Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Anora and the Valryn

Before we leave, Thane pulls a water bottle from his car and a stack of napkins from his glove compartment. He helps me clean the black blood from my hands, and I remember the cut I had gotten when I climbed through the window. It stings, and I hope I’m not in danger of contracting any weird diseases. If so, Thane doesn’t choose this moment to start naming them off.

As he pours water over my hands, I notice several scratches on his wrist where his shirt sleeve has lifted.

“What’s on your wrist?” I ask.

“What?” Thane asks.

“Your wrist. It looks like you scratched yourself.” I say scratched, but what I mean is cut. It looks like he cut himself. The line is too precise. I reach for his hand and pull it toward me, twisting his palm upright and pushing back his sleeve. There, on his pale skin, are a series of angry, red marks. Some of them are scabbed over; others are fresh.

“Thane,” I breathe, and when I meet his gaze, he yanks his hand away.

“Mind your own fucking business, Anora,” he snaps and climbs into his black Charger. I scramble into the passenger side before he speeds off, heading for Shy’s.

Thane’s knuckles are white as he grips the steering wheel, his eyes focused on the dark road ahead. I can almost taste the air around him—shadowed and sad, tortured and adrift. I think he’s been drowning so long, he doesn’t want the comfort of solid ground beneath his feet.

When he finally speaks, his voice shakes, his hatred barely restrained.

“I was with Shy the night I found out my mom was in the accident. His mom called him, and he gave me the news. I demanded he take me to her, and when he refused, I ran there.” I must look shocked, because Thane adds, “It wasn’t far. This town isn’t very big, remember? I broke through the police barriers, calling her name, before I saw her lying motionless on the ground. She was surrounded by paramedics trying to revive her, but she was already dead. I knew because her soul stood a few steps away from me.”

He pauses a moment, and his next words are pained but thoughtful. “You know they usually wear their deaths, but she…she looked perfect.” He clears his throat, and I shiver, swallowing hard. “Later, I found out it was because her insides had exploded.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Everyone is,” he says. “But no one’s sorry enough to do anything about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“In those few moments after her death, with that perfect body, her soul could have been returned, and no one would have known the better of it. She might have been called a miracle. But no one—not Shy or Natalie or Jacobi—would help me.”

I remember what Lennon said about Thane—he wants his mother brought back to life. I shiver at the thought. Buffy the Vampire Slayer taught me resurrection is a bad idea. People always come back wrong.

“But…resurrection is illegal.”

Thane looks at me. “Keeping you from the Order is illegal too, and they don’t see that as a problem.”

“Would they even have known how to resurrect her?” I ask softly.

He turns to me, and the look on his face is hard. “Certainly someone seems to know, don’t they, Anora?”

I decide not to say anything else, but I wonder why he’s still here, offering to take me to Shy’s, if all this reminds him of the day his mother died.

Shy’s house is a charming two-story cottage. I try imagining Shy and the others fitting their massive wings through the doorway of such a normal-looking structure, but I can’t. Even with everything I am and everything I saw tonight, I find it hard to accept shape-shifters. Maybe it’s because I can make sense of everything else. Souls are lost, and their energy creates creatures like the one I saw tonight, but whatever Shy, Natalie, and Jacobi are, well…that has no explanation.

We exit the car and approach the house. The windows are open, and I can hear Natalie’s raised voice.

“What are you thinking? Not turning her over to the Order?”

“I told you. I want to hear her story,” Shy responds.

“As if that changes anything! She’s still the Eurydice. She’s still the Order’s responsibility.”

“We’re part of the Order, and we’re being responsible.”

Thane slams the door closed behind me, announcing our presence, and all goes quiet. After a moment, Shy appears in the entryway. I meet his gaze, finding it angrier than I anticipated. That earlier feeling of recognition is back, knotting up my chest. Why does his disapproval hurt? His eyes slide behind me to Thane, who’s standing so close, I can feel the brush of his body against mine. His gaze falls to our feet.

“Shoes off.”

He turns and goes into the living room. I glance at Thane, who has already stooped to unlace his boots. I follow his example, shucking off my shoes beside the others piled close to the door. I guess everyone but me is used to this when visiting Shy’s house.

We meet the others in the living room. Jacobi’s sitting on the couch, bent over a laptop. Natalie’s beside him, and Shy’s in the armchair across from me. We stare at each other, not even trying to hide it. I don’t know his excuse, but I’m trying to figure out why I suddenly feel like I’m having déjà vu.

Thane clears his throat. “Get your interrogation over, Savior,” he says.

“First, I want to know what that thing was and why it looked like my poppa,” I say.

Shy’s eyes seem to soften at the use of my endearment.

“The creature is called a cercatore,” he responds. “It morphs into what you want most, to set a trap and drain your blood.”

The statement makes me feel angry and violated. Not only had that creature somehow reached into me and pulled out my greatest wish, but I’d also given a piece of myself to everyone in this room without ever intending to.

“Of course, it wouldn’t have been a problem if you had obeyed curfew,” Natalie cuts in. “You should know better, Thane.”

“Fuck off, Natalie. We were investigating.”

Shy glares at Thane and then at me. “Investigating what?”

“Lily’s killer is out there, and none of you have done anything to find him,” says Thane.

“Or her,” Natalie corrects. “How do you know she isn’t sitting in this room right now?”

I straighten. “Excuse me?”

“She wouldn’t be your first victim, would she?”

“Natalie,” Shy warns.

“I didn’t kill Lily.”

“What about Chase Lockwood?”

This is what Shy meant when he said he wanted to hear my story. Moisture burns my eyes, blurring my vision, and I swallow.

“I killed him.”

I let those words hang in the air, creating a barrier between me and everyone else in the room. I expect them to look horrified, to jump to their feet and draw those sickening, curved blades, threaten me like Chase did, but none of them move.

“How?” Natalie asks.

“With the thread,” I say, though it’s obvious. It’s the only weapon I own.

“The correct question is why?” Shy says crossly.

Why?

“Because he tried to kidnap me.”