The phone rang and Roman paced back and forth, watching the night as he waited for the other line to pick up. Soft lights glowed from the floor along the edge of the porch, one last line of defense against the darkness which had by now completely overtaken the backyard. He looked at the pool, a long round bin of crystal clear water surrounded by white mesh recliners, a stark contrast to the ocean of pure black that he could hear breaking against the shore just a few dozen yards away.
It was a good place. Large and modern, clearly wealthy but subtle in its opulence. Classy. Roman sort of wished he'd grown up somewhere like this, though it was a fleeting thing. He'd long accepted the path that had led him here. Even now when it was hard, he'd accepted it. Sitting nearby, Donny seemed to have accepted it too; or maybe the other man was just too exhausted to still feel panic, hunched over on one of the pool chairs, head low and almost nodding off.
Something clicked, and Roman heard a high, stern, feminine voice speak against his ear. "This better be who I think it is."
"I try not to disappoint."
"Well, even the best of us can fail."
No warmth at all, not even some surprise at his being alive. It didn't bode very well for his future, though Roman supposed he couldn't blame her under the circumstances. "How's the Don doing?"
That got her to pause. "He's okay, relatively speaking. Alert enough to deal with your mess, at least."
"I can't exactly take full responsibility for this one."
"Oh, I know. You're all fucking this up for us as far as I'm concerned."
"Who else got out?"
"Agri and Yovanni are both fine. They're here, actually. And you're not. Doesn't look good, Roman."
Those two sure worked fast. He'd somewhat expected it, but he still cursed at hearing it. Donny raised his head, brow raised, but Roman just held a hand out and shook his head, Nothing too bad.
"What are they saying?" he asked.
"Agri's pinning it all on you, naturally."
"Naturally. And Yovanni?"
"Yovanni couldn't tie his own shoes the way he is right now. Even Agri's a little off. Whatever you guys saw, it must've made an impression."
"It's a long story."
"You better be ready to tell it once this is all over."
Roman sighed, knowing there'd be no way around that with her. Speaking of which, it was about time to ask what he'd actually called to learn. "And the wedding? Is it still on?"
A dry chuckle made its way through the phone. "If it were up to me, you'd never even see the aisle. You and Agri both would've packed up months ago." She huffed. "But I never had a choice here, and fortunately for you my father still thinks you're worth something for some stupid reason. So yes, Roman, the wedding's still on."
Roman closed his eyes and let out another sigh, this one relieved and as quiet as he could manage to not piss her off even more. He gave Donny a thumbs up, and the other man let out his own reassured breath. They were still in business.
"You can thank Uncle Luther for that," she told him. "Him and that girl you hired. If she hadn't saved his ass back there, Agri's ranting might sound a lot more believable."
So Luther was sticking up for him. They'd never been particularly close—Roman hadn't been particularly close with any of the top guys in the Syndicate save for the Don himself—but he'd known the other man to be just and fair. More than that, there wasn't anyone who the Don trusted more. Kitty had good instincts, keeping him out of harm's way. Roman would have to thank her.
"In case you haven't put the pieces together yet, Agri's definitely looking to kill you now."
"It's the only play he has left," Roman agreed.
With Luther on his side, there'd be no framing him for the assassinations. Agri could only let his father die, eliminate Roman, and take power by force once the dust settled. Yovanni wouldn't have offered much resistance before, and now that he'd apparently crumbled in the face of the night's events he'd hardly be worth thinking about at all.
It wasn't a cold war anymore. It was a purge, and whoever wound up on top would have to do it over a pile of bodies.
"Whatever you do, keep your guys away from his. Last thing we need now are your crews massacring each other. Hear me Roman? You two have done enough damage already. Keep fighting like this and there won't be a Syndicate to take over at all."
"He won't compromise with me."
"You won't compromise with him either. This goes both ways and you know it." She sounded exasperated now. "Look, I don't know why it had to be like this, but it better end after the wedding. If this keeps on when we're married, I promise I'll make your life absolutely miserable."
