The Blue Woods (10 page)

She took my face into her hands. “I'm so sorry, Bree. I should've put a stop to all this a long time ago. I should've run away with you two before your dad could drag you into all this.”

“Yes, you should have.” She jerked back at the baldness of my truth. It was true. But it also didn't matter now. I sighed. “Mom, we've all made a lot of mistakes. And hopefully we'll all have a lot of time to make it up to each other. But right now, I can't be here to make you feel better about yourself.”

Mom studied my face. “I don't blame you for being mad, Bree. I know I haven't been around enough, but right now, whatever you need, I'm here to help.” With her thumbs, she stroked my brows, her eyes soft on mine. “I got a phone your dad doesn't know about. I'll text you the number. You can reach me on that.” Her jaw clenched. “As soon as all this is over, I'm getting us out of here. Just the three of us—you, me, and Jonah. I'm done being the punching bag in this family.”

And suddenly I realized, the pills and the whiskey on the nightstand . . . They were an act. She wanted my dad to think she was helpless and catatonic, completely unthreatening. She was like the lioness that crouches in the brush, ready to defend her cubs at the slightest hint of danger.

Well. Score one for Mom.

I glanced toward the door. “I have to go. Is Dad here?”

She nodded. “He's downstairs in the office with that awful assistant of his.”

I gave her a tight, quick hug and slid from the bed. “I'll call you later so you know I'm okay.”

“All right, baby.” When I reached the door, her voice stopped me again. “Bree?”

I turned.

“Whatever you're doing, I know it's the good fight. I'm proud of you.”

And just like that, the mom I'd had when I was nine years old was back again.

Alessia and I didn't speak as we snuck downstairs. I pseudo-signed that my dad was in the office and somehow she understood. We held our breath until we reached the back of the house where my dad's office was and saw that the door was closed. I turned to her.

“There's a window in his office,” I whispered. “He usually keeps it cracked because that room overheats. We might be able to hear better from outside than through the door.”

“Let's go.”

We went out through the kitchen and edged along the house until we got to the office window. Sure enough, it was open a few inches, and angry male voices spiraled out of it. Alessia and I dropped to the ground and crawled until we were directly beneath it. We sat with our backs up against the house, the cold snow that dappled the earth seeping in through our jeans.

“We have control of the Waterfall again. We can start building the plant any day now—”

“How dense are you, Wolfe?” Pratt said, cutting my dad off. “The federal government has ordered a halt on all projects until the investigation is over. That will be years. And we know it won't end well.”

“I don't understand. What happened to the magic? Why is this all coming out now?”

The sound of a hand thudding against wood made the wall shake. Pratt had obviously pounded the desk, and he kept hitting it on every other word while he spoke. I hoped his freaking hand broke. “They had a mage, Wolfe. And you want to know who it was?”

I cringed.

“Your fucking daughter.”

The silence that stretched across the room and through the crack in the window toward us was horror-movie thick. Alessia grappled for my gloved hand and squeezed it with her own.

“Are you—are you sure?” My father's voice was laden with some emotion I couldn't read. Not without seeing his face. I wanted to peer in through the window so bad, but Alessia kept me still.

“Oh, I'm sure. The
Concilio
took her into custody, but she managed to escape.” There was a creak, like Pratt had just leaned back in Dad's old leather desk chair. “Do you know where she is?”

Dad cleared his throat. “Ah, no. No I don't.”

Another creak. “Are you certain of that?”

“Just what are you accusing me of, Pratt?”

“Well, let's see, Wolfe. Your daughter is a member of the rival faction and performs a spell that dismantles all the magic the Guild was using, throwing us into complete chaos and effectively rendering us useless. Now, I know kids can be smart, but I have a hard time believing she got there on her own.”

Dad barked a short, sharp laugh. “You obviously don't know Bree.”

Despite myself, I smiled.

“I'm not joking around here, Wolfe.”

“Do you honestly think that I had anything to do with Bree joining the Benandanti?” Now it was Dad's hand pounding the desk. “After all the years of loyalty I've given the Guild? After I sacrificed my own son to the Malandanti?”

“You know, it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what the
Concilio
thinks, and I can guarantee they're not happy with you. That's not a good place to be right now, when they're looking for a scapegoat.”

“I am not going to take the fall for this!”

“Well, someone has to, and it's not going to be me.” The chair creaked again, and I heard Pratt's expensive shoes click across the floor. “But if you're lucky, it won't come to that.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have a failsafe in place, of course. Give the
Concilio
some credit. They are always prepared.”

Alessia tensed at the same instant I did. We both tilted our heads up, listening hard. A failsafe? What the hell did that mean?

“Just tell me what I have to do. You know I'll do it.” Dad's tone was soft and low, defeated. Despite everything, despite the absolute disgust I felt for him, my heart squeezed just a little. I knew he'd gotten himself into this mess, that he'd made his bed a long time ago and now he had to lie in it, but still. He was my dad.

“I haven't been given instructions yet, but when I get them, you'll know.” Pratt's footsteps crossed the room away from us, and I heard the door open. “I'm on patrol in fifteen minutes. Oh, and Wolfe?”

“Yes?”

“If you see your daughter, if she comes back here, you know what you have to do.”

A bone-deep chill swept through me. My father didn't answer, but he must have acquiesced, because I heard the door close behind Pratt as he left. I tugged away from Alessia and raised myself up so that I could just peek into the window. Dad sat slumped at the desk, his head in his hands, his fingers pulling hard at his hair.

