She crossed her arms. “I’m going to ask you again. Did you set that fire?”
I closed my eyes. “No.”
She crossed the room, coming to sit beside me on the couch. “You have a certain reputation,” she said wearily.
I didn’t respond. There was nothing to say. I knew exactly what my reputation was.
“So did your mother.”
“What?” I spun around to face her. I’d expected another lecture, more therapy, being grounded.
Not talk of my mother.
No one talked about her. Not me, not my dad. Even anger management Mr. Yang had learned not to ask me questions. And since Abby never brought her up, I assumed she felt the same way we did: disappointed, abandoned. Mad as hell. It was years ago, and I was still mad as hell.
“What does this have to do with Liv?” I hadn’t called her Mom since the day I came home from school and found Dad pretending not to cry. “And if you suggest that’s why I’m ‘acting out,’ I’m going to be really pissed.”
Abby smiled faintly. “I suppose that’s the only thing therapists and school counselors could say.” My stomach twisted nervously. Abby looked sad and conflicted, but when she spoke again it was with her usual bluntness. “Your mom was a firestarter, too,” she whispered.
If she’d told me Liv had moved to Mexico to become the queen of the dolphins, I wouldn’t have been any more surprised.
I couldn’t speak for a full minute, and then all the words tried to rush out at the same time. “How do you— But— When— Are you? What?”
“Oh, honey, I would have told you sooner if I’d known.”
“You would have known if you’d been around,” I pointed out.
She nodded, not making excuses except to say, “I was needed here.”
I didn’t tell her I might have needed her, too.
“Your mom used to overheat when she was pregnant with you, but that’s not unusual. Then she had fevers and ate nothing but ice cubes. But she seemed to get over it and I forgot all about it. Pregnant women and new mothers aren’t always rational, and your mom never could handle sleep deprivation.”
“So it’s my fault?” The blisters on my palms itched.
“It most certainly is not,” Abby said, squeezing my hand. I squeaked. She turned them over, frowning at the red and inflamed skin. “Oh, honey.”
“It’s fine.” I curled my fingers protectively and tugged my hands free. “I’m used to it.”
“Remind me to give you some lavender oil,” she said briskly. “It’ll help.”
“I burned Liv, just like I burn myself, didn’t I? It is my fault.”
“It’s no one’s fault. Some people are born with a talent for numbers, or drawing. You inherited a different kind of talent is all.”
“You can’t really believe it’s that simple,” I said. I stared at my deceptively normal hands. They might be red and uncomfortable, but when fire wasn’t shooting out of them, they just looked like everyone else’s. “Is that why she left? Did I hurt her?” I could remember her crying a lot. Sometimes I’d wake up and she’d be standing in the doorway to my room, watching me sleep and silently weeping. I remembered a kitchen fire and smoke choking the house and the alarm screeching. I might have started fires without knowing it. She’d left so long ago that my memories of her were already hazy. “Abby, what did I do?”
“Honey.” Abby took my chin and forced me to meet her eyes. There were wrinkles at each corner and between her brows. “Listen to me very carefully. You did not hurt your mother.”
“Then what happened?” My voice was small, wispy. I preferred the anger. It hurt less. “Why did she take off?”
“She was scared,” Abby said, sitting back. “On your dad’s birthday, she accidentally melted the cake with the birthday candles. A few days later, she fell asleep on the couch, and she woke up to the curtains on fire and you screaming.”
The memory was blurry, but it came into focus so abruptly I wondered how on earth I could have forgotten it in the first place. It was jumbled together with the kitchen fire, Riley, the rose garden—everything I hadn’t wanted to remember. The smell of smoke hung over everything until it smeared together. “You saved your mom’s life that night. She’d inhaled too much smoke, but your screaming woke her up. But by that time, child services was starting to ask questions. Your mom didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want them to take you away, and she didn’t want to hurt you accidentally. So she left.”
“Why didn’t Dad tell me?”
