Moonset (10 page)

“With two sisters? Obviously,” Mal said with a laugh. He was the best liar out of all of us, so I let him take the lead. Wherever we went, we never really talked about our living arrangements. Most people assumed we lived together, and we let them think what they wanted. We didn’t have friends over or anything like that. “Especially Jenna. She’s a little high maintenance.”

“Yeah, I’ve met Jenna. ‘High maintenance’ is being nice. So which one haven’t I met?”

“Cole,” I said, jumping in. I didn’t want Mal
completely
dominating the conversation. The fact that he was still here was already annoying enough. But he didn’t need to completely hog the spotlight, either. “He’s the next oldest after me. And Bailey’s the baby.”

“So Jenna’s older than you?” she asked. I nodded. “She probably never lets you forget it either.”

Mal snickered. I set my cup down and grinned. “Something like that.”

“Justin’s used to getting bossed around by girls,” Mal said. “Just in case you were wondering.”

“Candidates with that quality move to the front of the line,” she grinned. “I’ll have to make a note on your application.”

“I don’t like this,” I said, waving my hand between the two of them. “The two of you together … nothing good will come of it. You’re both too evil.”

Ash laughed. “Relax, Justin,” she said. Hearing my name on her lips was strange—I almost forgot she knew it. I’d gotten used to her strange nicknames. “Besides, Malcolm wouldn’t be nearly as much fun to torment.”

“So Ash,” Mal began, his tone abruptly serious. “What’s the deal with that house that burned down.”

“Seriously, Mal?” I snapped.

He shrugged, unapologetic. “I’m just curious.”

Ash was literally the last person I’d want to get involved in any of this. She was a bit off, and she took too much pleasure in teasing, but I would have liked to wait a bit longer before dropping the “my family is insane” bomb. Not that Jenna hadn’t already spoiled that a bit already.

She looked between the two of us, her lips curving slowly into a smirk. “Something I should know?”

“Justin thought it was a little freaky, that’s all,” Mal said, rolling his eyes. “He has nightmares.”

“Wow, really? You’re the one who was obsessed,” I said, crossing my arms in front of me.

“Oh, is that all?” She pulled her legs up onto her chair and watched us, half hidden by her knees. “You’re talking about the rec center, right? Not much to tell, I think. Some kids broke in one night, and one of them left a cigarette burning. My dad’s trying to raise money to rebuild, but it’s going to cost a lot, I guess.”

“That’s all?” I could have punched Mal for sounding so obviously disappointed. Like Ash didn’t think we were weird enough. I was surprised she hadn’t edged her way out the door already. Or asked us if we were some kind of weirdo homeschoolers.

“Is there supposed to be something else?”

He shrugged. “It just looked like there was some graffiti on the door. I was just wondering.”

“Okay, seriously, that’s enough,” I snapped. “Sorry,” I apologized to Ash, “he gets a little intense about fires. I think he wants to be a volunteer fireman or something.”

“Or a pyromaniac,” Ash said. It took me a second to realize that she was kidding. “I hadn’t heard about any graffiti, but it’s possible, I guess. My dad might know. I could ask?”

“No, that’s fine,” I replied, just as Mal chimed in with, “Would you?”

I’m going to kill you later.
I don’t know if Mal could read my thoughts or not, but he avoided looking at me and focused on Ash.

“Anyway,” she said, turning to me. “You should give me your sister’s number. I figure I can introduce her to a few girls before school starts. Might make her feel better about moving in the middle of the year.”

“Jenna?” I asked, completely caught off guard. Why would Ash want to hang out with Jenna?
Jenna
wouldn’t even want to hang out with Jenna.

“The other sister,” she laughed. “Bailey? She who loves the puppies?”

Oh. Of course. “I mean, yeah, that sounds nice. I’m sure Bailey would love it.” I tried not to sound too disappointed.

But Ash saw through me anyway. “Relax, big brother. No need to go into another pout.” She climbed to her feet, and I leapt up to mirror her. “It was good to see you again, boy wonder, but I have places to go and minions to pester.”

Should I walk her to the door? Or stay standing and really look like some kind of freak? What the hell was the matter with me?

Ash wagged her empty coffee cup at me, and I took it automatically. She clasped her hand around mine, so cool and amused. “You can take care of that for me, right?”

I nodded automatically, a warm rush running through my body at the touch of her hand on mine.

Mal waited until she left to laugh. “You’re so whipped.”

