“Seven what?”
“Jeez, Ser, haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve been saying? It talked about that word you and Mom used, too—Davys or whatever.”
Sera stared at Nate in stunned shock. Between Kyle, her parents, and what Nate was now telling her, it seemed too much of a coincidence. Suddenly, Sera wasn’t so convinced. Had Kyle been telling her the truth after all? Her throat felt dry, and she grabbed one of Nate’s unopened cans of soda.
“Show me,” Sera said thickly, opening the can and taking a big gulp.
“Not on your computer. You’d get hacked by Mom in like five seconds.” Sera stared mutely at her brother like he was an alien. He shrugged. “OK, it’s not exactly hacking, more like monitoring. They have parental controls on your laptop. They know every site you visit.”
Sera felt her stomach flip. In the last couple weeks, she’d done a ton of searches for demons, gods, and definitions of hell. No wonder her mother had gotten so interested in her dreams if they’d been monitoring her Internet activity.
She stared at Nate with newfound admiration. “How do you know all this stuff?”
“I’m an evil genius.”
“Oh, right.” Sera paused. “What about your PC? Aren’t there controls on yours?”
Nate shot her a withering look. Sera shook her head in wonder. Of course there were, but Nate could no doubt circumvent them. “So, let’s go to your room,” she said. She’d already risen when Nate put a warning hand on her leg.
“Not so fast. No computer after ten, remember? I’m not even supposed to be in here. Mom said you were grounded and you needed your space.” He glanced at the door nervously. “Maybe I should go.”
Sera frowned. “No wait, that reminds me, when you were downstairs this morning eating breakfast, did you hear what Mom and Dad were talking about? What were they saying they had to tell me? About being sixteen?”
“That’s going to cost you,” Nate said, giving her a toothy grin. He still had that teeth-too-big-for-your-face look and it reminded her that even though he sounded a lot older than he was, he was still just a kid.
“How about I not tell Mom about your fake ID?”
His green eyes widened with betrayed shock. “You wouldn’t!”
“All information, including the hiding of such information, has its price,” she quoted his own words back to him, biting her lip at his anxious expression.
“OK, but you can’t use that threat again.”
“Fine, spill.”
“It’s not a big deal. I wasn’t really listening. They were arguing about something really quietly, but then I heard Dad tell Mom that maybe she should tell you because you were sixteen and old enough.”
“I heard that too. So, what was it?”
“Not sure.” Nate screwed up his face, thinking. “I think it was something about you moving somewhere. Mom looked really nervous though—scared—like she was waiting for something horrible to happen. I’ve never seen her cry like that either.”
“She was crying?”
“Yeah, Dad kept rubbing her shoulders and telling her everything was going to be OK. Then she said something about somebody not stopping until they found what they were looking for. And then she talked about protecting you at all costs even if they had to send you away. Nothing they were saying made any sense to me. Seriously, it was like they were talking a different language. Anyway, that’s when Dad said again that they needed to tell you. I didn’t understand half of what they said—they were talking in code.”
“Code?”
“Yeah, you know, with the looks and mumbles and sign language.” He glanced at the door again. “Look, I should go. I told you everything I remember,” he said, creeping toward the door. He opened it quietly and scanned the hallway, then turned back. “Oh, Sera, I forgot, mom mentioned some guy who was azure or azura but I didn’t know what that meant. His name sounded like Rat. I thought it was creepy, you know, a guy called Rat? Anyway, that’s it.”
Sera stared at the closed door after Nate left, her head pounding. It was total information overload. She needed to separate and process everything she’d learned, but she couldn’t even think about where to start. She remembered something pushed the button on the walkie-talkie.
“Hey, Nate, can you print out some of that stuff you found for me? I’ll make it worth your while.”
“OK. It’s a flat rate per page,” he whispered back.
“Deal. And what do I owe you for the snacks?”
There was a pause on the other end of the device. Then Nate’s voice said, “On the house.”
Sera clicked off the walkie talkie and lay on her bed thinking about what Nate had told her. So Kyle hadn’t been lying; he just hadn’t been telling her everything as she’d suspected. And why were her parents so worried about him? He was just Kyle her friend, wasn’t he? Paranoia started to set in on top everything else, aggravating the throbbing sensation in her head.
Along with her mounting monster of a headache, her shoulders ached like she’d been swimming for hours. She stretched each arm over her chest, trying to ease the tension. It was a futile effort. She padded to the bathroom and took a couple of Tylenol to ease the dull thud along her shoulders and neck. Waiting for them to kick in, she sat at her desk and opened her laptop. She cleared her history and the temporary Internet files she’d cached on previous searches per Nate’s instruction.
She stared at the search bar. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, and then she typed in the letters A-Z-U-R-A.
She hit ENTER.
PEACE
When Sera awoke, the sun was streaming through the open blinds, dipping into the farthest corners of her room. The alarm clock read ten o’clock. Sera barely remembered going to bed, but she guessed that she must have slept a solid eight hours. Her sketchpad lay open next to her and she stared at what she’d written as memories of the night flooded back: Azura—a being demonic in nature. Underneath it, she’d written Rat and provided a drawing of a half-dragon, half-rat creature with a pointed beak full of razor-sharp teeth.
