Alison shrugged. “I can see magical energy now thanks to the training I’m getting at my school.”
Lily frowned. “Is that why you’re sending out the pulses? So you can kind of see the magic on stuff?”
“Yeah. Why did you think?”
“First I thought you were just trying to distract me, but Shay didn’t say anything, so I figured there had to be more to it.” Lily stared at Alison open-mouthed for a few seconds. “I can’t believe you’re running an obstacle course blind.”
Alison laughed. “It’s not the seeing that’s the hard part. Dad and Aunt Shay were running me so hard when I first came home on summer vacation I was throwing up.”
Lily snickered. “That sounds like Shay.”
The tomb raider rolled her eyes. “Technically, her dad made her throw up. I pushed her to her limits, but there wasn’t as much vomiting involved.”
“Yeah, you are good at pushing people.”
Alison wiped a little sweat from her forehead. “Intense exercise that might end with someone throwing up? I guess in this family that’s how we get to know each other.”
Lily blinked several times, looking more than a little startled.
It was the word family that did it, wasn’t it?
Shay didn’t say anything else, just letting the teen take it in. Maybe, just maybe, they could have something more than a mentor-and-protégé relationship.
All those years of thinking I didn’t need anyone, and now I might end up with not only one but two daughters.
Shit, what am I saying? Daughters? I’m not a mom. I’m the cool aunt who can kick ass and paraglides off mesas.
She snickered.
Lily eyed Shay. “It’s very creepy when you do that without saying anything first.”
“You been talking to Peyton?”
Alison stretched her arms above her head. “I think I’m going to go hit the showers.”
Lily sniffed her armpit. “Yeah, I could use a shower myself.”
Shay nodded, and the girls set off toward the hallway leading to the shower.
“You said you learned to see magical energies at your school?” Lily asked.
Alison nodded. “It’s not so much they were trying to teach it to me as the more magic I learned, the more I could see.”
“So you go to magic school?”
“Yeah. The School of Necessary Magic. It’s in Virginia. Everyone there is like us—special.”
Shay smiled as the two girls disappeared down the hallway talking about the school, relief spreading through her over a worry she hadn’t even realized she had.
Lily and Alison were the ultimate examples of compartmentalized parts of her life. Shay had half-worried that if the girls were to meet, they’d hate each other, being similar in that they were both stubborn magical teenagers.
So much for compartmentalizing my life. Everything’s kind of blurring together lately, but I’m not so sure that’s bad. It’s making things less stressful, not more.
Shay crossed her arms. Somewhere along the way, she’d stopped merely existing and started living. And damn it, she liked the feeling.
Alison laughed. “So when Izzie came and asked me, I said, ‘Why are you asking me? I’m blind, remember?”
Lily laughed. “Even after all these years, Harry thinks it’s funny to come to me after something happens, or he wins in a game and say, ‘What? Didn’t you see that coming?’”
The teens giggled.
Fifteen minutes into their drive from Warehouse One to Warehouse Two, Shay was struck by two things.
First, the girls got along great. It was like they were long-lost sisters. Even if Alison had been spoiled by James, that didn’t change the fact that she’d had a hard life and had lost her mother in a depraved act of betrayal. Both girls had experienced the darker sides of life too young. Even though neither was talking about those depressing topics, it was almost as if they could sense that pain in the other lurking just below the surface and it formed a natural bond.
The other striking thing about the conversation was that Shay was sure she’d never heard Lily talk so much on so many topics. This wasn’t a quick quip and then an escape, but a detailed far-ranging discussion. Even when they’d spent hours alone together on tomb raids, the girl hadn’t talked this much.
Does she talk like this with the tunnel kids? At the end of the day, I’m her scary mentor, not another one of the girls.
Shay smiled. Yes, she’d exposed Lily to violence and death, but the girl’s whole life had been that. The tomb raider was just giving her the tools to thrive in a world that wasn’t always nice.
Unfortunately, any adult who has been subjected to a constant barrage of teenagers chatting away soon reaches their limit, and Shay was no exception.
She rolled down her window, enjoying the breeze and the natural white noise provided by the air rushing into the car.
Another few minutes passed when her phone announced a call from Peyton. She grabbed her earpiece and stuck it in her ear before turning it on and answering.
“What’s up?”
“I’ve got a job. It pays a little less than you normally ask, but it’s also so easy that I figured, why the hell not?”
Shay chuckles. “Let me hear it first.”
“Know the Paisley Caves in Oregon?”
She furrowed her brow in thought. “Nope, but I already like that this job is stateside.”
“Exactly.” Excitement colored Peyton’s voice. “Four caves in an arid, desolate part of Oregon north of the city of Paisley. About 4,500 feet up, geologically lots of it volcanic rock. Caves were carved by waves from the nearby Summer Lake during the last Ice Age.”
Some of her interest faded. “Okay, the geology lesson’s nice, but why do I give a shit about some caves in Oregon?”
“One of the caves may contain evidence of the oldest human presence in North America. But, in terms of the job, there are supposed to be three gold figurines hidden in the cave that might provide evidence of contact between the humans of that area and Oricerans.”
“Interesting.” Shay changed lanes. It wouldn’t be that much longer until they arrived at Warehouse Two.