“I don’t think he knows, not really. Your mom told him she’d started smoking,” she said. “Have you told him your secrets?”
I bit my lip. “No.”
“Would he believe you?”
My shoulders slumped. “No.” I loved my dad. He was honest and worked hard and never complained. But he wouldn’t believe me in a hundred years, not about this. He couldn’t even watch movies with supernatural elements without going off on a tirade. After the incident with Riley, I’d tried to explain, but he’d cut me off. He thought I was making excuses.
“Do you talk to her?”
Abby shook her head. “She never gave me an address or a way to contact her. But I get a postcard on my birthday with beach scenes. I think living by the water makes her feel safer.”
Which was more than I ever got.
My head felt as if it might crack open like an egg. I couldn’t reconcile the years of silence with a woman who had ostensibly run away to save me. I didn’t know if it made it better or worse, if I was less angry, or more.
“What about you?” I asked. “Can you start fires?”
“No.” She smiled. “And neither could your grandfather. It first happened to Liv when she was pregnant, so maybe you woke it up in her. Maybe you woke it up in each other. I don’t know,” she said. “But I do know that you’re not alone. We can figure this out.”
“How? Liv couldn’t.”
“You’re not Liv,” she said simply. “You’ve come into your gift much younger, for one thing.”
“Why wasn’t I born with it?” I wondered.
“I assume you were, it was just dormant. I’m thinking it’s a fun new puberty side effect.”
I made a face. “Abby, I’m seventeen.”
“Emotion, then. Your mom was fairly emotional and dramatic.”
That much I remembered.
“So you probably just need to learn some self-control.”
“Self-control?” I asked dubiously.
Her smile was wry. “Your temper? That you get from me. Self-control has always been key.”
“I know.” I sighed. “Act, don’t react,” I recited.
“It’s also a case of putting the reaction in the right place,” Abby said. “Punching bags at the gym, not punching boys named Jim.”
“His name was Peter, actually. And he grabbed me first.”
“Did he now?” If she’d been a dog, she’d have raised her hackles. The family resemblance was becoming more and more pronounced. She released her breath on a long exhale until her shoulders relaxed. “See? Self-control.” It would have sounded better if she hadn’t said it through her teeth. She patted my knee. “Try and get some sleep.”
I was pretty sure I was never going to sleep again.
I opened the window a few inches, listening to the wind. I texted Riley, but there was no reply. I wasn’t sure how many times I was supposed to apologize. I leaned my forehead against the windowpane, staring through the reflection of my own eyes to the darkness beyond.
When I did finally sleep, I dreamed of bloodied teeth, of fire and manacles, of searing ice, and the constant ragged breath of a monster on the back of my neck.
And my mother.
Chapter Eleven
Kia
When morning finally arrived, I blinked blearily, uncramping my cheek from where it was mashed against the cold window. I blew strands of red hair out of my eyes as I started to remember the past few hours more clearly. I was exhaus
ted, and I still felt twinges of cold deep in my bones. I briefly considered Googling “ice monster” and then decided against it. I also decided against typing “hallucination” and “mental illness” into a search engine. I did briefly research firestarters, but I mostly got websites for horror movies and video game characters. Better I stick to what was corporeal, what was solid and real under my hands. I’d gather information for myself.
Starting in the forest.
I waited until dawn turned the sky orange and pink and chased shadows away to wherever shadows went. A quick glance out of the window showed nothing but trees and birds. Everyone else was asleep, especially after a late night fighting a forest fire. I’d only dozed for a few hours. My eyes were gritty and dry, but they weren’t burning. Small mercies. I’d concentrate on small mercies and solid facts. That sounded logical. Reasonable.
Not crazy.
