Prism - By Rachel Moschell Page 0,67

pink floral lamp next to the couch and yanked it, flooding the motel room with sickly-sweet light. Wara had already flown across the room towards her bag and was throwing out clothes, looking for the phone that kept drilling its tinny tune into the night. Realizing it wasn’t there, she dove back for the bed, crawled over it, and grabbed the phone vibrating across the nightstand.

Her hands were shaking so hard she could hardly flip the thing open to gasp a breathless, “Hello?”

Alejo sank back into the couch, hoping the call was his sister in need of a midnight conversation. The odds were against that, however; there really wasn’t a good chance a call in the middle of the night would bring good news.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Wara’s voice quivered. She waited, then waited some more. Alejo exhaled as her entire body crumpled and sank back into the sheets, seemingly buried in the mass of fluffy pillows and thick satin bedspread.

“When?” Silence, and then she choked out, “Th-thank you.” The cell phone shut with a near-silent click, and then Alejo saw Wara pull the covers up over her head.

“You can go back to sleep,” she finally said in a voice that did not sound like herself. “The Bennesons just wanted to let me know that the funeral will be tomorrow at ten.”

They found him.

Alejo’s blood chilled, and he pulled the lamp off quickly, as if afraid to sit any longer in the light when he just found out he had caused a funeral. Rubbing his temples, Alejo rolled back onto the couch, slowly, staring up at the ceiling.

His brain told him he should say something. What kind of man just sat there without saying anything when a woman finds out the guy she loved has died? Alejo didn’t even need to run through the possible options in his mind, however, to know that finding something adequate to say to her would be impossible.

Taking a deep breath, he shivered, eyes fixed on nothing in the darkness until it was nearly morning.

A morning in which Alejo would go to a funeral.

23

bittersweet

THE MORNING PASSED BY AS IF IN A DREAM.

After somehow getting ready, Wara followed Alejo out of El Cupido and waited a few blocks away on a shaded corner for a missionary family, the Paulsons, to come pick them up. Alejo had said something about the Prism finding them, so they would need to try to sneak into the house where the funeral would be held. He insisted she call someone with a van so they could hide out lying on the floor. The Paulsons had quickly agreed to pick them up.

Corban and Misty Paulson had been good friends with Noah; no one said a word during the entire ride to the house where the funeral would be held.

A solemn metallic clanging and the stilling of the purring engine told Wara that the van had finally arrived inside the gate of the Bennesons’ house. She picked herself up off the floor, brushing crumbs off her pants in a daze. She followed Alejo and the Paulsons across the wide lawn with its spiky green grass, around a multitude of assorted Land Cruisers and Brasilias already parked inside the house’s walls. The zip of cool air inside the shade of the white-walled house hit her face, along with the unnatural hush emanating from within.

Everyone turned to stare as she slipped through the door. Wara swayed on her feet, overcome by the sight of all of her friends, Noah’s friends, gathered here, because Noah was actually dead.

“Wara!” Tobin was folding her into an embrace against his bony shoulders. “I can’t believe this happened to Noah. We were so worried. About both of you.” Wara pulled away from him numbly, only to find herself hugged by person after person from her mission. From Noah’s church. Tobias, the other Australian, was scrubbing reddish eyes, obviously trying not to cry as he gave her a quick hug. She saw Tobin’s gaze ride up to where Alejo stood somewhere in the background, probably looking dangerous and out of place at a funeral with his uncut curly hair and jeans. Wara wondered for a brief moment if she should feel like a traitor for daring to come to Noah’s funeral with the man who was responsible for his death. But then she realized she couldn’t feel anything, not yet.

“Wara,” Tobias was saying, “we brought a guitar for you. They want you to sing something for Noah—just one song. Can you do