Unbreakable (18 page)

Priest reached for the disks and held them up to the light. “You found two?”

“It was dark and they looked exactly the same, so I grabbed them both.”

“I’m not sure they’ll do us much good,” Lukas said. “The clue to finding the next piece is probably ash by now.”

Priest closed his hand around the disks. “He’s right. We found the other clues near the disks.”

“Not all of them. The diagram of the Shift and the word
Lilburn
were in your journal, and parts of mine are encrypted. There has to be something—” Alara winced and pulled up her sleeve. “Oh my god.”

Thin lines carved themselves into her skin, the same way Priest’s mark had manifested after he destroyed Millicent’s spirit. The impressions curved and one peaked into a triangle like the devil’s tail from Andras’ seal.

The fire Alara set must have burned through the cabinet and destroyed the dybbuk by now.

She reached in her pocket and rubbed her wrist with salt. Slowly, black lines filled the indentations. The guys pulled up their own sleeves, and Alara rubbed the crystals
over their arms. The salt acted like the glass disks, illuminating a code invisible to the naked eye. The four of them positioned their wrists to form the seal, leaving only one small section missing.

I’m about to get my mark.

I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted it—to be part of their secret world, and my mother’s. To be one of them.

When did it change?

At Lilburn when Lukas saved my life, or in the well when Priest and I saved each other? When Alara trusted me to draw the Wall from memory? Or was it before that? When they lost almost everything they owned because of my mistake and still didn’t turn their backs on me?

Maybe it was all of those moments layered between the White Stripes, a blue string, a voodoo medal, and the weight of Jared’s eyes when he looked at me.

I inched my sleeve up slowly.

Will it hurt?

“Let’s see it,” Lukas said, the four of them still holding their arms together, waiting for the last Black Dove. I turned over my wrist so I could see the lines magically cutting themselves into my skin.

It was unmarked.

Confusion registered on their faces, mirroring my own.

“Wait,” Priest said. “Alara’s mark only showed up a second ago, and you shot the spirit on the way out. That
had to be at least a few minutes after the fire destroyed the dybbuk. Give it some time.”

Alara raised her eyes to meet mine. There was no way the fire could’ve burned through the box and destroyed the dybbuk before I shot the magician and we made it out of the building.

“I’m not one of you.” I yanked my sleeve back down.

“What are you talking about?” Lukas sounded confused.

“Kennedy destroyed the vengeance spirit first.” Alara’s eyes dropped to the floor as though it was somehow her fault.

I wanted to disappear.

Instead, I threw open the door and ran.

The truth pounded me with every step. I wasn’t destined to protect the world from a demon that murdered my mother, or the missing link the Legion needed to destroy him.

Halfway across the parking lot, a hand closed around my wrist. I spun around. Jared stared back at me, desperate and lost. “I didn’t mean to grab you.”

I wanted to tell him it was okay—that I needed someone to hold me until the pain melted away.

Someone who wouldn’t let go.

I wasn’t capable of saying the words, but Jared heard them anyway. He hooked a finger through my belt loop and tugged me closer. He kept his gaze locked on mine,
and it felt like he could see the fears I was trying so hard to hide.

Can you see me?

Everything about his expression said yes. He closed the distance between us and wrapped his arms around me. I buried my face in his chest. Jared’s hand slid under my hair, his thumb trailing along my neck.

I forgot how to breathe or think or do anything except hold on. “I’m not the one. I never was.”

Jared’s cheek brushed mine, as he whispered in my ear. “You’re the only one.”

A tear slid down my cheek. “You don’t have to try to make me feel better.”

“I want to.”

“Why? I’m always screwing up and making things harder for you.…” I bit my lip, wishing I hadn’t said anything.

Jared pulled back so he could look at me, his hand still on my neck. “You think you make things harder for me?”

“I know I do.”

“Only because I worry about you.”

“You don’t have to feel responsible for me,” I said, my voice raw.

Jared ran his finger down my cheek, tracing the line where a tear had fallen. “That’s not the reason.”

I opened my hand and rested it against his chest without
thinking. Jared’s heart beat against my unmarked skin. “Half the time you won’t even look at me.”

His fingers slid down the back of my neck. “And the other half, I can’t stop thinking about you.”

I closed my hand, balling his shirt in my fist. “Jared—”

His face clouded over, and he stepped back. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It was a mistake.”

For a second, the words didn’t register. Not when he just chased me and held me in his arms and said—

It was a mistake.

I was a mistake. That’s what he meant.

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard those words. Heat crawled up my neck where his hand had been a moment ago. I wanted to be anywhere but here—standing in front of the boy who didn’t want me.

Jared reached for my arm, and I backed away, determined not to let him touch me again.

“Kennedy, you don’t understand—”

I swallowed hard, struggling to find my voice. I didn’t want him to know how much he’d hurt me. “There’s nothing to understand.”

I started to turn away.

Jared caught my hand again. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I know what I want.” He bit his lip and stared at the gravel beneath our feet. “I just can’t have it.”

“Why not?”

Jared’s blue eyes drifted back up to meet mine before he let my fingers slip out of his.

“I screw everything up, and the people close to me are the ones who get hurt.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded behind me. “Just ask Lukas.”

I stood there paralyzed, as Lukas and Priest jogged toward us.

Lukas’ smile faded, anger and jealousy warring in his eyes as he mentally calculated the distance between Jared and me. He had no way of knowing that we were miles apart in every way that mattered.

Priest didn’t seem to notice. “We know you’re one of us, Kennedy. I think we figured out why your mark didn’t show up.”