Outside, I kept close to the stone wall and eased around a lilac bush, using it to screen me from a security camera tucked under a yawning gargoyle. I stepped lightly over the charred grass, damp ashes clumping under my boots. The forest had none of the sinister quality it had possessed last night; the sun fell through red leaves and bare branches and glowed green through pine and cedars. Birds sang cheerfully. Still, my heart pounded against my rib cage. Something about the melancholy remains of the fire made me ache, made me feel small and exposed.
That I’d nearly frozen to death on this very spot didn’t help.
The tree I’d hidden behind to spy on Ethan looked like any other tree, until I got closer. Frost damage had peeled up strips of bark. There were pockmarks where the shards of icicles had bitten into the trunk, like bullet holes. I traced them hesitantly, trying not to spook myself. When I found a long white hair caught in a bit of ragged bark, I could practically hear the frozen breath of that…thing…behind me.
When I spun around, there was no one, and nothing there.
I poked through the ferns and the undergrowth, circling the tree warily. There were tracks in the half-frozen mud. Some of them were clearly mine, fitting my boots perfectly. Others led to the lake and back, to the fire pit and back. It was the prints that could only have been made by a large dragging bare foot that had the air freezing in my throat.
Still, a bare foot implied a human had passed here.
The idea of an old crazy man who’d been weathered to the point of disfigurement by the elements was strangely comforting. Maybe not for the crazy old man in question, but for me, at least. Still, it didn’t explain the ice and the way I’d felt as if it had been eating me from the outside.
There were secrets here. Dangerous ones.
There was a sound, like the one I’d heard last night. Metal on metal and something animal. I ran back to the castle. I wondered if Abby knew what was going on, and if she did, if she’d tell me. I couldn’t help but think of the Cabal, mentioned while Ethan and his friends did whatever weird thing they’d been doing. I didn’t even know what a cabal was. I gave in and tried internet searches for ice monsters and Ethan Blackwood. Like before, the internet connection failed.
But this time I wasn’t so sure it was a coincidence.
Despite the fact that Ethan had helped put the fire out and had even defended me to Abby, there was also the way he’d lurked in the hallway outside his dad’s museum, the way he’d grabbed me, and the way he’d come out of the forest bloody on a morning like this one. So even Ethan wasn’t to be trusted.
Maybe especially Ethan.
At school, I followed him down the hall, watching as he went to his locker and got his books, as he ignored two friends when they high-fived next to him. He walked to class, and the crowds parted as if he was a rock star. It was annoying.
It was easier to focus on the mystery of Ethan than it was on long white hairs in the forest and ice that clogged my nostrils until I choked. I could figure him out, even if I couldn’t figure out what I’d seen. Or not seen. I went back to watching him, waiting for him to do something suspicious. He smiled at Justine, but I guessed that didn’t really count. He took notes, glanced at the clock, slouched lazily in his chair. He was gorgeous. I could definitely see the appeal.
You know, if you didn’t factor in dead bunnies and bloody scratches.
I must have made a sound of frustration, because heads turned toward me. I felt my face go red and forced my expression into something obnoxious and indifferent. “What?” I said rudely. Ethan was the only one who held my stare with one of his own. He raised an eyebrow. I narrowed my eyes back at him. I refused to be the first one to break the glare. When the bell rang, we both jumped in our seats.
I was the first one out of the classroom. I spent the rest of the day both avoiding him and spying on him and I was no closer to an answer. I was, however, closer to being accused of being a stalker. Not exactly an improvement.
I drove to Brontë’s Café to use their wifi. As expected, my search turned up video games and mythology and not much else. As a last resort, I researched what other kinds of animals ate rabbits. There was a long list: wolverines, bobcats, bears, coyotes, owls, but mostly, as I’d seen the last time I’d researched this: wolves.
Wolves.
An image of the werewolf claw in the museum trophy room hit me so fast my head practically snapped back.
Ethan smiling when he told me there were wolves in the area.
The scratches on his arms and chest.
The dead rabbit. Holy crap. Ethan was a werewolf.
