She locked eyes with me. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Pepper searched me out that night because he knows I have connections to Patch. He’s looking for Patch, and mistakenly thought I’d help him.” She started the ignition, flooring the gas to drown out my response.
I glared at Dabria, not buying that her interaction with Pepper had been that innocent. Dabria had a solid track record of lying. On top of that, we had bad blood. She stood as an awful reminder that Patch had been with someone before me. It wouldn’t have been so nettling if she would stay in his past where she belonged. Instead she kept popping up like the villain with multiple lives in a slasher film.
“You’re a poor judge of character,” she said, thrusting the Bugatti in gear.
I leaped to the front bumper, slamming my palms on the hood. I wasn’t finished with her yet. “When it comes to you, I’m not wrong,” I called over the engine. “You’re a conniving, backstabbing, selfish, and egotistical narcissist.”
Dabria’s jaw clenched visibly. She smoothed a few flyaways off her face, shoved out of the car, and stalked over to me. In heels, she matched my height. “I want to clear Patch’s name too, you know,” she said in her witch-cool voice.
“Now there’s an Oscar-worthy line.”
She stared at me. “I told Patch you were immature and impulsive and couldn’t get over your jealousy of what he and I had long enough to make this work.”
My cheeks flushed, and I grabbed her arm before she could avoid me. “Don’t talk to Patch about me again. What’s more, don’t talk to him period.”
“Patch trusts me. That should be good enough for you.”
“Patch doesn’t trust you. He’s using you. He’ll string you along, but in the end, you’re expendable. The minute you’re no longer useful, it’s over.”
Dabria’s mouth pinched into something ugly. “Since we’re giving each other advice, here’s mine. Get off my back.” Her eyes raked over me warningly.
She was threatening me.
She had something to hide.
I was going to dig up her secret, and I was going to bring her down.
Chapter 22
TURNING AWAY FROM THE ROAD DUST DABRIA’S tires kicked up, I jogged back inside. My mom would be home any minute now, and not only would I have some serious explaining to do about the party’s abrupt ending, but I needed to dump Baruch’s body. If he truly believed I’d rammed a poker into his wing scars, he’d resign his body to a near-comatose state for several more hours, making moving it considerably easier. Finally, a lucky break.
I found Patch in the living room, crouched over Baruch’s body. Relief surged through me at the sight of him. “Patch!”I exclaimed, running over.
“Angel.” His face was etched with worry. He rose to his feet, opening his arms as I flung myself into them. He squeezed me hard.
I nodded to alleviate any concern he might have over my well-being, and swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’m fine. I’m not hurt. I mind-tricked him into thinking there was a Nephilim raid. And I made him believe I jammed a poker into his scars for good measure.” I blew out a shaky sigh. “How did you know fallen angels crashed the party?”
“Your mom kicked me out, but I wasn’t going to leave you unprotected. I took up guard down the street. There was a lot of traffic heading toward your place, but I assumed it was for the party. When I saw people running out the front door looking like they’d seen a monster, I came as fast as I could. There was a fallen angel standing guard outside your door who thought I’d shown up to steal his spoils of war. Needless to say, I had to stab him, and a few others, in their wing scars. Hope your mom doesn’t notice I pruned a few branches off the tree outside. They made excellent stakes.” His mouth twitched mischievously.
“She’ll be home any minute.”
Patch nodded. “I’ll take care of the body. Can you get the electricity running? Fuse box is in the garage. Check to see if any of the switches are tripped. If they cut the wires to the house, we’re going to have a lot more work on our hands.”
“I’m on it.” I stopped halfway to the garage and turned back. “Dabria showed up. She offered me a flimsy story, saying you told her to get me out. Do you think she could have been helping them?”
To my astonishment, he said, “I called her. She was in the area. I went after the fallen angels and told her to get you out.”
I was speechless, both from shocked disbelief and irritation. I didn’t know if I was angrier that Dabria had been telling the truth, or that she was clearly following Patch, since “in the area” was hard to pull off when you considered my street was one mile long, ours was the only house on it, and it dead-ended into the woods. She probably had a tracking device on him. When he’d called her, she’d probably been parked a hundred feet back, clutching a pair of binoculars.
I didn’t doubt Patch was faithful to me. Likewise, I didn’t doubt Dabria hoped to change that.
Figuring now wasn’t the time to blow this into an argument, I said, “What are we going to tell my mom?”
“I’ll—I’ll take care of it.”
Patch and I turned toward the mouselike squeak coming from the doorway. Marcie stood there, wringing her hands. As if she sensed how weak this made her look, she dropped them to her sides. Flinging her hair off her shoulders, she jutted her chin and said with more self-assurance, “The party was my idea, which makes this just as much my mess as yours. I’ll tell your mom some losers showed up to crash the party and started destroying furniture. We did the only responsible thing: canceled the party.” It looked to me like Marcie was working hard to avoid gazing at Baruch’s body lying facedown on the rug. If she didn’t see it, it couldn’t be true.
“Thanks, Maruolyincie,” I said, and I sincerely meant it.
“Don’t sound so surprised. I’m in this too, you know. I’m not—I mean—I am non—” Deep breath. “I am one of—you.” She opened her mouth to say more, then abruptly shut it. I didn’t blame her. “Nonhuman” was a difficult word to think, let alone say aloud.
A knock at the front door caused Marcie and me to jump. We exchanged a brief look of uncertainty before Patch spoke.
“Pretend we were never here,” he said, slinging Baruch over his shoulders and hefting him toward the back door. And Angel? he added in mind-speak. Erase Marcie’s memory of seeing me here tonight. We need to keep our secret watertight.