No doubt about that. His face grew grim and he stared deeply at the pool, eyes trailing the subtle ripples that came with the breeze. "There's only one way this does end. You know that, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, but do me a favor, okay? Make it quick. Agri's a douchebag, but he's still my brother. No need to make it hurt. Just pop him in the head or something."
What a terrifying woman. Not for the first time, Roman had to smile at the sheer absurdity of his being here, dealing with these sorts of people. Killers, every one of them. And to fit in—to survive—the only way was to be a killer himself. But this too was something he'd long accepted.
"See you at the wedding," he promised. Then, trying to be playful, "I'm looking forward to seeing you in that dress."
"You and everyone else, darling."
Click, and she was gone. How cold. She hadn't even asked where he was, though she likely knew he wouldn't have been able to tell her for fear of getting found out. Still, the fact she hadn't even been curious didn't bode well for their future together.
Roman listened to the dead line for a bit longer, letting it fill him with the determination he needed to see this through. Then he let the phone drop on the floor before he raised a foot and stomped it hard, breaking the cheap plastic model.
Donny watched him do it, eyes baggy but sharp. "So, what's the plan?"
"That's something for all of us to figure out together," Roman said.
Hands going to his pockets, he nodded over at the sliding glass door beside him. Inside the others sat with that Rebecca girl, explaining things to her, convincing her to let them stay.
"Things keep goin' like this, we'll have to open up a daycare," Donny said.
It was supposed to be a joke, but he said it so flatly that Roman had to force out a chuckle. First Red and Kitty, now this new teenager. Magic or not, the stark youth of their merry band was starting to get a bit absurd.
"Let's let them know the good news,"' Roman said, clapping Donny on the back. "And let's hope we don't get kicked out. Wouldn't want to catch a bullet right before I get married."
- - - — MKII — - - -
"I can't believe this..."
Rebecca said it to herself as much as to Baba, who'd taken the time to explain it all to her. They sat together in a living room only half recovered from her party last Friday, the floors polished and cushions lined up orderly on the couches but spotted with discarded clothes Rebecca knew didn't belong to her. She'd actually been cleaning up when she got the call from Red, had carried on a bit as she waited for him, and now it was the least of her worries because, despite listening to Baba lay everything out with an odd comment from Stretch, despite Red and even Kitty performing a few demonstrations, Rebecca repeated it in a breathless and even somewhat pleading voice.
"I can't believe this..."
Laying face-up on the couch across from her, shamelessly taking up all the room on it with his head pillowed in clamped fingers, Red gave her an almost bored glance. "Should I go lift your piano again?"
"No!" Rebecca said, head shaking furiously. He'd almost broken the thing putting it back down. "I mean, I do believe you, but… I also just can't! A whole secret society, monsters, magic powers… it just sounds like something out of some fantasy story. None of it makes any sense! And—" Voice falling to a fervent whisper, she waved a hand at the patio outside where Roman and Donny commiserated, their conversation muted by the closed sliding glass door. "Those two are actual criminals! I can't believe you dragged me into this! I could literally go to jail!"
Red stared up at the high ceiling and scratched at the side of his nose. "Hm, yeah. Sorry."
That was it as far as apologies went. Rebecca saw Stretch bow a bit on the chair beside her, clearly embarrassed, and she saw Baba frown over at the boy, silently chastising him. Kitty, sitting by herself over by the corner, was the only one not to react, though surely she'd been listening in to some degree even if her faraway look made it seem like she'd fallen asleep with her eyes open.
Looking closely at him, Rebecca saw that Red wasn't being rude per se. He wasn't trying to rile her up, and he wasn't even playing at some stoic nonchalance. Rather, it felt more like he'd just…moved on. Like convincing Rebecca not to slam the door in their face was all he'd signed up for, and now he was free to think about something else entirely while the others dealt with answering her long list of questions.
