average human’s Reviews > Control My Night > Status Update

“Isobelle Sayer?”
Isobelle waved as she chewed, blissfully ignorant. “Keanna, right?” she garbled with her mouth full.
I exhaled through stiff lips. “You have no idea how much trouble you’ve caused in Prague. Have you told your father you’re here?”
After that, naturally, the table went quiet.

“I knew he’d be upset,” Isobelle said for the tenth time, “but I did what I had to do. I left a note! And Ellie’s been letting him know my progress and when I’ll be home.”
My question had the effect of a stink bomb. The others dispersed, leaving Isobelle, myself, Chloe, and Katherine facing each other over the kitchen island. Eilinora, who’d excused herself to the bathroom before my conversation with Isobelle, hurriedly returned.
“Tell them, Ellie,” Isobelle said to the statuesque banshee leader. “I left him a note, didn’t I?”
I cut off Eilinora’s reply. “No one believes you wrote it.” You eejit.
“Well, what about the texts?” Isobelle tried again. “Show her! The ones you’ve been sending for me. Show her your phone.”
Eilinora clicked her tongue. She crossed her booted ankles, perching against the timber bench housing the whirring dishwashers. “Technically, the texts I showed you were sent, but they never went to your father. The number you saw me program wasn’t his.”
Isobelle sucked in a breath, tears budding in her expressive brown eyes. “Oh. No.”
Eilinora had the grace to sound apologetic, her crossed arms tightening. “We can’t risk messages being tracked.”
The anger that had ignited upon seeing Arwood’s daughter was now diverted to the three banshee leaders. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Chloe stepped forward, palms outstretched. “Here, Keanna darlin’, give us—”
“Don’t ‘darling’ me,” I snapped. “There are people being held hostage because Arwood believes she’s been kidnapped.” I flung a finger out, my tone climbing in octave. “I was abducted off the street because he thought I’d be able to help find her!”
“You said you’d run from your father,” Katherine said. Warning.
“After he rescued me from Arwood,” I corrected her, pointing to my collar. “Arwood gave me this. I’ve been pulled like a ragdoll between two psychotic men, and all the while Isobelle’s been here!”
“It’s for her own good,” Eilinora said, unmoved by my outburst. She looked the youngest, and her Irish accent rang weakest of the three leaders; her words carried predominantly American undertones. “Left untrained, the Sect would have found and killed her. Isobelle knew this. It’s why she came with us when we approached her in Prague.”
“Disappearing without a trace was never the deal,” Isobelle argued.
Ellie shrugged. “I’m sorry we misled you, Is, but we take no chances.”
Isobelle moaned in frustration, dropping her face into her hands.
“Arwood Sayer is too dangerous,” I murmured. “She can’t stay here, either.”
“Until she’s trained, we can’t be letting her go,” Katherine said.
“I nearly am—”
“She has to go back,” I pressed. All I could think of was Silas. His mother, his sister. “He’s killed people—he’s made me kill people—because he thought they might have taken her. He’s blackmailing a mage by holding his family hostage. In a cage. Arwood won’t stop killing, he won’t let them go, until he has Isobelle back.”
“This was why he needed to know I was okay! Ellie—”
“Stop,” Katherine commanded. “I’m not minimizing what you’ve gone through, Keanna, or what you’ve told us. But we three never make decisions alone or without consideration. Give us twenty-four hours to discuss.”
I didn’t want a delay. I wanted a decision now. Twenty-four hours wasn’t long in the grand scheme of things, but every day ticking by meant more death, another day of Silas being trapped.
“Twenty-four hours, now,” Katherine repeated, watching me closely. “In the meantime, I recommend you both try to get some sleep. Keanna, there’s a spare bed on the second floor, second door on the left. Breakfast is at seven.”
Seething, I followed Isobelle’s bobbing silver-blonde ponytail up the flight of stairs. At best, the leaders would deliberate and see reason, but that meant waiting a whole day. If they decided to do nothing, was I really in a position to bite the hand currently feeding me? Where would I go if I didn’t stay here until I found my feet?
In the end, I knew what I had to do. I’d seen too much, done too much, to ignore what had transpired countries away.
We paused on the landing. Isobelle’s arms were linked across her stomach. Bracing herself. Like her father, she had tried to solve a problem without paying mind to collateral damage.
At least she seemed guilty about it.
“You knew your father was capable of these things?” I asked.
She raised her chin even as she clutched herself tighter. “He’s … he’s made difficult decisions the last couple of years. He’s needed to. But he’s been a good man most of his life.”
“‘Good men’ can be another person’s villain.”
I gained no pleasure in the way her face fell as she focused on my collar. She bit her bottom lip, staring at her bare feet. Pastel blue toenails matched the clothes she wore.
Isobelle stood taller than me. Thinner than me. Prettier, too, with thick lips and long eyelashes. The picture-perfect daughter I’d tried my whole life to become, yet the urge to compare felt less intense than I’d expected. Ingrained, negative, pervasive thoughts—if I’d been like her, my father might have loved me better—rose like an instinct, demanding space and sanity. But the cold reality of my situation had taken over.
What good are long, thin legs when you can’t control what you are and you kill people because of it? What is the point of counting calories when you have no idea where your next meal is coming from?
With these realizations came the harsh, unrelenting truth I’d forced myself to acknowledge each day since I’d left: in any form, I wouldn’t have been enough for my father. I needed to remember that.
“When Eilinora contacted me, I knew my dad wouldn’t let me go if I’d asked,” Isobelle said. “None of them would. But I was sick of being scared of the Sect, and if I kept screwing up I knew it’d only be a matter of time before they overwhelmed my family and came for me anyway.”
This echoed Leon’s thoughts, even as I inwardly winced. Leon. Unfortunate pun aside, I should have dropped that bomb on her there and then, but I decided just as swiftly I wouldn’t be the one to deliver the news.
Her father would. When I united them.
“Do you have a phone?”
Isobelle shook her head. “Cellphones aren’t allowed for anyone except the leaders. Too much of a security risk.” There went my plan to try and bribe one of the other banshees. She peered at me in the dim light. “Why?”
I’d been trying to work out how to get word to Arwood without exposing the banshees. At first I’d considered finding Anika on socials—out of everyone, she struck me as the type to have them—but I didn’t know if her last name was Camardo, and the plan was dependent on her even having an account and checking it regularly—
Hang on.
I did have a way to reach Anika.
Could I confide in Isobelle? She watched me in a manner reminiscent of her father, assessing my posture, observing my defiance. If she told on me, the banshees would never trust me, and I’d ruin my future here with all of them.
But if the leaders decided not to let us go—entirely possible, they appeared rigid in their utilitarian convictions—they’d be on the lookout for what I planned to do. Tonight, I might have the jump on them.
“Prague is becoming a warzone,” I whispered, watching her expression. “Your father sends people out, night after night, searching for you. To any end.” Isobelle bit the inside of her cheek, but didn’t interrupt as I went on. “The Sect are closing in. They’re just waiting for an opportunity.”
She tilted her head, her gaze sharpening. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, I’m in.”
I whispered my idea. Eagerness filled her face; she was nodding before I’d finished.
“Is there a way we can access one of the leader’s phones?”
Isobelle shook her head. “I’ve never seen them leave one lying around.”
“Laptops?”
“There’s a bunch on the top floor for those who work remotely.”
“Would they be connected to the internet?”
“Pretty sure they would be. Like, they do investments, virtual assistant work, translation services, that kind of thing. But it’s always locked down of an evening.”