She’d also drawn the four-armed girl again, only this time she’d given it her own features. Something about it seemed unfinished, almost as if it were two separate images layered on top of each other. It was disturbing. Not quite sure what she was doing, she took her eraser and carefully rubbed out the face until it was nothing but a clear oval.
Faceless was better.
Sera closed the pad and got out of bed, feeling the tender ache of her back and shoulders. She stretched her arms and did a few stiff windmill circles. She felt as if she were growing a second set of arms in the middle of her back upon each rotation. She could hear her parents moving around downstairs. For some reason, the thought of her parents sent her stomach into a tailspin. After yesterday’s revelations, she didn’t want to see either of them.
The flashing red of her cell phone on the bedside table caught Sera’s attention. One missed call from Kyle. Her mom didn’t say that she couldn’t have any contact with Kyle—just that he had to stay away from her. After a quick check down the hallway, she quietly closed her bedroom door and slid down its smooth surface to a seated position. Her fingers skimmed lightly over the phone’s keypad as she typed.
—Are you OK?
Kyle’s answer came back quickly, despite insisting that he hated texting. OK.
—Where are you?
Breakfast. Meet at Sal’s?
—Grounded.
Sucks. Sorry.
—Come by later?
Trip with Jude. 2 days.
Sera stared at his response and felt something cold slide around inside her. She was sure that any time Kyle spent with Jude was just putting him in harm’s way. And if Kyle had been telling the truth about Daeva being out for blood, then whatever Kyle was doing for Jude meant that they’d most likely keep coming after him. Sooner or later, Kyle would run out of luck. Sera hesitated before texting him back.
—Not good idea.
No
choice. Be OK. TTYL.
And just like that, the conversation ended. She knew that he was avoiding any further discussion about Jude, but the trite response still hurt. It wasn’t that he didn’t have a choice—Kyle didn’t want to make the choice to stay away from Jude. There was a big difference between the two, and it infuriated her. She placed her phone on her desk, opened the door, and headed toward the bathroom.
After a long hot shower, which helped to wash away some of the aching in her back, Sera made her way downstairs. She couldn’t avoid her parents forever. Normally, her dad went to the office on Saturdays. He was a defense lawyer and usually had a backlog of cases that called him in to work on the weekends. But this morning she could still hear his voice in the kitchen with her mom. And that meant only one thing.
They were waiting for her.
She took a deep breath and rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs to the kitchen.
“Morning Ser-bear. Sleep well?” her dad asked, looking up from his newspaper.
“Morning, Dad. Like a baby. No office today?” May as well lead with a good offense, she thought. He half smiled over the top of his paper and offered a slight nod in the direction of her mother, who was busy at the sink. Sera poured herself a glass of orange juice, jumping at the sound of her mother’s soft voice.
“Sera, sit down, please,” she said. Her face was grim, her manner agitated. Sera sat, feeling her stomach twist as her mother continued, “Last night your behavior was unacceptable. You know the rules, and yet I came home yesterday to find that boy in your bedroom.”
“Mom, it wasn’t what—”
“Please don’t interrupt, Sera. I’ve told you before that he is a bad influence.” Her mother’s voice was a careful monotone. “Yet, you constantly defy us by spending time with him. Now, not only are you breaking house rules, but your grades have not improved, and I received a call from the principal yesterday that you haven’t been showing up to class.”
“I can explain that,” Sera said, the words rushing out. “We … had a flat tire … and by the time it was fixed, I got to school late. I only missed first period, and it was only one time.” The minute the lie left her lips, Sera felt her eyes water.
“And the lying, that’s new, too,” her mother said, her eyes narrowing.
“I’m not lying, Mom. Dad, you believe me, don’t you?” Sera looked across the table to her father. He usually stuck up for her when her mother was on her case, but the look of disappointment on his face made her recoil.
“I’m sorry, Sera. We know when you’re lying,” he said softly.
“I’m not lying, I swear.” Pain radiated along her shoulders and she gasped.
“You are, Sera. It’s something that goes against every bone in your body, and you know that,” her father said gently. “You feel it, don’t you?”
Since when did it hurt to lie?
“Well, I can’t tell you the truth, can I?” Sera cried, her eyes stinging from her parents’ interrogation and the pain burrowing deeper into her spine. “Because you don’t let me. You’re just going to punish me for hanging out with a friend who needed my help.”
“Help with what?” her father asked.
She contemplated lying—how could she tell them what Kyle was actually facing—but felt a warning pinch ripple along her spine. “I … I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t or won’t? Is he in some kind of trouble?” Her mother’s stare was like ice, cold and impenetrable.
“Yes. No. It’s not his fault. It’s this guy, Jude. He’s involved with some bad stuff and he just doesn’t leave Kyle alone,” Sera replied, staring at the floor.
“What kind of stuff, Sera?” her mother asked.
“Some people. Some drugs.” Sera felt her cheeks getting flushed, always a telltale sign she was hiding something, and she stared at the floor, letting her hair fall forward to cover her face.
Too late.
“Drugs?” her father asked.
