Because I’m accomplishing something.
What’s more, I can’t think of Nolan. There just isn’t room in my brain for worry. Not with all these lives taking up so much space.
Finally the wind quiets, dying down until it’s nothing more than a hum, barely blowing my hair back at all. Aidan takes his hands from me, stepping back like he can’t believe what he just witnessed. Exhausted, I slump against Lucio, who hugs me gently.
I have no idea how long we’ve been in here.
But it must have been hours. Nearly eleven, in fact.
Over the hum of calm spirits I hear a car horn blasting up from the courtyard.
I twist myself from Lucio’s embrace and break into a run. It’s time for me to go home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Ashley to the Rescue
The storm has passed; there isn’t a cloud in the sky. I squint as my eyes adjust from darkness to light. The campus is still wet from last night’s rain, and the humidity is as strong as ever. I can’t wait until I’m breathing in the air conditioning blasting from the vents of Ashley’s dashboard.
It looks like Ashley’s shiny blue hybrid is glowing in the brightness. Soon we’ll be cold and wet and beneath miles of cloud cover back home. I can practically taste the fog on my tongue.
Before I can stop her, Ashley jumps out of the car and throws her arms around me.
“Where is this guy?” she shouts.
I shake my head and toss my bags into her backseat. “Let’s just get out of here.” I expected Aidan and Lucio to run after me, but they’re still somewhere inside. Somehow their absence makes this all feel even creepier. What are they waiting for? Aren’t they going to try to stop me?
I grab Ashley’s arm. She raises her gaze to take in her surroundings: the courtyard, the mansion, the shattered glass at our feet, the jungle closing in.
“What is this place?” she breathes. This is definitely not the vacation-type scenario Ashley had in mind when I first said I needed her to drive to Mexico.
“It used to be a sort of college campus,” I answer. “Aidan—my birth father—was like, the dean or something.”
Before Ashley can ask anything more, the sound of someone whooping fills the air. Not just someone. Aidan. I turn in the direction of his lab—somewhere inside that big building, my serious, composed mentor/father is literally cheering. Within seconds Lucio has joined him, shouting in Spanish.
The sound is getting closer. They’re running down the stairs. Finally running after me.
“We have to go, Ash. Now.”
Ashley folds her arms across her chest and taps her foot against the muddy ground. “What the heck is going on here?”
“It’s too complicated to explain in ten seconds.” I tug at her arm. “We’ll have plenty of time on the drive to Ridgemont.”
“To Ridgemont? I thought I was driving you back to Texas.”
“I have to get home. There’s not a second to spare,” I add, even though it makes me sound less like a real person in a hurry than the heroine of a romance novel. “Come on,” I beg, and she follows me back to her car.
“Sunshine!” It’s Lucio’s voice. “Sunshine, wait!”
I don’t answer and I don’t turn around.
Ashley opens the drivers’ side door and puts the key in the ignition. The engine comes to life, but Lucio is still shouting my name. I can hear his footsteps bearing down after us. Followed by another set of footsteps. Aidan’s.
“Sunshine, please.” Aidan appears beside the car so quickly that I actually jump in my seat. He tries to open the door, but I’ve already locked it. “You can’t leave now. We had a breakthrough.”
“I don’t have time for your breakthroughs,” I shout breathlessly. I bet that outside the car the wind is picking up again, the spirits getting riled up along with me.
“It’s not safe out there! And now that things have changed—”
“Nothing has changed!” I yell back. “I have to get back to Nolan.”
“Everything has changed!”
I refuse to look at him. I won’t look at anything but the dashboard in front of me. I don’t want to see the trees whipping in the breeze, the vines hanging over the mansion swaying from side to side, threatening to crush the whole thing to the ground. I turn to Ashley.
“Floor it,” I say, and she does.
Ashley waits until we’ve left the campus behind, until we’re on an actual paved roadway and there is even the occasional other car on the road before she opens her mouth to ask, “Sunshine, will you please tell me what the heck was going on back there?”
“It’s complicated.”