Chapter Fourteen #3
“It was just a handful of people who made the deal, so why shouldn’t the same amount of people be able to unmake it?” Jack says that unmaking part again, sounding less defensive than I might have expected. But then, judging by Cleo’s reply to me, I feel like this
topic has come up before. He’s clearly had time to practice a response. “We just need a plan.” He eyes Logan. “Did you expect
that doing something that no one has done in two hundred years would be easy?”
Jack and Logan have a kind of silent standoff, but Jack doesn’t engage with it long. He frowns down at the map.
Nora looks between him and Logan. “Jack’s working on a theory that the only people who can break the curse are founding family descendants. That’s us.”
She says this like it’s a great positive in all this. I’m not sure it’s positive at all.
“My grandfather thinks it’s a limiting theory,” Jack says, like he can’t help but tell us the whole story. Like he thinks
we need all the information, even if it doesn’t support his position. That makes something in me . . . soften more than it
should. “Maybe he’s right. He’s been studying it longer than I have, but I can’t let it go. Especially now that we’ve got
more than one Darling.”
He looks at me then, and it’s the same kind of look I saw in the back room when I thought I had found a kind of softening
in him. Something more than a softening, really.
But I’m probably letting my imagination run wild because he’s so absurdly hot, and now is not the time for that. So I do founding-family
math instead. Two Darlings, three counting Cleo since her grandmother is one. Two Bellamys, and one adopted Bellamy. Does
adopted count? Do foundlings count? Do we know if any of these things count? Or will we have to wait and see if we’re spared while other people have demon targets on their backs?
I keep trying to work how I fit into this, as some kind of warning system. As the bringer of doom, which, in fairness, has always been the vibe I bring to any party. “Has the harbinger ever been a founding family member
before?” I ask.
Everyone looks at me except Logan, who is still studying the map.
Nora’s gaze moves to Jack. “We know for a fact they haven’t been, don’t we?”
“I’ll have to go through everything and double-check, but . . . I don’t think so.” He’s studying me again with those intent
green eyes. I order myself not to misinterpret what I see there. “A Darling who is part foundling for a harbinger.”
“And here early,” Cleo says, also studying me. “The harbinger never comes early. Always on the flood wall, like you were last night, but not this early. Sometimes they live through that, sometimes not, but usually it’s chaos anyway because the Feed happens the following night.”
I feel like some kind of science experiment, the way they’re all staring at me. The good news is that I am used to that kind
of thing, so I smile.
“It must be Amelia.” Nora’s voice is hushed. “That’s what’s different. Amelia’s death is what brought them here. She knew
everything that was happening. Maybe she knew too much. So it’s possible that she might have . . .”
We don’t have to share dreams for me to get where she’s going with that. I don’t like it.
Neither does Logan. “You aren’t suggesting our grandmother killed herself to bring us here early,” he says sharply.
“No.” Nora scowls at Logan. “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying . . . It means something that she brought you guys here now. Early. It has to mean something.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like we’ve got a damn chance,” Jack answers. “Because this is going differently than it has before.”
There’s a light in his eyes I haven’t seen before, especially when he’s looking at me the way he is now. It reads like determination,
but I think what’s different is there’s a kind of hope behind it.
Like I could be a beacon of hope, when I kind of think I’m a sign for all things shitty. Because I always have been.
But the thing is . . . I want to be about hope for a change. I don’t want to bring the doom and destruction the way I always
have in a thousand different tiny ways in my life.
I want to mean something. Especially here.
I don’t know why, but finding out we come from this fucked up place matters to me. Discovering that my dreams connect to reality here in the middle of Iowa matters.
I want that to mean I matter, too.
Though I certainly know better than to say this out loud.
“If the harbinger getting here early is because of Amelia, I think we should take that as a gift.” Cleo looks around at the
rest of us. “Question is, what do we do with the extra time?”
Jack turns his brooding gaze back to the map. “I want to figure out this clock tower thing. I’ll go back and look through
the diaries. Maybe there’s a clue in there.”
“I’ll help,” Nora tells him. Then she looks my way. “Lexi, you should read the account of the deal the first settlers made
with the demons. Maybe it’ll shake something loose.”
