Connor stood at the front of the room, addressing us with a serious expression and tone. His T-shirt and jeans were rumpled and torn in a few places.
“I don’t have any answers to all the questions I’m sure you have,” he said, pacing. “What I can tell you is that Jimmy’s soul has been captured.” A soft collective gasp swept the room. He looked at Emma, who fixed her eyes on the ground.
“Does that mean he’s not coming back?” Dante asked.
Connor breathed out a huge sigh, hands behind his head, perplexed. “There’s no way to know yet if it’s reversible. But if he returns to us and we can keep him here, then we can attempt to reclaim him.” I scanned the room. Everyone seemed to be hanging on his words, as though he were pulling us through a storm, our only hope for survival. “This is what I’ve been warning you about. They will find you, and we need to keep close to one another, to know where everyone is all the time, in order to defeat them. You are all going to be sought out, that is a given. Do you hear me?” He looked at each of our faces to make his point clear. “This is part of your test: separating out the defeated part of your soul.”
“How do we do that?” River barked at him, angry, still holding Emma.
“We lift it out, which is why I expect to see everyone practicing their levitation.” He pointed down the hall in the direction of the padded room. There’s one person in there every night, and she is the only one who will stand a chance, unless you all get your sorry asses in there and start getting strong.” I felt myself blush. I had been quietly working levitation into my routine, a necessary daily task, like brushing your teeth. It had paid off today.
“Emma says Jimmy had been spending some time with someone new lately—” As Connor said that, I could feel how that line must have sliced through Emma. It was as if she lost him twice: first his body to this other person and now his soul. “Beware of everyone. Report anything suspicious to me. We’ll pool our information. Catching your attacker quickly and having a will to fight back, these are the things that will protect you. There’s a group we’ve learned of called the Krewe, and we now know they’re who you need to watch out for. I’ve posted descriptions here.” He smacked a few typed sheets of crisp paper taped to the wall behind him.
I had offered Connor my morphing photos, but he had ultimately decided he didn’t want to share them with the group. “Can we keep this just between us, Haven?” he had asked me, making me feel, for the first time since I’d arrived here, that I did have something special. “These,” he had said, tapping the stack of photos, “can help me keep tabs on all y’all.” At his request, I printed a set of photos for him to keep under lock and key in his room.
“Be careful,” he went on now at the meeting. “Travel in pairs, keep an eye on each other. If anyone asks, tell ’em Jimmy decided the program wasn’t for him and took off. He’s eighteen, so I wouldn’t’ve been able to stop him, anyway. Discretion is the name of the game, okay?” With that he clapped his hands, a few quick rousing claps. “That’s it for now.” He dismissed us, adding with serious, scolding eyes, “Sabine, can I see you?” A look of worry clouded her face as she sashayed over to him.
Lance glanced in my direction, but too nervous, it seemed, to look me in the eye. When we all got up to leave, he grabbed my elbow as I tried to walk ahead of him.
“I should have been there,” he said, the heavy tone in his voice evidence that he was censuring himself. “I should’ve known when you didn’t text me back.”
I shook my head. I hadn’t needed saving; that wasn’t the issue here. “I’m fine. I didn’t need you. Don’t worry about it,” I said. I was bruised and scraped up—I had pulled a piece of glass the size of my index finger out of my upper arm, which I’d bandaged—and with my torn clothes I looked like something that had been dragged in off the street, but I hadn’t actually gotten hurt. “I mean, it wasn’t the way I’d prefer to spend an afternoon, but I’m still alive, so it’s all good.” But there was no masking the iciness lacing my words. We neared Lance’s room and I made no motion to stop, so he walked on with me until we reached my door.
“I hope your arm is better,” I said coldly.
“How did you know about that?” he whispered.
I glared at him. “Are you kidding? Who do you think cleaned you up last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“No, you’re right. I guess you were drunk or whatever. What was that about?” I felt like he was a completely different person lately.
