Fractured (Guards of the Shadowlands, Book Two) Read online

  “Why would he do something like that? He wasn’t depressed. He was, like, the opposite. He had a great life, and he knew it.”

  I glanced at her. “Maybe … do you think he was high or something?”

  “It was baseball season, Lela. Hello, drug testing? He would have lost his scholarship.”

  Damn. “Well, I know that some mental illnesses can kind of come out of nowhere.”

  She sagged back in her seat. “He was acting really weird on Saturday. And he smelled so bad. I actually did wonder if he’d been smoking something.”

  My stomach turned when I considered how close the Mazikin had gotten to her. And how they could try again at anytime. “Maybe he was self-medicating.” I’d become familiar with the term a few years after I entered the child welfare system, when I was about six years old. Long before I was ready to understand it, I heard some social worker talking about my mom to one of my foster parents, explaining why she hadn’t shown up for a scheduled visit with me. I’d stood barefoot in the dark hallway in my pajamas, listening as the lady said that my mom was mentally ill. That she’d drugged herself into oblivion, trying to silence the voices in her head. I’d spent a long time wondering where oblivion was and if I could find my mom there.

  Tegan sniffled. “Like Nadia was, right?”

  I’d never even thought of it that way. “Yeah.” I pulled to a stop in front of Tegan’s gated drive. She told me the code, and I punched it in; then we drove up her long driveway and parked.

  Tegan folded her arms over her chest, shivering like she was cold even in the warm air of the car. “Do you ever wonder where she is now? Do you believe in any of that afterlife crap?”

  I let my forehead rest on the steering wheel, not wanting her to see the look on my face: bitterness and awe and rage and wistfulness all rolled up in one. Too painful to share. “I do believe Nadia is in a better place.” I gave myself a moment to smooth my expression and turned to her. “I know that for sure, in fact.”

  Tegan rolled her eyes and wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’m so tired of people saying that.”

  I tucked some stray curls behind my ear. “I was too. But I know this, Tegan. No bullshit, right?”

  She stared at me, her shell-pink lips trembling. “No bullshit. I hope you’re right.”

  “It doesn’t mean I don’t miss her. I will always miss her. And I will always regret that I didn’t do more for her when she was alive.”

  Tegan’s face crumpled. “Me too,” she choked out as she began to sob. “And now Aden. Oh, God, is it me?” Her whole body shook, twisted up with guilt and sorrow I understood so well.

  I knew I was supposed to hug her, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  Then I thought about all those times I’d shrugged off Nadia’s casual, caring touches. I thought about how I craved Malachi’s touch, how comforting I found it and how much I missed it now that I couldn’t have it. Was this really so different?

  I reached out and touched her shoulder. Tegan put her hand over mine and took a snuffling, shuddery breath. When she let it out, it was as a wet, hoarse sort of … laugh. “Thanks for trying, Lela. I really appreciate it.”

  She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and got out of the car. I followed her. “Hey,” I called as she trudged toward her house. “Are your parents home?”

  She nodded. “My mom’s here.”

  I fingered my keys. “All right. I’m going to call you later. Just to see how you are.”

  “Since when do you care, Lela? Are we friends now?”

  My fist closed over my keys, the teeth biting my palm. She wasn’t Nadia. She could never be Nadia. But I didn’t want anything to happen to her, and it wasn’t just because Nadia had cared about her. Somewhere along the line, I started to care about her, too. A little. “I was wondering the same thing.”

  She gave a raspy laugh.

  “Hey, Tegan. Aden obviously got into something bad. If anyone shows up here acting the same way, don’t let them in, and don’t go with them, okay?”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  I handed over her phone. “Later, then.”

  On the drive home, finally alone, my mind whirled through the events of the last few hours. Aden was gone. Dead. Where was his soul now? Was he trapped in the Mazikin realm, which was supposedly so terrible that the dark city looked like a paradise by comparison? Or maybe his soul had been liberated the moment Ibram had crashed his body into the slab of cement. That’s what Malachi believed. That was why he was so determined to kill the Mazikin and the bodies they inhabited. Sure, it gave the Mazikin a chance to come back, but if it freed the souls of their victims, he believed it was worth it.

