“Sure.” Zach’s smile grew. “You fit right in.”
She watched him carefully, looking for the joke. For the moment she gave herself away, and they laughed at her. But it never came; all she saw was sincerity. And for the first time in the weeks since she’d collapsed at that stupid party, something settled inside her.
Maybe there was somewhere she could fit. Not just in this small hidden community on the southernmost border of the Brecon Beacons, or with the grandmother who, even though they hadn’t known each other, had come to fetch her when her world felt like it was falling apart. Maybe she could finally fit with people her own age. With these two boys who already felt more like friends than any of the kids in her class at her expensive London school ever had.
“Here, let me show you.” James held up his hands so she could watch, his breath slowing as he seemed to sink deeper inside himself. He looked older as his grin faded and his face settled into a look of calm concentration, while Shadows—grays and blacks shot through with streaks of sky blue—gathered smoothly into his hands.
He curled his fingers and gave a slight twist, fluidly coiling the Shadows into sleek ropes. A flick of his wrist sent them unspooling into the sprawling oak tree to wind tightly around a heavy branch. Then he gripped them in his fists and hauled himself up, Shadow tendrils spreading down his legs to support his weight as he swung gently, suspended from the tree.
“Show off.” Zach snorted.
Kay laughed. She agreed with Zach, but it was still impressive. “How did you do that so smoothly?” she asked, remembering how her messy tangle of Shadows had fragmented as soon as she tried to lift herself off the ground.
“The key—” James started.
“Ignore him,” Zach interrupted. “He’s going to say something ridiculous about how brilliant he is.”
James chuckled, but he didn’t disagree.
Zach held out his hand, his frown deepening slightly as he concentrated, and pulled in a swirl of Shadows to form a perfect sphere of charcoal and ocean blue in his palm. “The key is to clear your mind.” He waved his other hand over the top, setting the sphere into a spin. “You have to be able to feel the Shadows. If your mind is full of angry thoughts, conversations you wish you’d had, that thing you’re going to say the very next time you see a certain person… or whatever, then your Shadows will be just as churned up as your thoughts. You have to use your thoughts to manipulate the Shadows, not let them swirl around out of control.”
James gave her a knowing look. “What were you thinking about when you tried to make your rope?”
She narrowed her eyes. She didn’t want to tell him, but she wasn’t going to lie either. Silence was better.
James stepped down from the tree, letting the Shadows fade behind him, and raised an eyebrow, waiting. Long moments ticked by while they watched each other. Apparently, he wasn’t going to let it go.
“I came into my Shadows at a party,” she admitted eventually. “It didn’t go well. I… ah… passed out.”
Passed out. Puked all over herself. Woke up with the flash of phone cameras blinding her in the roiling darkness. Became known as the barf-girl overnight at her school, and all over Myspace. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
She took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. Might as well tell them the rest. “My parents never told me anything about the Shadows or the Dru-vid so I had no idea what was happening. When I told them about the party, they accused me of taking pills, or at the very least drinking something spiked, and took me for drug counseling.”
“Damn.” James shook his head, his eyes soft with understanding.
“I was sitting in the counselor’s office with my parents when Elizabeth, my gran, came and got me. She’d Seen it and….” Kay let her voice trail off. How could she possibly explain? Discovering that her parents had lied to her for her entire life. That they had been certain that if they denied it enough—if they could convince her that she was wrong about everything she’d experienced—that it would all go away. They had rejected who she was down to her very essence. And that betrayalburned.
She shrugged, trying to act as if it hadn’t torn her world apart. “Anyway, Elizabeth turned up, explained to the counselor that we would be leaving, and pulled me out.”
Kay’s grandmother had flung open the door, startling the counselor into silence. Elizabeth had seemed impossibly glamorous with her hair twisted into a tight bun and wearing a cherry-colored coat, red lipstick, and black high heels—larger than life and utterly outraged.
Elizabeth had glared at the counselor and then at Kay’s parents, her lip slowly curling up on one side in a derisive sneer. Kay’s father had taken one look at his mother and hunched into his expensive suit, not meeting anyone’s eyes, while Kay’s mother had wiped her hands down her designer dress and then shook her head, just once, as if denying what she was seeing.
Elizabeth had explained to the counselor that there had been a mistake and that Kay would be leaving with her. She had rested her hands on her hips, still glaring, and icily requested permission for Kay to move to Wales with her. And then, with pale faces and pinched lips, neither of them meeting Kay’s eyes, her parents had agreed that she should leave with Elizabeth. That it would be better for everyone.
Her parents had let her go, just like that.
They had been so determined to make her into something that she was not that they had been completely overwhelmed when it turned out that she couldn’t be changed. And then they had sent her away with the grandmother she had never met before. They hadwantedher to go.
Kay bit her lip, glad that her hands were in her pockets where James and Zach couldn’t see them tremble. She was not going to cry. Not one tear. She wasn’t sad; she was determined not to be. No, she was angry. Filled with righteous bloody rage that burned away the tears. No one was going to treat her like that, or treat anyone else like that either, not if she could help it.
“Yeah.” James tucked his hands into his own pockets, mirroring her. “I get it.”
“You do?” Kay couldn’t help the surprise in her voice.
James looked at Zach, and for a long moment, she thought he wouldn’t reply. But then he shrugged. “Sure. My parents' divorce was so bad that they tore down everything and everyone around them. Eventually, they went to opposite sides of the world, thank God, but neither of them wanted me. They went to court, not to fight for custody, but to fight against it.”
“They fought against…?” She couldn’t find the words to finish the sentence.
