Sing Sweet Nightingale (42 page)

I hesitate, but I can’t think of anything better. Or even see what might happen if we follow through with this plan. The future is fuzzy, a hazy field of vague possibilities that all seem equally impossible.

“Yeah, sure,” I finally say. “As long as this stuff is well out of our reach. Out of
everybody’s
reach.”

Forty-Two

Hudson

Thursday, October 16 – 12:52 AM

Mari and I sneak out of the house. Inside the plastic storage container I’m carrying are the bag of broken glass and a bunch of crystals and gemstones. Both of us are silent until we get into the Camaro, the box locked away in the trunk.

“How much trouble do you think we’ll be in if they wake up and we’re not there?” I ask, looking back at her house as I pull away.

“They won’t.”

There’s no hesitation in her answer. My future dreams are vague and full of symbols. Whatever sense Mariella gets must be a lot more concrete.

“It’s hard to explain,” she says, answering the question I didn’t ask. Swallowing, I lock my thoughts on the here and now. “Sometimes, when I think about a question I…know. But that’s not…that’s not how I know they won’t check on me, though.”

I crank the engine and head toward the Adirondack Park. “How did you know?”

Mari bites her lip and looks away. “Because I planted the idea in their heads that they didn’t need to.”

My chest and neck prickle. She planted ideas in their heads? My hands tighten on the wheel and I try to keep my head clear, but it’s impossible. She’s already
messing
with her parents’ minds. That’s way too close to something the demons would do.

“I know. Hudson, I
know
, but we needed to do this tonight, to get that stuff out of the house.” She turns toward me in the seat, her lips pursed. “You couldn’t feel it, but those bits of glass were sucking in energy and warmth like a black hole. It was awful. I had to get that out of the house, and I knew my parents would freak if they woke up and we weren’t there.”

I saw for myself the power she had before she woke up, before she even could process everything that was happening to her. What if all that changed her? Her reasons make sense, but most people can rationalize their mistakes. All the way until their mistakes have turned them into villains in their own lives.

Mari sighs, and I cringe, knowing she’s following my train of thought.

“I tried to turn it off,” she whispers. “I did. But there are too many things in my head. Keeping them
all
off takes too much energy out of me. I had to reactivate something, and the telepathy was the easiest to handle.”

“It’s fine.” Not being able to privately process my own thoughts is going to take some getting used to, though. That’s for damn sure.

She huffs. “It’s
not
fine, but I appreciate the lie. Kind of.”

Rolling my shoulders, I keep my eyes locked on the dark, empty road ahead of us. “Okay. It’s weird, but I don’t care about that as much as what you did to your parents.”

Mari is silent. I glance at her.

“I don’t even know what you’re capable of, Mariella, but you picked up a lot of abilities that could turn you into someone I don’t think you’d like much. And if you start using those powers like the demons do…” I take a breath and shake my head. “They’ll have won anyway, because you’ll end up just like them.”

This time there’s a slight pause before she clears her throat. Even with my eyes on the road, I feel her shift, feel the warmth of her getting closer.

“That’s why I need your help. I need you to keep me grounded and help me figure out what to do with everything. It’s too much for me to deal with alone.”

My chest clenches. “Basically, you want me to call you on your bullshit?”

I can handle being used like a walking conscience, I guess, but it’s not what I hoped…Whatever. It doesn’t matter.

“Yeah. Bullshit meter, walking conscience, all of that, but…” Mari’s hand rests on my elbow, gently pulling my hand off the wheel until she can thread her fingers through mine. “But not just that. You could never
just
be that.”

My heart starts pounding, and I press on the brake, exceedingly glad no one else is driving on this road. We glide to a stop, and I stare at her hand in mine, my throat dry and my thoughts such a mess I doubt either of us can make sense of them.

“You don’t…” The words disappear. I swallow and try again. “You don’t have to say that. I’d be here to help you if you needed it without…anything. You don’t have to—”

She shifts, pulling her legs underneath her on the seat and placing one hand on my cheek, tilting my head until I’m looking into her warm eyes.

