Soulstice (10 page)

Dad took one of Reggie’s hands in his and looked pleadingly at her. It was an awkward gesture, because Dad was not prone to
physical affection with his daughter, but she couldn’t hold his gaze.

“Reggie, my greatest fear is to lose you like I lost your mother. And it scares me to see you checking out on us like she
did. Please make an effort, if not for me, then for Henry. I don’t know if he can take someone else leaving him.”

Dad let go of Reggie’s hands, put his palms on the table, and pushed himself up out of his chair. Reggie watched him go out
into the hall and heard the door to his office close. A minute later, Henry’s head appeared in the doorway.

“I heard what he said.” He came into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around Reggie’s shoulders.

“Henry, you have to believe that I didn’t mean to miss your appointment today.”

“I know that.” Henry pulled away and Reggie saw concern in his eyes. “Was it the Vours?”

Reggie pursed her lips. She didn’t want to worry Henry, but she didn’t want to lie to him either. She nodded.

“But I want you to know that everything’s going to be okay,” she said.

Henry stood quietly for a moment, playing with the hem of his T-shirt. His brow furrowed.

“What is it, Hen?”

Henry squinted his eyes and scrunched his face, like he did when he was trying to figure out the answer to a math problem.

“Something happened last night, Reggie,” he said finally. “I woke up in the middle of the night and I felt funny.”

“Felt funny how? Like you were sick?”

“No. My skin felt weird, like all the heat was being sucked out. It was kind of prickly. Like something was pulling at me.”

Reggie frowned.

“Did it hurt?”

“No. It just felt freaky.”

“Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”

“No, I thought maybe there was something on my skin, so I went to the bathroom to try to wash it off. But then, when I was
in the hall, it got even stronger. Like a
whoosh
, sucking all the heat right out of me. What, Reggie? What’s the matter?”

Reggie’s lower jaw had dropped open.

“Nothing. That’s just really strange, isn’t it? I’ll talk to Aaron about it—maybe he’ll know what it is. Let me know if you
feel this way again, okay?”

“Okay. Hey, want to play War?”

“Yeah I do.” Reggie got out of her seat and followed her brother upstairs, but her mind was far from cards.

Quinn had been upstairs last night in her own room, mere feet from where Henry slept. Henry’s chills had woken him, and increased
when he was in the hall, even closer to Quinn. Could it be that Henry had some kind of physical Vour detector inside him?
Maybe his experience in the fearscape had left him hypersensitive to the monsters’ presence.

It wasn’t totally far-fetched. And Reggie appreciated the possibilities of being able to immediately recognize her foes, though
she didn’t like the idea of putting Henry in their proximity. Still, if such an ability existed, it was sure to help their
side—she made a mental note to mention this discovery to Aaron the next time she saw him.

But when Reggie called the Cole house Sunday afternoon, Aaron was still sleeping. Dr. Cole didn’t want to wake him, and she
told Reggie that Aaron would be missing school the following day for doctors’ appointments. Reggie guessed Dr. Cole had set
up psych visits for her son to deal with his traumatic experience.

School went by excruciatingly slowly on Monday, and Reggie found it hard to concentrate on exam reviews. The other students
steered clear of her, whispering and pointing as she passed them. Being the best friend of the kid police thought had something
to do with the Quinn Waters case, and the sister of the kid who’d nearly killed a classmate last Friday, hadn’t done anything
to boost her popularity. Not to mention her freak-out in class.

Reggie sat by herself under a tree in the quad at lunch. As she munched listlessly on a turkey sandwich, her thoughts turned
to Aaron. He hadn’t contacted her since she’d seen him at his house, and this worried her. What if the Vours really had cracked
his mind? The summer solstice was less than two weeks away, and if the event Quinn had warned her about was real, she needed
to find a way to stop it.

“See any good movies this weekend?” a gruff voice called out to her, and in the hot sun Reggie felt her skin prick with chills.
Keech and Mitch Kassner stood on the sidewalk in front of her. Keech smirked at her, but Mitch hung back, looking at the pavement.
Reggie scrambled to her feet.

“Stay away from me.” She felt in her satchel for the pepper spray she always carried with her.

“I may look like a dumb jock, but I’m not stupid enough to go after you in front of all these people. That’s where your little
brother went wrong, you know. Never attack someone on the playground. Should’ve waited ’til he had the kid alone.”

“Shut up!”

“Why are you talking to that chick, Kassner? You know she hangs out with that kid, Cole.” Rodney Perez, a tackle for the football
team, walked up to them and stared at Reggie. “How does your sick little friend feel about lethal injection?”

The bell rang, and the wave of students eating outdoors moved toward the school’s entrance. Rodney gave Reggie one last glare,
then turned and followed the crowd.

“All alone, Halloway,” Keech said, grinning at Reggie, then he said under his breath, “better watch your back.”

He and Mitch ran to catch up with Rodney, leaving Reggie standing by the tree. She realized there was one thing she could
do until she heard from Quinn again: get rid of their most immediate threat. Keech.

