Salem's Revenge Complete Boxed Set (22 page)

“I never said she was,” Laney retorts with a scowl. “Just that her powers come from somewhere—some
thing
—evil. She gets to choose whether to use them for good or evil.”

My whole body feels numb, like I’ve eaten some weird anesthetic plant. I’ve never met a witch I didn’t have a strong desire to kill. Trish’s…I almost spit the word out in my mind…
kind
killed my family and probably my best friend and the love of my life. I hate them. All of them. Don’t I?

But as I watch the cherubic, if somewhat strange, child sleeping next to my dog, I can’t find even an ounce of hatred toward her. Although most of the time she doesn’t seem at all like a child, when she was flipping through the photo album I could almost sense that she
wanted
to be a child again, but that the world wouldn’t let her. And she saved her sister’s life from her parents, and then all of our lives from the missile. All she did was scream and…

“No,” I say. “It can’t be both ways. They can’t be evil but able to do good, too.”

Laney’s eyes seem to catch on fire, but she’s just angled her head, catching the reflection of Hex’s faux-fiery body. “Trish. Isn’t. Evil,” she says.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” I say quickly. “I’m saying that she’s not evil
and
her powers don’t come from evil. Wherever they come from, she can use them for good or evil. But how does she harness it?”

“What are you saying?” Laney’s voice is a low growl.

What
am
I saying? “Just that having Trish with us is a risk.” I hate that I sound like Mr. Jackson, making statements of cruel and indifferent logic. I hate it, but that doesn’t stop me from saying it.

“So…what—you want to drop her off in a ditch somewhere? Leave her to the mercy of the other witch gangs?” Her tone’s gone from fiercely defensive to sarcastic and incredulous in an instant.

“No. I’m just wondering how she controls it.”

“Controls what?” Laney asks, tucking a leg under her butt.

“Her powers. We all heard her scream. I mean, it was crazy-loud, right? Why didn’t it kill us when it blew up the missile? And why didn’t it kill you when she saved you from your parents?” The questions are coming faster and faster, piling up haphazardly, like spare parts in a junkyard.

Laney shakes her head. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

Her question takes me by surprise. I’m used to questioning things and finding out answers. But she’s right. What difference does it make except that Trish is somehow able to control who or what she destroys with her power-scream? Could she ever hurt us by accident? Maybe, but so far the tiny nine-year-old seems to have complete control of her abilities. The bigger question is…

“What gang does she belong to?” I ask.

Laney’s eyes darken. “No gang,” she says.

That’s not the way my world works. Every witch has a gang, a group with a similar skillset, whether they hang out with their kind or not. “Sure she does. Witches gravitate toward those they can relate to.” Mr. Jackson’s words, not mine, but I believe them.

Laney scoffs. “That’s like saying just because someone has a hook for a hand that they’re a pirate. My sister doesn’t have a gang. We’re her gang.”

She’s missing the point. “I just mean that it would help to understand her powers. Mr. Jackson taught me a lot about the various gangs, and if I could identify
what
she is…”

“She’s not some subject to be investigated,” Laney says hotly. “And maybe she doesn’t fit into one of
Mr. Jackson’s
”—she exaggerates the name with her flippant tone and a roll of her eyes—“neat little categories.”

“Sorry, I—”

“No, you’re not thinking, are you? You’re assuming, and we all know what assuming does.”

Yeah, makes an ass out of you and me.
“Sorry. Just sorry,” I say. “Thanks for telling me the truth. And I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”

“Yeah,” she says, which I think is the closest thing I’m going to get to her accepting my apology, as she turns away and joins her sister on the floor. Almost as an afterthought, she flips back over and says, “There are always shades of gray.”

I step over them and take up a sleeping position on the opposite side of my dog, pushing in close to share his body heat. Though I can hear Hex’s heavy breathing as he sleeps, his firelight dims, becoming nothing more than glowing embers in the dark.

