Betrayal - By Lee Nichols Page 0,41

some more. I was still tired from yesterday. When I opened the door to my room, I found Simon rifling through the wardrobe.

“Hey!” I said. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for drugs,” he said.

“There’s Advil in the bathroom.”

“Right.” He gave up on the wardrobe and opened the top drawer of the dresser.

“That’s my underwear.” I slammed the drawer shut. “I don’t even smoke weed.”

“What are you on then?”

“What am I on?” I was incredulous. “You mean all the drugs I’m doing when I’m not at school, or training with you, or practicing with the dagger, or doing homework, or killing wraiths?”

He crossed his arms. “Show me your hands.”

“Why, are you thinking about becoming a manicurist?” I held out my hands for him to inspect. “Because you suck as a dispeller.”

He ignored the insult and examined my hands, then exhaled deeply. “I’m sorry. I thought … the way you killed those wraiths yesterday, I was certain you were taking Asarum.”

“What’s that?”

“Wild ginger. An unremarkable herb, except for ghostkeepers.”

“Oh, my aunt told me about it. Neos used it to increase his powers.”

“It’s like steroids for professional athletes, except more dangerous. And addictive.”

“Why did you check my hands?”

“For Asarum stains. It changes the pigmentation.”

“And you thought I was—” I was both mad and hurt. “How could you think I would do that?”

“What else was I supposed to believe after last night? First you stood there in a … a drugged stupor, then you cut through those wraiths like a—”

“A mad dog,” I finished, and sat heavily on the edge of my bed.

That stopped him for a moment. He inspected me, and when he spoke again, his voice was gentler. “You saved our lives.”

“I … I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

And I didn’t only mean my power, standing there watching my friends lose a fight. But where were the people who were supposed to care for me? Somehow I always thought Bennett would be around to protect me. And where were my parents? Where was Max? They’d all left.

“If it’s not Asarum,” Simon said, “I think we need to consider the siren Max warned you about. Maybe she’s not a myth.”

I nodded. “I think I hear a voice, like someone humming a lullaby. But if a siren was hanging around, wouldn’t I feel her?”

He ran a hand through his sandy hair. “I don’t know. Hearing things isn’t a good sign. We don’t know what kind of power she has.”

I licked my lips, because something else was worrying me, more than the mythical siren. “Simon, those wraiths last night. They were waiting for us—but there’s no way Neos could’ve known we’d be there.”

“Not unless someone told him,” Simon agreed.

Not the answer I’d been hoping for. I’d wanted him to have some other rationale, because only the team and the house ghosts knew we’d be there. “Which means—”

“Which means you trust no one. Not even me. You’re too important, Emma. You’re the one he wants.”

“I can’t even trust myself if that siren’s in my head.”

“Emma,” he said, staring at me, “I’m not sure how I’m going to keep you safe.”

His words were so unexpected and his expression so heartfelt that I almost broke down. I crossed to the dresser and picked up the Barbie that had been lying there since I found her in my locker. I smoothed her shorn hair and straightened her skirt.

“I think that’s my job,” I said.

Later that morning, Lukas and Natalie dragged me downstairs, insisting that I needed to build a snowman, catch snowflakes on my tongue, and generally catch up on a snowless childhood. My peacoat had disappeared, which meant Celeste was trying to clean the wraith grime from it, so I grabbed a red down parka from the hall closet.

Then I realized it had probably belonged to Bennett’s sister, Olivia. I flinched as I slipped into it, worried I might flash onto her memories, but I was learning to control that power—or maybe the coat was just a coat. And the gray knit cap I found in a basket on the closet shelf was just a hat, even though it smelled like Bennett.

I ran the cap under my nose and across my cheek, until Lukas said, “What are you doing to that hat?”

“What? Nothing!” I shoved it on my head. “It’s just really soft.”

“Uh-huh,” Natalie said. Her tone made it obvious she knew what I’d been up to. “You’re like a kitty with catnip.”

I ignored her and stepped outside. “Oh my God.”

Lukas and Natalie were at my side in