Her mind flashed to Eben—he had, after all, worked some kind of miracle to get Aaron out of jail. Should she bring him in
on this? She dismissed the thought quickly. He would have only one recourse for dealing with Keech, and after her experience
in the theater, Reggie had chosen a different path. She didn’t need Eben.

She needed Aaron.

  
9
  

Reggie checked her phone in her locker at the end of the day and was relieved to see the text.

Been cooped up 2 long. Muddy’s @ 4? Bring ur books. Just b/c my brain’s toast, doesn’t mean I’m going 2 let u fail bio. A

Her mood lightened. If Aaron was joking he must be feeling better. Not that her impending bio flameout was very funny.

When she walked into Muddy’s Coffeehouse twenty minutes later, Aaron was in a back booth with a baseball hat on, textbooks
and notes spread out over the table. His skin was pale, but his focus seemed as intense as ever as his eyes flitted across
the page in front of him.

“Hey,” Reggie said, throwing her satchel in the bench across from his. “How were your ‘appointments’ today?”

Aaron looked up with a thin smile.

“Heady. It’s hard work trying to convince shrinks that you don’t need them.”

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Reggie asked as she slid into the vinyl-covered seat. “We could do this at my house.”

“I need to be
out
, Reggie. I can handle the stares and the talk, but I’m done holding up the walls in my bedroom.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

“Besides, this isn’t about me. We’re here to bump you into the prestigious tier of the three point
eight
GPA.”

Reggie instinctively reached for Aaron’s hand across the table. “How are you?”

“I’ll live. The cops made a formal statement to the press and took the heat off me as a suspect, so the media circus on my
front lawn has died down.”

“So this was just a scare tactic then? No charges?”

“There was never any hard evidence. Everything was circumstantial and Gale knew it. I think the Vours just wanted to rattle
our cages. Wish I knew why.”

Reggie let this pass for the time being. She had to tell Aaron about Quinn and Keech, but she wanted to do it in the right
way.

“Nightmares or visions or anything?”

Aaron opened his biology text.

“I mean, what do you think, Reg?” he said quietly. “Every time I close my eyes. Sometimes when my eyes are open. But I’ll
deal.”

Reggie smiled at him.

“Need a refill?”

“I haven’t yet figured out how to mainline the caffeine into my bloodstream, so, yes.”

Reggie went to the counter and ordered two large iced coffees. As she set Aaron’s cup down in front of him the bracelet on
her right wrist slipped aside, revealing her burn. Aaron grabbed her hand.

“What is this?”

“It’s…” Reggie swallowed. This had not been the right way she had envisioned.

Aaron squinted at Reggie, all good humor gone from his eyes.

“The last time you showed up with burns like this you’d gone off by yourself to Macie Canfield’s place where Quinn almost
killed you. What aren’t you telling me?” His grip on her hand tightened.

Reggie pulled away and covered the burn with the bracelet again, but Aaron continued to stare at her.

“Saturday,” she said in a low voice. “After I left your house. Keech Kassner attacked me. Aaron, he’s a Vour.”

“Christ, Reggie! You thought you’d wait ’til the second cup of coffee to fill me in on this?”

“I didn’t want to freak you out. Not after…”

“Tell me everything.”

Reggie launched into the story but left Quinn out for the moment. She wanted Aaron to get used to her plans for Keech before
she sprang the return of their archnemesis on him.

When she was finished, Aaron shook his head.

“No one could be such a lowlife and
not
be an actual demonic life-form. What about Mitch? Is he one, too?”

“Mitch was there, but I don’t think he’s a Vour. I think he was just following his brother’s orders. God, it must be awful
for him.”

“Or he gets off on it.”

Aaron chewed at his cheek. Reggie knew he was taking it all in, weighing the possibilities and consequences of what had happened.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“Well, the June twenty-first thing accounts for why all hell broke loose last Friday,” he said. “If those psychopaths have
something big planned for that date, it’s possible they would try to neutralize anyone who poses a threat to them. Get me
arrested, kill you, drive Henry crazy…”

“Just your typical Friday night fun.”

“I’ll read up on whatever I can find on the solstice. But Reggie, it’s less than two weeks away.”

“I know that.” Reggie took a deep breath. “And that’s why we can’t have anyone coming after us.”

“You mean Keech?”

“Yeah.”

Aaron nodded. “We need him gone. I know you don’t want to hear this, but this is Eben’s expertise. Together we’ll figure out
a way to take him out.”

Reggie felt a spasm in her chest.

“No, not Eben. I don’t want to
kill
Keech.”

Aaron frowned at Reggie as her intention dawned on him. “No. No way. You’re not going into that sociopath’s fearscape.”

Reggie took a sip of her coffee.

“I’ve thought about this, Aaron. I’ve gone over all the options. We need Keech out of our way, and there are two ways to do
it. I won’t kill him. And that’s why we can’t tell Eben. There is a boy in there somewhere who’s lived in unspeakable terror
for God knows how long. And I have an ability now that can
save
him.”