Iron Inheritance (21 page)

“Whoo!” She waved at me and shimmied her way over to yell in my ear, her breath very fruity. “Are you having fun?”

“Course.” I nodded, forcing a smile. “So, when do you think we can go?”

“Oh no nonono. Mom has to see me…You have to watch me,” she said, a slight hiccup escaping her. She held up her phone to take a selfie.

I followed her eyes as they twirled around in search of the gravity that would keep her from floating away.

“Are you—?”

I turned and gave Nate a scathing look. If it was me, he’d take all the alcohol and throw it over the side of the cliff, one hundred feet down to pounding waves and rocks. But with Ria—he just couldn’t say, “No.”

“Here, look, I made a cheer for when my mom gets home.” She scampered to the opposite corner where a group of guys dressed in all black stood in a half circle.

“Nate?” I growled.

“She’s had one drink. Three thousand years ago, people started drinking at age seven.”

“Was that a joke?” I narrowed my eyes.

“No, no joke. Nate is not funny.” Nate dropped his head and donned the serious demeanor he usually wore like a badge of honor.

“You know how she gets when she drinks.” I turned back to try and find her again. I shouldn’t have let her out of my sight. If something were to—

The guys in black were in some kind of huddle with Ria in the center. I could see her nodding.

How could Nate do this? He felt it necessary to shield my powers, effectively training my body to create a dam that held back all of my essence until enough pressure built up, but he couldn’t keep the girl who’d do anything for him from getting drunk?

Miranda appeared at my side, her face pale. “Eve, tell Ria to come back.”

“Why? What’s wrong?” I took a step forward

“They’re Miracles,” Miranda said, her eyes stressed for the first time since I’d met her.

“So? You are, too.”

She shook her head and pointed toward them just as a bright flash of light lit up the night sky and Ria was shot-gunned twenty feet into the air.

Ria’s body went rigid in that millisecond of weightlessness at the top of the arc.

My legs twitched forward.

She closed her eyes serenely, arms crossed over her chest.

My heart raced. I slipped between the onlookers, mouths agape in delighted wonder.

Everything slowed, but gravity still beat my sprint stride for stride. A pang of despair yelped out of my throat when I knew I wasn’t going to get there in time.

Her eyes were still closed.

Then, all at once, she twisted and tucked her legs in so that her back would hit first.

It did—right into a net of powerful, interwoven arms from the Miracle-in-Black crew. They all grinned.

“Wow,” Ria said dizzily. “You guys are so coming to my next competition.”

I sucked in a strained, rattling breath as I skidded to a stop at the edge of the circle, my back hunched like it was still waiting to convulse in a spasm of grief.

“Did you see my extra spin?” Ria let her head dangle upside down as she looked at me. “That was for you.” She smiled like a three-year-old—all teeth.

The men righted her, one of them handing her a broken high heel.

I grabbed it from him and stretched out my hand for Ria’s. “It’s time to go.”

“Oh, come on, Evey.”

“Yeah, come on, Evey.” One of the guys smiled, his sandy hair and freckles dim in the low light. He reached around and glided his hand from my hip down the side of my butt, finishing with a firm squeeze. “You can be next.”

“Uh oh.” Ria’s eyes widened.

In one swift motion, I grabbed his hand and twisted it up behind his back until the tendons threatened to snap.

It always amazed me how high boys could scream.

“Eve!” Nate was at my side instantly, a puff of wind behind him.

Miranda and Freddy jogged up next. The music stopped, and everyone’s eyes pricked at my back.

Mr. Miracle-Cheer-Boy stood limp in front of me, bent over as I held his wrist to the center of his back.

“Eve, it’s ok. Let him go.” Nate came closer, his arms out like he was approaching a wild dog.

I loosened my grip, and Mr. Handsy sprang away. Everyone continued to stare, even when the music started up again.

Ria walked through the crowd with her head down. I only managed to see her escape route because her caramel hair kept popping up and down with every other step—I still had her left shoe in my hand.

“Ria! Ria, wait.” I ran after her, not having to find a way through the sea of people as they parted for me without command. “Ria, please.” I descended the stairs two at a time after her.

