The Reckoning

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 pinning me. “Did you summon in a cemetery?”

“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 dinner.”

“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 grinned. “Enthusiasm is good. It’s a date then. I’ll talk to Andrew.”

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.

A date, with Simon. I’d agreed quickly enough, but after we went inside for lunch, I realized what I’d done.

It felt like standing at those cemetery gates again: my gut was telling me this was a really, really bad idea. Dating while on the run for our lives? Dating one of the guys I was on the run with? What if it went badly? How would we-?

But it wouldn’t go badly. It was Simon and everything would be okay.

I just had to relax. Unfortunately, lunch didn’t help with that.

Margaret was gone, but she must have told Russell what happened, and he’d swooped in like a vulture, hoping to catch us in some terrible display of uncontrollable power.

Andrew should have shown him the door. He didn’t, probably thinking it was better to let him see that we were just normal kids. But it made all of us miserable, me most of all, feeling Russell’s gaze on me as I struggled to eat, that faint look of distaste on his face. The kid who can raise the dead. The necromancer freak.

After lunch, I fled to my room. Simon tried to lure me out, but I said I was tired and joked that I didn’t want to fall asleep on our date. Around three, Derek rapped on the door, calling a gruff “You should come out. Simon’s worried.” When I said I was napping, he went silent and I thought I heard him sigh and scuff his feet, like he wanted to say something else, so I got up and went to the door, planning to walk out and say, “Oh, I didn’t know you were still here.”

I’d hoped he did have something to say. Not an apology for chewing me out-that would be expecting too much-but an excuse to talk to him about what had happened at the cemetery, consider our options if things got worse…

Mostly I just wanted him to stop being mad at me and go back to being the other Derek, the guy I could talk to, could confide in. But when I opened the door, the hall was empty. I went back to bed.