Phoenix Academy - Lucy Auburn Page 0,41

magic took out one, my newborn flames the other. Either way, they haven't gone poltergeist, or I would sense them in the air as I unfurl my naturalistic senses around me.

This place feels empty and hollow. It reeks of death. Even wildlife is cautious around this much human blood. And one death that happened here is stronger in the air than others, full of tainted magic and power: my death burning on the pyre and coming back different. The birds, chipmunks, squirrels, and raccoons all cringe away from the magical aura the charred remains have left behind. They don't want to be anywhere near where I was reborn.

I don't blame them.

"Wait." David looks around, eyes narrowed. "This place... it feels familiar..."

Moving past him, I walk through the caution tape—another thing my spirit body can't interact with—and towards the cabin. We're facing the front porch; I was killed inside, and reborn on the pyre out back. Just seeing the cabin again sends a horrified shudder down my back.

As I draw closer to the cabin, the guys fade away from my awareness. All I am is the girl who ran. The girl who turned to fight. The girl who, in the end, wasn't able to save herself or anyone she loved.

I take the steps up towards the cabin door and pass through it to the inside.

The sharp scent of blood hits my nose all at once. It seems odd, that I can smell in this form, but somehow it fits. Of course I can touch and smell and see the world, but not interact with or change it at all. No wonder spirits go insane after years of being forced to observe a world that never observes them back.

Walking through the front entryway and kitchen of the cabin, I'm brought back to that day. The fear that ran through me. Making eye contact with Mom in the hopes she had a plan. Trying to keep myself calm and collected for Lizzy's benefit.

His dark, soulless eyes.

The rope on my skin. How Lizzy fought and cried and thrashed as they tied Mom to the ground and the Heretic pulled out his knives. There it is—through the hall to the dining room. The table and chairs are still discarded in the corner to make space for what he did.

Blood seeps into the ground and splatters the walls. It's dark and gory, the scent of it like iron and sweet, rotted flesh in my nose. The stain in the middle of the floor is wider than I remember, the blood a dark brown that flakes at the edges.

Staring at it makes me feel like I'm about to fall down into a deep, dark abyss. I want to move, to look away, to forget, but I can't. Phantom pain crawls up and down my arms and legs. I see his face and hear his voice as he bled me dry.

The door to the cabin opens, and the guys slowly walk in. I hear them but don't turn to watch their approach. My gaze is fixed to the spot on the floor where it all ended and it all began.

"I knew it. This must be where she died. Where her father..." David's voice floats through me, his tone full of anger and disgust. "We were pulled here for a reason. I'm going to go look for a place to plug in my phone."

I hear footsteps approach. Xavier murmurs to his brother, "I knew it was bad, but I didn't imagine all of... this. That smell."

"It's awful," Reggie agrees, unusually subdued. "I wish it never happened to her. When I think about that bastard I want to punch him in the face."

David calls out, "She wouldn't want you to do that. It's up to Ari how she handles him."

"Her father," Xavier says pointedly. "We're saying him but we all know who we're talking about. I know she says he's not really the same man who was her father, now that his soul is missing, but it has to affect her. He was supposed to love and protect her, but instead he killed her. How horrifying that must be."

It is, and it also isn't. When I think of my father, there are two of him in my mind: the version my mother occasionally described, who was sweet and half-wild, a man prone to hunting and taking jokes literally. Then there was the Heretic, who never had a name and barely has a face in my mind. All I see when