by Nicole Maggi
“He’s not going to be there. I don’t think the Malandanti will let him out of their sight.”
“Unless the Malandanti have a Clan member at the school watching him.” Alessia pulled on her beat-up UGGs and sat in the swivel chair at Jenny’s desk. “I mean, if he doesn’t show up at school, that’s going to raise suspicion, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.” I stretched my arms overhead, testing to see how far I could go before the pain kicked in. Stabbing pain arced across my ribs. Not far, it seemed. “Look, I know you and your perfect GPA are dying to get back to school, but do you think you could skip today? I need to get out of this house and do some snooping, but I can’t do it alone.”
Alessia grinned at me. “Wow, Bree. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you ask for help.”
I pointed at her. “You’d better not screw up and make me regret it.”
She chewed her lip. “The thing is, I’m not really talking to Lidia right now, so I can’t ask her to call in for me.”
“Get Nerina to call. She has an Italian accent. No one in the office will know the difference.”
Once half the house went out either to school or work, and Nerina had made the call, Alessia and I slipped out the front door. “We’ll go to my house first,” I said. “No use trekking all the way to Bangor if Jonah’s just around the corner.”
Alessia shot me a look. “Do you think he is?”
I shook my head. “But it’s worth a shot.”
“What if your dad is there?”
“That’s why I needed you to come with me.” We took another residential side street to get to my house, rather than take Main Street and risk being seen by all our classmates on their way to school. “We’ll have to sneak in through the second-story bathroom in order to avoid being seen.”
“Wait, what?”
I didn’t say anything else until we reached my block. Sure enough, both my parents’ cars sat in the driveway. I tried not to think about the last time I was in that driveway, when the Harpy dumped me into her trunk and hauled me away. My bruises ached with the effort of not thinking about it.
“This way.” I led Alessia around the side of the house, careful to skirt the outside of my dad’s office. “I just need a boost up this tree,” I said, pointing to the long, sturdy branch that stretched out beneath the bathroom window.
“Are you kidding me?”
I raised my eyebrows. “What’s the problem?”
“Don’t think I didn’t notice how much you huffed and puffed on the way over here. You winced with every step, Bree. You can’t go climbing up that tree.”
“Well, every other way into the house is way too obvious. The back door opens about four feet from my dad’s office. So what do you suggest?” I moved to the tree and reached up toward the lowest branch, careful to keep from scrunching up my face in pain.
“Oh, fine. Here.” Alessia knelt down and cupped her hands for me to step into. I hoisted myself onto the branch with a grunt, gritting my teeth as my ornery ribs protested. But from the lowest branch, it was an easy climb to the window ledge. I waited at the top for Alessia to clamber up behind me. “Hope it’s not locked,” she said when she reached me, a little breathless.
I knew it wouldn’t be; Jonah and I never locked it, in case something just like this happened, and Mom and Dad didn’t use this bathroom. I slid the window up and eased into the bathroom. I spied my tube of mascara on the sink and stashed it in my pocket. In the mirror, I caught Alessia rolling her eyes at me. “What? I need long eyelashes to distract from the bruises.”
We tiptoed out into the hall and straight down to Jonah’s room. It was cold and empty, the bed neat and unslept in for who knew how many days. His messenger bag sat filled with his schoolbooks on the floor next to his desk. Alessia pointed to it at the same moment I spotted it. “He hasn’t been here in a while,” she whispered. I tried not to notice how pale her face had become. Sometimes I forgot that I wasn’t the only one affected by Jonah’s absence.
“He probably hasn’t been back since he was at the Guild with you guys,” I murmured back. “They must still be keeping him there.”
Alessia ran her hand over a sweatshirt that hung on the back of the desk chair. “We can’t go back there to look for him. There’s no way we’ll get out alive this time.”
“I know.” I hugged myself and turned in a slow circle, taking in the room like one of Jonah’s uber-pretentious posters was going to help us. I glanced back at Alessia, who had brought the sweatshirt to her face, breathing in deep. Oh, for Chrissakes. “He’s not dead, Alessia. Stop wallowing.”
