The Serpent in the Stone - By Nicki Greenwood Page 0,26
what to do with it?”
“My sister...” She trailed off, wary of speaking about Faith. Talking with Ian was a swampy, trackless journey with no indication of where to step next. She swallowed. “Our father would have destroyed it if he hadn’t intended to do something with it. What about your back?”
He looked down at the kit and concentrated on tearing open a package of tape stitches. His jaw muscles twitched. This close, she smelled a chalky scent on his clothes, and under that, a warm, undeniably male scent that unsettled her to her very bones.
But then he spoke. “Knife scars. I was ten. It’s what you get when you try to protect your parents from a telekinetic.”
He said it so fast, it took her a few seconds to absorb the meaning of his words. The world shifted sideways. “Th-There’s another one?”
“There was. The cops shot him.” Ian pressed the tape stitches over her wound and closed up the kit. He sprang up from the cot and dropped the kit on his camp table. “I don’t think I need to explain any more of what happened. We’re done here.”
In shock, she bent to scoop up her coat from the tent floor. Her hand trembled so hard it took a second try. Her gaze found his broad back as if she could see the scars under his flannel shirt. “I d-don’t know what to say—”
“You can’t undo what happened.”
She ached and shook and stared at him, frantic for answers, afraid to ask the questions. Who was the man? What had he wanted? Why had he hurt Ian’s family? She couldn’t imagine using her power to hurt another human being.
Ian turned on his heel. By the look of censure on his face, he could imagine such a thing well enough.
Sara’s hurt gave way to a stab of righteous indignation. She stood up. “Thank you for going with me to Mainland. I won’t ask you for any more favors.”
“You still owe me.”
She jerked to a stop. “Owe you? You just forced me to blow any protection I have against people who might want to exploit—”
“The birds. That’s all I’m asking.”
She shuddered. “You’re willing to hate what I am, but not so much that you won’t use it to your own advantage?”
He had the grace to look ashamed—for a moment, at least. That dogged expression returned to his features, as though he were compelling himself to face her.
As though she might shapeshift into a monster and bite him.
She rushed out of the tent without waiting for him to speak further.
All the way back to the dig, she tried not to think of him. The memory of his vicious glare pierced her over and over. She had never told anyone but Faith about her gifts. Now she knew why.
The sun threw long late-afternoon shadows by the time she got to the camp. She found her sister taking samples of earth to be shipped back to Eurocon. When Faith spotted her, she climbed out of the dig trench. “How’d it go?”
Sara struggled to find enough anger to push aside the hurt. “Next time you ask me to take Ian somewhere, you’d better recheck your gut feelings.”
Faith glanced toward the dig, where Dustin and Thomas still labored in the afternoon sun. When she looked back, her gaze fell on the bloody tear in Sara’s coat sleeve. Her sun-bronzed skin paled. “What happened?”
“We had some trouble, but the amulet’s fixed. I’m tired. I’m going to lie down for a while. We’ll talk later.” Ignoring her sister’s concerned frown, she turned and hurried away to her tent.
The minute she entered it and closed the tent door, hot tears spilled down her cheeks. The scars on his back flashed in her memory again. So many of them, and he was just a boy when they’d happened. Her stomach turned.
He knew everything and he hated her for it. Just because of what she was.
She almost hated herself.
****
Digging advanced rapidly over the next few days. The find began to show signs of being more than just a field wall. Sara allowed the flurry of activity to consume her thoughts, trying to forget Ian. He’d be leaving, anyway, if he hadn’t already. She’d told her sister only that he knew of her abilities and wouldn’t speak of them to anyone else. Since that day, his name hadn’t crossed her lips. She couldn’t bring herself to speak it. Every time his image flashed in her memory, it was coupled with that look of distaste and