“And you’re a dick.” I waited long enough for Ash to get to her car or whatever, even though all I wanted to do was storm out of the coffee shop and go home. But I didn’t want her to see me all pissed off.

Mal decided not to press the issue and waited with me in silence, breaking it only after we were on our way to the door and I was in the middle of tossing our coffee cups. “You’re not seriously going to throw that out, are you?”

What the hell? “I’m not saving her cup just because she drank out of it. I’m not really the mouth breather you tried to make me out as.”

I got the annoyed older-brother look that I hated. Usually, that look was reserved for Cole and Bailey when they acted out.

“No, you idiot,” he said, pulling Ash’s cup out of my hand and twisting it around. At some point during our conversation, she’d written her name and number along the side.

“Oh,” I said.

Maybe Mal wasn’t a total buzzkill after all.

Ten

“Moonset may have been led by Sherrod,
but each member had their strengths.
They were smart. They collaborated.
And their bond was unbreakable.
They wanted to change the world.
They succeeded.”

Moonset: A Dark Legacy

Quinn was downstairs by himself when Mal and I walked in a little later.

“Where’s Jenna?” I asked, crossing into the kitchen.

Quinn stood by the back door, staring out at only God knew what. Maybe the neighbor’s swing set was some kind of latent threat? Or he thought the single mom a few doors away was some kind of sympathizer.

“She’ll be down in a moment.” Quinn looked over his shoulder. “You should get home, Mal.”

Quinn never cared if Mal was here. Or any of us. As far as guardians went, he was a little lax in that department. I took a seat at the table. “What’s going on?”

“Incoming,” Jenna announced as she strode into the kitchen. “It’s the Witch of Skankbird Pond again,” she said under her breath before she began checking her reflection in one of the hanging pots.

Heavy footfalls started down the stairs as Meghan Virago swept into the kitchen. She was still wrapped up in a dark-green overcoat, her hair pulled back from her face. “The Congress has some questions for the two of you.” Her eyes skimmed over Mal. “You can see yourself out.”

“Or I can stay,” he countered.

“I thought we finished this already,” Quinn said in an icy tone. “They’ve been through enough already.”

“Is this some kind of good cop, bad dye job thing?” Jenna asked. “Because honestly, I’d rather stick my head in the oven than deal with her again.”

“The feeling’s mutual, darling.” Virago’s pinched face was a mask of smug superiority. “But does a trailer park even have ovens?”

“Hey, back off,” I snapped, moving to stand in front of Jenna. More for Virago’s protection than Jenna’s, obviously. Jenna would tear her apart with one hand.

“I’d be defensive, too,” the redhead cooed, “if I was the spitting image of a sociopath.”

“That’s enough,” Quinn said firmly. He crossed the room and stood near the two of us. “If you have questions, ask them. But you’re not waltzing in here and poking them with sticks for the hell of it.”

Jenna took one look around the room, and spun around on her heel. “Screw this,” she tossed over her shoulder.

But she didn’t get more than one or two steps before Meghan’s voice clearly rang out. “Diana Bellamont.” Jenna’s mother’s name was like a talisman. Once invoked, Jenna’s feet were leaden on the floor.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Meghan asked, pulling open one of the cutlery drawers and letting her fingers drift over the tools inside. “You act like twins. Tell people you are. But you’re not. Not
really
.” Her lips quirked up into another insolent smile.

Even though I knew exactly what was coming, I didn’t interrupt. None of us did. There were a thousand different ways to wrap up Moonset’s crimes—a hundred different sins to tie up in a bow. We’d heard them all. Yet every time, it was as shameful as the first. Loathing held our tongues, kept our eyes lowered, and our shoulders stooped.

As if a world full of crimes and horrors hadn’t been enough, there was the story of Jenna and me. She’d been born first, only a few hours before me. Both of us the children of Sherrod Daggett, the leader of Moonset. But only I, the legitimate child, bore his name.

Jenna’s mother had been Sherrod’s mistress. He might have loved my mother—every account confirmed this as fact—but Diana Bellamont had been his dark soul mate. She matched him, sin for sin—the co-conspirator for all of Moonset’s darkest acts. In the end, I guess he couldn’t resist the temptation.

“How galling do you think it was,” Meghan followed up, “when Diana gave birth before his wife?”

Most people looked down on us because we were the children of Moonset. But some took special care to demean Jenna and me in particular. As if it mattered to any of them that my father had cheated on my mother. That we cared when they called us the “white trash twins” as if that was somehow worse than our bloodline.

