Taking a deep breath, I tried to sit up.

Jenks abruptly had his hands on me, pressing my shoulder down. He’s got big hands, I thought, trying to focus. And warm.

“Not so fast,” he said. “Can you swallow?”

My eyes flicked to the plastic cup in his hand. I licked my lips. I wanted it, but my neck hurt. It hurt bad. “Where’s Ivy?” I slurred.

Jenks’s expression closed. I focused on his green eyes while the edges of my sight grayed. Nausea tightened my gut. Kisten said she had forgotten control while under Piscary’s ungentle touch, possibly killing people in the throes of blood passion. I’d thought she was better. Kisten said she was better. She looked better. Apparently by asking her to divorce her feelings of love from her hunger, I’d taken away what she had used to shackle it. In three minutes I threw her back into the pit of depravity she had struggled so long to escape. I had done it to her. Me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, starting to cry, and he took both my hands in one of his to stop them from moving upward to my neck. “I only wanted to understand. I didn’t mean to tip her over the edge. Jenks, don’t be mad at her.”

His fingertips brushed the hair from my forehead, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze, not yet ready to believe. Though his smooth features looked too young for someone who had adult kids, the deep-set pain born in understanding said he had endured a lifetime of joy and sorrow.

“Let me get some water in you before you pass out,” he said, turning away. “Jax!” he snapped, sounding very unlike himself. “Where’s that straw? I don’t want her lifting her head.”

“Which one is hers, Dad?” the adolescent pixy said, his voice high in worry.

“It doesn’t matter. Just get one!”

The reflected light on the ceiling darkened, and from the open door came a hesitant, “She had the Sprite. And her cup is the one with all the buttons punched in.”

Jax rose three feet in a glittering column of sparkles.

How about that? Those plastic dents are of some use after all.

“Get the hell out of here,” Jenks said, seething. The warmth of his fingers slipped from me as he rose to stand above me.

Guilt hit hard, and I wanted to curl up and die. What had I done? I couldn’t fix this. All I’d wanted was to understand Ivy, and now I was lying in a motel room with holes in my neck and my two best friends fighting. My life was a pile of shit. “Jenks,” I whispered, “stop.”

“She wants me here,” Ivy came back with immediately. I could tell she was still in the threshold, and she sounded desperate. “It was an accident. I’ll never touch her again. I can help. I know what to do.”

“I bet you do,” he said snidely, putting his hands on his hips. Now that he was six-foot-four, it didn’t look as aggressive, somehow. “We don’t need you! Get out!”