Out of everything, that was somehow the most humbling part of the whole night. Looking at this boy her own age, Rebecca realized his world was orders of magnitude larger than anything she'd ever even known.
The careless air Rebecca had been drawn to back at the party wasn't some misplaced teenage overconfidence, nor was it stupidity or naïveté. Gossip, first impressions, reputation, cliques… Rebecca had thought herself above the frivolous things her peers cared about, but now she was rocked by the surreal realization that Red hadn't just chosen to not care about that stuff like she had; rather, he might very well not have even conceived of such things as being worth caring about in the first place.
The guy had actual superpowers. He fought actual, real-life monsters for a living. This—getting covered with injuries, being on the run, getting forced to find refuge with a practical stranger—it wasn't some one-off event, some wild episode he'd shiver to remember one day in the distant future. No, this was his daily life.
This was all their lives, Rebecca saw, glancing around at the rest. Tired, tense, focused. They were all already thinking about what next step they had to take to deal with their mess. To them, this normal, everyday girl who'd offered them shelter wasn't some crucial piece in their plans. She wasn't even a real obstacle—though none of them had made any threats, Rebecca was smart enough to know them asking for permission to be here had been more a result of felt social obligation than any real need.
To them, Rebecca was a footnote. To say they had more important things to worry about would've been more than an understatement; it would've been an almost ontological truth, something written on the fabric of the universe. It was... It was...
It was so interesting.
Rebecca understood herself well. She knew that letting these unscrupulous strangers into her family's home was a stupid idea, and she knew the only reason she'd done it anyway was because she probably was, to some extent, a little insane. She knew this because the first thing she'd thought when Baba sat her down and started talking wasn't What kind of scam is this or even I need some proof here.
No, the first thought, clear and concise, had been This is the most interesting thing that has ever happened to me. A whole slew of doors flew open in her mind, wide open fields rolling out like great big carpets of possibility, constellations of supernova ideas blowing big and bright.
"You're taking this pretty well," Baba noted warily.
Hand coming up to her lips, Rebecca felt herself smiling. It had slid out without her even noticing, and not that she did she felt it grow wider.
Seeing it, Red gave her his own smirk. "It's pretty cool, huh?"
The glass door slid open, and Roman walked in with Donny following right behind. Seeing them, Kitty raised her head, fully at attention. "So?"
"It's still on," Roman said. "This Friday. Agrivon will be looking to finish me off in the meantime."
Kitty nodded, and Red hummed in appreciation. "So we should just go deal with him before then, right?" the boy asked. "Hit him before he hits us."
"I imagine he'll think that's what we'll do," Roman said. He stood straight by the door, not bothering to follow Donny onto one of the couches. "But it wouldn't be a good idea."
"What? Why not?"
"There are two ways we could go about it." Roman held up a finger. "Loud and proud, guns blazing, my crew against his. I've been told not to do that, but even if I hadn't been I wouldn't do it anyway. Agrivon has more guys than me, and the more of us kill each other the harder it'll be to bring the Syndicate back together regardless of who wins." He held up a second finger. "Then there's the subtle approach. Send someone in to slit his throat in the middle of the night."
He gave Kitty a meaningful glance, and for the first time since they'd met, the girl looked away. "You could do that, right?"
"Theoretically," she muttered.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
"Hold on," Stretch said, standing up. "We're not sending Kitty in to solve your problems on her own. She's a Ranger, not a murderer."
A silence settled in at that. Baba closed her eyes and rubbed her temple, wishing she had a smoke, while Donny and Rebecca looked at the rest with some caution. Red just stared up at the ceiling, again looking vaguely bored.
"It doesn't matter whether I could or not," Kitty said. She slid out of her seat and walked up beside Stretch, arms crossed. "It wouldn't be smart to try with Owl and Hound hanging around. Even just Hound by himself would be too much to handle."
Roman nodded; he'd already come to the same conclusion. After a pause, he proposed another idea. "The best thing to do... is to wait."