She looked at me. Her eyes were shiny. “I’m sorry. I just . . .” She trailed off and sniffled.
I crossed the room and pulled the sweatshirt out of her grasp. “I know I make a big show about being the older twin and looking out for Jonah and all, but the truth is he’s not helpless. He can take care of himself, you know. Whatever it is the Malandanti are doing to him, he’s figuring out a way to get out of it.”
She dried her wet cheeks on the sleeve of the sweatshirt. “You’re right. He’s stronger than you give him credit for.”
“Gee, thanks.” I tugged her arm, nudging her out of the room. Without Jonah, it was too gloomy in here. “Come on. Let’s not have this trip be a total waste.”
We headed back into the hall. I popped into my room to grab a few things I’d forgotten the last time we were here, other than the mascara, and shoved them into my backpack. On our way toward the stairs down to the kitchen, I stopped. The sound of a morning talk show drifted from the crack beneath my parents’ closed bedroom door. “Wait here,” I told Alessia.
Gently, I pushed the door open.
The lights were off inside the bedroom, giving the impression of dusk when it was actually nine in the morning. The light from the television flickered across the bed, where my mother lay, staring at the screen without seeing.
“Mom?” I whispered.
She didn’t answer. I crept closer. An empty bottle of pills lay on its side on the nightstand, next to a half-full glass of amber liquid that I was certain wasn’t iced tea.
“Mom?” I asked again.
The covers surrounding her rustled a tiny bit. She blinked, moving her gaze from the television, across the bedspread, and onto the sheepskin rug on which I stood. Her eyes widened when they saw me. “Bree?” she croaked. Then, like she used to do when I was little and had had a nightmare, she held up the covers as an invitation for me to climb in.
A tiny sob escaped me. I crossed to the bed in two aching strides and slid into bed with her. Beneath the covers, I felt her frail arms come around me. I buried my head in her pillow, hiding from her the tears that spilled down my face. “What happened to you, baby?” she murmured, stroking my hair. I sniffled and looked up. Despite the pills, her eyes were surprisingly clear. “Where’s Jonah?” she asked.
I stared at her. The sound of the television fed into my consciousness, and I became aware of what it was playing. MSNBC was running a special program about the fallout from the revelations about the Guild. Mom followed my gaze to the television and tightened her arm around me. “It’s finally happening. All your dad’s chickens are coming home to roost.”
I could swear there was a note of glee in her voice. I turned away from her and watched the television for a few minutes. A news ticker scrolled along the bottom: Mysterious illness grows worse in Asia . . . Doctors are stymied as the death toll climbs . . . God, the world really was fucked up. I shifted away from all the bad news on the screen and faced Mom fully. “Mom, I can’t explain, but Jonah and I are involved too. I have to stay out of the house for a while. It’s not safe for me to be here, so I’m staying someplace where I can be protected. Okay?”
She took my face into her hands. “I’m so sorry, Bree. I should’ve put a stop to all this a long time ago. I should’ve run away with you two before your dad could drag you into all this.”
“Yes, you should have.” She jer
ked back at the baldness of my truth. It was true. But it also didn’t matter now. I sighed. “Mom, we’ve all made a lot of mistakes. And hopefully we’ll all have a lot of time to make it up to each other. But right now, I can’t be here to make you feel better about yourself.”
Mom studied my face. “I don’t blame you for being mad, Bree. I know I haven’t been around enough, but right now, whatever you need, I’m here to help.” With her thumbs, she stroked my brows, her eyes soft on mine. “I got a phone your dad doesn’t know about. I’ll text you the number. You can reach me on that.” Her jaw clenched. “As soon as all this is over, I’m getting us out of here. Just the three of us—you, me, and Jonah. I’m done being the punching bag in this family.”
