Phoenix Academy - Lucy Auburn Page 0,74

tear one from her chest to keep her from committing mass murder when she invaded the campus."

I raise my brows at her frank discussion of something so bloody and brutal. "Do you go to therapy for that?"

"Only if group sex counts as therapy." Dani flashes her teeth at me in a sardonic grin. "Yohan has tried to get me to do the feelings thing more than once, but it's not really my style. Whatever happened in the past, I let it go—I did what I had to do to survive, and I can't really dwell on it otherwise. Besides, what therapist would understand all I've been through? They've never stood in our shoes. Even the ones who know about magic would be shocked at how bloody and gross it all is."

"I just don't know if I can do it," I tell her. "Killing the monster is one thing. Killing my actual father... if putting his soul back in him makes him human again, it'll be murder, not self-defense. But somehow the thought of letting him live horrifies me too. After everything he did to me, all the torture and bloodshed, being hunted all my life, I don't think I can forgive him."

"I feel you." She reaches out and squeezes my upper arm, the rune demonstration smoldering and forgotten in the grass. "Sometimes I wish I'd killed my dad instead of bringing him in safely. Then I remember that his life sucks, and he's going to die anyway without access to phoenix hearts, but honestly that makes me sad too sometimes. Not for him—for me. I deserved someone better than him, and I'll never get that dad."

Her words, clumsy and blunt as they are, somehow soothe me. "I guess no matter which way it goes, at least there's one person around I can talk to who's been through something similar."

"You bet'cha." Dani grins at me. "Now, let's practice that rune. I'm going to make you draw it so many times that it's burned into your retinas. That's what Yohan or Fisk would do to me, after all, and I'm still standing, so there must be a method to their madness."

So begins an afternoon of endless drills at the hands of a girl who's so different than me, yet has so much in common, she almost feels like another sister.

This won't be easy.

But at least I won't be alone.

Chapter 17

It's as simple as tracking him down, carving a rune into his back, and ending him for good. Simple. Easy. Straightforward. Except for every way in which it isn't.

Standing in front of the Great House, I watch Lizzy close her eyes and focus herself inward. I bounce on the balls of my feet the whole time, exploding with nervous energy. It's hard to reconcile how much things have changed in both our lives.

I wish Mom were here.

Maybe I can visit with her spirit through the veil of the Spirit Realm. It should be easier now that I've destroyed the Hellgate—what I've chosen to think of the door between realms as. All that focused magic and power will have spread out, so that there's just a tiny essence of a passageway between our realm and the next.

One that isn't big enough to let anything through. But it should let me communicate with the other side. That's assuming, of course, that she stayed in the Spirit Realm instead of immediately moving to the Great Beyond. For all I know she's been lost to me forever.

"I can see him," Lizzy says, her eyes moving rapidly behind her eyelids. "Only a little though... just a vague outline of where he is. There's a sign. Maybe if I look closer, I can see what it says..."

Grey flames dance along the tips of her hair, and alarm makes me warn her, "Don't go too deep."

"I won't, Ari." A little smile curves her lips. "You don't have to be so protective."

"As far as I'm concerned, you've come back from the dead. The last thing I want is for you to return to it."

"Newark! He's in New Jersey. Or at least within fifty miles." Her eyes spring open, swirling of color in the irises coming to a stop as she refocuses on the world around her. "I saw a sign for the airport near where he was. There was a roadside church too... he's probably recruiting more people."

"Thank you." I squeeze her hands, heart in my throat—from nerves or from sadness, I can't tell. "I'll be back soon. And I'll come