Velocity (16 page)

“I don’t, really, I guess. I haven’t completely figured it out yet,” I admitted, shrugging. “Sometimes they just seem more vivid than other times.”

Hugh was unpacking one of the crates of Erasmus cast-offs next to the TV. He pulled out a painting of a red landscape with black trees. “I have no idea what I’m going to do with all of these.” He set it next to him and kept digging.

“I could definitely take a couple off your hands,” Callie piped up, smiling at me.

Hugh studied one of the big painted canvases, holding it on his lap. The image showed gray smoke shapes on a red, polluted battlefield. “Once this is over, and we’re out of Hell, if I keep painting it’s going to be all kittens and flowers.”

“
If
you keep painting?” I repeated in surprise.

He shoved the painting in a box. “You never know. I might take up some other hobby. Golf. Skateboarding.”

“I doubt it, Dad. Those paintings are you.”

He looked at me thoughtfully. “I had a theory to that. I think that the Sight that was cut off expresses itself through my paintings. I never really put two and two together before, but it just clicked recently.”

“I think it’s a good theory.”

He made a pile of the paintings in the corner. I studied the grounding stone, tracing the clusters of white veins that ran along the black surface.

“Do you think that Thornhill is creating this block somehow? Like, they might not have to know about the grounding stone, but they know I have the Sight. You said they know some kind of alchemy magic. Maybe they’re stymieing me.”

“It’s definitely possible. Anything is possible at this point,” Hugh agreed.

“If I can’t find a way around this block, what are we going to do?”

Hugh looked contemplative as Callie set out paper plates. She’d brought Chinese food for the three of us. “I don’t know yet,” he admitted.

“I know you’re not going to be crazy about this, but I had a conversation with Henry,” I said, avoiding his eye contact in favor of opening up the Sweet and Sour sauce. “About attempting to crash one of Thornhill’s meetings. He thinks it’s a possibility.”

“When did you have this conversation?” Hugh demanded.

“Recently,” I said vaguely.

“Ariel, it’s not possible. And I really don’t want you discussing anything with him.”

I opened my mouth and shut it again.

“It’s far too dangerous to send people in there. I have no doubt that Phillip would kill those who stand in his way. I don’t really know why we are still even here. Either he thinks we are an empty threat, or he needs you for something.”

###

It took a bit of maneuvering to get out of the house that night to meet up with Henry. I still hadn’t found my phone, despite tearing apart my room and practically the whole apartment. We’d already made plans, so I didn’t want him to have to wait there alone.

I told my father I needed to go to the grocery store for unspecified feminine products. Hugh almost pushed Callie to go with me, but I said I also needed to drop a book off to Theo for school. Stowing the book in my purse right in front of them, they let me slip out.

Henry was waiting on his car hood for me again. At least it wasn’t snowing this time, but it was still below freezing. He had on a heavy, navy blue peacoat, his hands in his pockets.

He frowned at my thin sweater when he saw me. “Are you warm enough?” Without waiting for an answer, he unbuttoned the coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. Then he greeted my lips with a kiss.

“I can’t stay long. I had to weasel my way out of there,” I explained, pulling the coat up around me.

“That’s okay. I understand. How’s everything going?”

I bit my bottom lip, hearing an echo of Hugh’s words about not including Henry. “We’ve been trying to use the grounding stone to get more information about Thornhill’s plans, but I’m blocked. So, I brought up the idea of us sneaking into one of Thornhill’s meetings, since that seems like when so much goes on. But he wasn’t for it, at all.”

“The kids are only allowed to certain meetings. He’s right, it is dangerous, especially if you were to get caught. He’s right to have reservations.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but knew it was the truth. I was torn between wanting to storm into the ballroom myself, imaginary guns blazing, and being scared of what retribution might lie in storm for me already.

“Have you seen my phone, by the way?” I asked him. “Did I leave it in your car?”

He frowned and shook his head. “No.”

“I lost it somewhere, I realized I didn’t have it at school today.”

“Did you try calling it to see if you hear it ring?”

“No, that would require logical sense.” I smiled wryly at him. He laughed and we kissed again, this time for longer. I put my hands on his chest and felt his body heat warming me up.

“I feel so much older than when this started,” I said. “I mean, we’re supposed to be graduating in a few months, going off to college. What if it doesn’t happen?”

“It’s going to happen.”

Ice cracked down below, with a splash, and a scream. We ran to the side of the hill.

A figure was flailing and bobbing in a black hole in the lake’s icy crust. Screams carried through the air. The person’s coat was a flash of blue as they jumped upward and then disappeared beneath the ice.

Henry and I wasted no time skirting down the steep, rocky hill, dotted with stumps. There was a narrow pathway in between the rocks. It was muddy and slippery from the thaw, and I held my arms out so as not to trip.

At the bottom, we ran to the lake’s edge. The panicked figure bobbed up again in the black water. It was just past twilight, and there was only just enough light to see.

Henry took off his boots and starting tearing off his jacket, throwing them on a nearby boulder.

“What are you doing?” I asked him frantically.

“Going to save them.” His eyes were trained on the water.

“You can’t do that.”

“I’m not going to wait for the police and let that person drown.”

I grabbed his arm. “That ice obviously isn’t safe. What if you fall in, too?”

“I can’t just stand here and watch.” He threw off his sweatshirt, too, and tossed me his phone. “Call the police.”

I looked at it but it had no service. There were no towers where we were. I wandered along the shore, trying frantically for a signal, and then back up the embankment. Nothing.

“I’m coming to get you!” Henry shouted out across the ice. “Don’t stop moving!”

