by Cheree Alsop
“A couple of hours. You could probably use more,” she noted.
I chuckled. “You sound like Virgo and Professor Shipley, and, well, everyone, if I’m being honest.”
“It’s the truth,” she said with an answering laugh. She motioned toward my side. “It’s looking better.”
I followed her gaze and saw that not only had my pathetic excuse for stitches held, my side had started to heal. The wound was tender to the touch, but at least I could move without feeling as though I was about to pass out.
I pushed up gingerly to a sitting position. “Progress,” I said. My thoughts sharpened. “My pack might have found the jakhin. I need to get to them.”
I used a desk to pull up to a standing position. My head swam lightheadedly and I wavered.
“Take it easy,” Ceren urged. “You’ve had a rough night.”
“But what if they’re in trouble?” I asked.
“They can take care of it,” she replied. “They’re werewolves, remember?”
I glanced at her in surprise. “You sound like you’re not so disgusted by us.”
She nodded with an apologetic expression. “Well, one did save my life last night, or whatever being a ghost is called that passes for a life.” She shrugged. “I guess I’ve learned to appreciate them a bit more.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I told her.
I glanced around at the classroom. Dried blood marked the desks I had passed and a puddle of brown crusted the floor where I had lain through the early hours of the morning. I put my hands in my pockets. “I guess I have some cleanup to do.”
Ceren smirked. “You don’t want Professor Shipley showing up to a war scene on Monday?”
“I don’t think he’d appreciate it,” I replied. “Especially considering the bones in the bathroom.”
Ceren gave a visible shudder. “I’ll leave that to you.”
“Thanks,” I replied in a dry tone that made her laugh.
I pulled my hands out of my pockets and a paper fell out. I picked up the folded sheet and opened it.
I heard Ceren’s breath catch as she looked over my shoulder.
“What is that?” she demanded.
I stared at the picture of her. The feeling of the weathered paper was rough beneath my fingers. The ripped tabs where the numbers had been taken looked ragged and worn.
“I found it hanging on the wall of the gas station,” I told her. My throat tightened when I admitted, “Your brother saw me take it and tried to chase me down.”
“What?” she asked in disbelief. “What did you tell him?”
I could feel the wrongness of my actions building with the tension in the room.
“Nothing,” I admitted. “I didn’t know what to say.”
Tears filled her eyes. “It says missing. Is he still looking for me?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
She stared at me. “How do you not know?”
I lowered my head into my hand. It felt heavier than it should have. “It was a crazy day. People were looking for me after a video from a bus accident, and I was on my way to work. Your brother caught me by surprise. He was mad when I took it down.”
“Of course he was,” she replied defensively. “Obviously, he’s looking for me! Why didn’t you say something?”
“You were gone,” I shot back. “You did one of your disappearing things and by the time I saw you again, it was when we found out about the khavis.”
“You should have told me,” she replied flatly.
I nodded, feeling like the idiot I knew I had been.
“What did he say?”
I swallowed and admitted, “He was shouting at me and it messed with my instincts.” I couldn’t look at her when I said, “It had already been a confusing day and I knew I would fight him if he pushed me any further.”
“So what did you do?” she asked in an accusatory tenor.
“I ran,” I admitted.
She stared at me. “You what?”
I couldn’t help my defensive tone when I replied, “What did you want me to do? Tell him the ghost of his sister is haunting me? How crazy does that sound?”
She was quiet for several seconds before she said, “About as crazy as it is.” She moved toward the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
She didn’t look back at me when she said, “I’m not haunting you any longer, Zev. I don’t want to be a burden in your life.” She gestured toward the bloody desks. “Any more than I’ve already been.” She paused at the door, her outline fading. “Thanks for saving me. Saving me for what, I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out without you.”
“Ceren, wait!”
I pushed up from the desk and limped toward the door. Every step hurt my side. I gritted my teeth and pushed myself faster, but by the time I reached the hallway, she was gone.
I leaned against the door frame and stared at the disaster that had once been a normal college hallway. Giant gouges showed where the khavis had stalked me and bloody footprints revealed my slow, sliding footsteps to Professor Shipley’s classroom. I was tempted to peek in the bathroom and see what kind of horror waited there, but the memory was graphic enough without revisiting it.
Guilt for the way I had spoken to Ceren hounded me as I made my way slowly to the doors of the school. I should have told her about the poster. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten it. And I definitely hadn’t handled her brother well. Who could blame him for chasing after the one who stole his sister’s poster? Accusing Ceren of haunting me would hang over my head as an all-time low. I really was a monster, and that didn’t mean in the physical sense.
I put my shoulder to the front door and pushed it open. It took more effort than it should have. I could have used far more moonlight, maybe a week’s worth. As it was, the ache in my side and the weakness of my body told me how very close to death I had been.
I closed my eyes and basked in the warmth of the rising sun as if it was the very first time I had felt it. The crisp morning air filled my nose with smells of dew, robins, moist earth, and the lingering scents of the students who had walked into the school on Friday.
