“That’s not true.”
He shrugged. “Okay, maybe, but it’s not going to hit me as hard. You know it won’t. We haven’t gotten along in years and I’m past the point of wishing it was otherwise. It’ll upset me to see my brothers, but we’re not really that close, either.” He looked at me. “The point is that I’ll be okay.”
“And I won’t?”
“I’m not saying—”
“Then don’t say it. The more eyes on the service, the more likely we are to spot someone we can approach.”
That hadn’t ended it. We’d fought. Really fought. Enough to bring Corey running, and when I told him what Daniel wanted, Corey lit into him, too. Yes, this would be hard, but we could handle it and we weren’t happy with Daniel for implying otherwise.
“What are the chances one of your parents is going to wander off anyway?” Ash said, bringing me back to the present. “We’re taking a huge risk here, you know.”
“If you’re worried, you can go wait—”
“I’m not worried.” His chin shot up, eyes flashing, and I recognized the look. Probably the exact same one I’d given Daniel when he suggested I couldn’t handle this. At least we had something in common.
I looked over to where Daniel and Corey were hidden in the long grass, just inside a patch of woods. I couldn’t see either of them. Which meant they were well hidden. Except that I’d feel better if we had visual contact.
Ash had a cell phone. We probably should have bought a cheap prepaid ourselves. I hadn’t thought of it until now. Hindsight . . .
At the rumble of tires on gravel, I looked over to see a black car pulling in to the parking lot. It had been roped off, but a man in a dark suit now held the rope as a line of black cars rolled in. They parked. Doors opened. I inched forward, wriggling to see better. My branch creaked.
“Careful,” Ash said.
I stopped moving.
Mrs. Tillson climbed out of the first car, leaning heavily on the arm of a white-haired man I recognized from corporate literature as the head of St. Cloud corporation. Head of the St. Cloud Cabal, I should say. A sorcerer. Ash said all the Cabals were led by families of sorcerers. Did Mrs. Tillson know what he was? Did she care? Not right now. She’d suffered the greatest loss. Her husband—the mayor—really had died in the crash, and she believed that both her daughter, Nicole, and her niece, Sam, had perished, too.
Corey’s mom was next. Chief Carling. Only she didn’t seem like the Chief Carling I remembered, a petite blonde who could make her son quail with a single look and make him laugh just as easily. She looked tiny now, fragile and overwhelmed, clutching the hand of Corey’s brother, Travis. He was all she had left—her husband had died a few years ago from an epileptic seizure. Was that seizure caused by sileni blood? One more thing to worry about for Corey.
Mr. Bianchi and Daniel’s older brothers were in the next car. His brothers walked stiffly, side by side, gazes straight ahead. They hadn’t helped their father from the vehicle. Hadn’t even waited for him to get out. Just walked away, as if they blamed him for this. He followed, head bowed, like he accepted that blame, shambling along in a daze. I glanced toward the thicket where Daniel was hiding. I couldn’t see him. I wished I could. I wished I wasn’t up in this tree. My idea. A stupid idea. We should have been together for—
My parents stepped out of the last car. Dad first, then reaching in and helping Mom, and when I saw them, my heart stopped. I just lay there, frozen, clutching the tree so hard I dimly registered pain in my fingers, but only clutched it harder.
“Those them?”
Ash’s voice brought me back again. I tore my gaze away just long enough to nod. When I looked back, Mom and Dad were at the front of the car, helping Grandma from the passenger seat.
“They Navajo?” Ash asked. “The women?”
“My mom and grandmother. They’re Haida.”
“What the hell’s that? Some Canadian tribe?”
“Yes.”
He snorted. “Figures. Got a spare Indian baby? Give it to any Indian who’ll take her. They’re all the same anyway.” He waved at my parents. “Hell, doesn’t even matter if the new dad is Indian or not. He’s a forest ranger? That’s close enough. At one with nature and all that—”
“Shut up,” I snarled. “Just shut the hell—” I choked on the rest and turned back to my family. They were making their way forward. Dad had his arm around Mom, gripping so close he seemed to be holding her upright. Grandma was on her other side, clasping her hand.
Someone met them and gestured to chairs in front of a giant photo. It was from this past spring, of me crouched, hugging Kenjii, and grinning. We were both splattered with mud after Dad let Daniel and me take his Jeep off-roading after a heavy rain. We’d come back and Mom made us stay outside—not because of the mud, but because she wanted pictures. In the real photo Daniel was there, too, standing behind me, and I could see his hand in the blown-up version. A disembodied hand resting on my shoulder. I wished they’d left him in it, maybe even let us have a joint photo, but his dad had picked one of Daniel in a suit, looking somber and uncomfortable and not like Daniel at all.
When the man directed them to their spot, Mom seemed to notice the photo for the first time. She stopped, making Dad falter and Grandma stumble. Then she . . . she made this noise. This horrible noise. A keening wail as she dropped. Just dropped, like someone had cut her legs out from under her, and Dad grabbed her before she hit the ground, and he crouched there, bent on one knee, with Mom collapsed against him, and I could hear her crying. Even from here, I could hear her crying.
“I can’t do this,” I said, scrambling onto all fours. “I have to go tell—”
“No!” Ash swung up. He poised there, ready to pounce on me. “You can’t, Maya.”
I looked back at my parents, buried against each other, my dad’s back rising and falling hard, and I knew he was crying, too. I should have listened to Daniel. Why the hell hadn’t I listened to Daniel? Because I’d been stubborn. Stubborn and proud, as always, and now I saw exactly what he’d meant and how right he’d been. This was cruel—unbelievably cruel—watching my parents suffer when all I had to do was leap from this tree and run over—