“You’re right. I don’t
have
to do anything.” She smiles and runs her hand over my hair, lingering on the scar by my temple and the one hidden on the side of my head. “I’m done doing things because I have to or because someone else wants me to. I’ve lived my entire life like that. Now I can finally choose.”

The pressure she exerts is nothing, less than a breeze, but I don’t have the power to resist even that. I don’t want to.

Mari pulls me in, closing the few inches between us until my lips meet hers.

Sparks—actual, tiny sparks of electricity—flare between us, making my skin tingle and my hair stand on end. She sighs, pressing closer, practically climbing onto the console between us and releasing my hand. Wrapping both arms around my neck, she tightens her grip and deepens the kiss, running her tongue along my lip and sending shivers across my skin.

My entire body is overheating, and my thoughts aren’t spinning—they’re gone, my mind wiped clean by the shock of Mariella’s lips moving against mine. The kiss releases a month of stress and worry and all of the emotions I’ve kept bottled up since before we walked into the dreamworld to face Orane. Even if I hadn’t already been there, this kiss would’ve done it. This kiss would have been all it took for her to stake her claim on my heart.

Too soon, she pulls back, her hands coming to rest on my cheeks. She smiles against my lips, but I can’t make my eyes open yet.

“Sorry,” she whispers, her voice a little lower than it was a minute ago and her fingers tracing the planes of my face. “I’ve been wanting to do that since I woke up this morning.”

“Yeah. No, it’s okay.” I swallow and finally open my eyes. “Works for me.”

I take a breath and clear my throat, wishing it was as easy to clear the fog that kiss left me in. Blissed out by a kiss or not, there’s still a conversation we need to finish.

“You shouldn’t have done that to your parents. They could’ve handled the truth.”

“Yeah. And then they would have insisted on coming with us.” Mari’s smile fades, but she doesn’t pull away from me. Her fingers run back and forth over my close-cropped hair as she talks. “I don’t know what we’re dealing with, and I don’t know what’s going to happen. Putting us in front of it is one thing because we’re going to be a lot harder to hurt than anyone else. After everything I’ve already put my parents through, how could I let them walk into something I wasn’t sure I’d be able to protect them from?”

Looking away, I stare at the still-empty road and try to wrap my head around it all. Wanting to protect someone you love—I get that. I really do. I wanted to keep Horace the hell away from this mess, but I couldn’t force him out. I always told him what could happen, the danger he put himself in by staying, and let him make his own choices. It’s too easy to use the reasoning that you’re protecting someone to justify going too far and taking away someone’s right to put themselves in danger for a cause they believe in. Life happens. Things go wrong. You can’t save everyone.

“You have to promise not to do that to me, Mariella. Not ever. Even if you think you’re protecting me.”

Turning to her, I wait. She meets my eyes, but she’s biting her lip again. She looks troubled.

“I can’t promise that. Not if it could save your life. You can’t ask me to promise that.”

“Mari, you can’t choose—”

“Could
you
?” She sits up, her eyebrows sitting low across her eyes and giving her face a more determined expression than I’ve ever seen on it. “Could you promise me that you won’t ever,
ever
try to leave me behind if you thought letting me choose for myself might kill me?”

My entire body tenses. Even thinking about it shoves all of my protective instincts into overdrive.

Mari’s expression softens, and she puts a hand on my arm.

“I
can
promise that I’d never pull a trick on you that you wouldn’t try to pull on me.”

Exhaling a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, I reach out and brush her long bangs behind her ear. Mari turns her face into the touch, pressing her cheek against my fingers and lightly kissing the palm of my hand.

I smile and give in. Like I’m sure she knew I would.

“Fine. But you also can’t get mad at me for things I don’t say out loud.”

Her eyes narrow and her nose wrinkles. Leaning forward, she presses a soft kiss to my lips before sliding back into her seat. “I’ll try. And that’s the best I can do.”

Nodding my agreement, I push the gas to get us moving again. Both of us are silent until we pass the edge of the park and she asks, “Do you know where you’re going?”

I don’t want to admit it, but no. Not really. I just know I need a place far from civilization where we can set a bonfire and not draw attention. I’m working off a vague idea that I’ll know it when I get there.

