I released him. He and his wolf separated, his wolf stepping forward, head down, facing Danube. Val didn’t make any moves, although the lines of his body were hatred and anger.
Sweat stuck the T-shirt to my back, prickling as it crawled down from my pits. I lifted one arm and swiped the cotton over my face. “Keep your word, and we won’t have any problems,” I said.
“Why are you here?” Lu asked.
“I drove with you,” Valentine answered.
“She’s not talking to you,” I said. “You,” I said to the werewolf, who had backed off several strides, but still hadn’t smartened up enough to run.
“I heard you coming.” He narrowed his eyes, looking for Val and not finding him. “Not a lot of people drive a truck that old.”
I resisted the urge to poke fun at Lu, as I’d been against the truck from the start.
“Why does it matter to you if we’re here?” I asked.
“I think you’re looking for something.”
Lu and I waited. Val quietly snarled.
“Abbi liked you.”
I crossed my arms to keep from scrubbing at the itch between my shoulder blades. The air was thick, not a breath of wind. It felt like we hung there, suspended. Like we’d all dived down deep to get to this place and were treading water.
“She trusts too easily. She doesn’t like everyone, believe it or not. But she’s young,” he said, though it didn’t sound like he was convinced that that was wholly true. “Sometimes.” A wry smile hit his face, and it transformed him from a menacing figure, to something a little more human.
“She asked us for a ride. To find something for her,” Lu said.
Just like that, the smile was gone. “We’re handling that. You should go. Before Summer finds you sniffing around here.”
“Why? Does she have something to hide?” I asked.
Val snarled again, his fists clenched. “Tell him he was wrong.” He winked out of existence and was standing next to me, cold fury. “Tell him he was wrong about the Shadow.”
“What shadow?” I asked.
“Shadow?” Danube asked. “Is that what you’re here for?”
I had no idea what either of them were talking about, and since Lu could only hear half of the conversation, she was as in the dark as me.
“Abbi talked about a shadow,” Lu said. “A shadow in the dark.”
And didn’t that sound ominous when she said it that way?
Danube walked toward us, and Val tensed. I put out a hand to stop Val from lunging at the guy again. To my surprise, he obeyed.
“Tell him he was wrong about the Shadow.”
I still didn’t take orders from ghosts, but my gut told me this was tied up with more than Val’s anger. Tied up with more than Val’s death. Somehow Abbi was involved, and I would never stand aside when a child might be in danger.
“Val says you were wrong about the shadow.”
The man froze. What color he’d had in his face, what anger, drained away fast, leaving him pale, eyes wide in shock. Or fear.
“Val?” he breathed. “Is he. Can you talk to him?”
“Tell him it’s not lost. It’s trapped. Tell him I did the job he asked me to do, and he owes me. Heowesme.”
“What shadow are we talking about?” Lu asked.
