“Not your fault,” Lucio answers firmly. His hand is still splayed on the table in front of me, and I put my own on top of it. His fingers lace their way through mine. I squeeze. “It was for the greater good.” I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallows. “Our work is more important than two people’s lives, even if those two people were my parents.”
I blink away the tears trying to work their way to the surface; it doesn’t seem right that I should be crying when Lucio isn’t. Maybe Aidan is right: my sensitivity is a weakness. I don’t think I could be as strong as Lucio. I don’t think I could give my mother up for anything.
“I can ask Aidan to give you a day off,” Lucio offers. “You don’t look so good,” he adds, with a grin, trying to make a joke. “Your hair seems to have taken on a life of its own.”
I reach up and pat my frizzball. I’m pretty sure it’s growing straight out from my scalp instead of, you know, down my back like other people’s. “My hair has always had a life of its own. I’m pretty sure it regularly goes on adventures that I’m not a part of.”
“Like when you’re sleeping, it just walks away and heads to the nearest town to party with the locals?”
I nod. “Exactly. Then before I can wake up, it plops itself right back on my head, too tired from living a life more exciting than mine to bother trying to look halfway presentable.”
Lucio laughs, but I shake my head, standing up so quickly that my chair falls to the floor beneath me. I shouldn’t be sitting here having fun. Not when people like Lucio’s parents died to protect me. I decide that there will be no days off and no more complaints about how hard this is. The very least I can do in return is try my best.
“Where are you going?” Lucio asks.
“To work,” I answer quickly. I practically run out the front door, hoping Lucio won’t follow because I can’t staunch my tears any longer and I don’t want him to see me crying.
Who am I to be so protected? What is my life up against Lucio’s parents or Aidan’s or all of these spirits he’s forcing to remain on Earth?
I open the door to Aidan’s lab, and the spirits take hold all at once.
My teeth are chattering as I finally begin to understand: Lucio doesn’t think he lost his parents for any one life. He thinks that protecting me—saving me—will save everything. Everyone. And that’s bigger to him than a few lives lost along the way.
But only if Aidan is right about me.
I close my eyes. Last night my hot bath was waiting for me the instant I arrived at the mansion. I undressed, my muscles sore from the effort of staying upright. I thought I’d never want to take another bath again after I learned how Anna died, but for the past few days I’ve luxuriated in the warm water. Before I stepped into the tub, I paused to stare at myself in the mirror. I studied the bulge of my biceps and triceps, the shadow of a six-pack across my belly. I never knew I would be this strong. After all, klutzes like me are rarely athletic, right?
Despite my new muscles, I felt weaker than ever before. Each day, no matter how I beg these spirits to move on, no matter how I plead with them to come to me only one at a time, I can’t gain control. They overtake me every time.
I submerged my head under the bathwater, trying to literally drown out the sound of the voice in my head reminding me each and every day that I’m a failure.
Today I know Lucio’s parents died because they believed in Aidan’s theories, because they believed in me.
I open my eyes. I’m sitting on the floor outside Aidan’s lab; Aidan is crouching on the ground beside me. He must have dragged me here after I failed once more.
“Again,” I say, peeling myself off the floor for the umpteenth time. I will do this all day long until the sun goes down and my fingers are blue and my tear ducts have frozen shut. “I’m ready to try again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Real Luiseach Work
That night, while Lucio is out scouring the countryside for a demon and Aidan is holed up in his lab, I decide to do something productive for a change. I take the stuffed owl down into the backyard. I hold it up to the sky. I must keep Anna from going dark. I will keep Anna from going dark. But no matter how hard I concentrate, I can’t find her. The tropical air remains warm on my skin; my heart maintains its steady beat.
Maybe she doesn’t want to be found, like the spirit Lucio is hunting.
Thunder rumbles in the distance. We’re in for a storm. Warm rain begins to fall, drenching my skin and hair. But I don’t stop, not even when lightning illuminates the night sky. I stand up to my ankles in mud, my arms aching from holding the owl out in front of me. The rain passes and the sky clears, and all the while, I stand my ground.
I’m in the same spot when Lucio finds me at dawn. Not that I’m still upright. I must have sat at some point, must have hugged the owl to me like a Teddy bear, must have fallen asleep beneath the night sky.
“You’re covered in mud,” Lucio says.
I shrug.
“Come with me.” He puts his hand in mine and pulls me to my feet.
“Where?”