My Tethered Soul: Volume 2 (Reaper's Rite) (16 page)

I hopped up, grabbed the journal from the side table, and handed it to Lilura. She licked her fingertip and turned the pages of the book, finally slapping the page she was looking for. She cleared her throat, ready to read the passage.

“The village witches, who know what I am, call it an Orbis. They say it’s one of the highest forms of Vila energy. So strong a weapon, it seeps the power from any magical object or person in the area, rendering them defenseless.”

I pressed my fingers into the table as this bit of information sank in. “So you think we can use this to our advantage against the Reaper?”

“I do.”

My spirits brightened. I was glad we finally had a direction to go, assuming it would really work.

“We can make a more detailed plan later. For now, I’m still mighty worn out from that blast. Think I’ll go lie down for a recharge.” Lilura raised a brow at us. “In other words, get out of here.”

“Oh.” I pushed my chair back and stood. “Right. See you tomorrow?”

Lilura nodded. “Tomorrow.”

Mara and I headed toward the door. Neither of us spoke, but I had to assume we were thinking the same thing. Did we really have something strong enough to use against the Reaper? Something conjured up between the two of us, a weapon made purely of magic? It was enough to give me hope.

Gavin and Chase stood on the front porch whispering when I opened the door. I’d been so immersed in the conversation with Lilura that I hadn’t noticed Gavin leave the room. Mara stepped off the porch, but the tightening of Gavin’s lips as I neared him gave me pause. As if sensing my apprehension, Gavin forced a small smile for me.

“Hey.” I narrowed my eyes. “What are you two whispering about?”

Gavin sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Chase found something. Something that has to do with my parents. My birth parents.”

“Wow.” I placed a hand on his bicep. It had slipped my mind that Chase had been helping Gavin dig up some information about what happened to his family before he was adopted. “Well, that’s good, right?”

Gavin shrugged and glanced at Chase. “I don’t know. It’s some guy. My real father’s best friend. Chase says he thinks the guy might be able to tell me what really happened.”

“Other than what the newspapers say,” Chase added.

“Well, you have to go find out, right?”

Gavin had been curious about his real parents for years. This was his chance to put pieces of the puzzle in place.

He shook his head. “No, it can wait.” But his eyes were far away. I could tell that, in his mind, he was already on the road to meet the guy.

I cupped Gavin’s cheek. “But if you wait too long, you never know—this guy could move. You could lose him. You should go talk to him while you’ve got a chance.”

“But that means leaving you alone.” Gavin’s eyes held mine. The crease of his brow told me he was torn.

A smirk played on my lips. “I’m not alone. I’ve got Mara and Naomi.”

“And me,” Chase said.

Gavin regarded Chase then turned back to me. “How about Danny?”

Chase scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know for a fact that no one’s better qualified to protect her, with or without your presence.”

Gavin set his lips in a straight line and exhaled slowly through his nose. “Fine. You keep an eye on her. From outside the house.”

Chase smiled at Gavin and crossed his arms over his chest. There was a slight laugh in his response. “Sure.”

***

“I’m stopping for gas,” Gavin said through the phone. “Thought I’d check in on you.”

“Everything’s fine.” I twisted my hair around a finger and stretched my legs out on my bed. “You be careful driving.”

“Don’t worry, I’m wide awake. Three cans of Red Bull made sure of that.”

I giggled, then closed my eyes and pressed my head back into my pillow. “Good luck, Gavin. I hope you find out what you need to.”

“Me too.”

I missed him already. I’d gotten so used to him secretly spending the night, having his warm body next to me as I slept. “Come back soon, okay?”

“I promise.”

I set my phone on my nightstand and sat up. I couldn’t sleep. Not yet, anyway. There were too many things on my mind.

I walked over to my dresser and grabbed my brush. As I ran it through my hair, I went over to my window to give Chase a peek. His car was parked across the street, about twenty feet down the block. He probably had a good view of my window from there, but unless someone paid attention, no one would discover him spying on me.

