head. “Maybe,” he says. “I guess it coulda been firecrackers.”
He can’t believe that. I know what he saw, and it wasn’t a souped-up Roman candle.
But I wonder how his mind assimilated the Sabre, how much it shrouded what he saw in doubt. Virtue was more light than anything else that night. Still . . .
I put my ear to the door. I’d like to get dressed, but after my dramatic exit yesterday, I really don’t want to talk to these two again. They can’t talk long anyway. Dad’s got work, and the sheriff’s obviously got an investigation to conduct. But I hear nothing to suggest they’re leaving. I dry my hair, and still I hear only their low voices and their feet bumping across the linoleum floor.
And then I realize they’re waiting on me.
They want to talk.
What else could they possibly have to say?
I yank my pajamas on, one leg at a time, and then I climb into the shower and pop the window out with my elbow. A trick Kaylee taught me freshman year. Squeezing through is considerably more difficult than it was back then, but I pull myself through the tiny window and onto the row of trash cans Dad keeps on the side of the house. I knock the recyclables over and scratch my knee on the stucco, but I make it out.
I round the house and grab my own window, still cracked. I shove it all the way open and half climb, half tumble inside.
“Brielle?” Dad’s muffled voice carries through the door. “You ’bout done in there?”
I freeze, a weird bundle on the floor, and I listen.
“Brielle?” He’s knocking, but he’s still at the bathroom. I strip off my pajamas and rifle through my drawer for a pair of underwear. There’s a red sundress draped over my hamper. I pull it on over the underwear, grab my sandals, and cram the wretched halo onto my wrist before jumping out my window and running across the field that separates my house from Jake’s.
If running away from your problems is ever acceptable, it’s right now. It’s this moment.
The fact that I’ve become an imposter in my own house—that I’ll do anything to avoid talking to my dad—hits me. The halo sends waves of heat up my arm, but it’s not enough to end the battle tearing my insides apart. Still, I don’t really lose it until I’m at Jake’s, standing in his empty living room.
“Hello?” I yell. “Jake? Canaan?”
But no one answers.
Hating the darkness, I march through the house turning on every light. My fist slams into the switches down the hall and in the office. The walls rattle, and I release a laughing sob at the stupid sense of power it gives me. When I reach Canaan’s room, I pause. It’s empty. Marco’s bag is tipped haphazardly on the bed, but I don’t waste much time staring at the bed. It’s the chest at the end of it that seems to always have half my attention these days.
Really it’s the ring inside.
The hope of a happily-ever-after.
And I want to feel better right now.
But I want to be mad too.
I don’t want to hurt, but I want to nurse the anger a little longer.
I can feel the halo doing its thing, thawing me, calming me.
I’m half-tempted to yank it off. To give in to the frustration. Just for a while. Because this warring sensation in my gut sucks.
The wanting to be angry.
The needing to know what happened to my mom. The wanting to forget. The desire for it all to go away.
And the whole time the halo reminds me that there’s something else going on. What I see isn’t always what is. It’s certainly not all of it.
I tip my hand and shake the halo off my wrist. It reforms into the crown—the crown given to Canaan by God the Father. For refusing to join Lucifer’s rebellion. For staying when so many left.
The risk of sleep is nil, so I place it on my head.
Canaan’s room gives off rays of light here and there, the transition slow. And then the light swallows me. So bright, so real. And as much as I hate to admit it, the sadness wanes and my anger at Dad dims. But I still don’t want to see him, so I’m careful at what I look at, at how much focus I give the walls.
I like walls right now. I need them to keep unwanted sights from my eyes.