He thought for a moment, then whispered some more. “I don’t really remember last night. At all. And I’m pretty embarrassed that I got this.” He wore a T-shirt over a long-sleeved shirt, which he pushed up to expose that spot on his arm. He peeled back the bandage and the wound seemed to have taken on the shape of a fleur-de-lis, but it had scabbed up in such a way that you couldn’t even see the actual ink, only this odd-shaped injury.
“It didn’t look like that last night. It was just a gash.” I leaned in, studying it. Just like Jimmy’s. “You need to tell Connor about that. Like, right away.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he said quietly, pulling his sleeve back down. He leaned against the doorframe, his face close to mine watching as I fumbled with my key. He looked like he wanted to say something. I felt it in the pit of my stomach even before he spoke, somehow knowing from his deep breaths and the way he pulled at the bottom hem of his worn T-shirt that I wasn’t going to like whatever he planned to say. “Sabine just showed up next door, all upset, from everything this morning, you know? She didn’t want to be alone. So we hung out until it was time to hit the library and then we went there. That’s it.”
“That’s fine, Lance,” I said, weary, unlocking the door at last and pushing it open.
“I just want to explain . . . everything, you know. Not that there’s anything to explain, but . . .”
“You don’t have to. It’s fine.” He followed me in, scanning all around at the disaster area of splintered, shredded furniture, tattered bedspreads, ripped clothing, and a mosaic of broken glass across the floor near a spiky hole where the window once was. “I’m not fighting with you. I didn’t even say anything about . . . that . . . her.” But even as I said it, part of me wanted to fight, because maybe in some strange way that would show Lance that he mattered to me, that I would fight for him. But why didn’t he know that already? Was he forgetting all that we’d been through? Had his feelings for me changed? I didn’t understand this unraveling that seemed to be happening. “I’ve just had a long day.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” he offered softly. “I can see that.” He shook his head, as though trying to erase the mess around him. “You’re obviously staying in my room.”
“Thanks.” I exhaled. He took a slow, studied tour of the surroundings, as though noting every single bit of destruction.
“How are you okay after this?” he asked, somber, as he knelt and cleared away larger pieces of glass.
“Yeah, it was kind of a wild afternoon,” I said matter-of-factly, rummaging through my dresser to collect some clean clothes. I pulled out my favorite jeans, a tank top, and a blue cardigan and climbed up the beat-up ladder on sore legs. “First, I found out the hard way that it doesn’t seem to work to just defeat them by destroying the pictures anymore.” I tossed the clothes on the slashed comforter of my bed and dug around the scraps of paper on the floor until I found it: Jimmy’s picture. I handed it down to Lance.
“What?” He looked up at me, studying the photo closely. His fingers brushed across the fringe left by my blade. “So, all of this”—Lance waved the tattered shot—“and nothing?”
“Not for lack of trying, right?” I sighed. “I just about wore out the knife on that thing.” I piled up the rest of the photos scattered on the loft floor and handed those down too.
“You should shoot one of yourself again too, as a sort of baseline, you know? Just in case,” he said. He had a point. I didn’t have a photo of myself, now that I thought about it
. Lance slowly shuffled through the group of pictures. He was engrossed enough that I managed to pull off my ripped T-shirt and jeans, changing into the new clothes without attracting notice, even though that wasn’t the sort of thing he had witnessed all that often. “Are you losing your powers, Haven?” he said, glancing at the photos and pushing his glasses up.
For a moment I thought he had somehow read my thoughts—I had been wondering that myself lately—and that we were about to have a talk about us, as ill-timed as it was in the middle of the day’s upheaval and the larger life-or-death issues at stake. But then I realized he was speaking exclusively about my effect on the photos, not on him. I didn’t answer for a beat too long.
“Haven?” He looked up at me now, expecting a response, shaking me out of my inner monologue.
“My powers?” I shook my head to get the blood and thoughts flowing again. “No, I mean I don’t think so, but I don’t know. I think maybe these devils are just different or something.”
