Girls Can't Be Knights: (Spirit Knights Book 1) (13 page)

“Did you mean it when you said that you wanted to have me as a big sister for Missy and Lisa?”

The question took him off guard. “Yes,” he blurted. Except he and Marie hadn’t talked about it yet. “Maybe. I don’t know.” The filtered light showed him how she bit her lip, anxious and waiting for him to crush her dreams. Or maybe that was him projecting. “It feels weird to ask if you want Marie and I to adopt you when you’re not even ten years younger than us.” He scraped a hand through his hair. Marie wouldn’t argue much, and if she did, he’d talk her into it. “Would you like us to adopt you, or would you rather talk to Marie’s parents about it?”

“Really? I get to choose between either being adopted or being adopted?”

He chuckled. “I suppose that’s one way to put it. Jack and Tammy would have an easier time with the paperwork, since they aren’t wanted for any crimes or anything, but we’d be happy to have you, if that’s what you want. I think Lisa and Missy both like you. It is a farmhouse, so there’d be chores, of course. And a new school, and switching to a different state and all that. Anyway, think about it. We’ll have to have a big family meeting to see what everyone thinks, but you have a place with us one way or another, no matter what.”

Claire’s face lit up with a wide smile. “Wow. I just—wow. Yeah. Okay. I, um, I don’t even know what to say?”

“How about…” He tapped his chin, pretending to think about it. “‘Let’s make a plan, dumbass, so we can sort this out as soon as possible and then deal with it after’?”

She fell over laughing. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” she gasped out between giggles.

“I agree.” He watched her continue to giggle with an amused smirk. “First, I need to go to the Palace to double-check that Avery’s no longer a Knight. If he’s still a Knight, I can talk to him and figure out what’s going on. He’s probably not, though. Where did he take you to meet the Phasm?”

“The police station. He dragged me into some closet and then opened the door again and it was night someplace. That’s where my—the Phasm was. He healed me there.”

Chapter 19

Claire

Justin froze in the act of standing up. “Wait. What? He
healed
you?”

The way he asked, filled with horror and outrage, batted Claire’s joy aside and made her shrink away from him. “Yeah. Um, Avery tried to, uh,
convince
me to tell him your address or last name or something.”

His face went hard and angry. “If anyone ever hits you again, and you can’t take care of it yourself, you tell me about it.”

She gulped. “Okay.” Taking a deep breath, she told him how it all happened, from the moment she met Avery in the principal’s office to the part where Justin opened the trapdoor at the group home. He simmered with rage through the whole story.

“That sonofa—” He clenched his jaws together and punched the rock wall with enough force to make Claire wince in sympathy though it didn’t seem to have hurt him. “Avery is a dead man. Aside from that, he’s got your blood, and that’s a problem. A corrupted Phasm can bind you with it. A tainted Knight can track you with it.”

Even without knowing what he meant by “bind,” she felt shocks of panic spark to her fingers and toes. “What do we do?”

He crossed his arms and glowered at the wall. “First, we have to keep you moving. I can’t take you home until one of them is dead.” He paced deeper into the cave, then returned and kept going back and forth. “Neither can track you on their own. Avery has about twenty years more experience than me, so he’ll be harder to handle. The Phasm is in a pocket of its own making, so it’ll be harder to find and get at.”

Facing Avery again sounded awful. Having to slay her own father would be worse. But, she reminded herself, it wasn’t her father. Mark Terdan died six years ago in a house fire. This thing was only a ghostly echo of him. She rubbed her face. “What do you need me to do?”

“I should get help, but I can’t leave you alone for that long. Dammit, I wish you’d hurry up and get to the Palace.”

“Me too.”

“Okay.” He stopped beside her, vibrating with frantic energy. “Do you remember where Avery’s apartment building was?”

“No. Sorry.” She hung her head.

“Alright. Then we can either taunt Avery or you can pretend to cooperate.”

She jerked her head up, surprised, pleased, and nervous. It sounded as though he wanted her to choose. Maybe if she understood all this stuff, she’d feel competent to make a decision. To steady herself, she drew her locket up out of her shirt and rubbed it. “Which one do you think is better?”

Justin opened his mouth, then he squinted at her hand. “What’s that?”

