Chapter-1-
“I need your help.”
Someone call Scientific American.
Because those four small words were unequivocal proof of a parallel universe. Or maybe the world really was ending, just like Athena the All Knowing insisted.
“Fiona? Are you there?”
In spite of the desperation she heard—or perhaps because of it—Fiona Dresden didn’t immediately respond. As far as she was concerned, Maxwell Morrison Prescott, the III could stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Never mind that he was her brother—or step-brother if you wanted to get technical, which she did—or that a decade had passed since their last brief conversation, which had taken place at the foot of their collective parents’ freshly dug graves. In her lifetime, there were only two things Fi had ever gotten from Max: a missing front tooth (care of a Tonka truck he’d beamed her with when she was ten) and a broken heart.
Neither of which she cared to revisit.
And yet, here he is.
“Fiona.”
She should hang up because he deserved nothing.
Nothing.
And no doubt he wanted something. Something. Because why else would he reach out? After all this time—
“Goddamn it, Fi!”
“Cool your tits,” she retorted. “What do you want?”
“I told you.” Impatience crackled like dry wood catching flame. Some things never changed. “I need your help.”
She snorted. “This number is no longer in service.”
“Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
“Because you deserve easy?” Her tone sharpened. “How long has it been, big brother? A decade? More?”
Silence greeted that observation.
Hang up, she thought again. Because it had taken years to heal the wounds he’d inflicted; she had no intention of ripping them open again.
But she didn’t toss her phone to the ground and stomp on it. Like she should have. No, instead she waited, her heart a painful drum in her chest. Frozen and furious and damning herself for trying.
Again.
“I need you, Fi.”
The quiet intensity in those words chilled her. Because Max was—and always had been—omnipotent; he didn’t need anyone. Certainly not her. His last words to her on that dreary day over a decade ago were a brand that forever marked her.
Grow up, Fiona. We aren’t family. We never were.
He should have just kicked her in the face with one of his steel-toed boots. It would’ve hurt less.
“Moi?” she mocked, but a tremor moved through her, and anger simmered in her chest, and every twisted thing she’d ever felt for him thickened in her throat.
Max said nothing. And for a second, she thought the connection had been lost.
Which made her want to laugh. And cry.
Because, life.
But the child she’d once been, the one who’d so naively believed that they were family—and who, even now, stubbornly refused to accept that they never would be—waited, breathless with hope.
Stupid, fruitless, infuriating hope.
“I was a dickhead,” he said abruptly, his tone grim. “I’m sorry.”
The words slapped her, and for a moment, she couldn’t speak.
Because the world really was ending.
It must be.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Max?” she demanded.
“I’m not a kid anymore. Cut me some goddamn slack.”
“You threw me away,” she retorted flatly, and the memory of his desertion stabbed through her like a hot blade. “I owe you less than nothing.”
Hang up, you idiot.
“I can’t change the past,” he muttered, and he sounded…weary. As if all of the arrogance and angst he’d always worn like a shield had drained away, leaving only fatigue behind.
Not that she cared. Dickhead. On that, they could agree.
Still, how curious that he should…need her. “What do you want, Max?”
“Are you alone?”
The question made her look around. Nothing had changed since the last time she’d looked: the rain was still a cold, steady deluge that left her standing in half an inch of water.
The carnival midway was waterlogged; the ride jocks were covered in mud and grass as they struggled to set up the tilt-a-whirl in what was quickly becoming swampland, and the games weren’t faring much better, the trailers sinking into the ruts formed when they’d pulled in. Even her balloon game, built of wood and lightweight PVC pipe, was settling into the wet ground. And just across the midway, the popcorn wagon sat slowly sinking in a deep, muddy puddle.
Thunder rolled overhead; someone was listening to Tom Petty. People were hard at work, rides and fencing going up, stands being flashed, and food wagons getting prepped, because tomorrow was opening day, and there was no “called on account of rain” when three days was all you had to make bank.
“Sure am,” she said.
“And you’re in Cedar Hills? At Our Lady of Hope?”
She stilled. “How do you know that?”
“Hatchet. Until Sunday?”
“Hatchet?”
“Stay with me here, Fi. Cedar Hills is only a three-day run, right?”
She scowled. “What does that have to do with—”
“I have a witness.”
“A what?”
“A witness. I need somewhere to stash her.”
Fiona blinked. Opened her mouth, closed it.
“Somewhere no one will think to look,” Max added tightly. “Somewhere safe.”
She blinked, once again silenced. And then, “Have you lost your mind?” Because clearly, he had. “You’re not getting me involved in your FBI gobbledygook. No. Frigging. Way.”
“Fiona.”
“No! I’m not Witness Protection—I’m a carny. Everything you despise. Remember?”
“I don’t despise you,” he said evenly. “I never despised you.”
“Did you get hit in the head?” she wanted to know. “Are you concussed?”
“Jesus Christ, Fiona. Was I really such a prick?”
“The king of all pricks on a big old dickhead throne!” Was he serious? “You abandoned me, Max. I was fifteen, and you were all I had, and you left.”
Static filled the silence that followed, and Fiona wanted to hurl her cell phone across the midway—or, better, at Max’s big, fat, stupid head—but the foolish child who lived in quiet, stubborn determination within her wanted desperately to believe.
