Tonight she’d show them that she could be mean, too. Even meaner than them. She’d cut them if they reached for her. Then they’d leave her alone.
Layla backed to the window and into the squares of soft starlight. The crisscrosses of the windowpanes’ shadow left x’s all over her. The floor was even colder there.
Greedy tipped-up eyes gleamed from the closet. From the corners. From under the bed.
Layla unzipped her backpack and reached inside. Found the handle. Drew out the knife. “Stay back!” she said, pointing the blade into the room.
The dark ones smiled and moved forward, their shadow bodies wavering like black water. Closer and closer.
“I said stay back!” Layla jerked her outstretched arm so they’d see what she’d brought.
They laughed. Can’t hurt us.
She bet she could. She had to.
Layla squeezed her eyes shut, made herself brave and mean, and slashed the knife through the air.
More laughter.
She slashed again and again. “Never come back! Never, never!”
She slashed for them to leave her alone.
She slashed until the laughter broke with a cry of pain.
And then she opened her eyes.
“. . . down the knife, honey,” Mama Joyce was saying. Her face was all red.
The light was on. Blood ran from one of Mama’s arms. She was kneeling, her good hand out as if she wanted Layla to stay, like a dog.
Layla let the knife clatter to the floor. “I’m sorry . . . Mama.”
Mama grabbed for the covers and pressed them to her arm. “Not your fault, honey.” Tears ran down her face, so it had to hurt bad. “Not your fault.”
Yes, it was. But Layla didn’t say that.
“You saw something scary?” Mama asked.
Layla nodded. Bad things. Tears fell down her face, too.
“Are they gone now?”
Layla nodded again, even though she knew they’d be back.
Mama nodded herself. Her face had a worried look on it, the red of her cheeks going splotchy. “Do you know how to call nine-one-one?”
And that’s when Mama Joyce gave her back. She had wanted to save the world, one kid at a time. Just not her.
Khan watched from Twilight, the dream shadows of the fae creeping by him into Layla’s childhood bedroom. The colors of the dream were bright and harsh, like the intensity of her dread. She was trapped in an old nightmare, one that had the sense of recurrence. Layla had been here many, many times before.
He lifted a hand and cast Layla’s mind deeper into sleep, beyond the reach of memory.
Same spirit, same will as Kathleen’s. And now, also, the same ability to see through the veil and into Shadow. Or she had once. And here he’d thought that Shadow was a revelation to her. Deep down, she’d known. Deep, deep down, she’d known all along. Of course she had. She and Kathleen had the same soul.
But where Kathleen had seen fairy tales in Shadow, Layla received nightmares. His fault. The ability to see beyond the veil often attracted the attention of the fae, who would divert themselves by driving the mortal mad. If he’d been in Twilight, where his duty lay, he’d have surely found her. He’d have spared that child her loneliness and pain.
Instead, she’d overcome and found him.
Chapter 8
“I’ll meet you there,” Talia said.
Layla agreed and hung up the phone. Library, first floor, half an hour. With Talia Thorne. Wow. Layla still couldn’t believe it.
Her couple hours of crappy sleep were not enough to clear her exhaustion, but the appointment gave her a jacked alertness.
Talia had been the shock of a lifetime—a kindred spirit. Until now, Layla had believed those were a myth. But as she thought of last night, her heart gave an off-rhythm, double-beat glub. She’d never felt like this before.
More difficult to face was the idea that wraiths might have a viable paranormal explanation after all, rather than the science-based origin she’d been pulling for since day one. Personal bias might have slanted her articles, which made her wince. And here she’d thought she was being so scrupulously neutral. She’d have to ask her editor to hold that last article.
Layla was hoping to see some case files, but Talia said she’d have to be set up on the view-only interactive tablets that accessed Segue’s database. So, for now, she’d be going old school and browsing the texts amassed on the library shelves behind her, then later doing some staff interviews with those who felt comfortable sharing their findings. Dr. Sikes’s work on wraith cellular regeneration was very high on her wish list.
She intended to get started any minute, but she couldn’t rip her gaze from the painting over the library’s fireplace mantel, not even to enjoy the fire licking below, though the room was cold.