“This? It’s the locket my parents gave me.” She held it up so he could see it.

Taking it in his fingertips, he frowned. “Did either the Phasm or Avery see it?”

She shifted, wishing she could forget Avery ripping her shirt and hoping she hadn’t done anything wrong. “Why?”

“Tariel, come look at this. Can I borrow it for a moment? I’ll give it right back.”

White-hot panic roared over her body, and she yanked it away from him. “No!”

Blinking, he stared at her and raised both hands in surrender. “Ooookaaaay.” The horse whickered from the cave mouth and Justin shrugged. “No idea. Claire, I don’t want to take the locket, I just want to look at it. May we look at it, please?”

The queer panic receded and she blinked, not sure what just happened. “Um, sure.” Shuffling forward, she held the pendant up for them to see with it still around her neck.

“What was that about?” Justin used one finger to hold it up for Tariel. The horse pushed her nose into the cave and whuffed at the locket.

“I…don’t know. The idea of taking it off…” Claire swallowed, queasy for no reason. “I’ve never taken it off. Ever. Not to sleep or shower or anything. Please don’t make me take it off.”

“I won’t. I promise.” He listened to the horse whinny and whicker. “Why didn’t we see that before?” The horse said something else, and he nodded. “That makes sense.”

“I’m glad it makes sense to you,” Claire grumbled.

He let go of the locket and it thumped back against her chest. “We think it was made in the Palace. If your father gave it to you, it should have dissipated when he died. Because it didn’t, there’s something more to it. Tariel thinks this might be what makes it appear you’re going to be a Knight.”

“Which means what?”

“I don’t know.” He frowned and went to pick up his gauntlets. “Best guess? Your father did something he wasn’t supposed to be able to.” Like his cloak, his gauntlets appeared to be dry as he pulled them on. “I can think of three reasons I’d be willing to try that: Marie, Lisa, and Missy. If any of them were in danger of dying, I’d do anything to save them. Including secretly crafting a locket and binding it to their soul.” She watched him walk out of the cave and brush water off Tariel’s saddle, then climb up to settle there.

“And that means…?” Not wanting to be left here, she followed and looked up at him, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

“If the locket comes off your neck, you die. Also, it’s the reason you’re going to be a Knight. We didn’t notice it because you keep it under your shirt, and we didn’t think to check for an object. As far as I know, that’s never happened before. Whatever makes us Knights is supposed to be part of us, not something external.” He held out a hand to help her up.

“He gave me this locket because I was going to die? But I’ve had it for as long as I can remember.” She took his hand and climbed up to sit in front of him.

“If it kept that memory, the Phasm might know what happened. In that case, it’ll realize it only needs the locket to get to the Palace. It’ll do anything to get it, including kill you.” He reached around her to pick up Tariel’s reins and held Claire close.

Her father’s arms had felt like this: warm, safe, secure. She grabbed a handful of Tariel’s mane. “But if my dad did something impossible to save my life, wouldn’t he still want to save my life?”

“If he made the locket himself, yes. Tariel, take us to Portland. We’ve got to figure out how to handle this before I can come up with a more specific destination.”

The horse whinnied and trotted through the woods. Claire pulled her locket out again and wondered what had happened all those years go to make her father have to do so much to save her. Her head filled with horrific accidents and diseases, then the images grew more sinister.

“Do you think one of these Phasm things went after me to get to him?”

“I really have no idea what happened. I only met him a few months before he died, and we didn’t spend much time together. He wasn’t my mentor.” He sighed. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you stories about him, or about you.”

She wanted to hug him and frowned because she couldn’t right now. After going through so much crap in his own life, he shouldn’t have to be the rock that everyone leaned on and no one propped up. She considered patting or squeezing the arm he held around her and rejected that idea. The last thing she wanted was to make him think she might be crushing on him. That would make for awkward conversations and situations.

Besides, she had Drew. Maybe he’d consider letting Drew in, the same way Jack had let Justin in. If they could find someplace for both of them to sleep. As much as she desperately wanted to be part of Justin’s family, she felt a pang of guilt for the space and food, and everything else she’d take up in their lives without giving much back.

