Daniel squeezed my hand with approval. We discussed logistics for a while, and then I excused myself and went back into the house to find April. She sat alone in the dining room next to the display of pictures of Jude that Mom had put out on the table. I could tell that not getting a chance to say good-bye to Jude had hit her hard, and I hoped not having to say good-bye to me soon might help lift her spirits.
“When you’re up for it, I’d like to see more of your costume designs,” I said as I sat next to her, holding her hand. “I think we’re going to be sticking around, and I’m going to need my Alfred.”
She nodded. After a minute she whispered, “Do you think we’ll find Talbot? Stop him from hurting anyone else like he did Jude?” She wiped at her eyes. “Do you think we’ll ever even hear from him again?”
“Yes,” I said. If there was one thing I was sure of in this world, other than the love Daniel and I shared, it was that Nathan Talbot would try to find a way to be a part of my life.…
A conclusion that was confirmed later that night when I crawled into my bed and heard my phone buzz with a text. I knew it was from Talbot, even though the number was blocked, because it read: You want to be a superhero still, grace? Well, every hero has a nemesis. And I’m yours.
Chapter Thirty-nine
RENEWAL
A WEEK AND A HALF LATER
I hadn’t heard anything again from Talbot since the text, but I knew it was only a matter of time before he’d try to do something else to get our attention. In the meantime, I had enough on my plate to keep me busy—making arrangements to rebuild on the farm property, move the entire the pack and their belongings across several states, and, of course, there was school. Both Daniel and I had a lot of missing assignments to make up for if we wanted to graduate on time.
I had quite a bit on my mind, but I still couldn’t believe that I’d completely forgotten about my trip to the Print & Ship two weeks ago. That is, until I passed Mr. Barlow at the Day’s Market on Saturday afternoon. He came up to me as I waited for Stacey to ring up my groceries—enough sandwich fixings and potato chips to feed a pack of thirty men and my lost boys, with the appetites of wolves, who’d been framing out a house all afternoon. Barlow raised his eyebrows at my shopping cart’s contents, but he didn’t ask about it. Instead, he pulled a folded-up piece of paper from his knapsack. “It’s nothing official, of course,” he said—and winked at me. “But I thought he’d like to know right away.”
THIRTY MINUTES LATER
It was still hard to walk past the place where Jude had died, but I knew I’d eventually get used to it. The framing of the new house—the first of the buildings Daniel had planned for our new property—was going up quickly. We were trying to beat out the first snow of the season that the weatherman was predicting would hit Rose Crest by Thanksgiving. I dropped off the lunch fixings with Zach—who’d figured out he had quite the talent for cooking under my mom’s tutelage—and made my way to the barn, where I knew I’d find Daniel poring over his design plans for the house. He’d taken to it so quickly, it made me wonder if Trenton had an architectural emphasis in their industrial design program.
Daniel dropped his pencil when he saw me, his whole face lighting up. I smiled back, hoping the day would never come when he’d stop looking at me like that. I asked him to come with me, and we walked hand in hand until we came to the old tree we’d discovered in one of the back acres of the property—a walnut tree, even older and larger than the one in my family’s front yard. I’d already started thinking of it as “our tree.”
“I have something for you,” I said, and handed him the letter from Barlow.
Daniel took the paper and read it out loud.
“Dear Jack—