Jack Landers did terrible things to her that no one deserved. Things she couldn’t remember, but could still feel.
Until that day, I’d had no idea. We weren’t exactly friends now, but we weren’t enemies, either. I didn’t call her The Shining anymore, but things were at least twelve shades of awkward between us.
I pulled at the roots of my hair, glad I’d started growing it out so I had some to grab in frustration. I tried again. “I know you don’t like me—”
“And I’m your favorite person?”
I stood my ground.
“Fine,” she said. “Why are you here? Have you added sadomasochism to your list of extracurriculars?”
“No. It’s about Jack—”
She raised a long, skinny arm and pointed at the door. “Get out.”
“Stop cutting me off,” I yelled, instantly sorry when she flinched. I tried again in a lower voice. “You have to hear this. We called a truce, remember? All I’m asking for is a few minutes.”
Her face remained blank. “I’ll give you three.”
“He’s back.”
She stared at me, her face going paler with every passing second. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him? With your own eyes?”
I nodded.
She seemed to lose the strength to stand, and slid down the arm of the couch onto the cushion with a soft thump. “Where?”
“Last night. He showed up at the masquerade party, but he was gone before I could get to him. Popped in and out. Not before he tried to take a shot at me. With a gun.”
Across the room, a mug on a sideboard rattled and then jumped before slamming into the wall. Black coffee dripped down the patterned wallpaper.
I stared openmouthed. I’d never seen any evidence of Ava’s ability in person.
“What do you mean ‘popped in and out’?” she asked, ignoring the splattered coffee. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I tried.” I explained Chronos and the ultimatum, but left out the part about Em and the throat slashing. “We have until Halloween to find Jack. Or we’re at the mercy of Chronos.”
When she shivered, I handed her a sweater from the back of the couch. She pushed her arms into the sleeves and wrapped herself in it.
“Hey,” I said in what I hoped was a comforting voice, “it’s going to be okay. He won’t get to you again. We won’t let him.”
“How? Is someone going to be with me twenty-four/seven?” The remote rattled on the glass end table but stayed put. Ava closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. “Not just me, what about Emerson? What about about your mom? He worked here, for years. He knows this place inside and out.”
Dread.
“You’re alone out here,” I said in sudden realization.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
One of Ava’s roommates had graduated; the other two didn’t return to the Hourglass school for the year. Probably because of the whole “the school’s founder blew up in his lab and then came back from the dead and, by the way, your classmate killed him” thing. I made a snap decision. “I think you should move into our guest room.”
“What?” Ava snorted in disbelief. Shock. A little bit of hope. “Are you drunk?”
“Not right now.” I stared at the coffee stain on the wall. “What Jack did to you is wrong. The things he did to all of us are wrong. We’re going to have to get past it all if we’re going to find him, and you’re going to have to trust me.”
“Trust you?” She shook her head. “Me, trust you?”
“Please stop fighting with me all the time.”
Abruptly, she stood and disappeared into the tiny kitchen, staying away long enough that I wondered if I should go after her. Then she returned with a handful of paper towels and dropped to her knees to wipe furiously at the coffee-stained wall.
“Kaleb, I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t want to fight with anyone. But you just asked me to trust you. What about you trusting me? How can any of you stand to look at me?” An ocean of desolation and loneliness waved across the room. “After everything that happened, how could you ask me to move into your house? I killed your father.”
“The past is the past.” A world of hurt revolved inside her, so twisted I wasn’t sure how to respond. I stood, reached her in three steps, and kneeled down beside her. She stilled but didn’t meet my eyes. “What happened wasn’t your fault. It was Jack and Cat’s. They used you, forced you.”
“That’s not true. How could I have done those things—pursued Michael that way, been jealous of Emerson to the point of hating her, tried to kill your dad—and succeeded—unless I wanted to?” There were tears in her eyes, and her skin was blotchy. “I had to want to, right?”
“I don’t think we understand everything about Jack. We didn’t even know about his ability to steal people’s memories. Think about it. No one ever asked why he was here. Or maybe we did, and he took the memory away from us.”
Ava picked up the now empty coffee cup and placed the remaining paper towels on the sideboard. “Taking too many memories without replacing them leaves a void.”
A void like the one inside her. It was terrifying, the nasty, black, hate-filled pockets of self-loathing, the empty spaces where fear and doubt took up residence. Nothing changed her emotional landscape. Joy never managed to creep into the mix, overtake the darkness, offer hope.
If my mom ever woke up, I wondered if she’d feel the same way.
“Well, then, let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again.” I took the coffee cup out of her hand and nodded toward her room. “Just start packing.”
I’d carried the last bag to Ava’s new room in my house when my cell rang.
“It’s Em,” she said when I picked up. She hadn’t waited for a hello, and she didn’t take a breath before continuing. “After the meeting today, Michael and I had an argument—I mean, a discussion—and now we need you to come downtown.”
“I don’t do couples counseling.”
She made a raspberry sound into the phone. “Just come meet us. Have you ever heard of Murphy’s Law Coffee?”
Chapter 7
I stepped into the coffee shop, and a bell rang over my head.
I’d walked past Murphy’s Law a million times, but I’d never been inside. I wasn’t one for sitting, and sipping a hot beverage while chatting someone up wasn’t on my list of favorite things to do. Even so, I inhaled deeply, appreciating the mingling smells of baked goods and freshly ground coffee.
Stunning framed nature photographs hung on every patch of the sunny yellow walls. Shelves were packed tight with new and used books, and a children’s section boasted low tables full of puzzles and toys.
I found Em and Michael in the front corner of the room at a table surrounded by a grouping of overstuffed orange chairs. They reminded me of the giant toadstools from Alice in Wonderland.
“What’s so mysterious you couldn’t share it over the phone?” I asked Emerson when I reached them. I dropped into one of the chairs and tried to relax against the fat cushions.