She turned around in the middle of the narrow gray stairwell. “Why’d you do that? You had no right to—”

“I—he grabbed my—”

“Not that.” She shook her head, exasperated. “You know what I mean.”

“What were you thinking? You’re drunk, and you do stunts on the edge of a cliff?”

“It’s nothing new.” She folded her arms.

My eyes bulged. “It is when you’re blasted into the air by equally drunk Miracles!”

Ria took two steps up so our eyes would be even—hers still seemed cloudy. “I’m fine. Look at me. See?” She stood back, hands on her hips. “Eve, we’re Patrons now. We can take a few more risks than we used to. Freddy could have healed me in—”

“You’re not a Patron!”

Even in the middle of the music being blared all around us, it felt like everything went silent. Ria’s cool, hazy confidence turn to a cold scowl of treachery. “So I don’t take your stupid classes in the arena or Duke’s electric thingy. Big deal. Everything else is the same. I learn the same history, the demons, the Babylonians, everything that humans can’t see.”

“But you’re human!” I said and immediately regretted it. I was really on a roll tonight.

Ria’s cheeks reddened like I’d just slapped her, and she stomped down the stairs, only turning around to my pleas once she reached the front entry hall, no one else around. “What’s this really about? Just because now I’m getting a little of the attention, you’re jealous?”

Now my cheeks stung. “You’ve always had the attention, Ria! Always. And that’s not even—”

“You
are
jealous. Even when you have Josh and every other guy fawning over you, you still just want Nate to follow you around like some sick little puppy.”

“I—I don’t—Josh? Nate?” I closed my eyes to keep back the tears I hadn’t known were there. “Ria, this is stupid.”

“What are you so afraid of? Afraid I’ll be better than you, like you were better than me in everything? Every subject, every day. Everything this year has been about you. Now we’re on an even playing field, and you can’t take it.”

I stepped back. I couldn’t believe it. That wasn’t the way it was at all. I’d been an outsider trying to find my way into her group of friends.

But that didn’t even matter. If she kept going like this, trying to prove herself around these people with talents that she’d never have, she’d…

“Ria, you’re already better than me at a billion things. But you can’t be what I am.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she bit her lower lip and nodded. “And that’s why he’ll never love me like he does you. He’ll never put me first, protect me, look at me the same way.”

My mind struggled to shift gears. “You still think Nate and I? Ria, he’s my Guardian. It makes sense that he stares at me so much.”

She chewed her tongue and glared at me like she was considering tearing my eyes out.

My body tensed in anger. This was so stupid! “Maybe if you want him so bad, stop fawning over every other guy that comes into our lives. You can’t blame him for getting mixed signals.”

“I already asked him out,” she spat, like it’d been on the tip of her tongue so long that it’d become bitter. “Last year, right before you came to school one day, I got the guts and told him how I feel—he sure wasn’t going to do anything. How many signals have I given him? And you know what he did? He just stood there and looked at me like I was some stupid little child who couldn’t take care of herself. He just kept staring, then he shook his head and said, ‘No, thank you.’ We went home, and you talked his ear off, and he listened to it all. Never lost focus for a second.”

“Ria, I—” A lump stuck in my throat. I couldn’t believe she’d actually done it—asked him and never told me about it. How could she not tell me?

“I saw you and Nate today.” She stepped closer to me so her eyes were six inches from mine, her teeth bared. “I saw you. All this time, you knew I liked him, and you just couldn’t keep your hands off.”

“You didn’t see anything. It was for my essence, that’s it. He put a shield around me my whole life and that—we would never—”

“Everything ok?” Nate approached slowly.

Miranda and Freddy stood behind him like small children who didn’t want to see Mommy and Daddy fight.

My face went pale. How much had he heard?

“We should go,” I said without looking anyone in the eye.

“Ok.” Nate nodded, taking a step forward to get us moving.

“I’m staying.” Ria flicked her hair back, hand on her hip.

“Ok.” Nate nodded again and smiled, completely oblivious. “Make sure you get a ride from someone who hasn’t been drinking.”

“Ever the gentleman.” Ria huffed and knocked past my shoulder to lead the way out, apparently changing her mind.

