A pattern formed. We would circle each other. He would propel toward me. I would dive out of the way. The process would begin all over again. I had a dagger in my boot, but I couldn’t bring myself to stab him. I just couldn’t bring myself to disable him. Then I’d have to try to ash him, and I didn’t have the heart.
A scowling Cole finally strode into the room, Mackenzie, Bronx and Mr. Holland behind him. Mr. Holland demanded to know where my grandmother was, and after I told him, he took off. Bronx kicked the doors shut. I purposely avoided Cole’s eyes. This was the first time I’d seen him today, and I couldn’t afford a vision right now.
“Don’t kill him,” I said. “Please. There has to be another way.”
“Quiet,” Cole said. “Watch your confessions.”
Pops sniffed the air and licked his lips. “Taste.”
My friends stepped out of their bodies and surrounded him, quickly subduing him by pinning him to his stomach, his hands locked behind his back, his ankles tied with a glowing length of rope.
“Maybe we can…” I began, only to press my lips together and look down when Cole’s violet eyes swung to me. Our gazes locked—
—Cole was standing in front of me, his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry. It had to be that way. The man you loved would not have hit you like that. I don’t know when he was bitten, only that he was. What you saw today was a shell. Only a shell.”
“Then how was he able to come inside the house,” I asked as tears streamed down my cheeks, “with the Blood Line around the property?”
“Permission overrides the Blood Line. His house. His rules.”
My heart broke inside my chest. I should have checked for bite marks. I’d smelled the scent of rot the night of the break-in. “If I’d had more time, I could have figured out a way…”
“There was no other way,” Cole insisted, his tone ragged. “He had to die. To my knowledge, no one’s ever come back from this.”
He would know, wouldn’t he. He’d watched his own mother die this way—
“—Taaasssste.”
My grandfather’s voice broke through the vision. The world returned to normal. Cole was across the room, holding Pops down.
“Give me permission, Ali,” he gritted out.
I realized the power of my words had stopped him from acting before now—just as the power of his words nearly unhinged my jaw to get the right words out. I resisted.
“What’s wrong with him?” Nana cried from outside the closed doors. “Why did he do that to Ali? That’s not like him. He’s a good man.”
“I told you things are dangerous down here, Mrs. Bradley,” I heard Mr. Holland say.
Mackenzie stepped back into her body. “We just need a few minutes more,” she called.
“Ali,” Cole prompted.
I couldn’t dump this burden on him. “I’ll…I—I will do it.”
He studied me before nodding stiffly. “Can you?”
I looked down. Obstacle one: my hands were perfectly normal. Beyond a doubt, I could light up. The question was, could I do it on command?
“I don’t want to hurt him,” I said, my chin trembling. Obstacle two: my love for the man.
No, not a man. Not any longer.
“He won’t feel a thing, I promise you.”
Pops struggled for freedom, and I began to cry. He wanted to destroy Nana, and I couldn’t let him. So, really, there were no obstacles. I closed my eyes, dug deep inside myself and found a reservoir of determination.
“Yes,” I said, and I believed it with all my heart. “I can.”
Something inside me shattered, and heat exploded through my hands, up my arms, pooling in my shoulders. My eyelids popped open. Both of my arms were totally and completely lit up, from the tips of my fingers all the way to my collarbone.
Cole, Mackenzie and Bronx were staring at me with shock and awe.
I stumbled to my grandfather before I lost my nerve, crouched beside him, and waited until Cole had flipped him over. Pops nipped his teeth in my direction. Shaking, avoiding his gaze, I flattened my palm over his chest.
Within a single heartbeat of time, he was gone and ash was floating through the air. I gazed at my arms in bafflement. Cole had said it would take some time.
“Ali,” my grandmother called. “Ali, are you okay? Talk to me!”
Cole jumped back into his body. “Ali. Don’t touch anything else.”
“Ali!” Panic now laced Nana’s voice. “I am your grandmother and I demand you talk to me.”
But I had to touch my body. I had to return, had to respond to my grandmother.
“No,” he shouted as I reached out.
Spirit fingers brushed natural fingers. I gasped as the two halves of myself connected. The glow vanished, but I could feel remnants of the heat, little buzzes of lightning snapping and sizzling.
“Are you okay?” he demanded.
“Yes.” I called, “I’m fine, Nana.” But Pops isn’t. A fresh spring of tears cascaded down my cheeks. “How did I do that?” I asked Cole.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I was afraid you’d burn your body when you touched it. Next time, listen to me. I can’t take another scare like that.”
“Ali?” Nana said shakily. “I need to see you for myself.”
I peered at Cole pleadingly, silently begging for permission to tell her what had just happened. She deserved to know.
He nodded.