“Why’re you here?” I wanted to tell them to get out—they didn’t deserve to be anywhere near Ti.
“Because. We entered into a pact. You did find Santa Muerte after all,” their voices murmured, interspersed with dripping sounds. “She is not ours, but we are bound by technicalities. So we talk now, as we said we would.”
“What do you want?” There was no way they’d be talking to me if they didn’t want something from me. I knew how they played the game.
“There’s been a little accident on Y4. We could use you there again. In exchange for helping your mother, of course.”
Forty-eight hours ago I would have jumped at that chance.
But the events of the past two weeks had changed me. I stared into the blackness of the tunnels where the Shadows lurked, only now willing to offer their aid. As much as I still wanted to save my mom the easy way—probably the only way, whispered the darkest part of my heart—my mother wouldn’t want her life to come at the cost of mine.
Which is what it would be, if I went back to Y4 under the Shadows’ yoke.
I’d come so close to death this time. Next time—would I make it? It all came pressing down on me. I’d had to weigh so many options and choose between lives since I’d arrived here. How much longer could I press my luck before it ran out?
I was close to a normal life here, with my job and Asher, and I knew it. As close as someone like me would ever come. And that was what my mother really wanted for me.
I chose me.
“We’ll see,” I told the darkness inside the tunnel mouth.
“We’ll see?” they mimicked back. “We’ll see?” Their multivoice raised harshly, and then ended in a laugh. “We’ll see, indeed.”
I stepped away from the tunnel entrance. With Ti’s body gone, there was nothing for me down here now.
Olympio still waited politely, just out of the Shadows’ reach. “Everything go okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll say an oración for him later.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate that.” I smiled down at him. “You’re awesome, Olympio.”
He patted himself like it was no big deal. “I know.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
And so now things are normal. Ish. As normal as I’ve ever had them before. Shadows don’t talk to me, I haven’t seen a vampire in three months, and Asher wants me to move in with him, which is good because I practically live over there anyhow and Minnie is royally pissed off at me. Asher can change safely into Hector—we haven’t tried anyone past that—and he still works at the clinic and no one else knows. Catrina was discharged from County into Adriana’s waiting arms.
My mom’s condition stabilized. The tumors are still inoperable, but they’re no longer growing. I don’t know who I have to thank for that—God, Santa Muerte, science, or luck—but I’ll take it. It’s good.
I still miss it sometimes, though.
I like to think I’d go back someday because I want to. Not because anyone owes me, or I owe anyone else, especially not the Shadows. But, well.
You never know.