Alessia hauled me to my feet and together we stumbled through the woods at the back of my house, cutting through backyards on our way to Jenny's. I felt like I'd just survived a house of horrors, that I'd escaped the chainsaw-wielding serial killer and come out on the other side, bruised and battered but alive. I became slowly aware that Alessia was talking, talking, talking next to me. I stopped, squeezed my eyes shut, and shook my head a little to clear out my thoughts. When I opened my eyes, I faced her. “What did you say?”

“I said, we need to know what that failsafe is.”

“Well, I think I can rule out going back there to eavesdrop again. You heard what they said. I don't think I can even go to school safely.”

“No, you definitely can't,” Alessia agreed.

Above us, the bare branches rattled in the wind. I watched the clouds shift between light and dark, dark and light. My phone buzzed in my pocket. When I pulled it out, I had one new message from a number I didn't recognize. It just read
Mama Wolf
.

It was what I used to call her when I was little. I punched in a reply.

I need you to call the school and excuse me for a while. Not safe for me to go there.

OK.

I held the phone tight. I might not be able to step foot out of the Sands house without risking my neck, but at least I still had a lifeline to home.

The Date with the Panther

Alessia

When we got back to Jenny's house, Cal was sitting on the living room couch, flanked by Heath and Nerina like an Egyptian Pharaoh perched on a dais with his loyal subjects surrounding him. “Who's that tasty dish?” Bree asked as we took off our coats and hung them by the door.

“That's Cal.” I watched Bree give him the once-over. She made an appreciative noise, and I bit back a grin. I could see it now: the golden boy and the bad girl. They were a perfect match.
Take that, Nerina.
“Come on, I need some coffee.”

Bree followed me into the kitchen and dropped into a chair at the table. The rings around her eyes seemed to have darkened since we left her house. I reached for the full and thankfully fresh pot of coffee on the counter and offered it up to her. “You want?” She nodded. I poured her a cup and set it on the table in front of her. “You should get some rest this afternoon.”

She snorted. “I don't think I'll ever sleep again.”

“Yeah.” I sat next to her, wrapping my hands around my mug. Heat seeped slowly back into my fingers. “I know what you mean.”

We drank our coffee in silence for a while, listening to the bits and pieces of the conversation that drifted back to us from the living room. Nerina and Heath were schooling Cal on the finer points of what it meant to be a Benandante. He was probably taking notes. With a glitter pen in his sparkly Benandanti notebook. And doodling
I <3 the Benandanti
in the margins. I rubbed my temples. I didn't know how I was going to focus on his training when I had so many other things crowding into my mind. Like where was Jonah?

“I'm sure he's still alive,” Bree said, somehow reading my thoughts. “If he was dead, my dad would've been told. Pratt would've been out finding his replacement.”

“I'm on patrol at the Waterfall tonight,” I said, suddenly remembering. “Maybe he will be too.”

“Let's hope,” Bree said. She stared down into her coffee. “They must be keeping him at the Guild, and we sure as hell aren't getting back in there anytime soon.” Her phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her pocket. “My mom says she'll snoop in Dad's office as soon as he leaves the house.”

“So our trip wasn't a complete waste.” I pressed my lips together. “Was she, you know, okay when you saw her?”

“Surprisingly, yes. But she's been a mess for a long time and I don't want to push it.” Bree ran her finger around the rim of her mug. “It's so weird—it's like the minute my dad starts to shrink, she starts to grow.”

“Your dad kept her down for a long time,” I said, remembering all the things Jonah had told me about how his mom used to be the breadwinner of the Wolfe house, and then his dad made her quit her job and stay at home after he was hired by the Guild. “Maybe she's finally getting her chance to step up again.”

Bree looked out the kitchen window. A gust of wind rattled the pane. “Maybe. I hope so. But I don't want to get ahead of myself.”

“I won't say anything,” I promised.

“Thanks.” She looked back at me. “You know, we make a good team, Jacobs. Who would've thought?”

I grinned at her.

Nerina appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, her phone pressed to her ear. “How many did you say there were?” She was speaking in Italian, so I assumed it was a
Concilio
member on the other end of the line. “But that's impossible.”

A voice crackled through the phone, not quite loud enough for me to hear. “Yes, perhaps they did transfer them from another site,” Nerina continued. “That would be the best explanation. I don't even want to think what the worst might be.”

Bree nudged me. “Translation, please?”

I translated Nerina's side of the conversation for Bree while Nerina said good-bye and hung up. “What was all that about?”

Nerina tapped the phone against her mouth. “That was our
Concilio
member who is stationed at the Angel Falls site. Last night they attempted to retake the site and were met by a horde of Malandanti.”

“Did we retake it?” I asked at the same time that Bree said, “What do you mean,
a horde
?”

“No, they failed. There were over two dozen Malandanti. They were lucky to get out alive,” Nerina said.

“But that's impossible,” I said, echoing what Nerina had said moments earlier.

“Yes, I know.” Nerina gazed out the window for a long moment, her eyes fixed on the gray sky. “But there are possibilities, things we don't even want to imagine.”

“You said not to underestimate the Malandanti,” I said, “so we have to imagine them.”

“
Sí,
you are right.” Nerina snapped her attention back to me. “By the way, I want you to take Cal out on patrol with you tonight.”

“What? Why? I wasn't allowed on patrol for, like, weeks after I was Called,” I said, following her back into the living room where Heath and Cal sat on the couch. If Jonah was there tonight, having Cal around was going to be a major hindrance.