons before they got her. Regular bitch on wheels, that one.”

“What happened to her?”

“Same as always.” Joe pulls a cigarette from the pack and rolls the filtered tip between his thumb and forefinger. “Knife to the heart.”

I know he means it literally, but part of me can't help but wonder if it's figurative as well—if she was betrayed by someone she loved. “Why didn't you turn me in the first time you saw me?”

“It's not my war. Besides, it looked like you were gonna take up with Austin. I didn't think it was in the best interest of the Circle for them to get into it with him.”

He knows about Austin. “Why not?”

“He's more powerful than the rest of you. You'd do well to remember that. He doesn't see the world the same way. He won't back away from a fight.”

“He backed down from Blake.” I think about how Austin left us alone in Avernus. He didn't fight Jonah either. Not even when Jonah had a knife to his throat. What had he said the other day? That he couldn't get directly involved?

“Austin doesn't back down from anyone unless he's got a reason.” Joe's eyes travel to the bar. “Speak of the devil.”

We both turn as Austin walks into the room, his arm thrown casually around Haley's shoulders. His brown hair falls across his forehead so that he has to tilt his head to look out from beneath it. He pulls Haley closer. To the casual observer, he appears harmless. Human. But if I look closer, I can see how he almost floats across the room.

It's a second before Haley sees me. She immediately looks away and beams up at Austin, staking her claim.

“What's he doing here?” I feel the moment when Blake sees him, his focus dissolving into a thick knot of animosity.

Austin removes his arm from around Haley and travels the rest of the way to the poker table. He pulls a wad of cash from his pocket and sets it on the table. “Room for one more?”

Blake glares up at him. “This is a private game.”

The other three players eye the stack of bills like a pack of stray dogs around a steak. “His money looks good to me,” Colonel Lydon says.

Austin nods at the Colonel, ignoring Blake's hard gaze. The dealer counts out the cash and slides a stack of chips across the table. Haley comes up behind Austin and hangs over his chair, letting her arms fall across his shoulders.

He takes Haley's hand and brings it to his lips, but he stares at me. “Lady Luck.” His voice is a seductive purr. “Just what I needed.”

I don't know if it's Blake or me, but I have to force myself to stay in my seat. The urge to drag Austin from the room is strong. I hate the way Haley drapes herself all over him. For a second I worry that I really am jealous. But it's not jealousy at all. I'm terrified of what Austin has planned for her. Because the way he's holding her hand while smiling at me is not some sick game to make me jealous. It's a warning.

The dealer shuffles the cards and passes them around the table. Blake looks at his two cards and I feel him try to reign in the seething anger, to concentrate on the game. It's a pointless attempt.

The betting starts. Mr. Stevenson opens with a bet of five hundred. The Colonel folds. Blake throws in some chips. So does Mr. Basker. Austin slides his entire stack into the center of the table. “I'm all in.”

Blake scoffs. “It's a little early for you to throw it all away.”

Austin's grin exudes confidence. “Why wait if you don't have to?”

Mr. Basker and Mr. Stevenson fold. Blake hesitates, and I can practically feel the gears turning in his head. He doesn't trust Austin, but he doesn't know anything about his game yet. It's too early in the hand to even guess what cards Austin might be holding. He should do what the others did, fold quickly. Instead, he slides the bulk of his stack of chips to the center of the table. “Call,” he says, not so much taking the bait as throwing down a challenge of his own.

The entire room falls silent. Everyone watches, holding their breath, as Austin turns over his cards. A seven and a three.

A stone-cold bluff.

Blake grins as he flips over an ace and a jack. The odds are in his favor. I let out a breath. Austin doesn't react. He brings Haley's fingers to his lips for one more kiss, winking at me from across the table.

I realize then what I should've known all along: Austin has already won. The odds may be small, but there's still a chance that he'll draw the better hand. That's the thing with odds—no matter how small the probability, so long as it exists, the outcome is possible. Not just possible; it has to happen at least some of the time. And Austin already knows the ending.

The dealer lays three cards face-up on the table. A six, a ten, and a jack. Blake's made a pair. Austin has nothing. Austin's odds of winning just dropped into the single digits.

Austin puts his elbows on the table and leans forward. “Shall we raise the stakes?”

Blake laughs. “I don't take candy from babies.”

