Climbing out of bed quietly, I wandered to the window and propped my elbows on the sill. The full moon glowed above the rooftops. It reminded me of my mom. She used to say a moon like this was full of wishes, and if one of those wishes belonged to you it might come true when the moon broke open and the cycle started all over again. Maybe I hadn’t made enough wishes.
I took one last look at the alleyway and dragged my arms off the windowsill. Carrying my boots, I tiptoed toward the break in the sheets.
I was steps from the door when I heard a voice. “Going somewhere?”
Jared sat at Priest’s worktable under the dim glow of an emergency lantern.
Of course he’s awake. He probably never sleeps.
I slipped on my boots and walked over. Priest’s journal lay open to the diagram of the Shift. Jared waited for a response, his features almost ethereal in the lantern light.
“I’m leaving.”
A deep line settled between his eyebrows. “I guessed that much. Mind if I ask why?”
“I’m not one of you.” My chest tightened. “I proved that today.”
“Because you couldn’t take down a vengeance spirit the first time out?”
“Because I almost got myself killed. And Lukas and Alara could’ve been hurt.”
Jared’s bloodshot eyes met mine, and this time he didn’t look away. “You think you’re the only one who’s been attacked by a vengeance spirit?” His voice sounded deeper—more his own and less like Lukas’.
“I’m not?”
“No. And you won’t be the last.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “We’re being hunted by a demon. The five of us need to stick together.”
Five of us.
I felt the sting of the words again. “Yeah, you made that pretty clear today.”
He seemed confused. “What are you talking about?”
“The only reason you care about what happens to me is because you think I’m the one you’ve been looking for—the missing member of the Legion.” I fought to keep my voice steady, but the anger burning through me seeped out with every syllable.
“Kennedy, I’m sorry if I—”
“Don’t.” I held up my hand. I didn’t want his pity. I wanted my old life back—my mom or Elle—someone who cared about me. “Stop wasting your time and go back to looking for the right person.”
He walked around the table until he was standing in front of me. “I don’t think I’m wasting my time.”
Everything I’d been trying so hard to hold inside came spilling out. “I’m not like the rest of you. My mom never said a word about any of this, and no one in my family ever chose me for anything.”
Unless my dad choosing to leave me counts.
Jared took a step closer, staring down at me with an intensity that sent a shiver through me. “That doesn’t mean you aren’t the one.”
How could I tell him that my own father walked away from me without even saying good-bye?
Jared’s blue eyes remained locked on mine, and it didn’t feel like he was looking at me. It felt like he was looking into me.
I wondered what he saw.
“Maybe you want to believe it’s me so you can stop searching,” I said quietly.
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” Jared’s eyes still hadn’t left mine. He paused, choosing his words carefully. “The Legion is the only way to stop Andras. So before you walk away, you’d better be sure. Or a lot of innocent people are gonna die.”
Now I was responsible for other people’s lives? Keeping myself alive was hard enough.
I felt the weight of his words bearing down on me.
Before I could respond, shouts cut through the silence. They were coming from the opposite side of the warehouse.
Jared took off running.
On the other side of the sheet, Lukas, Priest, and Alara crowded around the window as the metal frame rattled. Thick screws untwisted themselves and hit the concrete floor one after another.
Lukas pressed his palms against the frame, trying to hold it in place. “I don’t know what happened. The window was salted, but there’s a break in the line.”
It was the same window I’d been looking out not even an hour ago.
A break in the line.
I lifted my arm slowly. A thin layer of white dust coated the inside of my forearm from wrist to elbow. Jared noticed and pulled me closer to get a better look. He touched the crystals and brushed them off my skin as if he expected to see something underneath.
“I didn’t realize—”
Jared cut me off. “We have to leave. Now.” He dropped his voice so no one else could hear him. “Don’t say anything about this. I’ll handle it.”
Alara started to pour another salt line along the windowsill, but Jared took the bag from her and tossed it on the floor, white crystals spraying across the gray concrete.
“There’s no point. It won’t be long before Andras finds out about this place.” He turned to Lukas and Priest. “Grab the gear. We’re gone.”
Alara pushed past me. “Let’s make sure we can get out first.”
The window rattled despite the fresh salt. Maybe nothing was coming in, but something definitely wanted to. Jared fought to hold the frame in place, but only a few rusted screws remained.
I reached for the loose side of the window, but Jared nodded toward the sheets. “Help Priest. We need to take as much as we can.”
I hesitated.
Another screw shot out of its casing and rolled across the floor.
I ran.
“Alara, a little help here,” Jared yelled. She slipped through the sheets carrying a stainless steel bowl. She scooped out a handful of dark green mud and smeared it over the glass, in the shape of an X.
I passed Lukas shoveling armloads of books and clothes into backpacks, but I didn’t stop until I reached Priest.
Two duffel bags lay open on his worktable, and he was tossing everything from weapons to tools and scrap metal inside. I grabbed stuff from the metal shelves, but I didn’t know what to take. Boxes of nails and ammunition, or tools?
“Is it another poltergeist?”