The mark.

Jared’s rejection had temporarily distracted me from the fact that the universe had rejected me, too.

“We need to compare notes to be sure.” Priest kept talking, but I was only half-listening. Jared wouldn’t look at me, and Lukas wouldn’t stop looking at his brother.

The words registered slowly. “Wait—you don’t know how they work?”

Priest paced across the asphalt. “Our families didn’t go into a lot of detail. It was sort of like ‘destroy a vengeance spirit and you’ll get your mark.’ ”

“That’s pretty self-explanatory.”

Lukas pushed his way past Jared. “There were lots of things they didn’t tell us about, like the Shift, or the fact that one of the members of the Legion had dropped off the grid. This is probably another one of those things.”

I thought about all the moments when the four of them seemed to be figuring things out as they went along. Their relatives probably never imagined they would all die on the same day, leaving the Legion in the hands of five teenagers who would have to ditch class to protect the world from a demon.

Lukas nudged my shoulder with his. “Come back and we’ll explain why your mark didn’t show up.”

He sounded so sure.

But what if he was wrong?

Alara was sitting in the back of the van with the doors open, her journal resting in her lap. “Did you tell her?”

“Not yet.” Priest hopped up next to her, buzzing with excitement. “So check it out. I got my mark after I destroyed Millicent’s spirit in the well with the bolt I made, right?”

Lukas continued without missing a beat. “Mine showed up after I took out a Lady in White whose patterns I’d tracked for months.”

Alara fidgeted with her eyebrow ring. “And my mark manifested because I used protective wards to take out the
dybbuk—holy water to drive it into the cabinet, and fire to destroy it.”

“But I drew the Wall,” I countered. “I helped.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Priest said. “The fire’s what actually destroyed it. Think about it. The bolt I made, the spirit Lukas tracked, Alara’s wards…”

Jared’s eyes lit up. “It makes sense.”

“I’m glad it makes sense to someone,” I mumbled.

“Weapons isn’t your specialty,” Priest continued. “The mark didn’t show up because you shot the vengeance spirit with a gun.”

“I don’t understand.”

He turned to Jared. “How’d you get yours?”

Jared closed his hand around the place where his mark lay dormant. “A cold-iron rod. I had the spirit in a headlock, and I drove the rod through his rib cage.”

Alara rolled her eyes. “We wouldn’t expect anything less.”

I might still be one of them.

“But I don’t have a specialty.”

Alara raised her eyebrows. “You’re kidding, right? You drew the Wall from memory.”

My eidetic memory didn’t seem like an impressive weapon in a battle against deadly spirits.

Priest shook his head. “More than that, the ability to draw symbols is directly related to invocation. Summoning and commanding angels and demons.”

“I can definitely draw, but I can’t summon anything—let alone an angel or a demon.”

Priest looked right at me. “Then you’re in luck because you don’t have to invoke a vengeance spirit. You just have to kill one.”

I
stood outside the coffee shop and watched Lukas through the window as he paid the barista. After sleeping in the van all night, I would’ve killed to sink into one of the leather armchairs inside. But the shop was tiny, and even though we were fifty miles from Sunshine, the possibility of someone recognizing me was too high.

Standing out here was still better than being stuck in the van.

Priest and Jared had headed into town to pick up supplies as soon as they woke up, while Alara scoured the journals, searching for a clue that might lead to another piece of the Shift. She’d only lasted twenty minutes before she insisted on a caffeine run, and we jumped at the chance to see something other than the inside of the van.

Lukas came back out with a cardboard drink carrier and handed me a steaming cup. “This one’s yours.”

“Thanks.” I took a sip. “You put cinnamon in it.”

He shrugged. “I remembered you like it.”

Of course he did.

Lukas walked down the street and I fell in step next to him. “Is everything okay?”

He gave me a weak smile. “You mean besides almost getting killed and setting a store on fire?”

“It feels like you’re mad at me.”

Lukas took his coin out of his pocket and rolled it over his fingers a few times before he answered. “I’m not mad. Just disappointed. I didn’t think Jared would have a chance with you. You’re not like the girls who usually fall for him.”

My stomach lurched.

How many girls was he talking about?

Heat spread through my cheeks. I sped up, hoping Lukas wouldn’t notice me blushing.

“Kennedy!” Lukas yanked my arm so hard that it felt like my shoulder was coming out of the socket.

A car horn blared and tires skidded.

Lukas hauled me back onto the sidewalk, and I fell against his chest, and he folded his arms around me. For a second, I was too scared to move. He stepped back and held me at arm’s length. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, watching as the coffee seeped out of the cups and into the street.

Lukas shook his head. “I’m a jerk. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You’re not the jerk.”

He pushed the hair away from my face. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

I couldn’t look at him. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

His silver coin was lying on the sidewalk. I bent down to pick it up, studying it for the first time.

“It belonged to my dad. It was the one thing he gave to me instead of Jared.”

In the center of the coin, a dove perched on a limb with five branches. A phrase was stamped around the circumference of the coin, in a language I couldn’t place.

“It’s Italian. It says, ‘May the black dove always carry you.’ ”

I turned the coin over so I could see the other side.

It was exactly the same.

After a second coffee run, we finally made it back to the van. Jared was sitting on the hood sorting through a bag from the sporting goods store with Priest.

“You guys were gone a long time.” Jared tried to hide the edge in his voice. “I thought someone recognized you again.”

I walked past him. “We were talking.”

“Well, we’ve been waiting.” He made an attempt to
sound casual, but failed miserably. “Alara found something and she wants to show all of us at the same time.”