“Almost there,” she said.
I saved the rest of my breath for breathing, which turned out to be a wise decision. It took all I had in me to mount up into the passenger side of the cab. It wasn’t the heat that had wrung all the energy out of me. Fighting with the ghost, forcing him to stop, forcing him to do what I wanted him to do had me thinking passing out might be in my very near future.
I didn’t remember Lu shutting the door, didn’t remember her and Lorde getting in on the other side, but when she started the truck, I tried to open my eyes.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m going to find us a place to sleep. Just rest.”
And honestly, rest was all I could do.
Chapter Seven
The cup pressed against my lips was cool, and I woke to the very real need to drink as much of the water as I could.
Lu leaned in the open door of the truck, one hand on my thigh, the other holding the cup to my lips. “Just a few sips. I don’t want you sick.”
I took the cup from her and gulped. She tried to take it from me, but I caught her hand with my free hand and finished the water.
“Stubborn,” she said. “I see only filling the cup halfway was a good choice on my part.”
“Is there any more?”
“Yes, but not yet. How are you feeling?”
I rubbed at my eye with a knuckle and only then realized it was dark out, evening long gone while I’d slept. The bugs and other critters of the night had found their voices and were giving it all they had.
I thought we couldn’t be that far from the road, but we must at least be in a field or hollow, as there were no sounds of traffic.
“Good,” I said. “I don’t know how or why that knocked me out.”
“Brogan, you reached between the veils of reality and contained a vengeful spirit.”
“And?”
She huffed and squeezed my thigh. “It’s a lot. I only know a few people who can do that, and they use magic.”
“Maybe I used magic.”
“No, you just—” She shook her head. “You just used you. Your will.”
“Not that it did much good. Both of those werewolves have secrets,” I said. “And they talk in circles.” I wiggled the cup. “Can we give more water a try?”
“Come get in the back.”
She stepped back, and the movement of her was like a dance I was helpless to resist. Where Lula Gauge walked, so, too, would I, step in step.
So I hauled my legs around and out the door and stood on the grass. I was tired, sure, but no longer exhausted. I followed Lu to the back of the truck.
She’d unpacked the mattress, pillows, sleeping bags, and the handmade quilt she’d picked up at the yard sale back in the little town of Cuba.
“I thought we were headed to a hotel,” I said. “Hot shower? Room service?”
“Nope. I won the bet. I found the magic bookmark.”
“Beg to differ.”
“All right. I picked up the magic bookmark. You didn’t even touch it.”
“I would have if Abbi hadn’t interrupted us.”