A frustrated exhale escaped. “Any other ideas?”
She pointed over the landing. Across the oiled floorboards, a landline phone lay tucked in an alcove between the window and a packed bookcase, balancing atop a thick, gnarled yellow-paged book. A phone directory, Isobelle told me.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere. Reception’s terrible here,” she whispered. “I’ve seen them use that phone loads.”
We formed a plan in hushed whispers.
A giggling fit erupted behind one of the closed doors as we ascended the next flight of stairs. Laughter rose and fell like the tide as Isobelle opened her door and slipped inside.
I went to my room. My bag lay against the pillow on the bed closest to the threshold. Three other beds crammed the space, the floor filled with cushions and paperback books in varying pastel shades. Dainty fairy lights were strung across both walls and framed a thick paned window. Three banshees sprang upright on their beds as I entered.
Aoife padded over in her knee-high bed socks, introducing the other two. All three had trained for several years and decided to stay with the clan. Aoife assisted Eilinora with recruitment, and the others worked with Chloe locating new banshees.
I dodged well-meaning but invasive questions about where I’d come from. They got the hint, leaving me be. I changed in the communal bathroom before ducking under the covers, pretending to sleep. One by one, whispers ceased, and murmurs of “goodnight” faded into the soothing draw-drag of slumber.
Isobelle’s door opened. Footsteps rushed down the hall. Soon came what I was waiting for: Katherine and Chloe’s concerned whispers as they attended to Isobelle’s ‘panic attack.’
I listened for disruption from the banshees around me as I exited the room, creeping past Isobelle’s muffled faux hysteria and the comforting tones of the leaders.
Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, I listened out for Eilinora. She hadn’t attended the meltdown. Was she still awake?
As I tiptoed to the landline, my beast reeled. I halted, spinning into a crouch next to the bookcase. Outside, chrome-tipped trees swayed under the full moon, the belly of the forest empty and unmoving. Again, my beast cautioned me to pause.
Metal flashed—
A tall pale woman with a thick silver ponytail peeled away from a tree. Darkness coated her as she flipped a knife, the blade catching the light. Eilinora. Her gaze stalked the depths of the house, watching for movement through the windows. Lurching moments passed as I clung to the bookcase. Finally, she turned.
How many others were out there, on patrol? I darted a glance around, making sure I wasn’t visible from any other angle aside from the window directly in front of me. I’d have minutes, perhaps less, before Eilinora was replaced with another banshee. I pivoted the landline, preparing to grab the handset, when something glinted beside it.
A single silver strand of hair lay underneath the receiver, poised to fall to the ground as soon as it was disturbed. If not for the moonlight, I’d have missed it.
The length of the strand matched my hair—and Eilinora’s.
I should have expected they’d have a sneaky way to check if the phone had been used without their consent. They housed and protected teenage girls, after all.
Eilinora remained turned, but her presence sent chills up my spine. I gingerly secured the strand of hair between my fingers and opened the directory, crouching behind the bookcase and stretching the cord as far as it would go.
When the dial tone hit my ears, I exhaled, thanking Ireland’s reliance on old-school technology. Thanked every deity existing in the universe that the company name I searched for was listed in the snarled, curling tome. I also thanked anything else worth thanking that Anika was a night owl even with the time difference and would most likely answer.
Several clicks later, it rang. And rang. Then, words I’d been longing to hear:
“ALM Holdings, may I take a message?”