impressed the guys were. Then her face lit up like a sunrise.
“It’ll work,” Jesse said. “And it really is brilliant.”
It was frosting on the cake when she told them about the luck bubble. To my surprise, Chance grabbed her up in a huge hug and whirled her off the ground. Shannon squealed, her face bright with pleasure. I guessed being luckless had been harder on him than I knew.
Earlier, when he said nobody would ever love me like he did, he’d proposed finding some way of getting rid of his luck for good in order to be with me. Watching the exuberance in his face now, I realized that loss would be like severing a limb for him. Being with me, he’d sacrifice part of himself.
How could I permit it?
I
Over Chance’s shoulder, Shannon cut me an odd look. “You okay?”
Yeah, I was fine. I’d just realized I didn’t want him to change enough to make me both happy and safe, but I didn’t know if I could live with the risk. I waved them both away with a smile as fake as a three-dollar bill.
“Get your Smartphone,” I suggested to Chance. “You took pics of the library for Booke, right? You should help Shannon figure out the sigils so she’ll be ready to draw them when the clay cools.”
“That’d be great,” she answered. “I have a notebook in my backpack. I’ll get it.”
They went into the kitchen together, but not before Chance gave me a last penetrating look. I hadn’t fooled him, but he wouldn’t push. He’d finally learned to read my cues for when I wanted to be chased and when I wanted space. With a faint sigh, I finished stuffing the last two Tri-Ps. We needed any edge we could muster.
Ignoring the way Jesse tracked me with his eyes, I went outside—yes, beyond the protection of the wards. My enemies here were human, and none too skilled in the dark arts. I didn’t fear the woods any longer. For whatever reason, the demon was the least of my problems—and wasn’t that simply too weird?
I sat down on the top step of the front porch and dropped my head into my hands. I didn’t know how to reconcile my surety that Chance wouldn’t be happy if he changed as much as I needed him to. I couldn’t be with him, not when I knew how happy it made him to get his luck back; not when I knew how much he hated being powerless. This wasn’t a relationship issue anymore. Those things could’ve been fixed, and he’d been working so hard to show me he could change.
Just not in ways I could allow.
I remembered how I’d felt when I dropped through that burning floor and during those long hours in the hospital with him at my bedside. His eyes burnt with guilt, and I’d found it hard to look at him. That was when I started thinking about leaving him. Though I might always want him, I couldn’t get past the idea that he was bad for me, dangerous—and not only in a sexy, irresistible way.
I wasn’t surprised when Jesse slid out the door and sat down beside me. My feelings would register on his white knight radar and render me irresistible to him.
“Go away,” I muttered.
“You just realized it’s not going to work,” he said quietly. “Been there.”
I didn’t look at him. “It’s worse for you, though. You can feel what they feel, even when you’re ending it.”
He shrugged. “I feel what everybody feels. Never learned to shut it off.”
I’d rather talk about his gift than my feelings. “What about proximity? I mean, you’re not being bombarded by the whole world?” That would drive anyone nuts, surely.
“Generally, we have to be in the same building,” he agreed. “When I feel strongly about someone, the range amplifies.”
He’d felt me all the way in Texas. Did that mean what I thought it did? Then I glanced over and found him sitting in a similar posture, elbows on knees. He wasn’t looking at me, either.
“Are you distracting me with this on purpose?”
“Maybe I just want you to know you have options,” he said quietly.
I let that be for a minute. “Tell me about her.”
“Heather,” he answered without even thinking about it.
“The pyro girl.” I remembered his talking about her back in Laredo.
“Yeah.”
“What happened to her, anyway?” I knew they weren’t together anymore, but that was
Jesse stiffened. If I were an empath, I’d be feeling waves of pain washing over me right now. I could see it in his body language. In fact, I was surprised he answered.
When he did, his voice was raw. “Two years back she went to prison for arson, and she died in a fire inside.”
“I’m sorry.” I took his hand.
Our fingers tangled and clung. We sat beneath the heavy dark of a moonless night and reflected on the weight of those we had not been able to save.
Butterfly Girl
Dawn came slowly.
Jesse had bunked down on the floor in Chance’s room, unwilling to share with Dale. Shannon still had the mattress where I’d been sleeping before she arrived. Unable to doze off, I lay on the soft, sunken sofa, staring up at the dusty ceiling. The guys had been taking turns, and since I was feeling better, I figured I could do my part.
Around three a.m., someone tiptoed along the hall toward me. I shifted and saw it was Shannon. She wore a T-shirt that came nearly down to her knees, and I was struck by how young she was, no matter how readily she’d adapted.
“Can’t sleep?” I whispered.
She shook her head. “I keep thinking about that girl you saw locked in the attic.”
Though it hadn’t been my primary concern, I wondered what happened to her. The idea of being confined in that attic for being different made me shake all the way down to my bones. If my mama and I had lived a hundred years earlier, our lot might’ve been even worse. Judging by the way she’d been dressed, the poor kid was probably long dead.
“Maybe you can ask her,” I offered, lifting my legs so she could sit down.
“I’ve never contacted a spirit I didn’t know in some way.” Shannon sounded doubtful, but interested.
“I don’t see what it would hurt to try. Doesn’t look like we’ll be sleeping much until we resolve this, one way or another.”
“Agreed.”
We crept through the house. I climbed onto a chair to let down the ladder by increments, so softly it made no noise at all. Getting upstairs took some doing, and I was a little concerned that we’d wake the guys with our clambering overhead, but it seemed as if the night itself wanted us to do this.
Sounds seemed muffled, cloaking our movements. Not entirely understanding the impulse, I tugged the ladder back up after us. I felt like this was a private ceremony between females, and the guys shouldn’t be a part of it.
In a low whisper, I explained how to traverse the boards without bouncing them. We inched toward the windowsill, but I didn’t touch it. This was Shannon’s show.
As if in concert, we sank down opposite each other. The girl turned her radio on low, and the static hiss filled the dark space. Maybe I was just tired and suggestible, but I sensed something. The hair on my forearms stirred; my skin prickled.
Shannon whispered to the girl’s spirit as she fiddled with the knobs. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but it sounded imploring. I sat quietly, trying not to distract her.
I don’t know how long we sat in the dark, but as she spun the dial farther along the bar, a tinny voice finally