Jack nods. “Come by the antique store tomorrow. Grandpa will show you. Meanwhile, Nora and I will go over the old accounts,
and the rest of us should steer clear of the danger zones.” He points them out on the map again. The mine, the flood wall,
and now the clock tower. “Even during the day. Maybe there’s no danger, but Lexi’s dreams suggest otherwise, so we have to
be careful. We’re all we’ve got.”
I look around this strange room with three near strangers and my twin brother. We’re all we’ve got, I think. It’s scary, but it feels correct. Or meant. Or something.
Like I was always heading right here.
Like I’ve dreamed of this, too, when I only remember the slurping and the scary parts.
Nora starts clearing up the snacks from the table and takes most of them over toward the kitchen area with the minifridge.
Logan watches her go, then seems to jerk himself out of that. He asks Cleo about the planes, and she leads him away from the
table in the opposite direction and starts pointing at the various ancient aircraft parked on the concrete.
I get the impression that Logan is both surprised and interested in how much she knows.
Then it occurs to me that Jack and I are alone at the table.
“No sleepwalking,” Jack is saying, and now all that brooding green is on me again. I can feel it rush through me, like his
gaze is a physical thing. “If you dream, you write everything down when you wake up and bring it to the collective. In fact,
I want you to write out all the dreams you’ve ever had. We’ll go over them together.”
“Together,” I agree. Or I mean to agree, but my voice comes out a little . . . husky.
Jack’s gaze darkens. For a moment it’s like the hangar collapses all around us, and there’s nothing but us, our eyes locked
together, and the way I’m more sure than I’ve ever been of anything that if I reach out and put my hand on his chest I’ll
find out our heartbeat is doing the exact same thing—
Cleo and Logan laugh at something. Nora makes a noise over by the kitchen.
Jack clears his throat. “We’ll—ah—look at your dreams and see what fits into the history, into what we know. We have to use
whatever tools we’ve got.”
I’m nodding along, hoping I look like an agreeable little soldier on the outside while inside I’m shaking. Because of the moment that I guess we’re pretending didn’t just happen, but if I can push that aside, at the idea that my
dreams—this horrible malady that has held me back my whole life and ruined too many things to count—might be a tool, a key to ending a centuries-old demon deal?
I’m having a hard time believing it all.
Also, I really wish I’d tested my little theory and put my hands on him.
I guess I’m glad I didn’t when everyone drifts back to the table a moment later, because that would be awkward.
But my palms twitch slightly, like they’re complaining.
“There are no secrets here,” Jack says. Not just to me, who he’s kind of keeping secrets with, if we want to get technical.
To everyone. “You see anything weird, anything off, you tell the rest of us. We work together.”
“How am I supposed to stop her from sleepwalking when locking all the doors and sleeping in the damn living room of that tiny
house doesn’t stop her?” Logan asks, but he doesn’t sound annoyed for a change. He sounds worried. Like he’s genuinely seeking
an answer.
Jack looks very patient then, which I can see Logan takes against. “The locket my grandfather gave her should help. Nora?”
“When we get back to town, I’ll come into your bedroom and show you the routine,” she tells me in her usual kind way. “It’s
easy once you get used to it.”
I try to look grateful, except all my life I’ve been given routines and medications and interventions and nothing has ever
worked for more than a short period of time.
But Nora is like me, and this routine works for her. So maybe it’s possible. I decide I’ll hold on to that.
There’s that hope again.
Suddenly, there’s a noise, kind of like a bang.
I’m not the only one who jumps.
We all look toward an interior door with a window at the top. There’s suddenly a face in the window, white and ghostly. And
when a hand comes up and slams against the glass, I nearly shriek, but Cleo stands up from her chair again.
She puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder as she passes. “That’s just my grandma. I’d introduce you, but she clearly isn’t
feeling well. I’ll go take care of it. You guys be careful on your way back. Stay in the light.”
She strides off toward the door, then disappears through it and into the room on the other side.
I’m working to get my breathing even again.
“Did you know about Virginia?” I hear Nora ask Jack softly.
His response is a rumble, unintelligible, but I get the feeling whatever is going on with Cleo’s grandmother was a secret
from everyone.
When Jack just warned us about secrets.