Sisters of Blood and Spirit
Page 55

“Yes.”
“Can I kiss you again later?”
Oh. My. Freaking. Gawd. “You’d better.”
Ben smiled. “Good night, Lark.”
“Good night.” I really didn’t want to get out of the car, but I was exhausted and needed sleep. Plus, Nan might be wondering where I was. I opened the door and stepped out into the cool night. I wasn’t much of a romantic, but I was sure I grinned the whole way to the door. Ben started the car, waved and turned off the dome light before backing out of the drive.
I unlocked the door, stepped into the house and locked everything up again. Then I quietly crept upstairs to my room. It wasn’t until I caught a flash of my reflection in the mirror—enough to give me a start—that I remembered the white-haired woman at Haven Crest who had spoken to me. There’d been something familiar about her, and Wren hadn’t mentioned her at all.
Who the hell was she?
WREN
“I can’t believe it.” Kevin’s shoulders slumped. He was at his computer—where he’d been for hours—looking for information on Josiah Bent’s grave.
“What now?” I asked. He’d already found out that the original graveyard—and the one Bent was buried in—had been moved in the late 1970s, and that some of the inmates’ remains hadn’t been recovered. After another hour he’d managed to find out that Bent hadn’t been one of those lost graves. Unfortunately, it had taken him a while to find Bent’s patient number, only to discover that some of the grave markers had gotten mixed up in the move.
He sat back in his chair and shoved his hands through his hair. His curls were so thick they stood out like a halo around his head. It was too cute. “The records of the new graveyard layout were destroyed in a fire in 1979.”
I felt his disappointment. “Are you saying the only way we have to find Bent’s grave is to physically search the cemetery for his marker?”
Kevin nodded. “And even then we won’t be certain it’s his.”
“That’s not true,” I told him. “We’ll know it’s his when we find it.”
His head whipped around. I was still trying to get used to the fact that he could see me sometimes. “How?”
“Because the closer we get, the harder he’ll try to stop us.”
His face fell. “That’s not exactly comforting.”
I wanted to comfort him, I really did, but I wasn’t good at saying things people wanted to hear.
“There may be something in that book I brought back from the Shadow Lands. Possibly.”
“That’s the first good news I’ve heard in what feels like forever.”
“Don’t get too excited. I’ll have to take a look through it.”
“Still, it’s something.”
I shrugged. “Hopefully, because there’s no way any of you—or even I—will make it through that graveyard to do a search. Bent and his minions won’t allow us to linger that long. Even if we do discover which one is his we’d be lucky to get in there, dig it up and burn his remains.”
He sighed. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to destroy Bent.” I said this as though it was obvious—not to be snarky, but because we had no choice. Lives depended on this.
“How?” he demanded. “You already said we won’t be able to get near his grave.”
“We’ll figure it out!” I snapped back. His computer screen flickered. I really had to learn to get better control of my emotions. I couldn’t go around wreaking havoc with electronics all the time.
Kevin sighed. “I’m sorry. I feel really helpless.”
And guilty, I thought. I didn’t say it, though. Kevin was in college, but he was the same age as Mace. He’d been born in the summer while Mace hadn’t been born until that winter, throwing them into different school years. These people were his friends, and they were in danger. But Kevin hadn’t been with them that night they were attacked, and hadn’t been wounded. He felt like he’d let them down by not being in this with them. Silly boy.
“I feel it, too,” I admitted.
“You?” His expression turned dubious. “Get out. You’re powerful. You’re the most capable person I know.”
Person. No one—except Lark—had ever called me a person before. Ghost. Spirit. Thing. Never person.
“Are you okay?” Kevin asked.
“Do you really think of me as a person?” My voice quivered.
He looked confused. “Yeah. Shouldn’t I?”
I burst into tears. Hands over my face, I sobbed into my palms. My shoulders heaved, breath hitched. Thank God I couldn’t produce mucus, because I’d seen Lark make a mess of herself with less crying than I was in the middle of, and I had no tissues.
Then again, I didn’t really produce tears in this realm, either.
“Wren?”
I held up my hand. I just had to pull myself together. I couldn’t talk to him when I was like this. How did mortal girls stand it? On some of the TV shows Lark watched it seemed like the girls cried all the time. It had to be exhausting.
Finally, the sobs subsided, and I was able to lift my head.
Kevin was watching me nervously. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Sorry about that.”
“Did I upset you? I’m sorry if I did.”
“I’m the opposite of upset. No one’s ever called me a person before.”