He knows I’m scared. It doesn’t mean anything.
I held the string, and I realized the cat’s cradle wasn’t to catch my dreams.
It was to catch me.
Jared noticed us walking back down the hill and stopped unloading weapons from the van. His eyes moved from his brother to me. I started to smile, but he looked away.
Alara threw Lukas a disapproving look, like we had stayed out all night and showed up with our clothes on inside out. I pulled at my T-shirt, suddenly uncomfortable.
“How’s it look up there?” Alara asked without turning around.
“Just like the picture,” Lukas said.
Alara pointed at a plastic milk jug on the ground with the words holy water scrawled on the front. “Can you grab that?”
I didn’t know if she was talking to me, but I picked it up anyway.
“Thanks.” She poured some of the holy water into a plastic soda bottle.
“So that stuff really works?”
Alara slipped the bottle into the leather tool belt around her waist. “About sixty percent of the time.”
She systematically filled the rest of the slots in her belt—a pouch of salt, liquid salt rounds, a black marker. It reminded me of the way Elle put on her makeup in the car without a mirror.
“How many times have you done this?” I asked.
Alara shrugged. “With these guys? Six.”
Unless studying and making out in my room counted, I hadn’t even been on six dates.
I wanted to ask her so many questions. Would the spirits haunting Lilburn look like the strangled girl from my room? Would they be as easy to destroy? Lukas and Jared only had one gun the night they burst into my room. The four of them were bringing a lot more firepower this time.
“Heads up, Luke.” Jared tossed his brother the crossbow followed by a ripped cardboard box. Lukas opened the box without a word and examined the pointed projectiles. They looked more like long bullets than like arrows.
“Cool, huh?” Priest said. “Cold-iron bolts. I made them a few days ago.”
“Why does the iron need to be cold?” I asked.
“That’s what they call it when you hammer iron into shape without heating it.” Priest opened a box of nails and loaded a nail gun. “Spirits hate the stuff. It destroys them or burns like hell, depending on how strong they are.”
“Got it.” I pointed at the nails scattered around him. “Cold iron?”
“You’re catching on.”
Lukas loaded the remaining bolts and filled one of his pockets with salt. His cuff slid up and a thin layer of salt dusted his wrist. There was a black design on his skin.
“Is that a tattoo?” I asked.
Priest glanced at Lukas.
Lukas followed my eyes to his wrist and pulled down his sleeve. “It’s nothing.”
“So what’s the plan?” Priest asked as he handed Jared the nail gun.
Jared dumped a handful of nails into the pocket of his army jacket. “Lukas and Alara can check out the house. We’ll take the tower.”
“Let me guess? I can monitor the paranormal activity.” Priest sounded disappointed.
Jared checked the trigger on the weapon. “It’s an important job.”
Priest shoved a handheld device that looked like a radio into one of his back pockets and tucked a calculator in the other.
“Planning to do your math homework in the haunted house?” I teased.
Priest perked up. “I wouldn’t need one for my homework, but they’re good for lots of other stuff.” He walked over and stood beside Jared. Lukas and Alara were already standing together.
“Who am I going with?” I asked.
The four of them looked at one another. No one reacted except Priest, who immediately put on his headphones.
“Nobody,” Jared finally answered. “You’re staying here.”
Andras was responsible for my mother’s death. If there was a weapon capable of destroying him, I wanted to help them find it. “I’m going with you.”
Jared pushed past me without a word and disappeared around the side of the van.
I was right on his heels. “You think if you ignore me, I’ll just wait out here? I don’t care—”
He whipped around. “I’m not letting you go in that house.”
“It’s not your decision to make.”
Jared’s eyes clouded over and met mine. “It is if there’s a vengeance spirit in there.…”
“You’ve been trying to convince me that this is my destiny or my duty, or whatever your parents told you guys to make you trade a normal life for this.” I yanked on the pocket of his jacket, the nails rattling inside. “If I’m really one of you, shouldn’t I see what I’m up against?”
Anger flickered in his eyes. “My parents didn’t tell me anything. My mom died ten minutes after she gave birth to us. And my dad told me the truth. Can you say the same thing?”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
Jared’s voice dropped. “You don’t get to judge my father or my life. What we do is important. It means something.”
I wanted to fire back with a comment that would hurt him the way he’d tried to hurt me, but I couldn’t. No matter how different we were, Jared and I shared a common denominator as uncommon as they came.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” My hands were shaking.
Jared noticed and his expression softened. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. Why do you really want to go in?”