“Like hell you will.” Ronan's eyes turned as black as night. He dropped the bag and stalked toward Death, but Death held up a hand, stopping Ronan in his tracks.
"Careful,demon.” Death’s tone was so soft, so gentle, he sounded like he was teaching a toddler how to hold a butterfly without crushing it. “Unless you wish to reveal your secrets as well.”
Ronan was shaking with rage, but instead of charging Death, he backed off. When he looked at me again, his eyes had returned to normal.
I had never, ever seen Ronan back down from a challenge like that.
I looked from Ronan to Death and back to Ronan again. Ronan wasn't afraid of him, but there was definitely bad blood between them.
Once again, I wondered about Ronan's origins—about all the things he was hiding—but my mind was already spinning with so many other what-ifs and what-nows, there was little room for anything else.
Ronan said, “We don't know who killed Sophie and the other witches. We don't know what they were after, or whether they'll be back for more, but Alvarez thinks they’re not done. I'm not taking that chance with your life. We have to go, Gray. Come on.”
“You mean run,” I said. “You’re telling me we have to run.”
“I don’t care what you call it as long as you do it. Sooner the better.”
Before Sophie and Ronan, I had only truly loved one other person in my life—the woman who adopted me as a baby after my real mother died.
When Calla was taken from me, I didn't seek vengeance from those responsible, even though I knew who they were. I didn't call the police. I didn't even call the neighbors.
I ran.
I survived. It was Calla’s dying wish—her last word.Survive.
It was the only thing I could give to her, the silent promise I'd made on the day she died.
I’d always told myself that if I ever got into a dangerous situation—I mean,reallydangerous—I would run again. Survive, no matter what.
But now that the danger was on me again, I wasn't sure it was the right call. How could I run when my best friend was murdered less than a day after I’d inadvertently used magic and brought a girl back from the dead? How could I run when I had nearly taken Sophie’s soul, nearly condemned her to life as a revenant, just as I’d done to Bean?
I looked from Ronan—one of my best friends, a man I was pretty sure I was falling in love with—back to Death, shrouded in shadow and a deep coldness I couldn't even begin to fathom.
Both were offering me a way out. A way to survive, just like I’d promised Calla I’d do.
But Calla was gone.
I had every intention of keeping my promise to Calla.
But I was done running.
“I'm not going anywhere,” I said, dropping the backpack and standing up straight for the first time all night. “I have work to do.”
Fifteen
Gray
By the time Ronan and I left the house a few hours later, the streets of South Bay were wet and grey and oily, the morning sky bleached of color. Everywhere I looked people huddled under umbrellas, ducking into cars and shops to escape the rain.
Sophie would’ve called it a Five of Cups kind of day, like the tarot card of the same name. On the card, a cloaked woman mourned three cups that had spilled on the road before her, so focused on the loss that she didn’t notice the two full, upright cups behind her.
As to the weather, it was the kind of day that soaks you clear to the bone, makes you wonder if you’ll ever feel the sun on your face again.
I zipped up the sweatshirt I’d taken from the hook on Sophie’s door—a ridiculously hot pink number lined with white fleece that I normally wouldn’t be caught dead in—and soldiered on, trying to imagine two cups still standing upright somewhere on the horizon.
Trying to imagine hope.
Normally I didn’t mind the rain—it was one of the things I loved about the Bay. To me it’d always meant a fresh start, a great washing away of everything shitty that had come the day before.
