He claps his hand over his mouth so hard the bench shakes beneath us.
“Lucio,” I prompt, growing hotter despite the cool glass of lemonade in my hand. I turn from gazing at the leaves to face this dark-haired boy and square my shoulders. “Who is Helena?”
Lucio sets his jaw. This boy may feel sorry for me, but his loyalty is to Aidan, no doubt about it.
“Helena was your mother,” a deep voice answers from behind us. I jump in surprise.
Suddenly I can smell her perfume and see the strands of hair left behind in her brush.
I stand and see Aidan walking toward us. “Was? Is she . . . gone?”
“She left Llevar la Luz a long time ago.” His voice gets louder with each step he takes. “But I don’t think that’s the kind of gone you were getting at. She leads the luiseach on the other side of the rift.” He reaches into his pocket for a perfectly white handkerchief to wipe invisible sweat from his brow. “And she’s wanted to eliminate you from the day you were born.”
“To eliminate me?” Aidan can’t possibly mean what it sounds like he means. I’m not the kind of person another person would want to eliminate. I’m not evil or powerful or anything at all really. I mean, I know I’m not normal, but I’m not . . . I don’t know. I’m not enough to warrant elimination, right? “Just to make sure I know what you mean”—I gulp—“you’re saying she wants to kill me?”
“Yes,” Aidan confirms with a terse nod. “And she won’t rest until she succeeds.”
I step backward away from them, tripping over a root from one of the trees surrounding us. I gasp as I fall forward, flinging my arms out in front of me. The glass I’d been holding goes flying, lemonade and all. It lands in the dirt at Aidan’s feet, shattering into what looks like a thousand pieces, kind of like what’s happened to my life ever since I turned sixteen.
Kindred Spirits
This is harder than I thought it would be. Our first day together the boy barely looks up from his book, and on the second day, when I find him sitting in the exact same spot with the exact same book—just turned to a page much closer to the end—he’s so absorbed in his studies, I’m not sure he even recognizes me from the day before.
He’s trying to find out more about his role as her protector. He’s trying to see whether he can protect her from this many miles away.
On the third day I try another tact. “Got a thing for ghosts?”
This time he practically snaps to attention. Finally. “What?” he asks.
“Your book,” I prompt, gesturing toward the ancient-looking tome spread out on the table between us, the one he’s been reading over and over since I first saw him. “I recognize it.”
“You do?” he asks dubiously. And he’s right to be dubious. The book he’s studying is more than a century old, and although he doesn’t know it, there are only two copies in existence. One is mine, and the other belonged to a friend of Aidan’s named Abner Jones, who taught paranormal studies at the nearby university from which I’m pretending to be a student. Aidan must have used Abner to give this boy the book. Which gives me an idea.
I slouch and let my hair fall across my face like I’m embarrassed. “That’s why I’m here,” I say shyly. “In Washington, I mean.”
“I thought you were in school at the university a couple of towns over,” Nolan supplies, and I nod. At least he’s been listening enough to retain that bit of information.
“Yeah, but there’s a reason I chose this school. Years ago there was a professor there. His work was kind of”—I pause as though I’m searching for the right word—“controversial. In some circles he was lauded as a genius, in others laughed off as a quack. But the university agreed to let me go through his old papers and books and files as research for my thesis.”
“What’s your thesis about?”
I take a deep breath and sigh heavily, like I’m debating whether or not to confide in him. Finally I bite my lower lip and say softly, “It’s about ghosts.”
Nolan shifts from a slouch; now his spine is straight as an arrow. “Ghosts?”
“Not just ghosts,” I say quickly, like I’m trying to cover up my own foolishness. “You know, the paranormal. Spirits. What happens to us after we die. That kind of thing.”
The more I say, the more excited Nolan looks, like we have a special connection he’s never had with anyone before. Well, with almost anyone.
“This professor,” I continue, “his name was Abner Jones.”
“You’ve heard of Abner Jones?”
“You’ve heard of Abner Jones?” I echo incredulously. And then I grin like I think Nolan might be a sort of kindred spirit. And from the look on his face, I can see the boy feels the same way.
But then, just for an instant, he presses his lips together solemnly. As though perhaps he’s thinking of the last girl he spoke of such things with.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Extinction