“Planning to do your math homework in the haunted house?” I teased.
Priest perked up. “I wouldn’t need one for my homework, but they’re good for lots of other stuff.” He walked over and stood next Jared. Lukas and Alara were already standing together.
“Who am I going with?” I asked.
The four of them looked at one another. No one reacted except Priest, who immediately put on his headphones.
“Nobody,” Jared finally answered. “You’re staying here.”
Andras was responsible for my mother’s death. If there was a weapon capable of destroying him, I wanted to help them find it. “I’m going with you.”
Jared pushed past me without a word and disappeared around the side of the van.
I followed him. “You think if you ignore me, I’ll just wait out here? I don’t care—”
He whipped around. “I’m not letting you go in that house.”
“It’s not your decision to make.”
A worried crease formed between his eyebrows. “It is if there’s a vengeance spirit in there….”
“You’ve been trying to convince me this is my destiny or my duty, or whatever your parents told you guys to make you trade a normal life for this.” I yanked on the pocket of his jacket, the nails rattling inside. “If I’m really one of you, shouldn’t I see what I’m up against?”
Anger flickered in his eyes. “My parents didn’t tell me anything. My mom died ten minutes after she gave birth to us. And my dad told me the truth. Can you say the same thing?”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
Jared’s voice dropped. “You don’t get to judge my father or my life. What we do is important. It means something.”
I wanted to fire back with a comment that would hurt him the way he had tried to hurt me, but I couldn’t. No matter how different we were, Jared and I shared a common denominator as uncommon as they came.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” My hands were shaking.
Jared noticed and his expression softened. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. Why do you really want to go in?”
Because I wasn’t just hunting vengeance spirits. If the four of them were right, I was following the path my mom left behind, the one she hid from me for reasons I might never know. There were too many questions I needed to answer.
Was she really a member of the Legion?
And the question I didn’t even want to ask myself.
Am I?
CHAPTER 14
Wonderland
Jared’s eyes searched mine, and it felt like he could see the fears I was fighting so hard to hide.
“You have to do exactly what I tell you in there.”
I nodded, too nervous to say anything.
When we came back around the side of the van, everyone was waiting. I knew they had probably overheard our entire conversation. Priest tried to act busy for my benefit, but Alara looked right at me.
“You okay?” Lukas mouthed.
I smiled weakly.
“Are we going to hang out here all day or what?” Alara stalked over to Priest’s duffel bag. She pulled out the heavy leather glove with the spikes made of cold-iron bolts and slipped it on.
“Let’s go.” Lukas slung the crossbow over his shoulder.
I reached for the nail gun.
“No,” they said practically in unison.
“I can’t go in empty-handed. That can’t be safe.”
“You’re right.” Jared climbed into the van and returned with something I recognized immediately.
“You want me to wear a bulletproof vest? Are the ghosts going to shoot me?”
“It won’t stop bullets, just vengeance spirits. Priest rigged it.” He handed it to me, and my shoulder almost jerked out of the socket when I took it.
“Are you serious? This thing must weigh fifty pounds.”
“I replaced the Kevlar fibers with cold-iron pellets.” Priest shrugged. “They weigh a little more. I’m still working out the kinks.”
I dropped the vest in the dirt.
“I’m good,” I lied, wishing it were true.
Priest took Lilburn’s front steps two at a time. He pulled out the handheld device and waved it around the door. “I’ve got nothing out here.”
“Did he make that thing?” I asked Alara.
“It’s an electromagnetic field meter,” she answered. “He didn’t make it, but I’m sure he tweaked it. Priest doesn’t trust anything he didn’t design.” She pulled out one of her own, a rectangular device with a band of numbers and a needle at the end. “Spirits give off electromagnetic energy we can’t sense. EMFs measure it.”
“I probably need one, too.”
Alara reached around her tool belt and handed me a flashlight, with a smug smile. “Rule number one: only carry things you know how to use.”
Her condescending attitude was getting old. Even if had to walk inside with nothing but a plastic flashlight and the knowledge I’d picked up from watching bad horror movies, I was still going in, whether Alara liked it or not.
I turned away, and she caught my arm.