The Reckoning

“She split open the ground, Andrew! The very earth opened to free the dead. It-it-” She took a deep, ragged breath. “It was like something out of the old stories my grandfather used to tell. Terrible stories that gave me nightmares about necromancers so powerful they could raise entire cemeteries of the dead.”

I remembered what the demi-demon said. You called to your friend and the shades of a thousand dead answered, winging their way back to their rotted shells. A thousand corpses ready to become a thousand zombies. A vast army of the dead for you to control.

“She can raise the dead at fifteen,” Margaret continued. “Without training. Without ritual. Without intention.”

“Then she has to learn how to-”

“Do you know what Victoria told Gwen? She’s never learned a single spell, but she can cast them. If she sees it, she can do it. No training. No incantations. Naturally, we thought she was telling stories, but now-”

She sucked in air. “We can’t handle this. I know they’re just children, and what has happened to them is terrible and tragic. But the greater tragedy would be to tell them they can expect to lead normal lives.”

“Lower your voice,” Andrew said.

“Why? So you can keep assuring them everything will be all right? It won’t. Those children are going to need to be monitored for their entire lives. It’s only going to get worse.”

Tori tugged me away. “She knows what happened was her fault, so she’s covering her butt as fast as she can. We don’t need to listen to this.”

She was right. Margaret had screwed up and she’d been scared. She wasn’t the kind of person who could easily accept either, so she had to lay the blame elsewhere-make us out to be so bad that she couldn’t have been expected to control the situation.

And yet…

These were our allies. Our only allies. We knew that Margaret and Russell had already been second-guessing Andrew’s decision to take us in. Now I’d given them exactly the ammunition they needed.

Fourteen

TORI AND I WERE heading for the stairs when I heard the thud of heavy footfalls. I hoped it was Simon. Prayed it was. But I knew it wasn’t. I turned to see Derek bearing down on us, scowling.

“I’ll handle him,” Tori said.

“I’ve got it.” I raised my voice as he drew near. “We had a problem-”

“I heard.” He parked himself three feet in front of me, like he was trying not to loom, but it didn’t matter. Derek could loom from across a room.

“Then you also heard it wasn’t her fault,” Tori said.

He didn’t even glance at her, the full weight of that scowl pi

“Yes, I did.”

“You knew that was a problem?”

“Yes, I did.”

“She didn’t have a choice,” Tori said.

“She always has a choice. She can say no.”

“I tried,” I said.

“You can’t try to say no. Either you do or you don’t.” He lowered his voice, some of the fury evaporating, but the hard edge lingering. “It’s not enough to say the word, Chloe. You need to follow through and that’s the part you can’t seem to manage.”

“Whoa,” Tori said. “You’re out of line.”

“He has a point,” I murmured.

“What? You-” She struggled for a word. “Don’t put up with that, Chloe. I don’t care how big or how smart he is, he has no right to talk to you that way. You did your best.”

I’d allowed myself to be pushed into something I’d known was wrong.

“What do you think they’re talking about in there?” he said. “How to help us control our powers?”

“We know what they’re talking about, Derek. And I know what I did. Exactly what you warned us against last night. I gave everyone who doesn’t want to help us a reason not to.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. You’d think that I’d get some credit for realizing this before he told me. But he had a point to make; and all I’d done was throw up a temporary obstacle, one that barely checked his speed before he barreled right through it.

“The word is no, Chloe. No, I will not do that. No, I don’t think it’s safe. And if you push me, well, sorry, but I just can’t seem to summon right now.”

“I-”

“What if they asked me how strong I was? Do you think I’d walk in there and pick up the sofa for them?”

“That’s not what I was trying-”

“But it’s what you did. You gave them a full-out demonstration of just how powerful you are, and now they’re going to be wondering if the Edison Group had the right idea, locking us away-even killing us.”

“Oh, come on,” Tori said. “They wouldn’t-”

“Are you sure?”

I shook my head. “If you believed that, Derek, you wouldn’t still be here. You’d be upstairs with Simon, packing his bag for him.”

“Yeah? And where would I go? The Edison Group tracked us to Andrew’s cottage and we still have no idea how they managed it. And what did they do to us there? Ask us to come along nicely? Fire a few tranquilizer darts? No, they shot at us. Bullets. We’re stuck here, Chloe.”

“Whatever happened today, she didn’t do it on purpose,” Tori said.

His jaw worked, then he spun on Tori. “Why are you suddenly defending her? Trying to win her over for a reason?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t trust you, Tori.”

“Um, yeah, I got that message loud and clear long ago.”

Simon appeared in the doorway behind Tori and Derek. He waved to me and mouthed “run while you can.”

Not a bad idea. I snuck around them and zipped out the door to where Simon waited. Then I glanced back at Tori.

“Don’t worry about her,” he said. “Probably the most fun she’s had in days.” He led me into the next room. “Sadly, I can’t say the same for Derek, and as soon as he stops arguing long enough to notice you’re gone-”

“Hey!” Derek called. “Where are you two going?”

Simon took my elbow and steered me at a jog through the house as Derek’s footsteps pounded behind us. Simon kept going until we were outside.

He led me to a garden bench and we sat. I glanced toward the house.

“Relax. He won’t pull that crap in front of me.”

He eased back on the bench, arm going around my shoulders, gaze slanting my way, checking to make sure of his welcome. I moved closer and he smiled.

“Okay, so what happened with your lesson?” he said. “I know it wasn’t good, but I missed the details.”

I told him, and when I was done, he shook his head. “What was she thinking? Taking you to a cemetery for necromancy lessons?”

That was exactly what I wanted to hear, but I knew this was the easy way out. Blame someone else, like Margaret had done. Yes, she’d played her part, but so had I.

Derek was right. I should have refused. I had to take responsibility, even if it meant saying no to an authority figure, because I was the authority on me.

“Do you like ice cream?”

“What?”

Simon smiled. “That got your attention.”

“Sorry, I was just-”

“Worrying. Which is why I’m taking you out for ice cream. Derek and I went for a jog earlier and saw a service station about a half-mile that way.” He pointed. “There was a sign for ice cream in the window, so that’s where we’re going after di

“I don’t think they’re going to let me go anywhere now.”

“We’ll see. So…? Yes? It’s not exactly what I had in mind for a first date, but we’re kinda stuck here and I’m kinda tired of waiting.”

“D-date?”

He glanced over. “Is that okay?”

“Sure. Yes. Definitely.” My cheeks heated. “Okay, let’s try that again, with a little less enthusiasm.”

He gri

I was about to go on my first date. Not just my first date with Simon. My first date ever. I wasn’t telling him that of course. Sure, he’d be cool with it, probably joke about the pressure. Being fifteen before my first date wasn’t that weird, but it felt weird, like being fifteen before my first period, and I certainly hadn’t told anyone about that.