Forget About Midnight (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #9)(40)

My gaze met Kale’s, and I shrugged apologetically. Jez’s opinion on the matter was less than surprising.

“It can’t do any worse to me than what’s already been done,” he said. He reached across the table to take her hand, holding tight when she tried to pull away out of spite. “I’ll come back. It’s not forever. You can always come visit.”

“Are you seriously giving me this crap, as if you think I’ll buy it? I’m not a child.” Jez leaned back against the wall, settling herself so she could see us both. “Although it does feel a little like mom and dad are splitting up.”

“Jez, come on,” I protested, holding a hand up to silence her.

With green eyes flashing in annoyance, she batted my hand away. “I’m sorry if that’s too dramatic for you, but it does. Don’t tell me you guys aren’t banging your brains out. And then it’s over? Just like that?” Blunt with a total disregard for touchy subjects, that was Jez. Damn, I loved that girl, but right then I wanted to slap her.

I risked a glance at Kale. He looked as horrified and awkward as I felt. He shook his head, just once, and sat back with a sigh.

“You know it’s not that easy.” I pinned her with a fierce stare, my eyes all wolf. I could feel it strong beneath the surface. “Do you have any idea how many people we’ve killed together? Too many. We are dangerous together, Jez.”

What I wasn’t saying was that I didn’t want him to go either and that I fully understood her stance. I didn’t tell her how badly I wanted him to stay and that numbing out was the only way to cope. There was so much I didn’t, couldn’t say. But as I looked into her eyes, beast to beast, she saw it. She knew.

She softened and laid a hand on my arm. “I know. I’m sorry, guys. This just really bums me out. I’m going to miss the team hunts.”

We hadn’t hunted as a team in some time. I missed it too. Jez had popped a hole in my bubble, destroying the afterglow I was riding.

“I’m not going to leave and never look back.” Kale spoke up, drawing both our gazes his way. “Is that what you think? We’ll stay in touch. Like I said, I’ll be back.”

There was a promise in those words. He stared into me as he said them. Saying goodbye to him was going to be impossible. I couldn’t do it.

Jez was reluctant to accept this declaration. “I don’t think you’ve given this enough thought, Kale.”

“You guys didn’t see my sister outside, did you?” I jumped to change the less-than-savory topic. “She’s supposed to meet me here.”

They both shook their heads as I expected. Kale said, “Man, she must be pissed.”

“Yeah,” Jez added. “You guys have had the FPA working overtime.”

“It feels like she should have been here by now.” I checked my phone again. Nothing. An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. I slid from the booth. “I’m going to check in with Justin. Maybe he saw her.”

Jez popped out of the booth right behind me, her now empty glass held high. “And I’m going to get a refill.”

“Hey,” I grabbed hold of her elbow. “Are you ok? I mean, have you…?”

“Been getting high?” she snapped, pulling her arm from my grasp. “I’ve slipped. Nothing to worry about. Just having a few drinks tonight, Lex. It’s all good.”

She didn’t give me a chance to reply. She turned her back on me and pushed through the crowd to the bar. Offending her wasn’t my intention. I simply didn’t want her to feel that I was too caught up with murder and mayhem to care about her. It wasn’t all that long ago that she’d collapsed from an overdose right in front of me. Damn, I was worried.

“She’s just upset because of me,” Kale offered upon spying my crestfallen face. He rose and quickly captured my hand before I too could disappear.

Something occurred to me, and I had to ask, “Kale, when you bit Jez, could you tell that the dark part of her was in there?”

Pondering this, he shook his head. “No, but to be fair, I wasn’t quite in a focused state of mind that night.” Pulling my hair aside, he eyed Jenner’s bite. “Should I ask?”

The bite had healed considerably though enough remained to tell the tale of what I’d been up to. As speedy as vampire healing was, it still had it limits.

“I’d rather you not.” What else could I say? Kale knew as well as I did how this worked. “Jenner was here. We had a little chat.”

He nodded and stepped back, as if he couldn’t stand to touch me just then. Perhaps I was reading too deeply into the action.

“Go ahead, talk to Justin. I’ll stay here and take Jez’s abuse until she feels better.” There was something missing from the smile he bestowed on me. It was hard to look at. There was something missing inside me too.

I touched his face, started to say something, then stopped. There were no words.

Touching base with Justin didn’t help. He hadn’t seen her. Which meant she was late. Or missing.

I slipped outside into the parking lot to escape the noise inside. Telling myself that Juliet had a demanding job didn’t convince me that nothing had happened. Intuition told me otherwise.

I pulled my phone out to call her but didn’t get a chance to before a loud, black Dodge Challenger tore into the parking lot. The car screeched to a stop, and two werewolves got out. They both looked pissed.