So sad and pathetic. Hang up!
“Please,” he said raggedly.
A word he’d never before spoken. At least, not to her.
Her eyes burned. “We aren’t family. We never were. Remember?”
“Of course we’re goddamn family,” he snarled.
The words that filled her throat were ugly and jagged and unfit to speak. She couldn’t do this. To believe again, to trust, to want, only to have him grind her beneath his heel.
He would betray her, just like before. Some things were already written.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I fucked up.”
Damn him.
Was he manipulating her? Because he was not above that. But neither was he a man to sacrifice his pride—not for any reason. So if he was saying it, he probably meant it. And he sounded...desperate.
As if, for once, she held all the cards.
Had she somehow tripped over the extension cord and knocked herself unconscious?
“Fi…look, I know there’s shit we need to hash out, but there’s no time. Not right now. Right now, I need your help. I’ve got a kid in trouble, and if I don’t get her somewhere safe, she’s dead.”
Dead. A kid.
A frigging kid.
Shit!
Because Max…he deserved her hate. Her derision and disappointment and disgust.
But a kid… A kid didn’t. A kid was innocent.
And if Max was calling her for help after a decade of radio silence…in deep trouble.
Something to which Fiona could relate.
“This is crazy stupid,” she told him. “You know that, right?”
“It’s perfect.”
“Only for you.”
“I can compensate you,” he said, his voice hard. “If that—”
“You’re being a dickhead again,” she told him. “There’s an entire midway full of people here, Max. Innocent people. Your witness will endanger every one of them.”
“I’ve got it covered.”
“You can’t possibly—”
“I can.” He paused. “You’re going to have to trust me.”
Ha! “You burned that bridge a long time ago, big brother.”
“Then give me a chance to rebuild it.”
More words that shut her up. And the silly, irrational muscle in her chest leaped, and she reached up to rub the back of her neck, wholly unnerved. The angst churning within her didn’t know what to do: attack or retreat?
Because this was certifiable.
“The show is an ideal hiding place,” Max insisted. “People rarely look too close. It will work.”
For crying out loud. She wasn’t really considering this, was she? “What’s going on that you can’t keep her in a safe house? Has your precious Bureau turned rotten?”
His silence was answer enough, and the chill within her spread like an ugly stain.
“Seriously,” she said sarcastically.
“It’s just for a few weeks,” he promised quietly.
But it was one thing to knowingly endanger herself; it was quite another to knowingly endanger her help and everyone else on the show.
Son of a biscuit!
“She’s only fourteen years old, Fi, and two nights ago she watched her entire family get capped. It’s my job to keep her safe. I’m all she has.”
You were all I had, too. And he’d walked away without a backward glance.
But this wasn’t about her.
Even if he knew better than anyone that she was hard only on the outside; even if he wasn’t above using that knowledge. Because this wasn’t about Max, either. It was about a kid who—even faceless—Fiona could relate to.
She knew exactly what it was to be utterly alone in the world.
So what are you going to do? Who are you going to be?
Who you want to be, or who you should be?
Shit!
“Three weeks, no more,” she said shortly. “And I’m putting her to work.”
“Deal,” Max said quickly. “We’ll be there tomorrow, before noon.”
He ended the call with an abrupt disconnect, and thunder rumbled overhead, a sudden, violent drumbeat that resonated through Fiona’s bones. She squinted up at the darkening sky, her head spinning.
Lost your damn mind, she thought. Because to trust Max, when she knew intimately how unworthy he was of that trust…and to bring the kind of danger that came with him here was…
Insanity.
No matter what he said about having things covered.
No one would be safe.
Which was on her. Because this choice was wholly selfish. That she was cursed with a soft heart was moot; the fact of it was, no matter how much she hated Max, she loved him, too.
Always had, always would.
In her hand, her cell vibrated. “Yeah?”
“Thank you,” he said into her ear and hung up.
“Shit,” she said. Because…thank you.
Another thing he’d never said to her.
“Shit!” she said again, angry.
And deeply uneasy.
Because what could have happened to change him so drastically?
She didn’t know. Not a single, solitary thing.
The last time she’d seen him, he’d been on leave from Afghanistan. She had no clue where he’d been in the decade that followed, not who he’d been, not what he’d been doing. She only knew he was FBI because Hatchet mentioned it once in passing.
Hatchet. Who was the closest thing to family she had left, and who’d obviously kept in much closer contact with Max than she’d ever realized.
The sneaky old fart.
She looked around and wondered how much more was going on around her about which she was utterly clueless.
It was not a nice feeling. And it made her even angrier.
But worse, it made her suspicious.
Because a federal agent turning to his carny stepsister to keep his murder witness safe?
In what frigging universe?
That’s what the U.S. Marshals were for—no? Men with badges and guns; trained men, armed men. Men with license to do whatever was necessary to protect those they served. Was it not their very job to babysit federal witnesses?
Yes. Yes, it was.
So why would Max turn to her for help—instead of them?
Thunder boomed down again, startling her. The sky had grown dark, and the rain was falling in earnest now, heavy sheets that washed down the midway toward the unlit Ferris wheel. Giant, dark, and foreboding, the ride loomed over the bright array of games and concession trailers like a grim headstone.
Nice. Way to be optimistic.
She could only hope it wasn’t prophecy.
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