But before I can fully formulate the thought or start to speak, a shadow emerges from behind a nearby tree and then a bright light shines on us, eliciting cries of pain from Carter and me.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Detective Morales demands, striding over to us.
28
“Told you to stay away,” Carter chokes out, holding his hand up against the light.
“Okay, college boy, that’s not my job, taking orders from you,” Morales snaps. “Stay here.” Then she stomps off. A few moments later, she returns and presses a squeeze bottle in my hands. “Diluted baby shampoo,” she says. “It’ll help with the pepper spray. Don’t touch the bottle to your eyes.”
I hesitate for a second and then lift it up and squirt it toward my face. The coolness immediately helps, and then, even when that fades, the stinging and burning is lesser. I squirt it twice more until I can open my eyes… mostly.
“You just carry that around in your car?” Chessa asks, her voice raspy and strained.
“I’m a cop in a college town. Do you know how often someone sets one of those things off by accident or in an enclosed space? Bars, movie theaters, parties…”
I crawl toward Devon and do the same to his face, though he might have been sheltered from most of the spray because of howhe was lying, facing away. When I search for the warm yellow glow of life in him, it’s not as bright as it usually is. I fumble for and find his pulse in his neck. It’s weak but steady.
Without looking at Carter—oh my God, Carter, a War spawn—I hold the bottle up until he takes it. Keeping my back to Morales, I lay my hand on Devon’s chest and try to visualize reversing the typical flow of energy. Giving instead of taking. My last try didn’t go so well.
But this time, after a moment, a rush of dizziness washes over me, and Devon opens his eyes, blinking slowly.
“Do I need to call EMS?” Morales asks, edging closer.
“No. No, I think he’s okay,” I say, sitting down on the freezing ground next to him.
With assistance from me, Devon sits up, a hand to his head. “What happened?”
“Exactly.” Morales points to him. “Someone needs to start talking,” she says. “We get a call about kids in the cemetery, an area that’s supposed to be evacuated—”
“Then there should have been no one to see us,” Chessa points out but in a murmur.
“—and these two are telling me it’s nothing.” She gestures to Carter and Chessa. “Then while I’m trying to call it in, there’s screaming and they’re taking off across the street, against my direction. And I get here to find a girl running off and a mess of blood and pepper spray.”
Automatically, I glance up, looking for Nova. We’re so vulnerable, sitting out in the open like this. Instinctively, I inch closer to Devon and Chessa, to better be able to protect them. Or try, anyway. Nova could be on us, killing us before we even realizeshe’s here. But she wouldn’t just wait around here, would she? She’s probably long gone.Nova. My sister.
I shake my head. I can’t start thinking of her that way. I’ve already had too many earth-shaking revelations in the past, oh, fifteen minutes. I can’t think at all. I just need to focus on this moment, to get through it. Preferably without being detained again.
“Someone?” Morales presses. “Words. Now.”
“We heard a voice,” Carter finally says reluctantly. He stands up with visible effort. “Someone shouting from inside the mausoleum.”
“We were attempting to render aid,” Chessa says. She doesn’t look great. Her face is kind of gray, and I can see her swaying on her feet. “I think that’s all you need to know.”
“Rendering aid? With pepper spray?” Morales raises her eyebrows.
“It wasn’t the situation we thought it was,” I add. “It was a trick. We were in danger.”
When Morales switches her attention to me, I immediately regret speaking. There’s a burning loathing in her gaze, the source of which I don’t understand. I’ve never met her before the other day, never did anything to her.
“A trick,” Morales repeats in a scathing tone. “You realize that everything that comes out of your mouth sounds like a lie, Trelane.”
Probably because eighty percent of it is, unfortunately. But this happens to be the truth. Or a version of it, at least.
“Where did all the blood come from?” Morales props her hands on her hips, revealing the badge glinting at her belt.
Devon coughs. “She was crazy, the girl who was inside. She, uh, had a knife.”
I grimace. I mean, that’s as good an explanation as any, which is to say that there is no good explanation that will work for Morales.