"... Wait?" Stretch asked.
"Wait until the wedding," Roman clarified. "At that point I'll be the new Don, and Yovanni will have to take my side if only to keep face with his own crew. We'd be the ones outnumbering Agrivon then, so he won't risk all-out war with me." He smiled tiredly. "I'll still wind up killing him, of course, but at that point I'll have all the leverage. It won't be a scramble anymore."
"That means it'll all be decided at the wedding," Kitty said. "It's the only place where Agrivon knows you'll be for sure. He'll bring Owl, Hound, his crew, everything."
"And so will we. You, Red, my crew, and this. Our ace in the hole." Roman took out his ring and held it up. He'd had to keep it in his pocket to keep from feeling the strange electric current that seemed to dig into his skin whenever he now put it on.
Donny yawned. "That... also gives us a whole week to get ready."
Red chose this moment to throw himself up, grinning bright-eyed at the rest. "This is perfect. A week... yeah..." He rubbed his chin, half talking to himself. "Good, I needed something like this..."
"Something like what?" Donny asked.
"Isn't it obvious? A training montage."
"... A training montage."
"Yeah. Last time I wasn't strong enough, so all I gotta do is get stronger. Pretty simple, really." Red sat back, arms spread wide over the back of the couch, feet kicked up and crossed by the ankles on the low table before him, looking altogether far too pleased with himself. "I'll just go jog up a mountain, hang off a thing and do some situps, drink a glass of raw eggs every morning... Y'know, the usual stuff."
Kitty scoffed, head shaking with clear disgust, and Baba set him with a deadpan stare. "All you'll get from that is salmonella."
Even Roman and Donny looked doubtful, but Stretch scratched his goatee and seemed to really consider it. The older Ranger went to sit beside Red, hands coming together, expression thoughtful.
"There's no point doing something like that," Stretch finally said. "You're already plenty strong, and it's not a lot of time to build muscle. But I think there might be something you could do in a week." He glanced at Red, smiling. "You haven't come up with a Trick yet, right?"
"A Trick..." Red's eyes widened. "Dude, yeah, I didn't even think about that! Hey, could you teach me how?"
Now it was Stretch's turn to puff out his chest. "Jason taught me himself, man. I think I got a few good pointers. Here's my first one: doesn't matter how hard you punch, you can't compete with a gunshot. But when you pull out your Trick you'll turn it into a battle of Magicians, and then it doesn't matter who's stronger or faster. All that matters when Magicians fight is who's more creative and who's quicker on their feet." He leaned in, tapping Red on the chest. "You ask me, that kinda fight's right up your alley."
They grinned at each other, and Baba joined their burgeoning camaraderie in her own way, laying out a few more to-dos.
"We'll need food, toiletries, the works." She hummed, thinking. "If none of us can get seen out in public, we could send someone out with that morphing ring. Can't ask for a better disguise."
Stretch sighed. "If we're hiding out a whole week, I'll need a change of clothes."
"We all need a change of clothes."
"Hold on," Rebecca suddenly said. "I... My parents are out of town, so I guess I can let you guys stay here. But only..." She hesitated, cleared her throat, and raised her chin. "Only if you teach me how to do magic too. It's only fair."
It was their turn to stare at her. She crossed her legs, sitting as calmly as she could, refusing to shrink under their gaze, and when it became clear she wasn't backing down on this Baba sighed.
"Could be dangerous," the woman said.
"How? You people seem just fine."
"Not just for you. Unless you're planning to become a licensed Ranger, I'm not sure we could trust you with that kind of power. Just telling you about all this is already bad enough."
"... You seriously telling me I'm somehow more suspicious than these literal mobsters?"
Red let out a low whistle. "She's got you there."
Baba frowned at him, then back at Rebecca. "They were already involved."
Rebecca shrugged. "Now I am too. Look, do you need a place to stay or should I just call the cops?"