Resigning myself to at least relaxing, I climbed back into bed and grabbed the book off my nightstand. I stared at a page for five minutes without reading it. Why did Gavin have to be gone? I returned the book to its resting place and reached under my pillow. The cold steel of the switchblade cooled my fingers.

A scraping noise made me sit up.

Was it coming from in my room? I listened again, and my eyes went straight to the window. A dark figure behind my curtain moved. I held the switchblade out in front of me, and then let out a sigh of relief when Chase’s face appeared.

“Is that the switchblade I gave you, or are you just happy to see me?” The side of his mouth curled up as he climbed through my window.

I shushed him. “What are you doing?”

“Switchblade, Zadie?”

I still held it out in front of me. Clearing my throat, I ran back to put it under my pillow. When I turned back to him, he was looking around my room. The sight of this tall, brooding guy in his dark trench coat, sweeping around my room with his eyes narrowed, was not something I expected to see tonight.

“I thought I saw something,” he said. “Decided I should take a look.”

“What you probably saw was me looking out my window.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Better safe than sorry though, right?”

Realizing how thin my T-shirt was, I crossed my arms over my chest.

Chase walked over to the dresser and picked up my journal. “What’s this?”

I grabbed the journal away from him and hid it behind my back. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” He grabbed a bottle of perfume and held it to his nose.

I let out a grunt. “Didn’t Gavin say to watch me from outside?”

Chase scoffed. “He’s not the boss of me.”

“You sound very mature. I feel safer already.”

“Cool. Is this a jewelry box?” He flipped it open, and the dancing ballerina twirled to the music. “Nice.”

I slammed the lid down on the box. “Would you please stop looking through my things? You’re not going to find a Reaper in my jewelry box.”

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he searched my face. “Did you take your potion tonight?”

I sighed and walked over to sit on my bed. “Not yet.”

I pulled the tobacco tin out of my nightstand. I hated to think what assumptions Dad would have if he found it. Good thing Dad wasn’t the snooping type.

I tapped the tin against my leg. “It hasn’t kept me from wandering.”

Chase scratched at his jaw. “Maybe it needs time to kick in. Like antibiotics.”

I hadn’t thought of that. “I’ll get some water. Don’t touch anything.”

He almost smiled. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

I felt weird leaving him in my room, but we only had cups and glasses in the kitchen. Hoping Dad stuck to his routine of snoring along to whatever sports program was on, I hurried down the stairs and slipped into the kitchen. Just as I had filled a glass with tap water, a shadow moved near the dining room table. I gasped.

“Sorry, Zadie.” Dad held an apologetic hand up as he neared. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

I forced myself to keep my composure. “It’s okay. I should have turned on the lights. I was getting some water.”

“I’m glad I caught you.” Dad ran a hand over his face. I guessed he really had fallen asleep in front of the TV. “The hospital called. They reduced Mom’s meds. Said she’s responding well.”

I rubbed my fingers against the glass. “That’s great.”

“The doctor’s set to evaluate her, uh, mental state after her body adjusts to the change.”

“You think they’ll let her come home if… you know?” If she passed the tests? If she proved to be sane? If she didn’t start panicking, hurting herself again, and screaming to anyone who would listen that something evil was out to get her?

Dad put a hand on my shoulder. I tried not to flinch when his fingers brushed my scar.

“Let’s hope.”

I nodded, offering a small smile. “’Night, Dad.”

When I got back to my room, I found Chase sitting on the bed reading my book. I cleared my throat and set the water down.

Chase closed the book and hit it against his hand. “Interesting reading. Though I’m not really a big fan of love triangles.”

“Shut up.”

The smallest hint of a smile touched his lips. He took the tobacco tin and opened it. As if he’d done it a million times, he pinched off some of the powder and dropped it into my glass. His eyes were on me as he picked up the glass and swirled the water around. He tipped his head slightly as he handed the glass to me.

“Thanks.” I finished off the mixture in three gulps, cringing from the bitter aftertaste.

He patted the spot next to him. “Time for bed?”

Scowling, I pointed to the corner. “See that chair over there? That’s where you sit.”

He leaned back on his hands and raised a brow. “Why so nervous, Zadie?”