“There” ends up being a lonely spot on an out-of-theway road somewhere in the Adirondacks, standing over a metal trashcan filled with all the signs of Mari’s previous life, which are doused in three bottles of lighter fluid. My life is insane.

“Here goes nothing,” Mari mutters.

I take a deep breath and light a match. When I drop it into the trashcan, Mari tenses beside me, pulling me back in time to keep my eyebrows from getting singed off my face.

A roaring column of flames leaps into the sky, the bright white fire shot through with the sickening orange of the dreamworld.

“The dreamworld? It’s called Abivapna,” Mariella says, her eyes locked on the column of fire. “And the things that live there are the Balasura.”

“Sounds too pretty for what they are. I think ‘demons’ fits better,” I mutter as I wad up the garbage bag and throw it into the flames. It melts and disappears before I can blink. Still the fire rages. The sound is more like a forge and bellows, not a bonfire, and the height and heat of the column is crazy. This is no natural fire. It’s feeding on far from ordinary fuel.

Mari and I sit at the edge of the clearing, waiting and watching and hoping no one will see the light and investigate. My instincts guided me well. We’re miles from humanity.

As abruptly as the fire engulfed the night, it stops. The light and the heat cave in on themselves, folding in faster and faster until they disappear.

“Um, okay.” I blink in the sudden darkness, trying to refocus. “
That
was interesting…”

We approach the trashcan slowly, not sure what to expect. Will the fire leap up again? I probably won’t be able to touch it for a while because of the heat, but curiosity overwhelms caution and I slowly lean over the top.

How in the hell…?

A black box sits at the center of the can, shiny and apparently solid, and the entire bottom of the trashcan has been eaten away. I step back, flashing through vision filters to make sure I haven’t turned one dangerous form of magic into another. None of the filters show anything except a heat-wave-like aura coming off the box. The can itself doesn’t register as warm. No heat waves emanating, no steam rising, nothing.

“Mari, do you sense anything?”

“Actually, no.” She peers into the trashcan and smiles. “Aren’t you going to get it? I mean, who are we to shy away from weird?”

I smile, slowly reach down, and pick up the box, only mildly surprised to find it cold. I switch to a filter that gives me better night vision and investigate the case.

It’s about the same size as a ream of paper and made of hard, shiny black plastic. Or something plastic-like. Bits of metal line the side where the case would open, and a solid piece slightly larger than the pad of my thumb is set in place of a latch. A latch that doesn’t move.

“It’s like what we wanted shaped what actually happened.” I pass the box to Mari. “We wanted the fire contained, we wanted the ash sealed away, we wanted to make sure no bit of anything was left on the can itself. Mission accomplished, apparently.”

“I was hoping it would work.” Mari shrugs, inspecting the box. “Didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure. All this stuff is kinda hit or miss with me.”

Hit or miss? She can read minds with scary accuracy, plant suggestions in people’s heads, and magically create a black box out of a trash can, a plastic bag, and fire. I’d call that impressive on any level. But we’re always our own worst critics, I guess. Then again, she’s been in conscious control of her powers for less than a day. I’ve had mine for almost six months, and I don’t even know what half of my powers
are
.

I grab a shovel out of my trunk and place the black box inside the stone-lined plastic storage container I brought with me. I choose a distinctive rock feature and walk ten steps to the west before I begin to dig. I have no idea why we’ll ever want to see this again, but just in case, we need to know where to find it.

“That went pretty well,” Mari says when we’re back in the car and headed home. “No portals of doom, no park rangers yelling about forest fires, no explosions. I’d call that a success.”

I laugh. “Were you
expecting
a portal of doom?”

“You should always be prepared for everything,” she says, nodding with mock seriousness.

Her hand slides down my neck, traces the line of my arm—lingering for a moment on the tattoo on my wrist—and then she twines her fingers through mine. I lift her hand to my lips and kiss her soft, unscarred skin before letting our hands rest on her thigh.

Neither of us says anything for the rest of the drive, but it’s the kind of silence that speaks volumes.