So, going right for the threats. Well, fair enough; it wasn't like she'd asked to have them show up at her doorway. Baba glanced at Kitty, who didn't seem to care, then at Stretch.
"I guess… we can work something out," he said, clearly uncertain.
Rebecca smiled. As much as things changed, it was good to know she could still get her way. Opportunities like this didn't literally knock every day, after all. It would've been foolish not to take advantage.
- - - — MKII — - - -
The Roxbury Central Hospital was the busiest medical center in the whole city, and they were used to strange patients. But chances are nothing could've quite prepared them for the crowds of suited and bloodied men and women that now massed all along their third-floor hallway. All the rooms had been filled, so they'd been forced to lean along the walls, sit on the few available chairs or, failing that, right on the cold hard ground.
Some had nurses at their side, and a couple of white-coated doctors strode to and fro, examining the most standout injuries. Bullet holes mostly, though there were also plenty of fractures and even a few strange, thin stab wounds, as if they'd been punctured by some long needle.
It was too much for the hospital staff, who figured this must've been caused by some sort of gang war and weren't entirely wrong in that assessment. The hall was full of groaning, moaning, the dry mutterings of people exchanging insurance information. More than one of the nurses complained, in their heads and to each other, that if these criminals really had to kill each other they shouldn't have waited until after midnight to do it.
One distinct voice rose among all this, shouting loud enough for everyone to hear even through the closed door of the room it was contained within. Agrivon, holding his bandaged side, pounded a fist on the room's table. "This is a fucking travesty!" he said. "Dad, I swear to god, if you let that bastard get away with this I'll—"
"Shut it."
A long inhale, the spark of fire, and a sigh that billowed smoke. Lying on the hospital bed was a man, thin but hard, face grizzled grey and wrinkled deep, skin tanned like a well-trodden path. Even in a gown and under covers he loomed over the rest of the room, a sort of gravitational pull sucking even the air in his direction.
This was Sergei Volante, the Don of the Volante Syndicate, and he was completely done with all this bullshit. Dragging on his cigar again, he held the smoke in his lungs, eyes closed, before blowing the whole cloud right in Agrivon's angry face.
The nurses had tried to keep him from smoking, obviously, but one look at the gun he kept on hand and one failed call to the police he'd long bribed to his side had stopped that sort of behavior. If he had to lie here bored out of his mind and slowly rotting into his own dying body for the rest of his life, he'd be damned if he couldn't at least enjoy a good smoke. He wouldn't stick around very long anyway, so what did it matter?
"Did you not see what's going on out there?" Agrivon seethed, walking up to lean over the bed. "Can't you hear all our guys?"
"I can't hear shit over your whining."
Agrivon shook his head, glancing at the ones sitting by the corner of the room. "Yovanni, speak the hell up! You agree with me, don't you? Jackson's a fucking snake."
Sergei chuckled darkly. "You won't get any help from him. My nephew's finally realized this business is too far over his head."
Yovanni sat with an open, blood-coated shirt, head bowed and hunched low over his knees, staring straight at the floor with hollow eyes. No one had been able to get a word out of him ever since the bullets stopped flying, and now he got dragged around almost like a lifeless puppet. Chances were he didn't even know where he was, much less what anyone else was saying.
Beside him, Emma's sole eye glared at the Sergei, rubbing her husband's back, her other arm up in a sling. "Fuck off, old man."
"You, at least, have some fire," Sergei muttered. "Should've been born a Volante."
Agrivon opened his mouth, about to shout something else, when the door opened. In walked a tall woman, hair a silky black, lips painted bright red, and eyes set in a hard scowl. Each step of her heels clicked loud and pointedly, and her raised head pointed straight and unafraid at the others. Her dress, dainty and yellow, seemed wholly out of place, like a floral crown put on a prowling tiger.
"My darling Alainne," Sergei said, an actual smile somehow breaking through the grim rigidity of his face. "Well, how is the boy?"