  Which meant that if Levi or Greg or Ian or any of the others had been possessed, Malachi would want to eliminate them immediately. We would end up murdering our classmates, one by one. Well, not really, but as I thought of Ian’s surprisingly sweet, dimpled smile, I knew it would feel that way.

  As I pulled into Diane’s subdivision, I was already making plans to check in with the other Guards and scan the news to see if there had been any additional attacks. But all my plans scattered when I saw the car parked in Diane’s driveway. It belonged to Nancy, my probation officer. And parked right next to it was a police cruiser.

  THIRTEEN

  I PULLED MY CAR to the curb, trying to slow the galloping pace of my heart enough to hit a few buttons on my phone.

  Malachi answered immediately. “Where are you?” His voice was knife-edged, sharp and deadly.

  I inhaled a shaky breath. “At Diane’s. You?”

  “The house. Jim and Henry are here. I have information.”

  Needing to postpone the moment I had to tell him how much trouble I was in, I asked him for a report.

  “Ian admitted he saw you and Jim on Friday. He said he tried to get the others to go back to the car afterward, but he was overruled. They were in that neighborhood near the homeless shelter and saw someone running on all fours. So they chased it. Aden was fastest.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to think about what had happened to him. How scared he must have been as they tied him to their altar. How badly it must have hurt. I’d seen the Mazikin possess a guy once. It had twisted him up like a pretzel and made him scream for endless, wrenching minutes as the Mazikin spirit—Juri, as it turned out—tore the guy’s soul loose from his body and sent it to hell.

  “They looked for Aden on foot and tried calling him,” Malachi continued. “He didn’t answer at first, but just as they were going to drive back to Warwick without him, he called Ian and asked to be picked up. One guess where.”

  “That nest.”

  “Ian thought it was a drug house. He said there were a few suspicious characters hanging out on the porch, and Aden was with them. Aden wanted the boys to join him in the house, but they refused. Ian was very angry, because all of them must submit to drug testing, and Aden was acting very out of character. Probably because he was inhabited by Ibram at that point.”

  Poor Aden. And Ian. “Did the Mazikin try to force them?”

  Malachi sighed. “No. Aden went back into the house, probably got his marching orders from Sil, and then came back out and went home with his teammates. They dropped him off at his house. Ian said he was sure Aden had been smoking something.”

  “Because of the smell.”

  “Yes. But I can confirm that none of the other boys who went with him that night are Mazikin. I believe their determination to avoid getting kicked off the baseball team saved them.”

  “Thank God they take it so seriously.”

  “I acquired the phone numbers of most of the baseball team.” He cleared his throat. “Cheerleaders as well. They were all gathered in the cafeteria.”

  “Good, good …” My voice trailed off as Diane poked her head out the front door and looked up the street, right at my car. “Malachi … I have to go.”

  “What’s wrong?” He must have heard the hitch in my voice.

  “T
he police are at my house. My probation officer, too.”

  “Why?” From the whoosh of air into the phone, I knew he’d probably just shot to his feet.

  My throat was so tight I could barely talk. “I dropped my phone at the nest on Saturday. My knife too.”

  He cursed. “Drive away. Come here. We’ll figure something out. We’ll ask Raphael to—”

  But Diane was already walking up the sidewalk, and the police detective, stocky and blond, his badge clipped to his belt, was on her front step. “Too late. I have to deal with this. I’ll call you when I can, if I can. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize—just tell me what you need!” he shouted, so loudly I had to pull the phone away from my ear.

  I talked fast. “You’re in charge. If you don’t hear from me, patrol tonight without me. Look up the city’s emergency winter shelters and sniff around there, since they seem to be targeting the homeless. Patrol the parks. The homeless camps—especially the ones mentioned in that news article Henry showed us. And check on Tegan and the rest of them, all right? Monitor statuses on Facebook.” I gripped the phone so hard it creaked.

