gaze. “Not dead. She wants to be. Tried to be. But they kept her from it.” She turned back to the girl. “Kept her there, in the dark.”
“That was wrong of them,” Uma said softly.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Her name is Quinn,” she whispered. “Or, it was.”
“Um,” Asher cleared his throat, “how is she in two places at once?”
“She’s astral projecting,” Uma muttered before moving around the bed.
The girl backed away from the bed and Uma.
Uma stopped.
“She doesn’t like the dark.” She eyed Uma as she moved towards the window. “She makes herself sleep.”
“And she sees things,” Uma guessed as she backed up several steps.
The girl’s shoulders relaxed a bit. She looked out the window and froze in place. A look of pure joy slipped across her face. Tears began to fall as she tried to touch the curtain blocking some of the light. Her hand went through it. That smile began to fade.
I went to the window on our side of the bed and opened the curtains wide. The sunlight spilled through the window and across her pale body in the bed.
Astral girl turned and backed away from the window and bed. “This one too. Please. She was in there so long.”
I slowly moved around the bed, past Uma, and opened the other curtains. Sunlight spilled through the room unfiltered.
Turning back, I moved out of her way as she walked towards the light, smiling. For a heartbeat she was a little girl again, whole and untraumatized.
She nodded as she took in my hair. “Red hair … you were there. She saw you. Asked you to make it stop.”
My heart ached at the utterly lost note in her voice. “I remember. I’m sorry we couldn’t find you sooner.”
She shook her head. “She doesn’t want to come back. She wants to sleep.”
“Then let her sleep for a while,” I said in a gentle voice. “Sit in the sun. Rest. You’re safe here.”
The girl nodded before she turned to look back out the window. Jade stayed put as the rest of us slowly walked out of the room and closed the door behind us.
“We need to talk,” Uma stated, her face hard.
Uma led us down the long hall and into the study near the conservatory. She began to pace as Asher closed the door behind us.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“That girl is a bomb waiting to go off.” Uma turned and continued to pace.
“What do you mean?” My stomach knotted. “She’s booby trapped?”
Uma took a deep breath and shook her head. “She’s the most gifted person I’ve ever seen.”
“You mean her powers?” Miles asked.
Uma nodded. “The channels they blew open may have fractured her mind, but they also make her able to create destruction on a massive scale.”
Dread settled all the way through me down to my toes. “How massive?”
Isaac’s hand moved to my shoulder as he joined us.
Uma ran her hand through her short hair. “She could decimate an area like a hydrogen bomb.”
“Oh, shit,” Zeke breathed.
Uma nodded. “She didn’t just make herself unconscious for her safety. She did it to keep us safe as well.”
“So, she knows what they did?” I couldn’t imagine what the kid had been through.
Uma nodded. “In some part of her mind, she knows she’s dangerous.”
I wrung my hands together. “And we still don’t know where Jadis is.”
Uma nodded. “If they come for her, they will come with everything they have.”
I took a breath and focused. “Okay, what can we expect? Does she have any control?”
“None.” She quickened her pacing.
I nodded as I thought it out. “She has to leave.”
Uma stopped and turned to me. “I was thinking the same thing.”
I met her gaze. “We can send her to Evelyn. She’d be out of harm’s way and with someone who might be able to piece her back together.”
Uma was silent as she thought it over. “I agree.”
“But how do we get her there?” Asher turned to me. “She doesn’t exactly trust us right now.”
“She trusts Jade,” Uma countered. “And Jade could transport her safely.”
“Jade just got here,” Zeke pointed out. “She took out those witches easily, right? She could be the key to ending this.”
I looked up at him. “Yeah, and this kid could kill us all. Jadis knows we have her.”
The door to the study opened as Jade came in. “I can take her tonight, at dusk.”
Uma’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”
Jade’s brows drew together, and she looked at Uma as if she were dimwitted. “I can hear everything in the house.” She turned