have to kill one.”
24. THE ONLY ONE
I stood outside the coffee shop and watched Lukas through the window as he paid the barista. After sleeping in the van all night, I would’ve killed to sink into one of the leather armchairs inside. But the shop was tiny, and even though we were fifty miles from Sunshine, the possibility of someone recognizing me was too high.
Standing out here was still better than being stuck in the van.
Priest and Jared had headed into town to pick up supplies as soon as they woke up, while Alara scoured the journals, searching for a clue that might lead to another piece of the Shift. She’d only lasted twenty minutes before she insisted on a caffeine run, and we jumped at the chance to see something other than the inside of the van.
Lukas came back out with a cardboard drink carrier and handed me a steaming cup. “This one’s yours.”
“Thanks.” I took a sip. “You put cinnamon in it.”
He shrugged. “I remembered you like it.”
Of course he did.
Lukas walked down the street and I fell in step next to him. “Is everything okay?”
He gave me a weak smile. “You mean besides almost getting killed and setting a store on fire?”
“It feels like you’re mad at me.”
Lukas took his coin out of his pocket and rolled it over his fingers a few times before he answered. “I’m not mad. Just disappointed. I didn’t think Jared would have a chance with you. You’re not like the girls who usually fall for him.”
My stomach lurched.
How many girls was he talking about?
Heat spread through my cheeks. I sped up, hoping Lukas wouldn’t notice me blushing.
“Kennedy!” Lukas yanked my arm so hard that it felt like my shoulder was coming out of the socket.
A car horn blared and tires skidded.
Lukas hauled me back onto the sidewalk, and I fell against his chest, and he folded his arms around me. For a second, I was too scared to move. He stepped back and held me at arm’s length. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, watching as the coffee seeped out of the cups and into the street.
Lukas shook his head. “I’m a jerk. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“You’re not the jerk.”
He pushed the hair away from my face. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I couldn’t look at him. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”
His silver coin was lying on the sidewalk. I bent down to pick it up, studying it for the first time.
“It belonged to my dad. It was the one thing he gave to me instead of Jared.”
In the center of the coin, a dove perched on a limb with five branches. A phrase was stamped around the circumference of the coin, in a language I couldn’t place.
“It’s Italian. It says, ‘May the black dove always carry you.’ ”
I turned the coin over so I could see the other side.
It was exactly the same.
After a second coffee run, we finally made it back to the van. Jared was sitting on the hood sorting through a bag from the sporting goods store with Priest.
“You guys were gone a long time.” Jared tried to hide the edge in his voice. “I thought someone recognized you again.”
I walked past him. “We were talking.”
“Well, we’ve been waiting.” He made an attempt to sound casual, but failed miserably. “Alara found something and she wants to show all of us at the same time.”
Alara was sitting on the grass with the journals spread out around her.
“So what have you got?” Priest asked.
“Take a look.” She opened Jared’s journal to a page covered in rows of letters with blank spaces between them.
Jared sighed. “That’s been there forever. It’s an old encryption technique. You leave out every other letter in each word. But it’s not easy to crack because the words aren’t separated, so the pattern’s hard to figure out. Lukas already tried.”
“What if we don’t need to identify the pattern?” The hint of a smile played on Alara’s lips.
Priest leaned over the page. “There’s no other way to decipher it.”
“Remember when you said that each shade of glass could be used to reveal a different layer of the infrared spectrum?” Alara uncurled her fingers. The two green disks from the magic shop rested in her palm. “I tried it with some random pages in our journals.”
She ran one of the disks over the code in Lukas’ journal. The missing letters appeared as if they had been written in invisible ink. The letters were still strung together without any breaks, but they were all there. Alara held up the disk and tossed the fake into the grass. “Turns out, this one’s the real thing.”
Lukas’ jaw dropped. “Get me some paper.”
Alara dictated the letters while Lukas transcribed them. Within minutes, the page was covered and his pen still hadn’t stopped moving.
“What does it say?” Priest leaned over Lukas’ shoulder, the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” blasting from his headphones. He nodded in time with the beat as Lukas slashed lines between the letters to separate the words.
When he finished, Lukas turned the journal around. “Take a look.”
derek/lockhart
the piece is hidden where most will never dare to look/in the hands of its guardian who most will never pass/but if you are reading this the task remains the same/remember the lessons from others who have tried to steal from the dead/no one will ever get it out of hearts of mercy/may the black dove always carry you
Alara added a few more packets of sugar to her coffee. “That’s encouraging.”
“Ever heard of Hearts of Mercy?” Priest asked.
Lukas took out his cell and started typing. “It has to be a place.”
Alara picked at her silver nail polish. “You sure about that?”
“All the other clues referred to places,” he said. “I’ve already got some hits.”
I wasn’t listening anymore. I couldn’t stop thinking about the part of the message none of them were talking about.
“The family of five was discovered late last night after a neighbor reported gunshots.” The newscaster’s voice crackled over the van’s radio. “This is the third multiple homicide in western Montgomery County in the last two weeks. In an official statement this morning, Police Chief Montano stated that this level of violence is unprecedented. Frightened citizens are looking for answers.”
It was the second report chronicling an incident of violent crime in less than an hour.
Lukas turned off the radio. “Either we’re getting closer to the Marrow, or a crapload of criminals all decided to move to the same area.”
Jared guided the van along the narrow back roads that twisted through the woods. “I just hope you’re right
