“No, Celeste.” Remorse coasts over him, a shadow dragging his eyelids down. He’s so unguarded, like after I was a child. “Chicago.”

“What’s in Chicago?”

He shakes his head, dismissing my inquiry, and calls out, “Be prepared in a half hour,” as he saunters away.

I’ll add this to the record of weird occasions which have occurred prior to now few months. It’s eight within the night, and I’m being whisked to Chicago with out rationalization.

Not going house.

I might need thwarted one catastrophe, however I’m nonetheless reeling from being separated from Liam and Ivy. And though I already longed to change into household to Wells, Ty, and Gage, it’s staggering how empty I really feel being away from them too, like they’ve embedded themselves within the deepest crannies of my soul—the very elements I disguise from everybody else. They’ve seen me at my worst—battered and crushed, despondent and devastated, misplaced and looking. And every of them has supplied one other layer of acceptance, hope, and belonging in their very own distinctive methods.

I haven’t seen Wells and Ty for the reason that night time Liam and I left for Tennessee, which appears like a lifetime in the past. I lengthy for Ty’s easygoing consolation and Wells’s guiding energy.

Rex takes my luggage as quickly as they’re prepared, and after I attain the entrance door, my mom is ready, wearing her night loungewear. I suppose she received’t be becoming a member of us.

She instantly curls me right into a hug. It’s forlorn and dramatic, just like the one she issued after I arrived. “Even should you rule the world, you’ll at all times be my treasured lady. You and Ivy care for one another. Okay?”

The point out of Ivy has harmful expectations effervescent inside my veins, pumping me with renewed optimism. Perhaps my father is taking me to fulfill Liam at a secure home in Chicago. I don’t ask although. If that’s the case, my mom in all probability isn’t alleged to know.

As a substitute, I squeeze her again. “I’m not ruling something. I’m hopelessly in love with a knight of the underworld, such as you.” I titter softly, and he or she echoes it, however a quaver creeps in as I end my goodbye. “Even when I used to be, nothing would change the truth that you’re my hero—the tenacious lady who ready me for any path I discovered myself on.”

All these years, I’ve believed she was a bit shallow. I adored her, thought she was fierce and decided, however she at all times appeared centered on trivial issues. All alongside, she was desperately pointing me towards a safer avenue and making ready me for the opportunity of a extra treacherous one together with her refined tokens of recommendation.

We half with a stoic grin and a therapeutic revitalization to our surfacy relationship earlier than I set off for my thriller journey.

The flight time is just an hour and a half, however factoring in our driving time, it’s practically midnight when the driving force rolls up in entrance of a church.

“What are we doing right here?” I ask, peeking out the window to gape on the dingy white cathedral.

I doubt that is any sort of secure home.

It’s historical with a haunted magnificence about it. Just like the saints are murmuring hushed chidings as a result of we dared to interrupt. My mom would say the rosary on the mere sight.

A raging migraine hammers out a warning as my coronary heart kilos alongside in protest, battering towards my sternum with a beseeching request to retreat. I don’t even understand that neither Rex nor my father answered me, till they’re tugging me out of the again seat and onto the slick sidewalk.

The storm blew by the complete Midwest, so all the things is a foot deep in crunchy snow, other than the scraped walkway. The air is stuffed with an disagreeable aroma. An unlikely cocktail of chocolate and tuna and sulfur pervades the slapping wind, clogging my throat with a burning urge to cough. However the eeriest element at play is how the world appears to be coloured in a sepia filter, as if we have been frozen in time, softly tinged in a reddish yellow. Preserved. This snippet will without end be touched with the shading of aged historical past—significance. The amber streetlights prance round me in consensus.

And my bones fucking ache.

“You’re not going to reply me?” I snap at them as they every brace one among my elbows, guiding me up the steps. “That is some creepy, fucked-up expedition you’re staying tight-lipped about. I can’t be the one one who’s reaping a horror-house vibe from this historical cathedral.”

I could be freaking out. A tad.

Able to run, screaming, down the icy streets in my three-inch heels to keep away from being possessed by one among these pissed-off spirits.

Yeah. That’s a brand new thought for me.

After we attain the highest, my father pulls me nearer. “That is so far as I’m going, Cee.”

“What?” I wheeze, breathless from the invasive chill assailing my lungs. “What the hell is occurring?” I look at Rex, imploring him to attach the dots, halt the dizzying streetlight waltz, stop the phantom whispering saints from seizing me.

I may not have Ivy’s refined intestine instincts, however I acknowledge when one thing is off. Upended. And that is it.

“Irrespective of how darkish it will get …”

“That is it for me too, Celeste,” Rex chokes out.

“I’m sorry,” I hiss, chucking any and all of my well-bred manners. They don’t seem to be abandoning me right here. “What. The. Fuck is occurring?”

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