  “I could come, now. To you,” he said. “I could—”

  “Those are my orders,” I said sharply, unshed tears stinging my eyes as I watched the police detective descend the steps and come my way. I hung up on my Lieutenant and stashed the phone in my pocket.

  Diane pulled my car door open. Her silver hair, usually in a tight bun, was haloed around her head, and her deep brown skin was creased with worry. “I saw what happened at your school this morning. And the school called. Where have you been?”

  I got out of my car. The detective had stopped by his cruiser and was watching us. “Sorry. I was taking Tegan home. We saw the whole thing. What’s with the cop?”

  “We’ve been waiting for you, baby. The detective said he wants to ask you a few questions.”

  “About this morning?”

  Her expression tightened, making all the wrinkles deeper. “They didn’t tell me why. I’m sure they’re just trying to check in with all the witnesses. Come inside, so we can sort this out.”

  It was like my brain had been tossed in a blender as I followed Diane up to the house, passing the car I knew belonged to Nancy, my probation officer. I might be back at the RITS by this evening. Completely cut off. Caged. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. I wanted Malachi to come bursting through Diane’s front door and carry me away. But instead, I sat down in a wooden chair at the kitchen table and folded my hands in my lap, trying to look sad and confused and not at all scared.

  “Lela,” said Nancy, who had faithfully stalked me since my release from the RITS, just over a year ago, “Detective DiNapoli needs to ask you a few questions.” She twisted the rings on her thick fingers.

  “Sure,” I said softly, trying to make enough—but not too much—eye contact. Open but not defiant. “What do you need, Detective? Is this about what happened at the school today?”

  “No, Ms. Santos.” DiNapoli walked over to a briefcase he had set next to the table, pulled something from it, and set it in front of me. It was a plastic bag containing my dusty, chipped, sadly unmelted phone. “We found this on Saturday afternoon.”

  Everything in my world narrowed to a point, focused on that phone. Raphael had my old number connected to my new phone, but it obviously hadn’t happened fast enough. I forced my expression into a surprised smile. “You found my phone! Did you get the guy who took it?”

  Diane, still standing by the door, looked back and forth between me and the cop. “Took it? What are you talking about, baby? I just saw you talking on the phone in your car.”

  I pulled my new phone out of my pocket. “Yeah. Mine got stolen on Saturday, so I got a new one yesterday.” I prayed Raphael might be able to pull a receipt out of that magical pocket of his, should the need arise.

  Diane’s eyebrows shot up. “At what point were you gonna tell me about that?”

  I shrugged, hoping none of them could hear my heart pounding against my ribs. “I didn’t want you to get mad. Or worried. It happened when I went to do that soup kitchen thing.” I looked up at the detective and then over at Nancy, who was leaning on Diane’s recliner, scratching a spot on her hip. “I was taking out the garbage midshift, and I was right out by the Dumpster. A guy jumped me. He took my phone.”

  “You were mugged?” Nancy asked. She looked shocked. Probably because she’d always thought of me as a perp rather than a victim.

  “Yeah, Nancy. It wasn’t fun.” I looked up at Diane, willing her to believe my lie. “I knew you would freak. I got Tegan to take me to get a new phone.”

  “Why didn’t you report the crime?” Detective DiNapoli asked.

  I let my eyes dart up to his, which were red-lined and wet-looking. “I didn’t want trouble. I just wanted to get out of there. I didn’t even finish my shift at the soup kitchen. A friend drove me back to her house, and I took some Tylenol.”

  DiNapoli leaned forward. “You were injured?”

  Crap. Yeah, I had been, but I’d also been healed. “Nothing serious. I got knocked against the Dumpster. He took off as soon as he had my phone.”

  “Could you identify your attacker?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s been a few days.” I thought back, trying to remember the guy in the padded flannel shirt, the one I’d followed to the nest. “He had, uh, really long fingernails? And his face was dirty.”

  DiNapoli’s lips formed a tight line. He reached down and pulled a picture from his briefcase. “This the guy?”

  It was a mug shot, but not of the flannel-wearing Mazikin. It was Nick. “No,” I whispered, feeling like my chest had been torn open. “That’s not him. The guy who attacked me was older.”