“It's not over yet.” Austin stares at me again. A chill runs down my spine, like someone dropped an ice cube down my back. I hope Blake feels the warning in my fear. Whatever Austin is up to, it's not good. Austin squeezes Haley's hand. She smiles down at him. It's the same smile I've seen her bestow a thousand times, but there's something off about it. The spark that is Haley Marvell isn't there. She's phoning it in. Weird. Haley is more into Austin than any of her previous guys. The least she could manage is one of the stock performances she's perfected over the last few years.

The dealer deals a fourth card face-up on the table. A three. Austin has a pair of threes. Blake is still winning with a pair of jacks. There's only one more card left for the dealer to turn over.

“Now it's getting interesting,” Austin picks up a red chip and flips it back and forth through his fingers, weaving it over and under in smooth fluid strokes. It's the kind of thing that takes years of practice to perfect, a way of communicating experience at the poker table without saying a word.

Blake's mood shifts again, his blood pressure rising even as he leans back in his chair casually. “How much?”

No, no, no, no
.
I want to scream it across the room. There's easily twenty thousand dollars in the pot as it is. It has to be a set-up.

Austin falls back in his chair, mirroring Blake's relaxed pose. “You have something I want.” His gaze moves over Blake's shoulder until he finds me again.

To his credit, Blake doesn't take the bait. He smiles. “I don't see how that matters, seeing as how you don't have anything that I want.”

Haley doesn't take offense at the comment, even though it's exactly the kind of thing that should set her off. In Haley's world, everyone wants her. She keeps her head down, her eyes following her hands as they weave patterns along Austin's chest.

Austin drops the poker chip. It lands with a clatter that echoes across the otherwise silent room. Everyone is watching them now. “Naïve of you to think that I don't have what you want,” he says. “I know things your half-breed brain can't begin to process. And I can help you keep what you have.” His eyes get darker. He lowers his voice. “No one has to die.”

“Die?” Mr. Stevenson scoops up his chips. “What's going on here?”

Blake's heart races, sending waves of nervous energy pulsing through me. I can't sit still. I stand up and cross the room to the table.

Blake doesn't look at me as I stand next to him. He's still focused on Austin. “You can stop it?” His voice is low, almost a whisper. But I feel Blake's hope as it rises in my own chest. “How?”

Austin's eyes are black as they bore into Blake's. “There is a way.”

I feel Blake falling into the abyss, his energy focused only on Austin, on what Austin promises. A way for us to be together. A way for us to both live. An end to the war between our kind. I feel how impossible it all sounds, and I know that Austin doesn't intend for any of the Sons to live.

I can't reach Blake, even with my hand on his shoulder. Blake is already circling in Austin's orbit; he's right there with Austin, not fighting him off at all, just wanting.

Mr. Stevenson stands up and stuffs his pockets with the cash in front of him. No one stops him as he hurries from the room. Everyone watches Austin.

Austin knows he has Blake now. His lips curve up into a crooked grin that now looks almost twisted to me. “Are you in?”

I squeeze Blake's shoulder. Hard. “He's lying.”

Blake doesn't look up, his eyes still fixed on Austin. He wants to believe the lie so badly. The lie that we can be together. The lie that one of us doesn't have to die.

I try another tack. “Haley,” I say. I have to call her name again before she finally looks up. “Don't you see what your boyfriend is doing? He wants Blake to give up his claim on me.” The Haley I know would do something, say something. She wouldn't sit by and let a boy insult her this way.

Haley's turquoise eyes are tinged with black. “You,” she says. “When are you going to understand that Austin is not interested? It's getting to be a little pathetic the way you pant after him.”

I want to shake her out of it. “Pay attention to what he's doing. I'm the prize he wants.”

Her eyes narrow to black slits, and for a second she looks exactly like her mother. I back up a step. “You've always been a loser when it comes to guys, Brianna. So you've had one boyfriend for a whole week. Don't let it go to your head.”

I know that Haley is trapped in Austin's spell, with limited control of her own mind. That doesn't stop the words from ripping fresh wounds over scars that should be healed. I'm still standing tall, but on the inside I'm laid open, bleeding profusely.

Haley lets her hand trail down Austin's chest, kissing his ear as she whispers something to him. He smiles again, then looks at me and laughs. He's got my best friend, and now Blake. Pulling my strings in the most painful way possible.

Then there's a roaring in my head, a cacophony of waves and wind. It's coming from Blake, and I realize he's finally trying to push back against Austin's pull. I have to grab the back of his chair to keep from collapsing on the ground. I summon what strength I can. But I can't reach him, not with Austin there. I feel the shadow of false promises as they grow. And then there's silence.

Blake leans forward in his chair, fingering his two cards. “I'm in,” he says.