The fact that I had sat in one of the desks in Professor Shipley’s classroom the day before was mindboggling. It felt like an age ago, an age in which I had gone from having a friend in Ceren closer than I had ever experienced before, to ostracizing her with my stupid actions about the poster. I should have told her. It should have been my highest priority that day. Of course she would want to know that her brother still held onto the hope of finding her. After so many years, it would have meant a lot to have not been forgotten.
Ceren’s words came into my head from our conversation the other day. “My room is like a shrine. Nothing’s been moved or touched since I died. It’s like…it’s like they hope that by keeping everything the same, I’ll just appear there as if I never left.”
A ripple of energy brushed across my skin. It felt as if a very important thought was just at the edge of my mind waiting to be discovered. I eased down onto the cement steps and rested my head in my hands. It felt too hard to sort through the whirlwind of ideas in my mind. With the loss of blood and stress of the night, I couldn’t get anything to fall into place. It felt like swimming through tar.
I exhaled and pushed all of the thoughts away in a practice I used to use to calm my nerves before a fight at the Lair. I sucked in a breath through my nose and let it out through my mouth. Slowly and steadily, I counted to ten, one number with each breath. By the time I reached ten, the anxiety I felt had faded. I focused on the single thought of Ceren’s room. I pictured it like the shrine she had described, with pictures of her on the walls, her bed untouched, her clothes where she had left them.
Her family still mourned her. She wished they could move on after all these years.
Something Professor Shipley had said stood out. He had been talking about Kristen’s interactions with ghosts. “She did mention that time in the plane th
e ghosts are on acts differently than here. Ceren may just be passing the years until she’s supposed to leave.”
The opposite thought struck me. What if it felt like years to her, but was only hours here?
I pulled the poster back out of my pocket with a bit of difficulty. Flattening the creases on my knee, I stared at it. As weathered as it was, and with all the phone number tabs missing, it appeared old and worn. Yet when I put it up to my nose, the ink smelled fresh.
Electricity prickled across my skin. Ceren’s brother had been watching the poster, hoping someone would see it and recognize her. If she hadn’t been missing very long, it would explain why he had chased me. He was desperate!
I read the short paragraph beneath Ceren’s picture. Please help us find Ceren East. We are desperate to find our daughter! If you have any information at all, please call the number below.
Certainty filled me just as the sound of a familiar truck reached my ears. I pushed up to my feet when Virgo pulled to the curb. He shoved the door open and didn’t bother to close it again before he jogged toward me.
“Zev, thank goodness! I’ve been all over the city!” he exclaimed. “Your pack tracked down the jakhin, but we lost it near the…Zev, what happened?” His steps slowed when he neared me.
I followed his gaze to the shredded side of my shirt and the dark blood that soaked my pant leg all the way down. It looked nearly as bad as it had been.
“I found the khavis,” I told him. “Well, actually, the khavis found Ceren and tried to eat her, we had a pretty brutal battle, and there’s a mess in that bathroom that will probably have this campus under lockdown and possibly quarantine.” None of that felt important compared to what I had just found out. “But Virgo, I need you to do something for me.”
“Zev, you need help,” he said, his eyes wide.
“There’s not time,” I told him. “We’ve got to get going!”
I stumbled on the curb and he grabbed my arm. His expression was serious when he said, “Listen to me. We’re not going anywhere until you get patched up.”
“I tried,” I protested. I was alarmed at how easy it was for him to keep me from heading to the truck. “Look.”
I pulled up my shirt.
His face paled. I glanced down. “Well, it looks worse in this lighting.”
“The only kind of lighting that’s going to look good in is no lighting at all,” he muttered. He looked closer. “Is that pink thread?”
I sighed. “Fine. Grab Shipley’s kit.” When he headed off toward the building, a thought struck me. “Don’t go in the bathroom,” I called after him.
I had managed to maneuver myself onto the edge of his tailgate by the time he came back with Professor Shipley’s first aid kit.
His face was paler than before.
“You looked in the bathroom, didn’t you?” I accused.
He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again and shook his head. Without another word, he opened the bloody first aid kit and pulled out gauze and bandages. I winced at the pressure and the roughness of his fingers as he wrapped long strips around my side to hold the gauze in place. A bit of blood colored his fingers, which I felt bad about, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. By the time he was done, I had to admit that it felt better.
“Thanks,” I said.
He tossed the mostly empty first aid kit into the floor of the truck. I made a mental note to replace the professor’s supplies the first chance I got.
“Climb in,” Virgo grumbled. “This is just temporary to get you to the Willards’. You need some real patching up if you plan to survive that.”
“I can’t.”
He paused with one hand on the open door and gave me a hard look. “What are you talking about?”
“I can’t leave,” I said. “I think what I’m looking for is here.”
His eyebrows drew together and he looked mad enough to take on a jakhin by himself. “I come here to find you half dead, the college torn apart, and what looks like a gruesome murder scene in the bathroom, and you’re telling me you can’t go home and get the real doctoring you need so you don’t drop dead?”