The rain had stopped, and they reached the road. Tariel clopped down it under an overcast sky. Claire watched the trees give way to houses, then businesses. Gray clouds trundled past, and she caught sight of a patch of blue sky.

As they headed for a freeway onramp, Justin sighed with a grumble. “We have no good options, so we’re taking a lousy one.”

Tariel sped up, leaving Claire wondering how the horse knew where to go. Half an hour later, she had a guess. Another five minutes after that, she knew her guess had been right and had no idea what to think. “What are we doing here?”

Justin pulled on the reins to get Tariel to turn into the parking lot at Grant High. “Where else would you like to look to find Avery’s home address?”

“The Internet?”

“Would we also be able to pick up your stuff there?”

Claire opened her mouth, then shut it, unable to think of a snappy comeback. She did already have her backpack, but she wouldn’t mind grabbing the bag she kept in her locker. Instead, she focused on the reasons this wouldn’t work. “Two things. One, Avery is divorced and his kids live with his ex-wife. Two, it’s Saturday. Everything is locked up. How’re you going to get in?”

“Universal opening tool.” He hopped off Tariel’s back when she stopped and pulled his sword out. “It slices, it dices, it juliennes, all for the unbelievably low price of never being able to hold down a regular job. As for the first point, I’ll bet his ex-wife knows where he lives, and she can probably tell us about him.”

“Whoa, Choppy McChop-chop.” Claire tried to follow him to the ground, but the horse perfectly foiled her efforts by hopping and sidestepping. “Hey! Look, Justin, I go to school here. You don’t have to carve it up. Besides, you’ve already got cops on your trail. Do you really need to add another reason for them to come down on you? There’s got to be another way.”

He turned and fell into a pose she thought she’d seen on a movie poster. It made him seem heroic and incredible, and she had no idea how a girl like her had managed to get a guy like him to watch over her. “That may be. Do you have any thoughts on this other way?”

She blinked at him as the moment passed. He still didn’t quite seem real. “Uh. Er?”

“That’s what I thought. And you won’t be going to school here anymore.” He returned to swaggering toward the building, cloak swishing behind him, blade gleaming in the fleeting sunshine. With a slash of his sword, he cut around the lock in the front door. He pushed and the door swung open.

Dumbstruck by his bold, brash action, she gaped. Then she noticed which part of the school they’d arrived at and tapped on the horse’s neck. “You know he’s never been here before, right? I mean, sure, I’ve only been here a few times and all, but at least I know where stuff is. He just broke into the gym. The office is over there.” She pointed for the horse’s benefit. “Can I get down now, please?”

Tariel tossed her head and whickered, then dropped her hind quarters. Claire hopped off. In the doorway, she paused long enough to admire the strength of his sword. It had made a clean cut through a steel door without screeching or forcing him to wrench it. The blade probably couldn’t be stopped. She gulped, imagining him using it on a person. They’d be sliced in half as easily as this door had been. Gross.

She found him in the hall. “Good thing you didn’t call this plan ‘brilliant.’ Did you not go to high school? Or just forget what the parts look like?”

“I figured it’s all connected, and your locker might be in one of the other parts. Besides—” he grinned “—it’s kind of fun to cut doors like that, and I don’t get to do it very often. Is there a different door I can cut now?”

“Seriously?”

Justin laughed. “Come on, show me the way.”

“Aren’t you worried about ur-phasms jumping us in here?”

“No. It’s a school. Phasms can’t infest schools or hospitals. I was under the impression they couldn’t get into police stations, either, but that seems to not be true. Or, at least, it’s not as true as I’ve been led to believe.”

They reached the part of the building with her locker, and she struggled over the combination before pulling out her electric blue bag with spare clothes, granola bars, and a money pouch. “This is all I want from here.”

“Aren’t you going to take these?” He pointed to the textbooks still piled in her locker.

“Ew, no. Why? They aren’t even mine. I was issued them. Like I want to steal my Chemistry book or something.” She left the locker door hanging open to make things easier on whoever had to clean it out.

“I did alright in Chemistry. It’s not
that
bad.”

Claire rolled her eyes and led the way to the office. “Pretty sure whatever new school I wind up at will have their own books. Vancouver is across the state line and all.” They reached the office without him making any further disparaging comments, and she had to wonder if being in a high school brought out his inner smartass.