And suddenly I realized, the pills and the whiskey on the nightstand . . . They were an act. She wanted my dad to think she was helpless and catatonic, completely unthreatening. She was like the lioness that crouches in the brush, ready to defend her cubs at the slightest hint of danger.
Well. Score one for Mom.
I glanced toward the door. “I have to go. Is Dad here?”
She nodded. “He’s downstairs in the office with that awful assistant of his.”
I gave her a tight, quick hug and slid from the bed. “I’ll call you later so you know I’m okay.”
“All right, baby.” When I reached the door, her voice stopped me again. “Bree?”
I turned.
“Whatever you’re doing, I know it’s the good fight. I’m proud of you.”
And just like that, the mom I’d had when I was nine years old was back again.
Alessia and I didn’t speak as we snuck downstairs. I pseudo-signed that my dad was in the office and somehow she understood. We held our breath until we reached the back of the house where my dad’s office was and saw that the door was closed. I turned to her.
“There’s a window in his office,” I whispered. “He usually keeps it cracked because that room overheats. We might be able to hear better from outside than through the door.”
“Let’s go.”
We went out through the kitchen and edged along the house until we got to the office window. Sure enough, it was open a few inches, and angry male voices spiraled out of it. Alessia and I dropped to the ground and crawled until we were directly beneath it. We sat with our backs up against the house, the cold snow that dappled the earth seeping in through our jeans.
“We have control of the Waterfall again. We can start building the plant any day now—”
“How dense are you, Wolfe?” Pratt said, cutting my dad off. “The federal government has ordered a halt on all projects until the investigation is over. That will be years. And we know it won’t end well.”
“I don’t understand. What happened to the magic? Why is this all coming out now?”
The sound of a hand thudding against wood made the wall shake. Pratt had obviously pounded the desk, and he kept hitting it on every other word while he spoke. I hoped his freaking hand broke. “They had a mage, Wolfe. And you want to know who it was?”
I cringed.
“Your fucking daughter.”
The silence that stretched across the room and through the crack in the window toward us was horror-movie thick. Alessia grappled for my gloved hand and squeezed it with her own.
“Are you—are you sure?” My father’s voice was laden with some emotion I couldn’t read. Not without seeing his face. I wanted to peer in through the window so bad, but Alessia kept me still.
“Oh, I’m sure. The Concilio took her into custody, but she managed to escape.” There was a creak, like Pratt had just leaned back in Dad’s old leather desk chair. “Do you know where she is?”
Dad cleared his throat. “Ah, no. No I don’t.”
Another creak. “Are you certain of that?”
“Just what are you accusing me of, Pratt?”
“Well, let’s see, Wolfe. Your daughter is a member of the rival faction and performs a spell that dismantles all the magic the Guild was using, throwing us into complete chaos and effectively rendering us useless. Now, I know kids can be smart, but I have a hard time believing she got there on her own.”
Dad barked a short, sharp laugh. “You obviously don’t know Bree.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
“I’m not joking around here, Wolfe.”
“Do you honestly think that I had anything to do with Bree joining the Benandanti?” Now it was Dad’s hand pounding the desk. “After all the years of loyalty I’ve given the Guild? After I sacrificed my own son to the Malandanti?”
“You know, it doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what the Concilio thinks, and I can guarantee they’re not happy with you. That’s not a good place to be right now, when they’re looking for a scapegoat.”
“I am not going to take the fall for this!”
“Well, someone has to, and it’s not going to be me.” The chair creaked again, and I heard Pratt’s expensive shoes click across the floor. “But if you’re lucky, it won’t come to that.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have a failsafe in place, of course. Give the Concilio some credit. They are always prepared.”
Alessia tensed at the same instant I did. We both tilted our heads up, listening hard. A failsafe? What the hell did that mean?
“Just tell me what I have to do. You know I’ll do it.” Dad’s tone was soft and low, defeated. Despite everything, despite the absolute disgust I felt for him, my heart squeezed just a little. I knew he’d gotten himself into this mess, that he’d made his bed a long time ago and now he had to lie in it, but still. He was my dad.
