“Hey.” Lukas was behind me with something balled up in his hand. “I have an extra T-shirt if you need one.” I hadn’t thought about what I was going to put on after my shower.
“Thanks.”
My scraped skin brushed his rope-burned palm. Even bloody and raw, his touch was gentle—like him. I could imagine Lukas listening to “Home,” the song we both loved, whispering the lyrics to himself the way I did when I felt lost.
I closed the door and leaned against it, letting the room fill with steam. I didn’t want to look at my tangled hair and grime-streaked face in the mirror. But I didn’t need to see the fresh cuts on the rest of my body to know they were there. Hot water stung them as I sat on the shower floor, waiting for the brown water running off my legs to turn clear again.
The memory of Millicent’s cold arm around my neck and the well water filling my lungs finally drove me out of the shower.
I slipped into Lukas’ T-shirt, relieved when it grazed my knees. I was even more relieved that I had ignored Elle when she tried to convince me to trade my boy shorts for “cute” underwear, with stupid words like pink written on the back.
When I finally opened the door, it still felt like everyone could see right through the shirt.
Priest put on his headphones. “Anyone care if I turn off the lights?”
Thank god.
I made a beeline for the bed, tugging at the bottom of the T-shirt. A streak of blood smeared across the cotton. Between skidding across the front walk at my house and fighting off Millicent’s spirit, the cuts on my hand were bleeding again. As I turned back toward the bathroom to grab a towel, Lukas stepped inside and closed the door.
Exhaustion hit me as I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for him to finish. My eyes felt heavy, and I fought to stay awake.
The door hinges creaked, and I jumped. I wandered to the bathroom half-asleep.
Lukas walked out barefoot and shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. He rubbed a towel over his hair, sending streaks of water down his chest.
With nowhere else to look, I studied a bare patch on the stained carpet. “I need to grab a towel for my hand.”
“Let me see.” He stepped closer and took my wrist gently, his jeans brushing against my leg.
“It’s no big deal.” I tried to ignore the fact that I was standing in front of a beautiful boy, wearing his T-shirt.
“As long as you’re all right.” Lukas’ hand slid from my wrist as I stepped into the harsh light of the tiny bathroom.
I rinsed my hand and knotted a hand towel around it.
When I opened the door, Jared was standing there with a clean shirt balled up in his hands. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Lukas had looked without his shirt—imagining Jared that way now.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I searched for the bare spot on the carpet again, terrified he would know exactly what I was thinking if I looked at him.
He stepped aside and gave me enough room to pass.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said softly as he shut the door.
I stood in the dark, the air still carrying the weight of this unnamed thing between us.
I fell onto the bed next to Alara and listened to the running water echoing from the shower.
Don’t think about it.
Alara nudged me. “Kennedy?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for going after Priest back there. It took guts.”
The compliment caught me off guard. “Anyone would have done the same thing.”
“Not unless you’re one of us.” There was something about the way she said it that made it seem possible.
“Is it hard to be part of the Legion?”
Alara was quiet for a moment. “You have to give up a lot.”
“Like school and your friends—”
“Like my family.”
It wasn’t the response I expected. “I thought you grew up with your grandmother.”
“I moved in with her when I was ten. Before that I lived with my parents and my younger brother and sister, in Miami.”
“Why did you move in with her?” I was prying, but I sensed she wanted to talk. And I missed the nights Elle and I stayed up late sharing secrets.
“My parents knew one of us would be chosen to join the Legion before we were old enough to walk, and they knew it would be me or my sister, Maya. My grandmother wanted to pass her specialty on to a girl.” Alara stared at the ceiling.
“And she chose you?”
“Not exactly. She wanted to take one of us while we were young enough for our training to become second nature, but my parents kept stalling. Eventually, my grandmother forced them to pick a date. When the day finally arrived, we knew my grandmother was coming and that one of us would be leaving with her. Maya and I sat on this green velvet sofa in the foyer, holding hands. My mother had dressed us up in these stupid taffeta dresses like we were going to a party. The three of them were in my father’s office deciding who she was going to take. When they came back out, my mom was crying. My grandmother told her to choose.”
Alara swallowed hard. “But there was no choice. Maya was fragile. She never could’ve handled my grandmother or the Legion. It would have destroyed her. So I lied and told them I wanted to go. I practically begged.”
I tried to imagine the situation. Waiting to see if I would have to leave my mom. Volunteering to be the one. “Your parents must have missed you so much.”
“They gave me away like a puppy. Now my father thinks he can just tell me to quit and summon me home like what I’m doing isn’t important?”
I thought about my dad standing next to his car, staring at me through the kitchen window. Knowing he was never coming back. Did he see how confused I looked as he drove away? Did he care?
Being given away didn’t seem that different from being left behind. I understood how it felt to be broken when everyone around you was whole.
“I’m sorry.”
Alara took a deep breath. “I’m not. My sister wasn’t cut out for this. I am.”
“What you did for her was still really brave.”
“Climbing into that well was brave, too.” She handed me something balled up in her fist. “Take this. You need it more than I do.”
I could barely make out the object in my palm, until it caught the light from the buzzing fluorescent motel sign outside. It was the round silver medal Alara always wore around her neck. Up close, I could see the symbols etched into the surface, with what looked like pitchforks pointing away from the center of the pendant.
[ART TO COME]
“It’s called the Hand of Eshu. It protects the person wearing it from evil. Maybe it will keep you from getting yourself killed.”
“Thanks.” I knotted the cord around my neck, wishing I could think of something more meaningful to say.
Within minutes she was asleep.
I stared into the darkness. A sliver of light crept from underneath the bathroom door.
I thought about all the ways Jared could hurt me.
How much pain could I withstand before I finally broke?
CHAPTER 21
Sunshine
In the morning, we stopped at 7-Eleven for coffee and batteries. Alara gave each of us five dollars in an attempt to ration our funds. Priest headed straight for the candy aisle and cleaned out the stock of watermelon sours. He had moved on to chips by the time I made it over there.
Candy wasn’t really my thing. But when I was little, my dad used to bring chocolate bars home from work.
He fished the candy bar out of his jacket pocket. It had a red wrapper with 100 GRAND printed in white block letters across the front.
I wanted to open it, but I knew I wasn’t allowed. “It’s almost dinnertime.”
“Today is upside-down day. That means you can have dessert first.” My dad opened the wrapper and handed me one of the two pieces inside. We bit into our halves at the same time.
The red wrapper was permane
ntly stamped in my mind, like so many other things I couldn’t erase. I wanted one of those stupid candy bars more than anything right now.
I was still deciding if a stomach full of chocolate was a good idea at nine in the morning, when I noticed the guy behind the register staring. His eyes darted from the small TV on the counter and back to me, as my black and white yearbook photo flashed across the screen.
Jared walked down the aisle toward me, his back to the clerk. I didn’t move, my eyes fixed on the racks.
Please don’t say anything.
Another step and Jared’s body blocked the guy’s view.
“The guy behind the counter recognized me. Keep walking,” I whispered, careful not to turn in Jared’s direction. “I’ll meet you behind the school we passed on the way here.”
The cashier didn’t take his eyes off me.
Jared walked by and stopped in front of the coffee machine at the end of the aisle, where Lukas and Priest were filling up Styrofoam cups. Jared said something, and they all laughed and elbowed each other. When Alara heard Jared laughing, she snapped to attention and zeroed in on him like he had flashed the Bat Signal.
The cashier picked up the phone.