Priest shook his head, blond hair hanging in his eyes. “Don’t know. Wanna stay and find out?”
Glass shattered, the sound echoing against the cinder block walls.
Jared burst through the sheets with Lukas and Alara. “Let’s go.”
I grabbed one of the bags and ran for the door. Priest yanked the other one off the table and the handle ripped, sending screwdrivers and ammo flying across the floor. He dropped to his knees, scooping up whatever he could carry.
Metal groaned somewhere on the opposite side of the warehouse, louder than a hundred screws hitting the floor.
Alara’s eyes darted around the room. “We’re not going to be able to get out.”
Priest abandoned the broken bag. “Get the tank.”
Jared pulled a red fire extinguisher off the wall.
“On three.” He nodded at Lukas. “One, two, three.”
Lukas threw open the door, and Jared bolted outside, spraying a heavy layer of white mist around us. Within seconds, we were all covered in the sticky solution.
“Get in the van.” Lukas practically threw me inside.
Jared peeled away from the curb as Priest wiped a layer of salt off his face.
“That was killer. I’ll have to make more of those babies.” He lifted something out of the soaked duffel. “At least I’ve got my torch. You never know when you’ll need to set something on fire.”
I hugged my knees and tried to stop shaking.
There would be no sneaking off in the middle of the night after this—not to Elle’s, or my aunt’s, or the stupid boarding school I’d never seen. The demon had already found me twice, and he’d find me again.
I watched as the warehouse grew smaller and smaller. In the space of a few seconds, it seemed impossibly far away. Another safe place that wasn’t safe anymore.
Were there any
left?
CHAPTER 17
Middle River
We’re missing a lot of gear, not to mention weapons and ammo.” Priest sat across from me in the back of the van, rummaging around in his duffel bag. He looked even younger in the colored flashes of the traffic lights.
“You can make more.” Lukas didn’t sound very convincing.
“Not without my tools and a place to work.”
Guilt sank in my stomach like a stone. I wanted to apologize, but Jared kept stealing glances at me in the rearview mirror, silently reminding me not to say anything. Maybe there was a reason, something else I didn’t understand like the red circles on the map and the salt line.
I watched the dark streets go by, empty except for a couple of kids huddled together, smoking cigarettes under a broken liquor store sign. Their jackets were dirty and ripped, their faces worn in less definable ways. Probably runaways.
Like me.
Alara unzipped one of the backpacks that Lukas grabbed on the way out. “I have my grandmother’s notebook with her recipes for spells and wards, but it’ll be hard to replace the herbs and supplies. It’s not like they sell lodestones and cowrie shells at the grocery store.”
“We can’t go back.” Jared sounded determined. “Priest can make more weapons, and we’ll replace everything else.”
She glared at him. “You mean I’ll replace it.”
“You’re the one with the trust fund.” Lukas winked at her. “But you’re welcome to the twenty in my wallet.”
“It’s not a revolving line of credit,” she said. “I only get a certain amount every month.”
I remembered Alara mentioning that Lilburn reminded her of her house. I thought she was talking about the antiques or the chandeliers, not the actual mansion.
Priest shook his head, doubtful. “I can’t weld just anywhere.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll find somewhere.” Jared forced a smile, but his nails were bitten down to the quick.
“Can we listen to some music or something?” I asked.
Everyone groaned.
Jared shook his head. “Don’t start.”
“Come on, play your favorite CD for Kennedy.” Lukas smiled and turned around in the seat like he was confiding his darkest secret—or his brother’s. “And I do mean CD.”
Jared elbowed him. “Whatever. The van’s old.”
“So is that CD.” Lukas pressed a few buttons and 1980s music blasted out of the speakers.
It sounded familiar. “Is this from a movie?”
They all burst out laughing.
Jared hit the volume control with his free hand, managing to turn it down a notch for every three Lukas turned it up.
“Make it stop,” Priest whined. “My ears are bleeding.”
Lukas finally gave up and let Jared shut it off, but even Alara couldn’t keep a straight face. “It’s the theme song from this old and totally lame movie called The Lost Boys.”
“It’s a good movie,” Jared shot back, his face flushed.
Priest cleared his throat and did a bad imitation of an adult’s voice that sounded a lot like my math teacher’s. “I hear the soundtrack’s pretty good, too, kids.”
“You’re lucky I can’t weld.” Jared tried to look annoyed, but his mouth turned up at the corners.
Priest tossed his torch on the seat next to me. His name was soldered into the metal handle.
“Is Priest your real name?” I’d been curious since the first time I heard it.
He grinned. “No. It’s kind of an inside joke.”
“Another joke? I’m not sure I can take it.”
“This is a good one,” Lukas said. “So the first time I watched him build a gun, I said it seemed like a crazy specialty for the descendant of a priest. Even an ex-priest.”
Priest pulled his hood over his head. “And I said building vengeance spirit hunting weapons is a religion, and I’m the high priest. Except I can hook up with girls.”