I don’t know what to do. I never expected to have a witch travelling with me, never in a million years. But this is different, right? She’s just a kid, powerful yeah, but on my side, helping me. She
saved
us.

Despite the many questions still running amok in my mind, weariness takes me and the world fades into nothing.

I
t’s like our conversation last night never happened, which I think is what both of us want.

Laney is back to her normal, steel-like, feisty self—“Get your ass in gear, Carter, daylight’s burning!”—and I’m, well, back to focusing on my mission of revenge. So what if I’m travelling with a witch and her sister, right? Said witch is a child and she saved my life, so maybe she’s not like the other witches I’ve met, even if her powers come from the depths of hell, like Laney suggested last night. But every time I look around, I see Trish watching me, even more so than usual.
Creepy kid
, I think.

I take a deep swallow of water and try to ignore her stare.

“Carter! You need someone to hold your hand or what? You move slower than my grandma, and she’s been dead for ten years.” My head snaps around to find Laney, hands on hips, staring me down.

I fake a smile. “We should check Huckle’s box o’ fun first,” I say. “Divvy up whatever’s inside. Could be useful.”

Laney’s eyes light up. “I got first dibs,” she says, elbowing me aside as I throw open the box.

“Sure,” I say.

She rummages through the container, says “Sick!” and pulls out the Glock, the one with magged-up bullets that Huckle showed us before the missile strike. Shoving it in her waistband, she removes a box of ammunition, which she sticks in her pack.

“Your pick next,” she says, smiling wide with satisfaction.

I lean over the box, which rests on the edge of the truck bed. There are a number of knives and short blades, each of which are surely tipped with cursed or otherwise magged-up steel. I take one, the longest and sharpest, and shove it into a leather holster next to my throwing stars. Reach in again…

“Not so fast,” Laney says, pushing in. “Me again.”

“Since you asked so nicely,” I say, waving her forward.

“Grenades!” Laney says, holding up a brown, egg-shaped device.

“Not just any grenades,” I say, peeling a Post-it note off the back. I read Huckle’s shaky child-like handwriting: “Not for use in small spaces. Beware of early detonation.”

“Sounds right up my alley,” Laney says, gingerly placing one in her pack. She reaches for another.

“Not so fast,” I say, mimicking her voice and words. “Me again.”

“Ha ha, Carter,” she says, but steps aside and waves me forward.

I snatch the last two grenades, one in each hand, wondering what type of magic is inside of them.

“Cheater,” she says, but she’s smiling.
Probably because she was going to do the same thing
, I think.

We continue on like that for ten minutes, taking turns in a somewhat pushing and shoving and cheating kind of way, until every last throwing knife, explosive, and club is accounted for. It’s like Christmas for witch hunters. There’s even a cool black collar for Hex with another Post-it. “Even an awesome dog like yours might need some extra protection,” I read, before fitting the collar to Hex’s neck. Hex swipes a tongue at me appreciatively.

When we finally leave, the miles pour over us like waves, pounding on our muscles and our hearts. The morning is uneventful, save for when we break for a quick lunch and Trish starts drawing again, this time in the dirt on the highway shoulder. But all she writes is
Yes
about a dozen times.

Laney shrugs and winks as if to say,
Told you so.

Morning rolls into afternoon with our footsteps and heartbeats keeping time. The afternoon starts personal. “Tell me about Beth,” Laney says.

I frown, my chest automatically constricting at hearing her name. “Why?”

“You’re on a mission that’s taken you across hundreds of miles and pitted you against some of the nastiest witches in the world. And it’s all to get revenge because they
probably
killed this girl of yours? She must be something special.” Laney’s got a bounce in her step, like she’s enjoying being the one asking the questions, turning last night’s tables, so to speak.

“I’m doing it for my best friend, too,” I correct.

“Okay, so tell me about both of them,” she says.

