I look his way. “How so?”
Milo glances over at me as we zoom past the storefronts. “He attacked Eli—aVaile—and called him brother.”
“I have no idea about the brother thing, but Kelter’s a Vaile too.”
“What?” Kaleida gasps.
I pick up my pace, wondering how I’ll ever catch up to Eli. “I thought you knew. That’s why he’s not impacted by the elixir like therest of the Calderans. Didn’t you notice? He was born in Sonnet and sent away when he was eight.”
“Wait. Why aren’tyouaffected by the elixir?” Sypher asks. “You’re a Hollow.”
“She’s not a damn Hollow, Sypher.” Milo rubs his fist in Sypher’s short hair. “She took the Centress’ magic and zaps people with pain. Hollows can’t do that.”
“Nobody tells me anything.” Sypher ducks out of reach and pushes Milo. “Then what is she? She hasn’t linked so she can’t have a gift.”
Milo sidles up next to me again, that smile too much to handle. “She’s one of a kind.”
“Hurry up,” I say, unsure how to respond.
“That’s impossible,” Kaleida says distantly.
“Well, she’s not a Hollow,” Milo argues.
“That’s not what I meant.” She shakes her head, tossing tight curls back and forth. “No one is sent away from Sonnet. Plenty disappear. Killed, I’m sure, but not kids.”
Milo’s face is paler than usual. His cheeks sink deeper. “There was that one kid.”
“No,” Sypher whispers, dodging a fire hydrant, his eyes popping. “It couldn’t be. He killed that girl, Allora. And his name wasn’t Kelter.”
My stomach plunges past my knees. “Who killed a girl?”
“Cramp! Cramp!” Sypher stops and grabs his belly, huffing loudly. “A boy named Emerson. He killed Allora then disappeared. We all figured the Centress killed him.”
“What was he like?” Kaleida asks Sypher while speeding back up to my jogging pace to explain. “I didn’t join their school until after the fire in Lirica. I never met this Emerson kid.”
“Golden hair. A few freckles,” Milo says. “Like a little Kelter, I guess.”
Reality shifts around me, as if I were falling and falling and never hitting bottom. That can’t be right. Kelter’s gentle. Innocent. Or I thought he was—until he sliced Eli’s throat.
We dash around the corner, and Eli is up ahead, his large figure and black clothes easy to spot amongst the bright colors of Caldera, even at night. His shirt is on again, the outline of suspenders down his back. I swap my jog for a run, then a full-on sprint when he walks into the street beneath the green glow of traffic lights.
A car stops inches in front of him. The driver, a young man with an oddly youthful face, sits behind the wheel, groggy and unaffected by the near-collision. Eli slams his fist down onto the hood of the car before rounding the front bumper and banging on the driver’s side door. “Get out!”
The man stares blankly ahead. In a smooth and practiced motion, Eli pulls out his slingshot, loads it with a marble from his ammo strap and aims it at the guy’s face through the open window.
Damn him.Not the time for toys, Eli.
“Move!” he yells. The dazed man finally obeys, shifting the car into park and slowly stepping out of the vehicle as if he were sleepwalking, not even taking note of the slew of knives or bloody clothes, his battered face. Eli stows his slingshot and climbs into the driver’s seat as I reach the passenger side.
I fling open the door. “What are you doing? You can’t drive!” He ignores me while messing with the shifter and every handle and button he can find. “Give him back his car and come talk to me.”
I watch his knees rise and fall as he pounds one pedal after the other, trying to figure out what they do. He flips the air vents open and close. The horn goes off when he smacks the steering wheel in frustration, making him jump. So he punches the radio and yanks on the turn signal knob until it cracks in half.
“Tell me how this godsdamn thing works!”
Stubborn man.“Get out!”
“How do I make it move?” he lashes out, banging the shifter with his palm.