“I haven’t been given instructions yet, but when I get them, you’ll know.” Pratt’s footsteps crossed the room away from us, and I heard the door open. “I’m on patrol in fifteen minutes. Oh, and Wolfe?”
“Yes?”
“If you see your daughter, if she comes back here, you know what you have to do.”
A bone-deep chill swept through me. My father didn’t answer, but he must have acquiesced, because I heard the door close behind Pratt as he left. I tugged away from Alessia and raised myself up so that I could just peek into the window. Dad sat slumped at the desk, his head in his hands, his fingers pulling hard at his hair.
Alessia hauled me to my feet and together we stumbled through the woods at the back of my house, cutting through backyards on our way to Jenny’s. I felt like I’d just survived a house of horrors, that I’d escaped the chainsaw-wielding serial killer and come out on the other side, bruised and battered but alive. I became slowly aware that Alessia was talking, talking, talking next to me. I stopped, squeezed my eyes shut, and shook my head a little to clear out my thoughts. When I opened my eyes, I faced her. “What did you say?”
“I said, we need to know what that failsafe is.”
“Well, I think I can rule out going back there to eavesdrop again. You heard what they said. I don’t think I can even go to school safely.”
“No, you definitely can’t,” Alessia agreed.
Above us, the bare branches rattled in the wind. I watched the clouds shift between light and dark, dark and light. My phone buzzed in my pocket. When I pulled it out, I had one new message from a number I didn’t recognize. It just read Mama Wolf.
It was what I used to call her when I was little. I punched in a reply.
I need you to call the school and excuse me for a while. Not safe for me to go there.
OK.
I held the phone tight. I might not be able to step foot out of the Sands house without risking my neck, but at least I still had a lifeline to home.
Chapter Eight
The Date with the Panther
Alessia
When we got back to Jenny’s house, Cal was sitting on the living room couch, flanked by Heath and Nerina like an Egyptian Pharaoh perched on a dais with his loyal subjects surrounding him. “Who’s that tasty dish?” Bree asked as we took off our coats and hung them by the door.
“That’s Cal.” I watched Bree give him the once-over. She made an appreciative noise, and I bit back a grin. I could see it now: the golden boy and the bad girl. They were a perfect match. Take that, Nerina. “Come on, I need some coffee.”
Bree followed me into the kitchen and dropped into a chair at the table. The rings around her eyes seemed to have darkened since we left her house. I reached for the full and thankfully fresh pot of coffee on the counter and offered it up to her. “You want?” She nodded. I poured her a cup and set it on the table in front of her. “You should get some rest this afternoon.”
She snorted. “I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.”
“Yeah.” I sat next to her, wrapping my hands around my mug. Heat seeped slowly back into my fingers. “I know what you mean.”
We drank our coffee in silence for a while, listening to the bits and pieces of the conversation that drifted back to us from the living room. Nerina and Heath were schooling Cal on the finer points of what it meant to be a Benandante. He was probably taking notes. With a glitter pen in his sparkly Benandanti notebook. And doodling I <3 the Benandanti in the margins. I rubbed my temples. I didn’t know how I was going to focus on his training when I had so many other things crowding into my mind. Like where was Jonah?
“I’m sure he’s still alive,” Bree said, somehow reading my thoughts. “If he was dead, my dad would’ve been told. Pratt would’ve been out finding his replacement.”
“I’m on patrol at the Waterfall tonight,” I said, suddenly remembering. “Maybe he will be too.”
“Let’s hope,” Bree said. She stared down into her coffee. “They must be keeping him at the Guild, and we sure as hell aren’t getting back in there anytime soon.” Her phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her pocket. “My mom says she’ll snoop in Dad’s office as soon as he leaves the house.”
“So our trip wasn’t a complete waste.” I pressed my lips together. “Was she, you know, okay when you saw her?”
