We’re all quiet a sec, thinking about her and the others that died.

Then Ryodan stands up and says to me, “Come on, kid. Let’s go.”

“Huh? Where?”

“You live with me now.”

“Bull-fecking-crikey!”

“She’s moving back into the abbey,” Kat says.

“Bull-fecking-crikey!”

“The Mega can take care of herself,” Dancer says. “If you bloody idiots didn’t just see that, you’re blind. Give her room to breathe.”

“Fecking crikey!” I agree totally. I adore Dancer. I shoot him a look that doesn’t bother trying to pretend otherwise.

Ryodan says, “She needs rules.”

Lor says, “Boss, all she needs is somebody to train with, vent some of that boundless fucking energy.”

Kat says, “What she needs is—”

While they’re all busy discussing my needs that they don’t know the first fecking thing about, I make like the wind and blow out, sure to bang the door loud on the way.

I steal Ryodan’s Humvee and head for the city.

He’ll never catch me in one of the buses or big trucks that are the only other vehicles at the abbey.

I wish I could have brought Dancer with me but I never would have escaped if I’d slowed myself down.

Ain’t nobody knows what I need better than me. They’re probably all back there, still bickering, trying to decide how to control me and run my life.

I snicker. “Dudes. Never. Going. To. Happen.”

FORTY-FOUR

“This is not the end, this is not the beginning”

So I’m blowing through the streets of Dublin after ditching the Humvee on the main road where Ryodan or one of his dudes is sure to spot it on their way back to Chester’s because no matter how bugfuck he makes me, I got no desire to take something of his permanent-like. He’d probably hunt me for for-fecking-ever, instead of just trying to boss me around for-fecking-ever. That dude’s radar is something I don’t want to be any bigger on.

Live at Chester’s, my fecking petunia!

“Ass,” I mutter with a scowl. Petunia is one of Mac’s words. Her and Alina grew up so stupid and sweet they never even said “feck” until their early twenties when they started seeing Fae. Up till then they had their own cute little vocabulary for things. I hate cute. I hate thinking about Mac. I remember seeing her for the first time, sitting on a bench at Trinity looking all soft and pretty and useless, then finding out she was really made of steel like me and my sword. I remember feeling like my world was finally going to change and bygones might somehow miraculously turn into never-fecking-have-beens.

I miss her. I hate knowing she’s in this city somewhere, walking up and down streets just like me, thinking thoughts about killing Fae and saving the world and killing me, and she’s on one street and I’m on another and those streets can never meet or one of us is dead.

After how great my day was I can’t believe I’m thinking broody thoughts. I hurry through Temple Bar, dodging cars and streetlamps and all kinds of stuff half buried in piles of ice-crusted snow. Now that the Hoar Frost King is gone, the snow should start melting. I couldn’t be more ready for summer! I don’t tan. I freckle. Dancer likes freckles.

“Summer,” I say, grinning. It can’t come fast enough! They’ll plant gardens at the abbey, grow a mixed veggie medley like the one I had at Chester’s. I’ll definitely be dropping by more once stuff starts growing! I can load myself down with bars and take a few long freeze-framing trips around Ireland, looking for cows or goats or sheep. Maybe even pigs. “Fecking-A, bacon!” My mouth waters just thinking about it.

Right now I got a ton of stuff to do, and getting around in all this snow is tedious. I can’t freeze-frame for long because I have to keep dropping down and replot my mental grid. There are too many drifts and piles of ice that weren’t there yesterday. Every time I drop down I just about freeze my fingers and toes off. It’s night, a wicked breeze is blowing in off the ocean, and I swear it’s twenty below with the windchill.

I snap my grid into place, whiz a quarter of a block, stop, re-plan. Freeze-frame forty feet, turn the corner on a slide, smash into a drift, roll, and remap while sliding some more. I slam into the side of a building and my breath frosts the air in a sharp white gasp. I curse and rub my side. I’m going to be one big bruise tomorrow.

First up on my list of things to do is get a new Dani Daily out there before We-don’t-really-fecking-Care does and totally skews the news. Folks need to know all the scoop: that the villain icing peeps is dead, they can start making noise again, the snow is going to melt, and even though it don’t look like it right now, summer is going to come. They need to know I got my sword back and ain’t defenseless anymore. I’m back on my beat 24/7, watching over things and hunting the Crimson Hag, who’s going to bite the dust as soon as I can figure how to kill her and get Christian back.

Tomorrow I’ll cruise around Dublin slow-mo Joe style, listening for survivors over the crunch of snow and taking them in for food and shelter, which means Ryodan is about to get a lot more folks at Chester’s. Our city just keeps getting hammered with walls falling and riots happening, food getting stolen and stockpiled, and now this killing winter in spring. I’m thinking we better get used to things never being predictable again. I suspect we’ll lose a lot more folks before the tide starts to turn. Change is hard for most people. Not me. I love re-creating myself. Change means you get to choose again. Become something new. Unless you’re dead like Alina. Then you never get to choose again. That’s why I’m going to make Ryodan give me whatever secret he’s got so I can live forever.

I ease back down into slow-mo to skirt a mound of ice-crusted snow. I’m standing there, starting to get all broody again thinking about all the ghosts I see in these streets sometimes, when I feel the tip of something sharp and pointy in my back.

“Drop your sword, Dani,” Mac says, real soft-like behind me.

“Yeah, right. Like I’m actually falling for this.” I snicker. Me and my overactive imagination. Like Mac would actually be able to sneak up behind me without my superhearing tipping me off. Like she would ever walk around at night with no MacHalo on. I got mine on and I know exactly how bright it is. If she was standing behind me, we’d be making double the light I’m throwing.