"Roman's not a boy, Dad," Alainne said, rolling her eyes. "The guy's, like, thirty."
"Thirty is still a boy. You, Agri, Yovanni, even the spitfire here." He nodded at a still-glaring Emma. "All of you are children still. It's part of why you've all been fucking this up so badly." There wasn't anything harsh in his words, only resignation. "So, how is he?"
"Alive."
"Ah, good." He sighed. "I hope I'm strong enough to walk you down the aisle. There's always Luther, but it wouldn't be right if I don't do it myself."
"You'll be fine," Alainne said, going over to put a soft hand on his shoulder. "It's only a few more days."
"This is actually fucking unbelievable," Agrivon said, clawing at the sides of his head. "How are you two so calm about all this?! How is it possible that I'm the one taking this the most seriously?!"
Sergei let his head fall back on his pillow, eyes closed. "Agri my boy, if you're not serious, you're just blind. I know you've never trusted Roman, and I know that for whatever deranged reason you've never trusted my judgment on him, but Luther was very clear. If it wasn't for Roman, he wouldn't be home right now sporting a few bruises. He'd be dead."
"So then who's behind those two freaks that attacked us?! You don't think it's me, do you?!"
"Of course not, son. You're not smart enough to get away with it." Sergei shrugged. "Most likely it's the Railway or the Westwood Alliance. Someone from the outside. They've sure done a good job setting you against each other."
Agrivon shook his head, arms crossed and glaring at nothing, and Alainne sighed. "You better be careful, Agri," she said. "Keep going on like this and Dad's not the only one we're losing this week. Leoni and Uncle Ferdinand were already bad enough."
"You're all against me," Agrivon muttered through gritted teeth. "All of you right from the beginning. Well, fuck you all. I'm done. Jackson's got you all tricked, but I know that no matter what he does, who he fucks, he'll never be Volante. He'll never deserve this." He stomped to the open door, almost stepped through it, then looked back one last time. "We'll see just how this ends, you hear me? We'll just have to fucking see."
And he was gone. Alainne clicked her tongue and Sergei shook his head, dragging on his cigar one more time. "That boy's always been trouble," the old man said.
"He's just going to make this worse," Alainne agreed. She blinked when Emma stood, pulling Yovanni up along with her. "Hm, heading out?"
"There's no point sticking around here," Emma said. "And clearly Yoni here needs to rest." They walked to the door, and before they stepped out Emma glanced back, nodding with hesitant respect. "I'll see you at the wedding."
They left, walking through the hall full of wounded goons, Yovanni shuffling the whole way. He kept his arms locked together, the picture-perfect victim, but Emma knew he wasn't as out of it as he seemed. Once they reached the hospital's exit, she leaned close, whispering. "Well, what do you think?"
"I don't know what to think," Yovanni mumbled, voice low. "That girl, she just... appeared. Out of n-nowhere. They both did, the one from the shadows, and Roman's hire. What are they?"
Emma stared ahead as they stepped into the parking lot. The moon shone that night, and good thing too; after everything, having to wade through a dark too deep might've been too much to ask of the man whose arm she'd had to throw around her shoulders.
"They were something new," she said. "Simple as that. Just another new thing we gotta deal with."
"But it m-makes no sense."
"I know, honey, but it happened, so there." They walked silently for a few yards until Emma brought up the thing she'd actually had on her mind. "The Don, d'ya think he's right about someone from the outside hirin' those freaks?"
Yovanni shook his head almost immediately. "Things are too g-good for Roman and Agrivon. Those two have gained the most from this situation."
"So, what's really goin' on?"
"Roman's got that invisible girl and that kid in red. Probably he thought the shadow one and the shooter were Agri's so he brought his own big guns to counter him." Yovanni's voice slowly took on confidence, and it seemed more and more like he was talking to himself, thoughts being communicated directly from his brain to his words with little to no filter. "I think... they probably are Agri's. He's never been a good actor, but he doesn't have to pretend to be angry at Roman so it doesn't really matter. Probably... he wanted to frame Roman?"
