“Barometer pressure. Storm,” I excuse, eyeing the distant ridge.
She squints. “No different than usual.”
“Maybe not,” I grunt, another wave passing through me. I nudge Tempest to the side, putting five good feet between us. It’s not enough.
Her eyes cast to the side, face unreadable for a long moment. Then, she asks, “Do I smell bad?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” she says, moving Daisy toward me. I back Tempest up another step. “You always have to keep this certain distance from me. Like you can’t stand to be around me.”
“Not a fan of being crowded.”
She huffs a laugh. “Two’s hardly a crowd.”
“More than I’ve endured for many years.”
Her face darkens, eyes flashing. “Sorry you have to endure me.”
“Not what I meant,” I answer, annoyance threading my voice. But also something like regret. If only she knew what she does to me. How much I’d sacrifice for one taste. “Employer-employee distance. Better that way. Now back to this,” I say, holding up the drawing.
“Any explanation?”
“Ley lines.”
She exhales sharply. “Sound waves now lay lines? You mean like magnetic fields or… musical resonance?”
The last part makes me want to double over. “Not the second word.”
“Resonance?” she repeats.
My tattoos jump, burning anew. I stare hard at the silver sliver around her wrist. The closest I can get to suppression, the dampener still useless in Raven’s Ridge with Mags.
“So, like a naturally occurring phenomenon?”
I frown. “Natural’s just a point of view, Eliza.” I throw the notebook back to her, not daring to draw any closer.
Then I turn Tempest, riding around the field.
“Wait! Aren’t you curious at all? Don’t you want to know what this is?”
“Already do.”
I hear Daisy and her following now. “And what’s that?”
“An anomaly. Something that shouldn’t be. Better forgotten… made extinct.”
“Extinction? But what does that have to do with anything?”
Her last question gets my attention. I sit deep in the saddle, exhaling and freezing my hips. My legs slack, and I grunt, “Whoa.”
But Tempest already stands frozen to the spot as if reading my mind.
I level my eyes on Eliza. “Everything.”
Chapter
Ten