Everyone started laughing. It felt like we all stopped holding our breath at exactly the same moment, and we were regular kids again—driving home from a party to raid the fridge. Instead of wishing we still had a place to call home.
Priest flipped through his journal and ran the blue glass disk over the pages, hoping to decipher lines of hidden text. “You see anything?”
I didn’t, and we both knew it.
We were sitting at a booth in a diner outside of Baltimore. After two waffles and a cup of coffee spiked with cinnamon, I felt like myself again.
Lukas stirred his strawberry shake with a straw. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Alara rolled her eyes. “What did you expect? You’re drinking a milkshake for breakfast.”
“Want the rest?” He pushed the glass in her direction.
She eyed the glass like it was full of motor oil. “You know I don’t eat pink food.”
“Are you allergic to strawberries?” I asked.
“No. I just don’t eat anything pink,” she said, like it was perfectly logical.
“Why not?”
Alara gave me a long look, and emptied what had to be the tenth packet of sugar into her coffee. “In my family, pink symbolizes death. I would rather eat a rat.”
Priest pointed at her cup. “With extra sugar.”
Jared sat alone at the counter, staring out the window at the nothingness you see when you’re too lost in thought to see anything else. I wondered why he was sitting alone. Why he seemed to set himself apart from everyone else, like he was the one who didn’t belong.
He caught me watching him, but didn’t turn away.
I walked over to the empty seat next to him. “Can I sit?”
“Be my guest.” Jared’s army jacket was balled up in his lap, and he was wringing it between his hands.
For a moment, neither of us spoke, the silence building a bridge between us.
“This is my fault.” I needed to say it out loud.
“It isn’t.”
I looked out the window, my stomach twisted in knots. I was embarrassed to face him. “You guys were safe in the warehouse until I showed up.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “We’re never safe, not really.”
“At least you had a place to sleep.” I felt responsible for everything that had happened—even my mom’s death. What if I led the demon to her somehow, the same way I led the vengeance spirits to the warehouse?
Jared rubbed his eyes, and I realized how tired he looked—the kind of tired that went beyond a lack of sleep. The kind that came from carrying something you couldn’t put down, or share. “No one told you the windowsills were salted. I’m the one who screwed up.” Jared dropped his head and leaned forward so I couldn’t see his face anymore. “It’s not the first time.”
“Because you didn’t tell me?”
“No—” He put his hands behind his neck like he was shielding himself from an unseen attack. “Forget it.”
He reached for the coffee cup, and his T-shirt slid up, revealing a tattoo of a bird on his upper arm. It wasn’t a raven or a hawk—the type I would’ve expected to see inked on the skin of someone like Jared. The bird looked almost delicate.
“What’s that?” I pointed at the tattoo, accidentally grazing his skin, and he jerked away.
I started to get up, trying to hide my embarrassment.
Jared’s hand closed around my wrist, blue eyes pleading.
Heat rushed through my body like a shot of adrenaline. I froze, paralyzed by a feeling I recognized immediately. The one I felt when Chris used to hold my hand, and all I could think about was his skin against mine and the emotions tangled up inside me—the one that kept me from seeing the truth about him. He was my first real boyfriend, scarred and damaged, leaving me with scars of my own.
I didn’t need any more.
Jared stared at me, his hand still curled around my wrist. “It’s a black dove,” he said quietly. “The priests chose it because black doves are rar
e and small in number, like the Legion. And a dove is the only bird the devil can’t transform into, which means a demon can’t either.”
He watched me, measuring my reaction.
I sat back down and my wrist slid from his hand. “So you believe in the devil?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Jared hesitated. “He believes in us.”
I hoped this was another piece of information his father had passed down and not something he knew firsthand.
“Are you guys gonna help us out or what?” Priest called across the empty diner.
Lukas glanced over at us. He seemed disappointed as he turned away. I felt a pang of guilt. It was hard to walk the line between the two of them, especially when it shifted constantly. One minute they were defending each other against paranormal entities, and the next they were at each other’s throats.
Jared followed me back to the booth where everyone else was sitting, and he slipped into silence.
Alara had turned her attention away from the offensive pink shake and back to the broken piece of the doll. “Middle River. I’ve seen that name somewhere before.” She scanned her journal until she reached a page with a yellowed newspaper clipping taped in the corner. Above the article was a faded photo of a young woman in a floral dress, holding a little boy’s hand. “I can’t believe it. My grandmother told me this story a hundred times, but she never mentioned the name of the woman or where it happened.”
Priest leaned over Alara’s shoulder. He was the only person she seemed to allow into her personal space. “What’s the deal?”
“This wealthy doctor had an affair with the seamstress who worked at his estate. Six or seven years later, the guy came home drunk and confessed everything to his wife. She went nuts and dragged the seamstress’ little boy down to the well.
The child’s mother tried to stop her, but the woman pushed the kid over the side. He couldn’t swim, so his mom jumped in after him. She broke her neck in the fall, and the boy drowned. According to this article, her name was Millicent Avery.”
“You think one of the pieces of the Shift is hidden there?” It was the first thing Lukas had said since Jared and I sat down.