Cold Burn of Magic
Page 54

“Why didn’t you tell the parents what it really was?” Devon asked.
“I tried, but they were mortals. These folks knew about monsters, but they didn’t want to think about them being in their backyard. They thought they were doing the right thing sending me away. The Hendersons were just looking out for their kid. Their real kid.”
Devon and Felix shared a guilty glance. They didn’t ask me any more questions, but I decided to fill in the rest of the blanks. Might as well get it all out in the open. Hopefully, after tonight, I’d never have to talk about it again.
“After that, I went to one more foster home—a bad one.”
“What happened?” Felix asked.
“One night, the husband tried to sneak into the room I was sharing with two other girls,” I said. “I broke his nose, too. He called the cops, but I told them what he’d been about to do to me and those other girls. So they took him to jail instead of me. After that, I decided that I’d had enough. I packed up my stuff and left that same night. I’ve been on my own ever since.”
“But what about Mo?” Devon asked. “Why didn’t you go live with him?”
I made a face. “Mo offered, he always offered, but I didn’t want to be around anyone then. Not even him. Besides, he’s a total slob.”
I made the bad joke so they wouldn’t realize how hard it was for me to talk about all this. I’d wanted to stay with Mo, but I also hadn’t wanted to be a burden and have him reject me like the Hendersons had done. Yeah, I knew that he wouldn’t have, but I couldn’t keep myself from worrying about it all the same. Because if Mo had turned his back on me, then I would have had nowhere to go and absolutely no one to help me. So I’d decided to lean on him as little as possible.
I realized that the guys were staring at me, so I quickly finished up my story. “After that, I found this spot in the library, and I decided that I’d just stay here where no one would bother me. And it worked.”
“Until I came along,” Devon said.
“Yeah. Until you came along.”
I made sure not to look at him. I didn’t want to know what he was thinking or feeling right now. Because I didn’t know what I was feeling myself.
“Well,” Felix said in a cheery voice. “I, for one, am glad that Lila came along. Although I bet Reginald and the pixies aren’t, given how much more food they have to fix now.”
“It probably takes them half the morning just to make enough bacon for her,” Devon chimed in, his voice taking on a lighter, teasing note.
“Half the morning?” Felix said. “They probably start cooking at midnight just to get ready for breakfast.”
“Hey!” I said, throwing a pillow at Felix. “I do not eat that much bacon.”
“Oh no,” he said, ducking it. “Just your own body weight in it. Every single morning.”
I grumbled and threw another pillow at him, but Felix laughed and batted it away, and I found myself chiming in with his and Devon’s chuckles.
We all went back to work, but a funny thing happened. I realized that I was glad they had come along, too.
It didn’t take us long to finish packing my things. I managed to stuff everything into the suitcases except for the furniture. Devon had stacked boxes three deep around the cot, the mini-fridge, the old washtub, and the other items. I didn’t know if they would disappear in the sale or not, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t need them. Not anymore. In fact, part of me wondered if I’d ever come back here again.
I looked at every single part of the basement, from the water spots on the ceiling to the cracks zigzagging through the walls to the curling linoleum tiles on the floor, trying to imprint it all on my mind, in case this was the last time I ever saw it. Maybe it was weird, but I was going to miss this place. It had been the closest thing I’d had to a home since my mom died.
“Lila?” Felix said. “You ready?”
“Yeah.”
Felix took one suitcase, while Devon grabbed the other. Together, the three of us trooped up the stairs, through the storage room, and out into the main part of the library. I stopped again, staring at everything, from the shelves of worn paperbacks to the battered toys scattered on the tables in the children’s section to the old computers that lined the checkout counter. A hard lump filled my throat. I’d spent so many afternoons here with Mom, reading stories and browsing through the books together. I supposed that’s why I had decided to live here in the first place, so I could be close to the ghost of those good times.
“Come on,” Devon said. “We parked down the street.”
I closed my eyes a second to hold back my tears, then nodded and walked past him, heading toward the front of the library. It wasn’t the entrance I usually used, but it was on the side of the building closest to the street, and I didn’t want Devon and Felix dragging my heavy suitcases any farther than necessary.
The glass double doors loomed in front of me. We were fifty feet away from them. Forty . . . thirty . . . twenty . . .
Something flitted in the shadows outside, racing across the entrance and then vanishing on the other side.
I froze. “Stop.”
Felix pulled up short, almost ramming into me from behind. “What? What’s wrong?”
I peered out the glass, my hand dropping to my sword. Using my sight, I looked out through the doors again. All I saw were shadows. But someone or something had been there a second ago. A finger of unease crept up my spine, and I realized how isolated Devon, Felix, and I were in the library. It would be the perfect place for an ambush—or another assassination attempt.