I stared at her, then back at Nate. How could I not have see that before? It was always happening. Nate would do anything for me even though Ria was the one who liked him, deserved him.

But how could she really think he and I…? He was like an overprotective brother.

“Come on.” Nate sighed. “Before she tries to hotwire the Jeep.”

We stepped out onto the driveway to find the Jeep already pulled around and waiting near the door, the engine running. Ria was in the backseat, Josh outside leaning against the door.

“Sorry, gang. Saw an old friend and had to catch up.” His eyes lingered on me. “Really sorry. What’d I miss?”

Nate glared at him for touching his baby and marched to the driver’s door.

I shook my head warningly when Josh raised an eyebrow. We all crammed ourselves in without another word.

The awkward silence persisted for another fifteen minutes until Miranda asked to stop to use the bathroom. Nate pulled into a liquor store parking lot without objection.

Everyone clambered out. Ria grabbed Miranda in a side hug as she walked through the swinging glass doors. Miranda patted her shoulder. Freddy and Nate followed silently. Josh and I stood outside the Jeep, leaning our heads back so we could see the stars.

“So, is anybody going to tell me what happened?” Josh turned his head toward me with a sideways smirk.

“Some ugly thing finally popped its head above the surface.” I sighed, looking from one insignificant star to the next, not really seeing any of them.

He pursed his lips in a mock scowl and arched an eyebrow. The effect was more humorous than curious. I laughed and wiped my eyes. He continued to look at me like that until I told him about the Miracles and the fight about her not being a Patron. I left out some of the other things.

Nate.

Him.

“Give her some space,” he said sagely.

“She’s family,” I said, reimagining her death a hundred times over as she plummeted toward jagged rocks in my mind. “Doesn’t she know that? If I lose her, I won’t have anyone.”

“She knows what she is to you. How else could she know just what to say to get you this upset?”

I scowled at the store’s windows, a rainbow of candy bars and magazines gleaming through.

“When I was younger, I had to leave my family.” Josh looked up at the sky again. “My brothers were getting into a peck of dealings they shouldn’t have. Every time I tried to stop them, they’d know right where to hit.”

I glanced at him, the way his jaw squared his face, the way his shoulders took almost the entire width of the door.

At least she wasn’t mad about Josh and me—if that was even a thing.

It’s not. Stop daydreaming.

He sighed and dropped his chin to his chest to look at a murky puddle with a ring of oil floating around the edge.

“Were they Patrons? Your brothers.”

“No.” His eyes wrinkled into some semblance of a smile. “They aren’t Graced, thankfully.”

I took a deep breath and blew it out like I was extinguishing a candle. I looked down too, my hand only a finger’s width from his.

I moved my pinky closer—hoping.

His whole body tensed, and I pulled back.

“Look at the puddle,” he whispered.

“What?” I asked, trying to follow his gaze. I scanned the busted-up asphalt toward the puddle, smooth as a sheet of glass.

Until a ripple ran across the surface. The oil glimmered purple and gold with the yellow streetlight overhead.

“What the…?”

It rippled again—concentric half-circles starting on one end and sloshing toward us.

I looked up to see what was coming at the same time as Josh.

My whole body tensed in a silent scream as a shadow in the darkness adjusted a shimmering wing around a massive, scaly body and took another thunderously silent step forward.

“Where’d it go?” I whispered over the thump of my heart in my ears. The creature’s wings had folded back over its body, and the whole thing disappeared fifty feet from us.

Josh stared at a fixed point in the distance. “Still there. I can only see the essence now.”

I forced a deep breath into my lungs and tried to clear my mind. When I opened my eyes again, there was still nothing. I shook my head and tried to focus. This was ridiculous. How could I have so much essence pent up inside of me and couldn’t even see straight?

“What’s it doing?”

Josh pointed to the puddle without breaking eye contact with the invisible threat.

The murky water was a sheet of oily glass. I kept my eyes pinned to it and was about to say something again, when a roar stampeded into the night like an entire herd of bison. The surface of the puddle cringed.

I backed up into the car door.

“Hold on.” Josh put his arm out to stop me.

“What?” I continued to stare at the puddle. Ripples beat through it every three seconds now. “It’s running or—”