Borrowed Souls (Soul Charmer #1)(62)
“You’re aware I’ve given over my savings to my big brother multiple times? That I was the one who got him in the treatment program? The one he bailed on? And I was the one who paid your gas bill when you’d given him every last penny so he could get high for a weekend?”
Zara brushed away the truth with a flippant hand gesture. “Helping family out once in a while—”
Pressure throbbed against Callie’s temples. Spontaneous combustion wasn’t real, but exploding from your mother’s asinine version of crazy? Legit. “More than once a year cannot be classified as once in a while.”
“Come,” her mother beckoned, sweetness oozing all over the room. “You wouldn’t be this upset if Josh were okay. Tell me what’s going on.”
Even when Josh wasn’t around, he managed to be the center of attention. Zara’s gentle gestures to sit weren’t out of concern for Callie. She was merely a means to an end. Per usual. “I’m not coming over there.”
Zara lifted one eyebrow, no doubt upset about her daughter’s petulance. Too damn bad. “Sit down. You’re going to tell me what’s going on.”
“How about instead you tell me why you’ve been renting souls?” Well-honed daggers couldn’t have cut her mother down as efficiently. Shame tugged her throat, but she batted it away with a swallow.
Zara opened and closed her mouth over and over eking squeaks each time before she finally collected herself enough to speak. “What are you talking about?”
“I know.” Those two little words hung between them for seconds or, maybe, years. The truth might not help Callie, but at least it bought her time and space. The sooner she was out of here, the better. Or was it? Was going back to hunting a mysterious woman who possessed the magic to control souls a better option than talking to her mom?
Zara spun a silver ring around her index finger. The light streaming in through the multicolored sheet hung over the kitchen window didn’t glint off the metal. Everything here was tarnished.
“We all need an escape,” her mom murmured.
Callie had steered the conversation, and now it was careening toward a cliff at ninety miles per hour. Hitting the brakes might be worse, but there was no way she was sticking around for the inevitable plummet. She’d hit her limit. If she didn’t leave now, she’d be liable to spill secrets she couldn’t claim ownership of, and Lord knew she wouldn’t survive the fallout.
She slammed the door behind her, cutting off her mother’s platitudes about making herself light enough to rise to Heaven. Arguing with Zara had never worked, and explaining that any deity who was concerned about beating the point spread was a shitty god wasn’t going to improve her day one bit.
Theological differences aside, she’d give it to Zara. Maybe she’d picked the right side. At the rate Callie was tanking, there was no one benevolent watching over her.
That might include Derek.
—— CHAPTER FIFTEEN ——
Callie had thirty-seven dollars in her bank account and only half a tank of gas in her car, despite this morning’s fill up, but after the visit she’d had with Zara, she needed some goddamn pie.
Familiarity in Dott’s was a warm blanket. The mismatched chairs in the seven-table deli afforded a smidge of comfort. As the waitress placed the double-portion slice of coconut cream in front of her, Callie tried to pretend her life was full of similar moments of frivolity. Margaritaville? Pssh. Eating pie for lunch was the peak of a worry-free life. The first decadent bite sealed the deal; best four dollars she’d ever spent.
Unfortunately, even homemade pie couldn’t stop the what-if scenarios from whirring in her mind. Her mother was a soul user. She might not have been renting while Callie was around—she could have either done it once a decade ago, or yesterday, and Callie’s icy hands wouldn’t have known the difference—but did it matter? Soul renters didn’t need to be strung out and skinny. The more time she spent in this world, the better she understood renting a soul wasn’t for those who had hit rock bottom. One needed to care enough to want to protect their soul. That explained the drug addict contingent. Soul rental was a couple steps above rock bottom. Fuck if she knew about rationalizing choices like that.
“How’s the pie?” asked a lilting voice that couldn’t belong to the waitress.
Callie had been completely lost in the pie-thinking zone. She looked over to see the woman seated beside her. The woman had long, sandy blonde hair, and her pastel bohemian blouse was almost invisible behind the shiny tresses. Callie recognized her immediately, and a knot formed fast and firm in her stomach. “Um, good.”
She didn’t make eye contact with the woman for more than a moment. It didn’t matter. Goddamn extroverts. “Was that the coconut?”
“Yep.” Why was Tess making casual conversation? If only Callie’s phone would buzz. An excuse to avoid conversation was never around when you needed it.
The uninvited guest reminded Callie too much of her mom. A free-spirit vibe and spacey softness in casual conversation.
“You’re Callie, are you not?”
Time stilled as she slowly lifted her head to take in this woman. Her dark eyebrows were pinched together and raised. Great. The lady bro equivalent of “come at me.” A shiver spiked down Callie’s spine when she met the woman’s gaze. Her hazel irises were ringed in coal. Callie whispered her name. “Tess.”