No. Not imagine. I can hear it. A high-pitched wail that nearly drowns out every other sound.
I don’t figure out what the sound is until Lucio drags me from the lab, slamming the door shut behind him. Aidan is shouting in protest, and even in my weakened state, I can tell that this is probably the first time Lucio has ever knowingly disobeyed him.
“They were killing her!” Lucio shouts.
My eyes are still closed. But now all I see is darkness.
Aidan’s voice: “Don’t be absurd. You know as well as I know that they can’t kill her.”
“Her body was going into shock,” Lucio counters. “She’s ice cold. We’re miles from the nearest hospital.”
“And what would you have told the doctors? That despite the tropical climate, this girl managed to develop hypothermia?”
It’s the kind of thing I would say, the kind of thing I have thought more than once: human doctors are useless for paranormal problems.
“I would’ve come up with something before I let her freeze to death!”
It’s so hard to hear them that it sounds like this argument is happening miles away from me. Lucio folds me into his warm arms. I know he’s not taller than I am, but right now he feels like a giant. A strong, friendly giant. Like Fezzik in one of Mom’s favorite movies, The Princess Bride. When I get home, we’ll have a movie night. She’ll make popcorn, and we’ll watch that movie together, arguing over which of us is hogging the blanket just like we used to.
The last time Mom made popcorn was on New Year’s Eve. When it wasn’t Mom making the popcorn at all but rather the water demon that had taken over her body.
Maybe normal things like movie nights aren’t part of my life anymore.
I’m aware of Lucio’s hands rubbing my arms, up and down, up and down, trying to heat up my icy skin. Eventually Aidan’s arms wrap around me alongside Lucio’s, and I feel my body begin to thaw.
I open my eyes. That’s when I discover what that wailing sound was. My mouth wasn’t frozen shut after all. When I finally understand why Aidan and Lucio sounded like they were arguing from miles away: I was straining to hear them over the sound of my own voice.
This whole time I’ve been screaming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Elimination
“I’ll draw you a bath,” Lucio offers later. Draw you a bath. A phrase that doesn’t exist outside of old novels. Except, apparently it does for me.
Lucio fills the tub in the bathroom on the second floor until it’s nearly overflowing with warm water.
“You should let it cool down a little before you get in,” he says, lingering in the doorway. “Too much heat might be a shock to your system.”
I nod. I haven’t said an actual sentence since we got back to the house. My throat is so hoarse from screaming that I’m not sure what I’ll sound like.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Lucio says, shifting from one foot to the other awkwardly, like he’s feeling shy.
“Lucio?” I manage to croak before he walks away. He turns back to face me.
“You said you’ve lived in Llevar la Luz all your life, right?”
Slowly he nods. I think he knows what I’m getting at.
“You would have been one year old,” I say finally.
He nods again. “I remember the sound of them screaming,” he says.
“The women?” I prompt. “When they miscarried?” Lucio hesitates, and I add, “I can handle it. I promise.”
He takes a deep breath. “I’ve never heard anything like it since. Not until today,” he adds, gesturing to my neck. To the raw, red, exhausted throat beneath. “I crawled into the living room downstairs,” he continues. “My parents thought I was sleeping.” I imagine Lucio crawling, following the sound of arguing voices. Hiding behind one of the enormous antique chairs. “When my mom saw me crouched in a corner, she carried me back to my room, even though I kicked and screamed bloody murder.”
I smile. “Sounds like you were a real angel.”
“Let’s just say I had a strong sense of self from an early age.”
“Right.”
“But my mom never lost her patience with me, not even that night, with everything that was going on. She put me to bed and sang to me until I fell asleep.” He smiles softly at the memory, then swallows it away. “But I didn’t stay sleeping for long. That night I had a nightmare that would recur for weeks.”
“What did you dream?”
He doesn’t answer right away, like he’s not sure he should tell me.
“Say it,” I plead. Steam rises from the bathtub behind me.
“I dreamed about Helena squeezing a tiny baby so tight, it was like she was squeezing the life out of her. I dreamed she was trying to kill you.”
I shake my head. “Aidan said he was the one who offered to do it.”
Lucio shrugs. “I know. But I was a baby. I probably heard one thing and imagined that I saw another, you know?”
“Sure.”
“Anyhow, I have to go.”
I nod, knowing that in a few minutes I’ll hear the familiar roar of Lucio’s motorcycle, Clementine, taking off the way it does every day as he tracks the missing spirit.