The Hearts We Sold(63)

Dee uttered a quiet curse. She’d just remembered something—something that this girl was going to need. She scanned the ground, turning in a circle. Then she caught sight of something red.

There was a knitted heart resting in a puddle. It was soggy with moisture and Dee carefully picked it up. She walked up to Riley and placed the heart in her open palm.

“You’ll want this,” Dee said.





THIRTY


G remma stood just outside Whiteaker dormitory. She lounged against the brick wall, her arms crossed. She wasn’t smiling. “Well, well, well,” she said. “I think I’ve heard this story before.

“It was a dark and stormy night. A girl does what she should—she stays inside and minds her own business. Only, she hears a wailing at the window, a ghostly cry. So, tell me. Does our intrepid hero venture outside to see exactly what kind of swamp creature would try to coax her into the terrors of the night? Or does she leave the creature on its own?”

Dee shivered. She was soaked through, her hair caked with mud and rainwater. They’d had to slog all the way back to the road from the market, where Dee had called a cab. The driver hadn’t been happy to have two muddy girls clamber into his backseat, but he’d taken them to Brannigan without comment.

“I didn’t wail at the window,” Dee said through chattering teeth. “I texted you.”

Gremma nodded at the girl standing a few feet behind Dee. “And who is this?”

“Please,” said Dee. “It’s an emergency. Can you distract the dorm monitor while I sneak her inside? She needs a place to stay tonight.”

Gremma’s pale, freckled arms were crossed over her chest. “Tell me what’s going on,” she said. “No bullshit this time.”

Riley stepped forward. The rain dripped off the edge of her hood. “Listen, if this is going to cause trouble—”

“Not you,” said Gremma, shooting Riley a quelling glance. “Dee.”

Dee looked at Gremma, at her red hair bundled into a frizzy bun, at her pajama shorts and her slippers shaped like bears. The faded remnants of red lipstick edged her mouth, and she looked like some beautiful wild creature, her mouthed stained with old blood.

To hell with it, Dee thought.

“I’m working for a demon,” said Dee. “My scholarship ran out, and I’m working for a demon in exchange for money.”

Gremma went still. It reminded Dee of the times she watched Gremma cut into a dead frog—her body frozen, eyes narrowed and focused. Those eyes now slid over Dee, presumably checking for missing body parts.

“My heart,” said Dee, and Gremma sucked a sharp breath between her teeth.

“And this girl,” said Gremma, nodding at Riley, “and that art guy.”

“We’re all working together,” said Dee, the words tumbling out of her. “It’s temporary—a two-year contract. But it’s screwed up and dangerous, and Cora thinks we’re fighting angels, but I think we’re fighting an eldritch abomination but I’m not sure, and Cal died, and Riley needs a place to stay.”

Gremma shook her head. “And I thought you were a drug runner.”

Dee laughed, and it felt like a release. “It’d probably be safer.”

Gremma’s mouth puckered up, as if in thought, and she nodded at Riley. “All right, then. I’ll go to the dorm mom and tell her I need a tampon or something—you take her in the back.”

“Thank you,” said Dee, unable to hide how grateful she felt.

They went up the stairs, going barefoot so as not to leave muddy footprints. Dee veered into the bathrooms first and gestured for Riley to follow.

Riley hesitated.

“Come on,” said Dee. “We both need a shower. Everyone’ll be doing homework or something. No one will even notice that you don’t live here.”

With a little doubtful sigh, Riley walked into the bathroom and began stripping off her muddied clothing.

Dee stepped into an adjacent stall and twisted the water on full, not bothering to get undressed first. Head bowed, she watched swirls of brown circle the drain. Then she began pulling at her sodden clothing.

It wasn’t easy, getting undressed in an already-running shower. She tugged at her shirt. Working the buttons free took far longer than it should have, her fingers clumsy with cold and exhaustion.

As she worked, she heard a soft sound.

A tiny sob. Muffled, as if someone had pressed their hand to their mouth.

“Are you okay?” Dee asked, loudly, above the sound of the shower.

“I’m fine,” Riley’s voice snapped out.

Dee went back to working on her clothes.

Riley had a backpack with her and clean pajamas, and soon the two girls were sitting on the floor of room 209. Gremma was perched on her bed—a box of tampons next to her.

Dee explained things. About the demons, about her theory, about the knitted hearts being the only thing keeping them alive, about the voids, about the giant thing made of human body parts—

“Holy shit,” said Gremma. “That’s what they do with them? I thought they ate them or something.”

—and how those homunculi were sent into the voids to destroy them. About the duffel bags full of river rocks and C-4. (“Okay,” said Riley, “now that part could be fun. I like explosions.”) About how the Daemon seemed to be an oddity among his kind, tearing the hearts from teenagers rather than building creatures without a heart. About Cal. And lastly, about Cora’s desire to stop the demon.