Vial Things (Resurrectionist #1) - Leah Clifford Page 0,5

than most people would if they got stuck with their sister’s kid to raise.

I soften my tone. “I’ll put in more applications tomorrow.”

It’s not the future I was expected to step into. Someday, Sarah will bow down as the point person for our cluster. I should be next in line. I should be living under her roof, learning how to run things. I’d told her I wanted to get more experience. Instead, I’d distanced myself. After a month, when she’d confronted me, I’d told her I couldn’t end up like my mother, my father. I’d told her I’d wanted out.

She’s still holding onto the hope I’ll come around. Tonight was the first time she’d insisted I take a case in the two months since.

So far though, my grand foray into this tightly leashed freedom has consisted mostly of aimless wandering around town, a couple all ages shows at a blues bar and movie nights on my couch. I never exactly mastered the art of living it up.

My parents had known from infancy that I carried the resurrectionist gene. Growing up, my free time had been spent on training, both in how to bring back the newly dead and how to protect myself from those after my blood.

My mind goes back to the mansion, the girl. The soles of my shoes, wet from the damp streets, squeak on the warped wooden stairs. I long for my bed. A shower. Blessed sleep. “She really didn’t call you? Isn’t that a little weird?” I ask. I figured once she saw I bolted, Sarah would be the first one she dialed. “You don’t think that was supposed to be a trap?”

“How was she acting?” Sarah asks.

“She passed out drunk and found him that way when she woke up, I guess. But she was...normal,” I say. Actually... “She was almost too normal. Do you think she was faking? I wouldn’t know your friend’s daughter from someone planted there to take her place.” I pause. It wouldn’t be the first time someone got the idea our blood would be useful. I think of the small blue vial hidden in the zippered coin pouch that has no doubt settled to the bottom of my bag. “You don’t think I’m being hunted?”

When I was too small to understand, I’d been terrified of a place called Throng Ands. This will keep your blood from getting into Throng Ands, Allie. The words haunted my childhood nightmares. I’d been petrified of accidentally wandering over an invisible border to this place and having my blood leap from my veins to stay out. Of course, now I know better.

The wrong hands.

The vial is a last resort to keeping our secrets safe when nothing else will.

“She said she was my friend’s daughter?” Sarah says carefully.

My feet shuffle to a stop. “She was, right?”

“How’s the town?” Sarah says instead of answering. “Have you seen anything strange in the papers?”

I snort. “It’s Fissure’s Whipp.” The strap of my messenger bag digs into my shoulder. “If she is a hunter, I hope she doesn’t try to track me down. I’m not in the mood for a fight tonight.” The scar from the old knife wound aches. I tell myself it’s the weather and try to ignore it.

“Maybe you can stay with Talia for awhile?”

Now she has my attention. Talia had been my only friend since childhood, the single other kid I knew growing up who was like me. Other kids our age had played tag together—Talia and I sparred on dusty mats until our hands bled. By the time we hit high school we’d known each other’s every strength and weakness. We still do. But we haven’t spoken much since graduation. “Why would I do that?”

“I just thought if you were scared,” Sarah says. “You could go to her place.”

“I’m not scared,” I say, more heat in the words than needed. I plod up the last few stairs and round the corner. “Listen, I’m sure the McMansion is crawling with cops already. Or her mom knew a really good cleaning compan—”

At the end of the hallway, against my door, lays a shape. For a terrifying second, I think it’s the drowned boy. My knees bend, fingers diving for the messenger bag. I sling it forward with my hip to unzip it one handed. Every nerve in my body fires.

“What is it? Allie?” Sarah calls into my ear.

In the bag, my hand closes around the hilt of my knife. It’s not the best weapon I have on me,