He tilted his head, nodding like this was a distinct possibility.
“Because, I’ll have you know, my powers are just fine,” I said taking offense, a fire lighting in me. “And it turns out I’m a lot better at that levitation business than I thought.”
Fully dressed, I swooped back down the ladder, purpose behind every step. Lance followed me out the door and back down the hall. We had nearly reached his room when he grabbed my bicep—the uninjured one—and stopped me. “Wait a second,” he said quietly, his eyes searching mine for what lay beneath the surface. I did my best to project peace and neutrality in every feature and clear my face of any hint of the storm that I was really feeling. At that moment, I just wanted to be left alone. He felt far away even though he was touching me. “Where are you going?” he asked in a way that seemed to plead with me not to go anywhere.
“Levitation room. I want to practice before I lose whatever it was that was working this afternoon.”
His grip loosened. “I’ll see you later?”
I nodded and walked ahead. “Later. I don’t know how long it’s going to take.”
I had nearly reached the levitation room when I saw Sabine shoot out of Connor’s room. Her eyes were steely, her glare like a stake to the heart. Her voice came at me fierce and barbed, unlike any time I’d ever heard her: “Thanks a ton for ragging on me to Connor. About Wylie? You’re a great friend.”
“I . . . I didn’t mean—”
“Save it,” she spat the words, storming past me down the hall. “Is this about the kiss? What did Lance tell you? It was a peck, please. I was drunk. Give a girl a break. It was a couple nights ago. Let it go already.”
My mouth opened but the words didn’t materialize. Finally: “Good to know, thanks.”
“Oh, he didn’t tell you? Sorry,” she said flatly, completely unapologetic as she stomped away.
When I recovered, many long seconds too late, it occurred to me what I should have said: I had told Connor because for some reason, I cared. I didn’t intend to let Sabine, or anyone, slip away on my watch. But now I wasn’t sure how I felt about her anymore. I only knew that the day had wounded me, in body and spirit.
I let myself into the practice room, anxious for a distraction. Once there, I couldn’t quite replicate what had happened earlier. I got close: I could lift all the objects, but I just couldn’t direct them to myself. Dante had poked his head in at one point, but I had sent him away with talk of needing to focus and a promise to see him later. My progress tonight didn’t really matter, though. The exercise kept me busy and when my watch signaled five min-utes to midnight, it was certainly easier to sneak out of there than it would have been to leave from my own room, since it was so close to the front door. Lights were still on in the rooms surrounding the courtyard, but no one was out to notice that I was leaving. I tiptoed down the stairs.
Even as I crept along the shadows of Royal Street to that imposing house next door, I knew this meeting wasn’t necessarily the best idea. My judgment felt so clouded after my encounters with Jimmy and Sabine and that talk with Lance that left so much unsaid. Lucian had hinted that he was ready to take me up on that standing offer I had made so many months ago to help him escape the underworld. But if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t quite feel prepared for that kind of challenge. Part of me wished I didn’t have to deal with that so soon, or maybe even at all. I already felt I was being pulled in so many directions and pushed to my breaking point. I wasn’t sure I could handle adding Lucian, and the weight of his curse, right now. And then there were those very legitimate concerns I couldn’t entirely swat away: Could he be trapping me? Did he know Jimmy was going to come after me today? And, worse, had he sent him? I didn’t know what it would take for me to truly be able to trust him.
I neared that doorway enshrouded in the black of night and stopped before it, resting my hand on the doorknob gingerly, as though it might bite, then taking a deep breath. Just as there was the part of me that didn’t want to be thrust back into that world of his with its deep terrors, there was another part that had felt an uptick in my pulse, a quickened heartbeat, the minute I unfolded that first note from him. With Lucian there had always been that tug, that push and pull, that spark that made me want to see him, along with that voice of reason that knew the danger he always brought with him.