I shook my head. “If I leave, she’ll die.” My thoughts raced. “I mean, I think she is dying. I think that’s why nobody else can see her and why she’s gone most of the time, and don’t get me started on the Ankou. I just—”
“Slow down. Are we talking about the ghost again?” Virgo demanded.
“Yes,” I said. “I think that—”
“Zev, she almost got you killed!” the warlock shouted. “Look at you! You can barely stand there without falling over. And you’re worried about her?”
“Because I was wrong,” I tried to explain. “I think—”
“And I think as your best friend that you’re done worry about other people until you start taking care of yourself,” the warlock shot back.
I wasn’t getting through to him, and given the shape I was in, there was no way I could do what I needed to alone. I held up the crumpled paper that was stained by my blood.
“Look.”
He glared at the paper. “What?”
I threw it at him in exasperation and then had to bite back several choice words at the pain that followed. “Just…look,” I growled through clenched teeth while holding my side.
Virgo let out a breath and straightened the paper. He glanced at it, then focused on the picture. After a moment, he looked back up at me. “This is her?”
I nodded.
He flipped the paper over. “The date stamp is current.”
I winced inwardly at the fact that I had never thought to look for a date stamp. I waited for him to reach the same conclusion I had.
His head jerked up. “The stamp is from three days ago. If they put this up after the earthquake….”
“Then she might still be alive somewhere, which would explain why she’s not gone yet,” I replied.
He met my gaze. “But that was a week ago.”
“She’s strong,” I told him, my voice certain. “But she’s running out of time. We’ve got to hurry.”
“Let’s rally the troops,” the warlock said.
He pulled out his cellphone.
“Who are you calling?” I asked.
He gave me an exasperated look. “For someone who has a pack, you really haven’t figured out what they’re for, have you?”
Chagrined, I watched him swipe through his contacts and make a call.
“Mitch, I found him. Meet us at the college.”
“Mitch has a cellphone?” I said in amazement.
Virgo held up a hand to silence me. I fought down the urge to bite it.
“Yes.” He glanced at me. “He’s in bad shape, but I think he’ll survive.” His eyes narrowed. “If I don’t kill him first. But he’s in no shape to track and we need help. How soon can you get here?”
I heard Mitch reply something about James driving.
“Good,” Virgo said. “See you guys soon.” He hung up the phone.
I pushed away from the door I had been leaning on, but he grabbed my arm.
“Sit down before you fall over.”
I shook my head. “There’s not time. We have to find her.”
Virgo glared at me. “Did you know I thought I would find you dead somewhere this morning? When you didn’t show up to fight the jakhin last night, I figured you had caught up to the khavis and taken on more than you were able to.”
That was so close to the truth that my argument died in my throat.
Virgo watched me with a gaze of steel. “I’ve lost enough people, Zev. Don’t you understand?” A glimmer of tears showed in his eyes. “I was so relieved when I pulled up here and saw you walking out. I told myself I was stupid to think you’d take on something stronger than you, that you know you have too many people counting on you to take risks like that.” His teeth clenched together for a moment before he said, “And then I went in there.”
I didn’t know what to say. I lean
ed against the truck door again so I didn’t collapse and prove everything he was accusing me of.
“Do you know what I saw?” The warlock closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I saw my best friend’s bloody footprints down a hall that looked as though it barely survived World War Three.” He sucked in a shuddering breath. “I saw a monster’s carcass in the bathroom with long enough claws to put a scimitar to shame.” He squeezed his eyes shut tighter. “And I saw a puddle of blood beneath a window where my best friend probably would have died if he hadn’t been so completely stubborn.” He looked at me, his eyes red. “I saw my best friend’s final resting place in there.”
It was a few minutes before I could say, “But I’m right here.”
“Are you?” he demanded.
Taken aback, I asked, “What does that mean?”
He slammed a fist on the hood of his truck hard enough to make the vehicle shudder. His runes flared with his anger. “It means I don’t think you’re really living, Zev. Since you escaped that lair, you’ve been here in some kind of a half-life looking for the battle that will finally put you in the ground.” He shook his head and looked away. “And I don’t think I can watch it anymore.”
The closeness of his statement to the truth squeezed my heart in a tight fist. I felt as though I couldn’t breathe. I searched for something to say, something to chase the desperate frustration from his face, but nothing came to me.
“I think I need to lay down,” I said.
He watched me walk around the back of the truck, ease myself onto the still lowered tailgate, and settle gingerly on my back. I closed my eyes against the wash of the sun that was rising higher above the college.
“You don’t get to do that.”
I turned my head at his voice and met his gaze where he peered down at me from the side of the truck.
“Do what?” I asked wearily.
“You don’t get to walk away as though it’s not true.”
My throat tightened, but I forced myself to say, “It is true. All of it.”
Virgo’s eyebrows lifted slightly and his mouth opened, but nothing came out.
I held my side and pushed up to a sitting position.
“You’re right,” I told him. “I’m no good at any of this, at pretending to be human, at pretending I don’t have instincts beaten into me by years of training to destroy everything that could be a threat.” I ran a hand through my mussed hair. “I’m no good at living a life with a purpose that doesn’t end in death for either myself or someone else.”