“Who killed her?” Kai asked, voice raspy—perhaps he was too new to hear this tale.
Mora stopped by an enormous arrangement of red roses, tilting her head to the side. “Have you ever had nightmares, Kai? About men who are monsters? Monsters who are men?”
He nodded faintly.
“That’s what killed my sister. They’re called Fenris. They’re monsters, demons, creatures who eat girls—”
“Beasts,” Kai said breathlessly—his voice was softer now. “My grandmother called them beasts.”
“Ah,” Mora said, sounding impressed, though she wasn’t exactly shocked—every few years she ran into someone who knew about the Fenris. “Well, the Fenris killed my sister, so the single soul she and I shared was fractured. It’s easier to turn someone broken like that into something dark, like them.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was quiet. “I could feel myself changing, forgetting my old life with my family. So I went to this beach we used to vacation at, because I was sure the ocean was the only thing big enough to make me remember. To make me feel again.” She shook her head and looked up at the stained-glass ceiling, imagining for a moment that the watercolor-like swirls of glass were waves above her. “That’s why all girls like me wound up there. We were ocean girls, adopted sisters, waiting to become as dark as they are. The Fenris waited until I was a shell, barely a living thing, then pulled me out of the water. They made me theirs.” She forced her eyes back to Kai, gritted her teeth, and pleaded with her head to make the memory stop. It didn’t work.
“What did they do to you?” Kai asked in shock.
“They kill their mortal lovers,” Mora explained delicately. “So they need girls like me. They make us monsters, like them. They make us theirs. But you have to understand, Kai—I thought it was a curse, what happened to me, but it was a blessing. I was freed. Just like I’m freeing you.”
“From what?” Kai asked, rubbing his temples as if he was waking up. Mora glanced at his arms and noticed chill bumps rising, then followed his line of sight over her shoulder. The roses in the vase, bright red and fully bloomed. He was staring at them, squinting now. Mora reached forward, grasping his hand forcefully. It was hot and sticky to her, and it was all she could do not to grimace at the feeling.
“From being mundane,” she whispered, standing on her toes to bring her lips close to his ear. “From being ordinary.”
“From Ginny. Where’s Ginny?” Kai lifted his eyes to meet hers, and they were gold—too gold for comfort, too gold for Mora to overlook them. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. Kai’s mouth was soft and gentle against hers; it felt as if she could crush him. She kissed him, licked at his lips, and slid her hand along his thigh until she finally felt his skin grow cold. When she pulled away, his eyes were dark, his skin fairer, a shade that matched her own.
“Come on,” she said, motioning toward the front desk. “Michael and Larson have probably finished circling the building. I want to be in the room once they get here.” She’d asked them to check the area for signs that the Fenris were nearby, that they’d followed her. They were in Atlanta, closer to her than she would have liked—she was almost certain they were responsible for the body found by Kai’s building. If she hadn’t taken Kai when she did, they’d probably have smelled her, if not seen her….
Mora swallowed the thought and took Kai’s hand and tried to pull him forward, but his feet were planted, a look of shock on his face.
“Mora,” he gasped, squeezing her fingers. “I think I love you.”
Mora smiled and wrapped her fingers underneath Kai’s chin tenderly. “Of course, darling.” She turned, pulling harder until he followed her. “You all do.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Think. Think this through.
I leave a note for my mom saying I’m going to stay with Dad for a week or so, to get over Kai leaving. It’ll buy me a little time, at least—she won’t want to be the helicopter parent, telling me I can’t go, and she won’t want to call Dad to check that my story is true. Then I call the school, just in case the snow breaks sooner rather than later. I leave a voice mail with the attendance office in a voice that sounds like my mother’s: There’s been a family emergency. Ginny will be out for a week.
It’s not a total lie.
Odds are good someone will notice Grandma Dalia’s car is gone before they work out I’m gone, anyway, I think as I pull the station wagon out of the parking lot, opting not to consider what will happen if finding Kai takes more than a week. In the back seat, the dimes from the bowl rattle, now dumped in a grocery bag; I took them for luck. After all, if Grandma Dalia was right about the Snow Queen, she might be right about everything else, too.
The Atlanta skyline fades quickly, blotted out by snow clouds. I hardly ever drive, and the weather isn’t making it any easier. The roads are slick and darkened by both the night and the power outages that dot my route. I can’t go anything close to the speed limit—at times, I’m going less than half. My eyes are trained on the white dashes on the asphalt, so focused I feel hypnotized. I play a game in my head, pretending I’m leaping over the dashes, running toward Kai, running to stop him from…
From what?
Just find him, first. They can’t have gotten that far ahead of me—a few hours, at most, and if they don’t know I’m behind them they’re bound to take their time. Plus, Mora doesn’t seem like a road trip kind of girl. She’ll probably want to stop in a hotel or something, and not a cheap one, either. It’ll have to be one along this interstate—it’s the only reasonable way to go north. Not that I really know she’s even headed in this direction, but before leaving I looked at the weather forecast. Snow north of Atlanta, headed for Nashville. If I’m right, if Mora is the Snow Queen—a theory that alternates between sounding like the absolute truth and complete lunacy in my head—then she’ll be where the snow is. I think. I hope. Please.
Strange how stealing a car suddenly doesn’t feel like the craziest part of my plan.
Night begins to give in to the slightest implication of morning. The black sky becomes a shade of steel gray, though every now and then hints of the sun slip through, fingers of orange in an otherwise monochrome world. The sight snaps me out of my hypnosis a little, making me aware of just where I am and what I’m doing. I’m in Tennessee, somewhere near Nashville, I think. The snow here isn’t deep, and cars are beginning to appear on the road, though the drivers look every bit as wary as me.