  The detective watched me carefully. As I fought to get myself under control, he pulled out another photo. “How about this one?”

  It was the Mazikin. The one Malachi had stabbed. Dark, greasy hair around a stubbly face. “That might be him,” I murmured.

  “We found these guys in the basement of that burned-out house on Garden Street, and this one”—he pointed at Nick’s face—“was lying on top of your phone, Ms. Santos. We identified him using fingerprints and dental records this morning. The house is only about ten blocks from the shelter you were at.”

  Diane let out a disgusted noise. “Shouldn’t have let you go,” she said, making that mm-mm-mm of disapproval.

  “They died in the fire?” I asked, trying to sound sincerely confused.

  DiNapoli stared at me. “No, ma’am, they did not.”

  CRAP. “Oh,” I said in a small voice. “That’s what they said on the news.”

  His eyes narrowed. “No, the news reported that the bodies were found in the building. We did not release cause of death.” His fingers spun the picture of the Mazikin on the table as his gaze slid down the hall. “Do you own any weapons, Ms. Santos?” All I saw was red as I thought of the black leather belt under my bed, to which was clipped an empty sheath. I swallowed hard, wondering if the next thing the officer was going to whip out was my knife.

  Diane was next to me before I could open my mouth to answer him, moving faster than I’d ever believe possible for someone of her significant girth. “Excuse me, Detective. Now I’m going to have to ask you to explain your line of thinking.”

  She put her hand on my shoulder. I looked up at her, my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth with panic-flavored superglue.

  “Diane, they found Lela’s phone at the scene of a murder,” said Nancy, stepping forward and crossing her arms across her chest.

  DiNapoli raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture and tossed an annoyed look over his shoulder at Nancy. “We’re trying to cover our bases, Ms. Jeffries. The victims were indeed deceased prior to the fire. We think the murderer may have set the fire to cover his or her tracks.” His watery eyes lifted to mine for a second, and I forced myself not to look away.

  “How were they killed, exactly?” Diane
challenged.

  “I am not at liberty to say,” the detective responded. He scratched his chin and sat back in his chair. “We were hoping Lela might have some information about that.”

  I shot back from the table until the chair hit the wall. Every adult in the room tensed, like they were ready to jump on me if I tried to escape. “Are you saying you think I killed those guys?”

  “You do have a history of violence, Lela.” Nancy said it like she’d been waiting for this for the past year.

  A thick swell of anger rose in me, hot as lava. “You find it easier to believe I offed two guys in some burned-out meth house rather than I’m on the straight and narrow? Thanks for believing in me, Nancy!”

  Detective DiNapoli shrugged. “The one guy stole your phone. He provoked you. Maybe the other one got in the way.”

  “Seriously? You’re giving me a lot of credit if you think I could do something like that.”

  Diane’s grip on my shoulder was iron as she pointed to the picture on the table, at the bright green eyes of the kid I’d tried to save. Nick. Smeared black eyeliner smudged beneath his sad, empty eyes. His lips were swollen and cracked.

  “Who are these guys, anyway?” she demanded. “You tell me who they are. Or don’t. Let me guess. Street people. Into drugs. Prostitution. They’ve both got that look.” Her chin was sticking out. Her eyes were blazing pools of darkness. I was suddenly very glad she was on my side.

  The detective looked down at the picture in a way that told us Diane had just hit the nail right on the freaking head.

  “Mm-mm-mm. That’s what I thought. Does it really make sense that a high school girl with a scholarship to URI, who was volunteering at a soup kitchen, would attack and murder two guys like that? Maybe they killed each other! Or how ’bout their tricks? Dealers? Pimps? Are you telling me this young lady is your prime suspect, just because you found her stolen phone on the scene? Detective, I’ve worked in the corrections system for a quarter century now, so forgive me for being skeptical.”

  Her finger was up and waving now. Her head bobbed back and forth on her neck as she spoke. To me, she looked like some kind of avenging superhero. “And Lela’s not saying another word to you without a lawyer. I know the rules, so with all due respect, don’t think you can come in here and mess around with us, sir.”