We bore the worst of it. Jenna and I were cut from the same cloth—thick dark hair, eyes so brown they were nearly black, and each the spitting image of our parents. In my case, Sherrod, and in hers a mix of the two. When we stood side by side, the resemblance was too strong to deny. It was obvious we were related.

There’d been confusion back when we were first recovered. We looked too similar, and we were so close, that they assumed we really
were
twins. My mother had been tall and pale, blond-haired and green-eyed. I didn’t look a thing like her.

As we got older, the resemblances grew more pronounced. It wasn’t as though I was Sherrod’s mirror image, but the resemblance was so strong it made people nervous. Another thing about my past I couldn’t help.

“Is that everything?” Jenna said, emphasizing the boredom in her tone. “Everyone’s heard about Moonset’s dirty laundry.” But the words bothered her, I knew they did. They always bothered us.

It was hard, knowing what my parents had been capable of. What they’d done. The legacy that had been left for the others and me. But still, on some level, I wanted to separate them. To split the Moonset side from the side that would have been Mom and Dad. Monsters can’t love, and everyone was agreed that the members of Moonset were monsters.

At least that’s how I felt sometimes.

“And then my mom was a terrible person who did lots of terrible things,” Jenna continued, exhaling. “She was weak, and she got killed. Gosh, doesn’t it bother me to know my mom was a weakling?” She straightened, and her voice turned harsh. “You can’t push my buttons, you twit.”

Meghan raised an eyebrow. No matter what we did, or how we reacted, she always seemed pleased. Like we were giving her exactly what she wanted.

“How has no one shoved a stake through your heart by now?” Jenna wondered.

Quinn’s lips twitched, betraying his feelings on the matter. “Ask your questions. Then politely get back on your broom and get the hell out of my house.”

Meghan tsked. “Language, darling.” She looked down at her tablet, and her pen started tapping out a rhythm all over again. “The pair of you need to be debriefed about what happened in Kentucky.”

I exhaled. “You’re kidding, right? You waited like two weeks to find out what happened?”

“Be fair, Justin,” Jenna said, “she spent most of that afternoon flat on her back. She probably needed all the time she could get to recover.”

Jenna was just as good at baiting as Meghan seemed to be. Maybe even better. Meghan’s hand clenched into a fist and disappeared under the sleeve of her coat. “Was that the first time you’ve come across a wraith?”

“Have you read our files?” Mal countered calmly.

“I’m the one asking the questions.”

“A question you already know the answer to.” Mal’s eyebrow rose slightly in challenge. “Next.”

Surprisingly, she moved on. “Did the wraith tell you why he’d come after you? What he wanted? Where he was planning to take you?”

Mal looked pointedly at me. Oh, right. I should probably answer since he hadn’t been there. “He didn’t say a whole lot. Called us Moonset, said Bridger sent—”

“—We have no proof that Cullen Bridger is even still alive, let alone plotting kidnappings or assassinations,” Meghan broke in immediately, talking over me. “At best, it’s hearsay. At worst, suggesting it is dangerously close to treason.”

My jaw dropped. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Meghan’s mask of indifference said that no, she wasn’t kidding. “The Congress is investigating the wraith as an isolated incident. One most likely engineered, accidentally of course, by someone on the scene.”

“Someone on the scene?” I asked. “You mean one of us? You think one of
us
called the wraith there? But you were there. You heard it! Both of you did! It said that Bridger sent it.”

Meghan’s voice became sharp. “There is no conspiracy of Moonset sympathizers. There is no underground rebellion. Cullen Bridger has most likely been dead for twenty years.”

“’Most likely?’” I said.

“So you’re just going to pretend nothing happened?” Mal demanded.

Jenna summed it up perfectly. “Are you fucking insane?”

Quinn, on the far side of the room, hadn’t moved since Meghan arrived, but now he reached up and scrubbed at his face. Unlike the three of us, he hadn’t shown any reaction at the insanity Meghan was spouting.

“You knew about this, didn’t you?” I asked him. It wasn’t like I trusted him—we barely knew each other so far. But it grated at me, having
proof
that he couldn’t be trusted.

“Justin … ” Quinn had that tone that adults used, when Jenna was being exasperating, or Cole ridiculous.

