Shadow & Soul by Susan Fanetti Read Free Book Online

though, if she got hurt—or worse—on his watch, well, he’d be better off crawling into one of the rusty hulls waiting for the crusher and just waiting right along with it.
     
    She’d been running around the place for a couple of hours, acting like every pile of junk was the best thrill ride ever. She had herself a bizarre mishmash of crap she was going to put on the same account—she’d said she did that all the time, and Demon hoped that was true. He knew what she intended it for. She made things out of junk. Like sculptures, or something. Blue, Hoosier, and Fat Jack all had stuff she’d made sitting or hanging around their stations.
     
    It was pretty cool. He didn’t really see what she saw in the junk or in the sculptures she made out of it, but it was cool the way she saw things in a way he couldn’t. And it was cooler the way she made what was there become what she saw.
     
    He looked up at the mountain of junk she was on and tried to ignore her pretty ass. She was half lying in the Fury, reaching for something. She looked like somebody who was about to die in a horror movie. One of those Final Destination things. The thought made him woozy.
     
    He knew if he nagged at her to be careful again, she’d do something crazy on purpose. The last time he’d said anything, she’d literally hung upside down by her knees off a length of rebar that was jutting out of a pile. He’d had to lean against Dante for a few minutes after that.
     
    “Faith, come on. I gotta get back. Hooj is gonna have my hide.” That was true—they’d been here for hours.
     
    She looked down at him, under her arm. “You are such a pill. Okay, okay. There’s a shifter knob up here. I can’t get it loose. Gimme a couple more minutes to try.” She grunted with the effort. “Fuck!” She kicked hard in frustration, and that time, Demon was damn sure something shook.
     
    “Faith!”
     
    “One…more…Hah! Got it! Got it! Look—shiny!” She turned to show him, holding the black knob—nothing special, just a plastic ball—back and out to him. Then she squealed. “Ow! Fuck, ow!”
     
    All the blood in Demon’s body fell to his feet and then charged up in a rush to his head. “Faith?”
     
    “My hair—I’m caught in something. Fuck! Ow, ow, ow!” She dropped the shifter knob and it bounced and rolled down the pile like the catalyst in a Rube Goldberg machine.
     
    Rube Goldberg… Final Destination …Demon was going to fucking puke.
     
    “Don’t move! Fucking freeze! I’m coming!” Not registering that he was about twice her size and probably only going to make everything worse, he headed up Junk Mountain. He moved quickly but as carefully as he knew how and managed to get himself into the Fury with her, half-lying face to face with her. She’d stayed quiet and still, doing as he’d said.
     
    Her ponytail was wound around part of the rusted-out remnants of the drivetrain. He got his arms around her head and worked the strands loose as gently as he could. Her hair felt like silk.
     
    She smelled like dirt and rust and oil. Also flowers of some kind.
     
    She was a kid. A kid, a kid, a kid. A kid. Blue’s kid.
     
    When her hair was free, she sighed happily and then giggled. “You just rescued me. I feel like Rapunzel.”
     
    “Who’s that?”
     
    “Rapunzel? The fairy tale princess with the long, long hair? She was locked in a tower and the prince climbed her hair to rescue her? ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair’?”
     
    He just stared at her, not knowing what she was talking about but not caring. Her eyes were so pretty. Today, they were mostly blue, he thought.
     
    “You don’t know Rapunzel?”
     
    He shrugged, and her eyes got sad. He didn’t like that at all. He didn’t want her sad for him. That was pity, and he didn’t need her pity because he didn’t know a stupid fairy tale princess. Life was not a stupid fairy tale, and if she thought it was, she was just as stupid as