That made no sense at first, but then I got it. Somewhere in his plan, Shoffru found Adrianna, and learned about me, but Adrianna already had plans in place to kill me. Plans she couldn’t call off. It was the only reason that made sense for Hawk Head to attack me once Adrianna was with Shoffru. Molly’s magic going wild and Adrianna joining up with Jack made everything that didn’t match up, come together.
Molly was half sobbing, half choking. Her voice was muffled as if she had stuffed something against her mouth, but I heard “Yes. And I can’t live with this.”
“Shoffru’s getting close to the house,” Bliss whispered.
To Evan, I asked, “Can you break Molly’s shackles? Over a cell phone?” And the connection from electronic hell.
As answer, Evan yanked the car off the road, braked to a hard stop, and pulled out his flute. And I realized he had tears running down his face. “Molly, love. Get out. Now!” He placed his lips to the flute and blew.
The note was high pitched. Piercing. My eardrums vibrated. A headache stabbed through me. The girls in back screamed. I dropped the cell. Fell out of the SUV, I unbuckled and opened the door so fast. Landed with a rolling thud on my bad shoulder. And lay there sobbing, cursing, covering my ears against the horrible spearing notes that sounded from the vehicle. Beast screamed and disappeared from my mind. When the notes ended, I heard muffled words, Evan’s voice. And then the big guy had me in his arms, shoving me back into the SUV. He gunned the motor as I buckled in and wiped my face. “Well, that sucked,” I managed.
Evan grinned at me, and I saw the face of some ancient Viking warrior, all teeth and fury. “She’s free,” he growled, me mostly lip-reading around his beard. “Heading out a window that appears to be on the side of the house. But she sees headlights in the front.”
“Run, Molly,” I shouted. And I thumbed off the cell. Molly was free. Not safe yet. But free. I closed my eyes, feeling the tears gather and forcing them back. No time for girly crap, I told myself. Not now.
“You’re going to use her, aren’t you?” Evan asked when I could hear again.
“Molly needs direction,” I said. “She needs to accept that she killed someone. And she needs to use the gifts God and genetics and bad luck gave her to do some good, so she can get her self-worth back. She doesn’t need to be coddled or pampered or indulged. She needs to get up off her ass and use what she is and fix this situation.” And I knew, somehow, that without Molly I couldn’t do what needed to be done. I massaged my injured shoulder through the healing purple tee. I felt blood, and now that I felt it, I could smell it. I’d broken the skin again when I landed on the ground. Gravel, I thought, but the kind Louisiana uses, mostly shells, brittle and sharp. Pretty sure that was what I landed on.
“And you know that how?” he growled.
Well. This was the last secret. Once I spoke in this car, it was out there for good. But maybe secrets are evil things. And maybe once the secrets were revealed, I’d be free of their weight and their remembered pain. Maybe. Still rubbing my shoulder, I said, “I know that because when I was five years old, my grandmother put a knife in my hand and made me help her kill a man.”
Big Evan blinked. Bliss drew back into the shadows of the backseat. Rachael leaned forward with interest. Shiloh just stared, her eyes bleeding red. Or maybe she just smelled my blood. Whatever. I kept an eye on her as I continued and Evan drove.
“I’ve spent all the years since full of guilt and misery, even though I didn’t remember it. I’ve let it run my thoughts, my plans, my whole life. But the experience doesn’t own me. I own it. What I do with it is up to me, just like what Molly does with her death magic is up to her.”
CHAPTER 22
The First Day I Woke Up Dead
Molly was nowhere in sight when we got to the address we thought Jack Shroffru was using as a lair, but I knew we had the right place as I walked around the house, looking it over from a distance. The foliage was dead and shriveled and wisping in the wind. There were no bird sounds, no stealthy motions of mice or rabbits or feral cats. There was no smell of anything live anywhere except the far-off stink of skunk.
As Beast and I reconnoitered, the Kid stole in to the security system and disabled the important parts—like the part that sounded an alarm. And the part that called the police. Everything still worked. Everything still showed little green lights on the monitoring system. It just wasn’t going to do the occupants of the house any good for a while. Go, geek—electronic hero in SpongeBob SquarePants flannel pj’s. I really was gonna buy him a cape and tights.