He blinked, surprised at himself, but Emma nudged him and he went on. "Yeah, he wanted to frame Roman. Kill a few of us off, blame him, become the new Don with no one else left. But the Don was right, Agri's not smart enough for this sort of thing. Roman got Luther on his side, and now things are spiraling for Agri. He'll have to..." His eyes widened. "He'll have to kill Roman. And Roman has to know that, so he won't come out of wherever he's hiding. Except he'll have to for the wedding. So... So... Oh god..."
Yovanni gagged, and Emma started rubbing his back again in slow, calming circles. "The wedding... The wedding's gonna be an absolute bloodbath too. Jesus, not again." He looked at Emma, face anguished. "We can't go. No way. We barely made it out of tonight's meeting. I do not want to get caught in the crossfire again."
Emma nodded, though she wasn't looking back at him. Instead she just stared off, thinking. Everyone had given up on Yovanni early on, because he had no ambition, but she'd seen the promise in that brain of his. Lazy as he was, the guy was good at figuring things out, making guesses that wound right more often than not. All he'd needed to succeed was a kick in the ass, and she'd been happy to provide it. She'd bet on those guesses of his, had pushed him all the way to captaincy, and now...
"What if we didn't stay away," she ventured, the idea forming as she said it. "What if... instead, we put in our own bid for the top?"
Yovanni stared at her. "Don't."
"Hear me out—"
"No, no no! No way, no how, don't do this Em!" Yovanni pulled himself from her grasp, his hunch gone in a fit of anger. "We are not talking about this right now!"
"Why not?!"
Emma looked around, making sure their raised voices hadn't drawn any attention, but she saw to her relief that they were alone in the nearly empty parking lot. Full as that third floor was with their guys, it was still extremely late at night. But better safe than sorry, so when she turned back to her husband she didn't shout but hissed straight in his ear.
"Why shouldn't you be in charge?" she asked. "Agri's an idiot. He'd just drive this gang to the ground. And the one thing he's right about is that Roman is a snake. I don't trust either of those clowns. But you're perfect. Smart, levelheaded, and all business. You don't waste time with personal grudges like those two."
She'd laid it on a bit thick, and he knew it, but he hadn't interrupted yet so she went on. "Look, it's not even that hard. Think about it. Roman's got his freaks and Agrivon's got his. All we need to do is find our own freaks."
"Our own freaks," he repeated with just a hint of derision. "And where exactly do you mean to find those?"
Emma shrugged. "Same place Roman and Agri found theirs. I dunno, how hard could it really be? We know they exist now. All we gotta do is... start shaking some branches and see what falls out."
They looked into each other's eyes then. A battle of wills. As always, Emma won it, because will wasn't exactly Yovanni's forte.
"Fine," he said, and if he'd looked tired before now he looked almost dead with exhaustion. "I'm not saying yes, but I'm fine with you looking. We'll... We'll see what happens if we do find someone." He bit his lip, thinking through it all himself now. "Put the word out. Discreetly."
"Discreetly," Emma agreed, smirking, and her eye grew coy. "Oh, Yoni, I love it when you get all strict with me."
"Not tonight, Em," he muttered. "I promise you, when we get home the first thing I'm going to do is sleep a hundred years."
"Hm, that's okay. I don't need you to be awake."
"I think we already have our own freak, then."
She laughed, walking side by side with him to their car, already coming up with a list of contacts to call. She didn't know exactly what she'd be looking for, but surely they'd find something good, and once they did it would be so satisfying to show it off when the time came.
They'd come so high, the two of them, and no one had ever believed they could win anything until the very moment they did. Roman and Agri would keep racing each other for the crown, and the dark horse would come galloping right behind them, hidden in their blindspot, ready to overtake them right at that last, crucial moment. Not a bad bet to make, Emma thought. Not bad at all.