“I mean it.” He flashed his teeth at me. “I did what you asked. I got Saiman out for you. You did . . . what you had to do. From now on we go together.”

“Okay.”

I got into the car and drove down the road. The moment we rolled out of the Pack courtyard, Julie broke. Derek wrapped his arm around her. She cried and cried, heartbroken. Julie almost never cried anymore.

If Dali died . . . I didn’t even want to think about it. If I had a choice, I would hit my father now, hard and fast, with all of our strength. Instead I had to sit on my hands, because right now we couldn’t win. Not until my aunt helped me figure out how to defeat him.

“I didn’t know,” Julie sobbed. “She took care of me for two years and I didn’t know.”

“Nobody knew,” Curran told her.

“He threw her away. Just like that. For nothing.”

I almost said I tried to tell you before and bit it back before it came out. Not the right time.

“Why her? Why? She was so nice.”

“Because she was close to you,” Derek said.

Julie buried her face in her hands and cried.

“I’m so sorry,” I told her. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I’ll make him pay. I promise you.”

“It won’t bring her back,” she whimpered.

My heart was cracking and it hurt. You bastard. You fucking bastard. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

Trees rolled by. For several minutes we didn’t talk. I drove and looked straight ahead.

“Where are we going?” Derek asked.

“We’re going to the Guild,” I said. We were going to work.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I need Saiman to read what my father wrote on my skin while I was in the womb. The sooner Erra can tell me what it is, the sooner we can kill him.”

The car fell silent.

“Well,” Curran said. “At least the pervert has a purpose.”

CHAPTER

12

THE GUILD OCCUPIED the remains of an old hotel on the edge of Buckhead. When Curran, Barabas, and I took it over, the tower was in ruins, partially because a rogue giant had ripped off its roof trying to eat the delicious people hiding inside. The Guild had a new roof now. A new front parking lot and a new back lot too, the latter fenced in by a solid wall and converted into a training yard. Barabas was trying to push through a permit with the city that would allow us to put an even bigger wall around the building. Any time Curran got a base, he wanted to wall it in. For defensive purposes. He’d tried to wall in our street too, and it took all of us together to talk him out of it.