“I much prefer children when they are barely seen and never heard,” a new voice interrupted, neatly slicing through the mood of the room. The woman appeared almost out of nowhere, as though she’d pulled herself out of a secret door in the shadows.

“Me too,” Meghan jumped in, suddenly eager and cheerful.

The woman was tall and bone thin, her dark hair swept away from a gaunt face. She was old, but it was hard to pinpoint her age. Her face was lined from years of living, but the sheer intensity of her eyes suggested a woman in the prime of her life.

Oh shit. Oh
shit
.

“Yes,” she drawled, nodding her head as she looked down at me. A moment of understanding passed between us, and then her thin lips twisted, almost in a smile. She was amused.
I
was amusing.

Because I knew this woman. A woman who shouldn’t—couldn’t—be here right now. I took a step back, and then sank weakly down onto a chair.

Quinn cleared his throat. “This is Mrs. Bryer.”

Illana Bryer. She was the leader of the Fallingbrook Coven, one of the few Great Covens that had survived the Moonset war. But it hadn’t been without a cost: she’d lost a husband, a child, and both of her siblings to the conflict. Before Moonset, she had been a powerful witch, but in their wake she had become one of the most famous and influential witches alive.

She’d executed most of our parents herself.

And this was not our first meeting.

“I’d say it’s nice to see you again, Mr. Daggett, but we mustn’t sugarcoat things,” she said, with faint traces of an accent nearly cut from her words. Something European, or maybe Russian. “I believe we had a deal, did we not?”

Jenna stiffened at the introduction. She knew who Illana Bryer was. We all did. The classroom lessons about Moonset we’d had growing up featured her in a starring role. But even worse was the look on her face at Illana’s greeting. I’d never told any of them about my encounter with Illana, nor the threats she’d laid out so casually. “Justin?” There were so many demands and questions laced in my name, but I didn’t know what to say. She whirled on the older woman. “How do you know my brother?” she demanded.

“You don’t speak to her like that,” Meghan snapped, moving to come between them.

“Oh good, dramatics,” Illana sighed. “Quinn, be so kind as to escort Miss Virago and the boy to the door. I’d like to speak to the twins in private.”

Quinn looked like he wanted to argue, but he nodded his head stiffly and gestured to the others. Meghan spun on her heel and went without protest, but Mal was gearing up for a fight.

“We’ll be fine,” I said, and he eventually nodded.

Illana waited until the room cleared out and the front door closed before she answered Jenna’s question. “Everyone knows your brother,” she said, as pleasantly as a woman was called a “battle ax” as a compliment, could. “Just as they know you.”

Not everyone has the pleasure of having their family threatened by Illana Bryer, though. It had been almost a year since I’d seen her. I’d come home from school one day, Jenna staying late for detention or vandalism or the usual sort of thing that kept her after school.

Illana had been there waiting, alone. Waiting for me. I made it easy for her, once I realized who she was. One didn’t spend time in her presence without ending up drenched in sweat, brain sufficiently poked and prodded, and completely vulnerable and off balance. The woman was terrifying. And she had no problem telling me, in detail, about many of the warlocks she’d put to death.

She didn’t do small talk. She never stopped by for a quick chat over tea. Illana Bryer only interrogated. Only threatened and promised and brought all the horrifying parts of her legend to life.

I’d never told any of the others about her visit. I wasn’t sure why—fear? Shame? Maybe something else entirely. All I knew was that I showered as soon as she was gone and left the house rather than face any of the others. I’d ended up at the school, where I preceded to run the track around the football field until I literally dropped. Being so tired I could barely walk home had made it easier to push down, to repress.

But never fully forgotten. Illana’s return was proof of that.

“What’s going on, Justin?” Jenna demanded.

I could see her wheels spinning. I knew the places Jenna’s thoughts would take her, all the stories and lies that would spring up like seedlings in the garden of insecurities. I shook my head, finally mustering up a response. “No,” I said. No, I hadn’t betrayed the rest of them. No, I wasn’t secretly working for the leader of Fallingbrook. No, I hadn’t turned on her.

“Then what?” she snapped.

Illana smiled at me indulgently. For a woman of rages, she could do graceful as well as any politician. “Go on. Tell her.”

Was this fun for her? Coming in and tormenting people just to watch their reactions? I wouldn’t be surprised. “Remember how Mal was talking about the detention center thing?” Jenna nodded, and I continued. “It’s real. Illana said that if I can’t set some boundaries, and you keep … well, doing what you do, then they’re going to send us there.”