“You live there?” He points to the house ahead—or rather, what’s left of it.
A fire condemned it long before I stumbled across it. But the two and a half remaining walls—one of which still has a cracked glass window—along with the scorched support beams from the former roof give me enough space to hide. I draped fallen palm fronds across the beams to provide shade from the heat, and piled more on the ground to form a place to sleep. They aren’t nearly as soft as I’d like, but they’re good enough for nesting birds. I demand no better.
“Why? What’s wrong with that?” I ask, trying to understand his incredulous expression.
“I just should’ve guessed. I came here a couple times when I was a kid—but then I stopped because I was afraid it . . .”
He stops dead in his tracks.
I turn to face him, surprised at how pale he looks in the moonlight.
“I was afraid it’s haunted,” he says. “I heard whispers in the air, and sometimes the way the trees rustled, it seemed like there was a ghost.” He hesitates, like he’s trying to find the courage to ask his next question. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
I nod.
He backs away from me. “What are you?”
“I’m the same as you,” I say, treading lightly.
He laughs and the harsh sound slices the quiet night. “Please. I saw the way you floated in the air like that, and formed out of nothing and—”
“So you really did see me?” I ask, needing to hear him say it. I’ve waited so long for him to have the breakthrough, it’s still hard to believe it finally happened.
“Yeah. So don’t feed me that crap about you being human, because I know what I saw, and humans can’t do that.”
“Vane.” I wait for him to meet my eyes. “I never said anything about being human.”
He sucks in a breath. “So . . . you’re not human.”
“No.”
His face is a kaleidoscope of emotions. Relief. Doubt. Fear. Vindication.
I don’t say anything, waiting for him to make the last, most important connection.
I can almost hear the pieces click together in his brain.
His voice is barely audible when he finally speaks. “But you said you’re the same as me.”
I open my mouth to utter the words that will twist his world inside out and upside down, but my voice vanishes.
I’d give anything to forget who and what I am. To wake each morning not having to face what I must do. Or what I’ve done. Vane’s been living that kind of blissful ignorance for ten years. Oblivious to his responsibilities. Unaware of his role. Innocent to the overwhelming challenges he’ll face.
Now I’m about to strip that freedom away from him.
The guilt and regret nearly choke me.
But he needs to hear the truth. And I swore an oath that I’d tell him. So I square my shoulders and yank his universe out from under him.
“That’s right, Vane. I’m not human. And neither are you.”
CHAPTER 9
VANE
I can’t stop laughing.
I laugh so hard I scare bats out of the trees. My sides ache and I have to gasp for air and tears stream from the corners of my eyes. But what else am I supposed to do?
This is officially entering new realms of crazy, and I refuse to be dragged there. I may not understand a few things about my life or my past, but I’m absolutely positive that I’m a human being. I mean, I look like everyone else. I feel like everyone else.
So does Audra.
Right—because she’s human too, I tell myself.
Psycho. But human.
I must’ve dreamed what I saw in my room. I’ve had plenty of other crazy dreams about Audra—why not one more?
That’s a good enough explanation for me.
“I’m out of here,” I say as I head back toward my house. “Get off our property—and stay away from me, or I’ll smack you with a restraining order so fast you won’t know what hit you.”
“I can’t do that, Vane.”
I ignore the chills I get when she says my name. “Yes, you can.”
She isn’t my dream girl. She’s a problem I’m getting rid of.
She doesn’t follow me. Instead, I hear her start whispering.
I don’t want to listen—fight to ignore her—but it feels like her voice bores into my skull. The sounds are mush, but after a second they sink in and become words.
“Come to me swiftly, carry no trace. Lift me softly, then flow and race.”
The words fill me with warmth and ache and I want to run to them and away from them at the same time. But I can’t move. I’m frozen—enchanted by the whispers swirling in my consciousness.
Enchanted.
“Are you putting a spell on me?” I yell, shaking my head, trying to break whatever voodoo she’s using.
She doesn’t answer.
Instead, a blast of wind tangles around me, and I learn what a fly feels as a spider binds it with a web. Among the chaos and torrential gusts I feel her arms wrap across my shoulders and an explosion of heat as her body presses against mine. Then we’re airborne.
I swear my stomach stays behind as we climb up and up and up. I have to keep popping my ears as we shift altitudes.