He dropped and crawled across the snow dusted ice, as quickly as he could while watching for breaks. I clutched at my forehead, still trying to dial 911.

He fished the person out of the water beneath their arms, and dragged them up. I thought it was a kid. They skirted carefully back towards the shore. In a horrible moment of recognition, as he turned and scooped her up in his arms, I saw Theo’s white-pale face and chattering teeth. Wet crimson hair plastered itself to her skull.

“Theo!” I shouted.

He brought her over to where I was standing on the shore. “Are you sure you can stand on your feet?”

“Yeah,” she said, shivering violently.

He set her down and she stood next to me, her eyes half open. Henry picked up his sweater and jacket and put them around her. His lips were equally blue, but his eyes were on fire.

“I’m going to get the car. You two wait here.” He jogged back up the hill.

I wrapped everything more tightly around Theo, hugging her close. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, her teeth still chattering too much to speak. I leaned my head against her and stared at the black, menacing hole where she had been caught in the water.

CHAPTER 15

FIVE MINUTES LATER,
we were in the warm comfort of Henry’s car. He had brought out a couple of flannel blankets from the trunk and wrapped them around Theo. Now she was sitting in the middle of the back seat, the heater on full blast in her direction. Her little face peered out from a hole in the mountain of fabrics.

“Should we call
the police?” I asked from my seat beside her. “Now that we’re back on the road I have service.”

Theo shook her head. Her shivering was finally under control enough to talk. “No. I’m fine. I can feel all my fingers and toes.”

“We might want to run by the ER just to get you checked out,” Henry said, more casually than he appeared to feel. He kept checking her in the mirror.

“No,” Theo said more firmly. She looked at me. “You didn’t have to sit in the back seat with me, Ari. I’m fine. I feel like Henry is chauffeuring me around.”

“I don’t mind chauffeuring you around,” Henry said, smiling. “Least I can do.”

“What happened? What were you doing out on the ice?” I asked.

She looked at me, licking her lips. Tiny flecks of glitter sparkled on her face, and a trace of mascara darkened her under-eyes. “You sent me a text to meet you there.”

I frowned. “What? I haven’t had my phone with me, it disappeared.”

Theo fished out her phone from her purse, which she’d retrieved from a rock on the shore. She tapped the screen and held it in front of me.

There it was, a text from me.
Hey Theo, meet me out on Hush Lake at 9:00 I have something to tell ya.
I gripped the phone, feeling for a second like I was losing my mind. “I didn’t send this, I swear.”

“I thought it was a little weird. But I didn’t analyze it much. I know you’ve been distracted lately and I figured maybe your dad thought it was safest to meet at an out of the way location when we’re discussing official business. Such is the nature, I would assume, of espionage against evil cults.”

“What happened when you got there?” I asked.

“I walked out on the shore, searching the beach, and there was something out on the ice. So I went closer to get a better look. I thought the ice was still solid enough.”

“What was it?”

She scrunched up her nose, remembering. “A dead rat. And then someone covered my eyes and shoved me in. The ice was the thinnest right where I was, like someone took a blow torch to it. It was like cracked glass.”

“Did you see who pushed you in?” Henry asked, peering at her in the rear view mirror again.

Theo shook her head, tiny beads of water coming off her hair. “No. Just somebody wearing a hood. They rushed out and pushed me in before I had time to react. It was so cold in there that it shocked my system and I had no idea what was going on until you yanked me out again.”

I thought about her description. Then it clicked. I replayed Harlow Briggs sneaking by my desk in study hall. “Those bitches took my phone.”

Theo raised her eyebrow. “Which bitches would that be? There are quite a few of them at this point.”

“Lainey and Harlow.”

Henry’s face turned grim. “I wouldn’t put it past them.” We exchanged a worried glance. “They picked that spot on purpose,” Henry said. “They know about us meeting up on the hill. We’ve got to stop getting together outside of school.”

“Maybe they just thought it was a prank,” Theo suggested, but I knew by her tone that she was failing to even convince herself.

“No, this was our last warning,” I mumbled.

Although she refused a doctor, Theo didn’t want to spend the night alone. She came over and stayed in my room at the apartment. I made her a pot of hot tea and she snuggled down under the comforter.

“You know I love you,” she said, holding her tea beneath her nose to warm up her face. “But these are the times I miss Alex the most. He’s such a big bear that he radiates heat like a heating pad.”

“What’s going on between you two?” I asked, perching on the edge of the bed.

She set the tea down and looked up at the ceiling, sighing. “I don’t know. When I’m around him, it’s almost like the old times when we were together. And I remember how good it could be. But then he’ll say something bossy, and I remember how overprotective he got. Or Madison will wiggle her skanky butt in and practically jump on his lap, and I realize he’s basically just a normal horny boy.”

“You know that’s not true,” I protested gently. “I mean, I don’t profess to know the state of things inside his pants, but Alex is a good guy. He’s just…immature. From an outsider perspective, you guys seemed really happy together. The Madisons of the world―and their skanky butts―will come and go. But I don’t think it’s often that a connection like you and Alex had happens.”

She studied me, thinking it over. “Yeah. I know.”

It wasn’t long before she was fast asleep. I kept thinking about the message Thornhill had sent. Not just the text―about the rat. It seemed to be a theme for them. They considered us vermin. And after all, my other friend had been found beneath the ice of the same lake.

###

The next day I found my broken phone in my locker.
RAT
was scrawled in bubble letters in Sharpie on the smashed back cover. I picked up the pieces and clenched them in my fist.