I write about my friends, I don’t talk about them. Talking is…hard. Words don’t always come out the right way, and words about the two most important people in my life have to be perfect, the way I form them in my journal. My throat constricts just thinking about my friends being under Laney’s shrewd scrutiny.

“No,” I say.

“Come on,” Laney urges. “I spilled last night. Now it’s your turn. Think of it as therapy. Everyone needs to get things off their chest sometimes. And I’m bored of walking in silence.”

My heart says
NoNoNoNoNo
, but my mouth says, “Fine. Whatever.”

“Xavier first,” Laney says, her lips curling in victory.

“He’s flamboyant, a romantic. Loud on the outside, but insecure on the inside—in a way that’s endearing.” So far so good, I think. Maybe if I just pretend like I’m writing about them, the words will come out right.

“He sounds gay,” Laney says. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she adds quickly.

“He is gay,” I say, laughing.

“That’s cool,” she says. “I have—had—a few gay friends. Nicest people I ever met. Good dressers, too. What else?”

I bite my lip because thinking about Xave is starting to hurt a little. “He always made me laugh. Always. Not always on purpose, but still. Some of my worst days were fixed by Xave.”
And he was my hero so many times I can’t count them
. It’s what I should say, but I’m afraid I’ll completely break down if I go there.

“I think I’ll like him,” she says, and I can’t help but appreciate the way she says it, like it’s a foregone conclusion that she’ll meet him someday.

“Only idiots don’t like him,” I say, a challenge.

She doesn’t take the bait. “Okay. Is that it? A gay romantic with a good sense of humor?”

“He’s like a brother to me. We were both in the system, foster kids. We had the same foster parents once. We understand each other. He’s the best of this world.” The throat-tightening thing is happening and I have to stop, have to look away from Laney’s piercing blue eyes.

“Thanks for telling me about him,” she says. “What about your girlfriend? Was she an orphan, too?”

I’m glad for her question because it makes me laugh and opens up my airways. “What—you think foster kids only make friends with each other?”

She shrugs. “I’ve never met any. Well, before you.”

“No, Beth had biological parents. Her mom was a good woman. A real
mom
mom, you know? She’d make lemonade in the summer and hot chocolate in the winter. Her father was a lawyer who only liked me up until the point when he realized I wasn’t gay and that I was interested in his daughter. Then he became my mortal enemy, although Beth told me it was all an act.” The words are spilling from my mouth like rainwater from a drainpipe, completely unblocked, unprotected. It feels good, like layers of dead skin are being peeled off my soul. Maybe I do need therapy.

“Beth’s dad thought you were gay?” Laney says, snickering. “Not that I’m surprised…”

I ignore the jab. “He thought Xave and I were…together,” I say, smiling at the memory. “Then he caught me kissing Beth on the porch one night when I was dropping her off. I’d pay to have a picture of his expression.”

“Except money is just paper now,” Laney says. “So Beth was cool, too, like Xavier?”

“Cooler than Xavier. Cooler than me.”

“Cooler than you?” Laney feigns shock. “How could anyone be cooler than you?”

“I know, hard to imagine, right? She’s cool in a geeky kind of way and geeky in a cool kind of way. She’s smarter than me, is the most honest person I know, and loves all kinds of animals, not just the furry and cuddly ones, although she likes them, too. She stands up for what she believes in, no matter how hard it is. I learned a lot from her.”

“I hope I get to meet her,” Laney says.

My heart sinks just a little. “I hope so, too,” I say, because sometimes the allure of denial is too powerful to ignore. I’m unable to keep the image of her bloody message from my mind.

The scuff of our sneakers on the asphalt fills in the sudden silence. And then Hex, who’s been consistently walking ahead of us, barks and rushes forward, diving off the highway and toward a hill in the distance where—

—is it a mirage, a trick of the sunlight reflecting off the road?—

—in this gray, broken world, where beauty is a lost thing of the past—

An endless field of bright yellow sunflowers marches to the horizon.