The words spilled out of her in a wild rush. “Ever since Jude moved here, he and his friends have been all over Kyle. He told me some story about some miracle drug and these weird people called Daeva that he and Jude are mixed up with. I don’t know what to think anymore,” her voice trailed off.
“What exactly about the Daeva?” Her father’s voice was soft, his face expressionless.
“I don’t know, Dad. He says it’s some kind of underground gang mixed up with Jude. I’d never even heard of it before.” At her mother’s look, Sera added, “I’m not lying. Really, Mom, Dad, if I could just keep him away from Jude, he’d be better off and you’ll see that he’s really a good person. Carla gave him a chance? Can’t you?” She stared at them. “Don’t you always tell Nate and me to help people? To be kind? Well, Kyle’s my friend, and he needs me right now.”
She sensed that she was fighting a losing battle—that her parents’ minds had been made up about Kyle long before yesterday’s incident. Her mother glanced pointedly at her father. On cue, he turned to Sera, resting his fingers on her arm.
“Sera, I know you’re probably confused as to why we don’t trust Kyle,” her father began.
“Then just tell me!”
“We will have that conversation soon, I promise. But for now, we have to ask that you not see him,” her father said.
“But that’s not fair,” Sera gasped.
“I’m sorry, Sera—”
“Seriously, Dad, you don’t even know him. You and Mom just see what you want to see, right? Some guy who doesn’t look the right way, doesn’t fit in with our perfect Lakewood Court slice of suburbia, isn’t good enough for your daughter. Since when did you become such snobs?”
“Sera, that’s enough,” her father said, but Sera couldn’t stop the flow of words that rushed past her lips.
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? When we moved here, everything changed. It’s been really hard, or didn’t either of you notice? Do you have any idea of how tough it is to start in a new school in the middle of the year? Especially when you’ve never been to school before? Do you know what it’s like to have people stare at you like you have some kind of disease? Or because you look like someone from the Addams Family? Don’t you get it yet? I had no friends and Kyle … ” Sera stared at her hands and bit her lip to stop from shaking. “Kyle was the only one who talked to me. It was because of him that I was able to even get through the school year. But you didn’t know that, did you?”
“What about Eleanor’s children?” her mother asked.
Sera grimaced, her teeth clenched, shaking her head in disbelief. “Ryan and Beth Davenport? Not likely. That would be social suicide. Befriending the new girl who looks like she belongs in a circus? Hardly.”
Sera’s mind flashed back to the first day she’d walked into school, thrilled to be a part of something she’d never experienced. Shyly, she’d approached Ryan Davenport and his friends near the lockers—her mother had shown her photos of the Davenport kids the night before—and Ryan had eyed her up and down, making some cutting remark about the circus being in town. They’d all laughed and walked away, and it’d been all she could do not to start crying right in the middle of the hallway. Humiliated, she’d spent the morning hiding behind the cafeteria building instead.
“I had no idea. Why didn’t you talk to me … to us about this?” her mother said. “I could have—”
“What would you have done, Mom?” Sera said. “Force them to be friends with me?”
“I could have helped. I just wish you had come to me.”
“How could I? You were both so happy with the new house and neighborhood and Dad’s new job. Complaining about not fitting in was stupid. And then after a while, it didn’t matter anymore because I had Kyle.” Sera glanced pleadingly at her mother. “He’s my best friend. I promise you, nothing more than that. And he makes me happy. Don’t you want me to be happy?”
“Honey,” her mom said, holding the sides of Sera’s face with warm hands. For the first time, Sera
really looked at her mother. Her face looked weary as if she’d been through hell and back. “It’s not that I don’t want you to be happy, but Kyle is not good for you. You’ll make other friends if you just give yourself the chance.”
“I don’t want any other friends,” Sera said.
“This is for your own good, Sera,” her mother said, this time more firmly, her hands falling back to her sides.
“No, it’s not about me. It’s what you want! I won’t do—”
Her father’s chair slid back, and Sera shrank at the intensity of his stare. He’d never looked at her like that before. “Then you’ll remain grounded until further notice. Straight to school and back, either your mother or I will drive you. You don’t have a choice, Sera.”
Tears clouded Sera’s vision as she glared at her father. “I thought you of all people would understand what it was like to have everyone not believe you, someone who gets punished even though they’re innocent. Isn’t that what you do, Dad, defend people? Give them the benefit of the doubt? But you’re just like the rest of them.” Her voice broke and she ran from the room, out the glass doors, and into the backyard. She ran until she came to the stone wall at the end of their property, and then ran alongside it until she was out of breath and out of tears.
She hated her parents. Kyle wasn’t the bad person in all of this. He didn’t deserve to have her not be his friend just because her parents didn’t like him. Sera was sure they assumed he was into drugs, but she knew that Kyle wasn’t a user. They didn’t understand what he’d been through. How could they? They hardly knew him.
Sera glanced toward the house where she could see her parents through the kitchen window, talking. Chewing on her lip, she made a quick decision and crept back to the house quietly. She edged around the side and stood beneath the kitchen window. Nate would be so proud of her snooping efforts. Her amusement faded, however, as she heard her parents’ voices.
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