I cracked open the door, slithering in, engulfed by the smothering darkness of the haunted house. A mustiness mingled with the scents of charred wood and sawdust, making the air thick as it settled in my throat. The space looked and felt nothing like it had when I had been there earlier in the day. Now, I supposed, it was all filtered through such a different prism, a whole new variety of fear and also adrenaline. The silence fluttered my nerves.
Then I heard it, so soft, somewhere far above me:“Haven . . .”
Dense clouds shifted in the night sky, as moonlight streamed in the front windows, painting patches of the foyer’s floor and walls a honey color. It set aglow the blond wood of a newly constructed grand staircase, at the top of which stood Lucian.
19. I’ve Been Waiting Months to Do That
He still wore that weathered tux, the tie hanging undone and loose around his neck and his top buttons unfastened. “Haven,” he said softly, a layer of quiet relief in his tone. He took each step slowly, carefully, his eyes set on me, unwavering. I felt held in place by his gaze. He moved so smoothly and yet it felt like it took an eternity for him to reach me. “You came,” he said, sounding surprised. The moonlight dimmed again. I had forgotten how tall he was. “Thank you,” he said, sincerity knitting his brows. He stood so still and at a distance before me, perhaps to suggest we wouldn’t have the struggle we did the last time we met here.
“Sure. I mean, I wouldn’t stand you up.” I tried to stifle the quiver in my voice and smiled a cautious smile, still on guard. I searched for that worn look in his eyes, anything to prove once more that it was really him.
“Well, welcome.” He gestured to the construction site around us. “I guess you could call this my home away from home.”
I looked around again, nodding. “They told us this place was haunted but I never thought it was you doing the haunting.”
He laughed coolly. “It’s not always me. That’s just the past month or so, since you got here. It’s sort of a halfway house for misdirected souls, like mine. I’ve tried the other portals but this is the only one open to me.” I had so many questions, but I couldn’t be sure my voice would remain steady, so I just let him talk. “I made the others leave, though. I’ve still got some seniority, you know, in that world.” His voice got a degree heavier and I understood what world we were talking about. “For better or worse.”
“I guess we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
“Yeah.” He smiled sadly and shook his head, looking away a moment. “I guess we do.” He looked at me, into me, his eyes dancing like he wanted to tell me everything all at once and didn’t know where to start. “Come here,” he said, and w
aved for me to follow him to the stairs.
“How did you . . . with the lights?” I pointed up in the direction of that window.
“Oh, you know . . .” he said, sheepish. He held out his hand, watched it intently, and flames lit above his fingers as though they were candlewicks. Just as fast, he snuffed them out, closing his palm into a fist.
“Ohhh. Got it.”
He walked halfway up the staircase and sat down, motioning for me to join him. A beam of light from outside fell across the step and made it one of the few spots where you could see at all. “This okay?” he asked. I nodded. “There’s so much I have to tell you, Haven.” He exhaled, as though the thought of it all overwhelmed him. He spoke into the space in front of us. “And I shouldn’t be telling you any of it, which is why it’s even more important for you to know.”
My mind drifted through every memory I had of Lucian. Yes, there was something muted about him, but if I had only ever known this version of him, I might have still thought he was plenty perfect. And then a new concern found its way into my heart: what did I look like to him? How did I compare to what he remembered about me? I felt like I had changed so much since last spring in Chicago. I was a different person. That night of the fire, the last night I had spent any real time with him, was the start of my becoming this new being.
He paused, his eyes locking on mine again, and then he said, in an easier tone, “It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” I offered. But it didn’t seem enough. I searched for something more, anything. “Though I feel sort of underdressed. I didn’t realize it was a black-tie affair.”
“Oh, this.” He looked down at his clothes and seemed embarrassed for a moment. “You get kind of frozen in time when you’re sent back there . . .” I felt a pang that I had done that to him. “So I’m stuck in this tux until my penance is up.” He slipped off his jacket and tossed it onto the railing.
Infatuate Page 18