Chapter Twelve
Ethan
Colt’s father paced and his mother sat steely eyed in a plastic hospital chair. Tobias came up behind me with a tray of coffee cups. He passed them out and then stood beside me, drinking some kind of green tea. “Did you get it?”
I shook my head. “Got some blood on my knife, but that’s it.”
“Do we know what it is yet?”
I shook my head again, so frustrated I tasted copper. I must have bitten the inside of my cheek. “What about Colt?”
“He probably won’t get full use of his legs back. Crutches if he’s very lucky, wheelchair otherwise.”
I swore, feeling sick to my stomach. “Where the hell’s my dad?”
“He was at the nurse’s desk, trying to get more information.”
I tossed my cup away and stalked down the hall, feeling the tightness of the stitches Abby had given me to bind my wounds together. There were layers of antibiotic ointment and bandages under my shirt and more scratches and bruises on my face and neck.
I closed in on Dad right as he switched from charm to abuse. It was a mark of his fear. He never lost his cool, not around pretty women. “Then find me someone who knows something. Anything!” he snapped.
“If you’ll have a seat, sir,” the nurse returned calmly. “The doctor will be with the boy’s actual parents as soon as the surgery is finished.”
Dad shoved a hand through his hair, cursing. After a moment of wondering if he was going to pull the hunting knife I knew was strapped under his pant leg, he used a different weapon entirely. He smiled a disarming smile. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just worried.”
The nurse nodded. I could practically hear her shields melting off. “Of course.”
Dad turned away, spotting me. “Ethan,” he said, with that warm, proud tone he used in public. I hated it more than basilisk poison. “There you are. Excuse me,” he said to the nurse before pulling me aside. “I’m having him transferred to the best medical facility in the city as soon as he’s stable enough to move. They’re already on standby.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed?” I asked quietly, antiseptic stinging my nostrils. “You’re the reason he’s in this damn mess in the first place. You and the damn Cabal.”
His hand gripped my arm, bruising in its censure. I had to restrain myself from tossing him into the cart of medical supplies beside us. I could do it. I was strong enough. I was considering it when he pulled me into a secluded family waiting room. “We need a show of
solidarity right now, son,” he warned me. “I need you to keep it together, to be a leader. That’s what being Cabal is all about.”
“God, enough with your damn Cabal,” I shouted, punching a lamp off a side table so that it cracked against the wall.
“I made you strong. What are you complaining about? Childish tantrums won’t help us,” he said, barely acknowledging the broken glass at his feet. “And believe me, son, if you think I’m too hard, you really don’t want the Cabal coming for a visit. At least Colt’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain. That energy will feed the wards. It will continue to keep our secrets, to keep the collection inside the boundaries. To protect. Just as Summer’s sacrifice did.”
I took a swing at my dad. I’d never wanted to hurt him more than I did right then. Did that make me a monster? Or was he the monster?
Whatever else he was, he was trained Cabal and ducked my punch easily. “Settle down.” He knocked me back into the wall. “We need more champions,” he continued as if nothing happened. “To prove we can handle the bestiary.”
I didn’t want to be talking about this. I wanted to be tracking down Summer’s killer. Wanted to know its name before I gutted it.
Maybe I was more like Dad than I’d thought.
“We’ll have to hold more Trials, convince the twins to finally honor their birthright.”
“You’re joking.” I laughed harshly. “You have to be.”
“I am not,” he replied. His eyes glittered with something I couldn’t quite name, something that made bile rise in my throat. I stared at him for a full minute, rage and disbelief churning inside me. My hands clenched into fists again, but there was nothing close enough to punch. Except his face.
“Colt could have died. Summer did die, or have you forgotten?” Her ring was a burning ember in my pocket. “And Mom.” I’d never really known her. She’d taken off when I was young to find some mythical beast in the mountains of Tibet. She’d never made it home.
“I haven’t forgotten.” He frowned. “You’ll have to convince Justine not to be afraid. She’s a good fighter—she can handle the Trials.”