“I’m not nervous. I just…like my space.”

He smirked as he stood. “Right.”

I climbed under my covers, and Chase settled into the white, wicker chair in the corner. He straightened his coat out from under him and then leaned back. My bedside lamp barely cast light on the angled features of his face.

“Can I ask you something?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know why you always ask me if you can; you do it anyway.”

I shrugged. “It’s just something I’ve always wondered about.”

“Well, now my curiosity is piqued.”

“Why do you always wear that trench coat?”

He scratched an eyebrow. “I guess if anyone would believe the story, you would.”

“What story?”

His gaze hit the floor for a moment, then intense gray eyes landed back on my face.

“It happened to me in Portugal. There was a Vila there who lived by the ocean. She was out of control, on the verge of losing her mind. She had fascinating control of her powers though. I was trying to help her, but she misunderstood my intentions. She attacked me one night on the beach. Controlled the water. It… grabbed me. Pulled me into the sea, as if it grew hands. I could barely keep my head above water. Then she used her power to change the temperature. Froze the water around me. She left me there.” He shivered.

“I was trapped like that until Hunter finally found me. But it was more than hypothermia that got me. Something in her magic. It’s like the ice is still inside me. My body temperature has run low ever since. Not so low as to kill me, but cold enough I need to take extra steps to keep warm. I’ve lined this coat with a mixture I made myself. It keeps my body temperature normal. That’s why I wear it in the winter too. It adjusts to outside conditions and levels out to the right degrees.”

“That’s amazing.” I shook my head. “So when you take it off, you get cold. Even in the summer?”

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

I remembered prom. Chase didn’t have his trench coat on then, and when I grabbed his hand, it was like ice. Now I understood why.

“That’s got to suck.”

He smirked.

“Couldn’t you just line some other piece of clothing with the mixture for the summer? Like a long sleeved shirt or something?”

“The mixture would seep through. The inside of this coat is sealed with a special airtight material, and that material is sewed into the lining. Something like that on the inside of a shirt would look ridiculous.”

I almost laughed, picturing it. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Aren’t I always?”

“Well, you could put it into a leather jacket. That might look a little less weird than that trench coat.”

He laughed. “I’ll put it on my to-do list.”

“I have another question. Notice how I didn’t ask you if I could ask it.”

“Duly noted.”

“Lilura’s last name is Black, like yours and Hunter’s.”

He nodded once. “Correct.”

“But that means your Mom’s last name was Black before she married your dad. Did she not take his name?”

Letting out the smallest of sighs, he came over and sat on the edge of the bed. I scooted a couple of inches to give him room. “She did.”

“Did she not give you and Hunter his name?”

“She did.”

“Then why is your last name Black?”

He rubbed at his chin, eyes cast to the floor. “We used to have my dad’s name. But when my mom… died, he changed it back in her honor.”

“Oh.” I felt the urge to reach out and put my hand on his, but I resisted. “That was sweet.”

“Yeah.”

I wondered if he missed his mom the way I missed mine. I’m sure his pain was worse. I felt guilty that I could at least go visit my mom, even if she wasn’t really “there” to interact with me. And if things went well, I’d have her back for good. Chase could never have that luxury.

“What did it used to be?” I asked. “Your last name.”

“Hudson.”

“Oh.” My hand flew over my mouth as a yawn escaped.

“You should get some sleep.”

My eyelids drooped. “Hmm.”

“I could give you a backrub, if that would help.”

I let out a tiny laugh.

“No funny business.” He put a hand on his heart. “I’m a man of honor, Zadie. I certainly wouldn’t do anything to earn your disrespect.”

I gave him a sideways smile. “Still, I’ll pass.”

He stood. “I had a feeling you would.”

He gazed at me for a moment before pulling my comforter up to my shoulders. His shadow played on my walls as he headed to my window.

“I’ll be right outside,” he said.

Just as he was about to climb though it, I sat up a little. “Chase?”

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt that man.” Though we hadn’t found out what happened to Rudy yet, something in my gut told me I might have really harmed him.

His eyes locked with mine. “I know. You’re not like that. You have a good heart.”