Fuck, could it be true? Could Lissa truly be abanshee?
My foster sister absently brushes her hand over the back of the couch, her gaze faraway and vacant.
“I know about the paranormal,” she says softly. “Hale and Gerry had no choice but to tell me after…well…after what happened. They claimed they didn’t know what I was, but it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. A banshee. A screaming woman. The woman in white.”
She gestures towards her all-black ensemble with a snort.
“Lissa?” Jake chews on his thumbnail. “Are you sure? I mean, just because?—”
“I’m sure,” she interrupts, turning towards him. “I don’t know how I am. It just feels…right, you know? I’m a banshee.”
She hefts her chin in the air, emulating a confidence I’m not sure she truly feels, especially when I notice her lower lip trembling.
“Now, I just need to figure out what this means and how to control it.” A pensive expression colors her face as she glances down at her hands, which still rest on the back of the couch. “If I can stop death before it happens…”
“Lissa, don’t put that much responsibility on yourself,” I tell her gently, wanting to comfort her but unsure how.
She just looks so…broken, so adrift, like a twig whipping around in a turbulent sea. It almost reminds me of Jake, when he discovered the truth about who he is and what he can do.
“I might be able to save people, Iz,” Lissa whispers earnestly. When she glances up at me, tears glimmer in her eyes, crystallized prisms that refract the light. She squeezes her eyes shut, and when she reopens them, the tears have vanished. “I’mgoingto save people.”
Then, without another word, she turns on her heel and stomps away, her dyed hair cascading behind her.
Jake and I watch her go and then exchange a look—similar to the one we shared when Seth left.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand our foster siblings,” Jake muses with a shake of his head. “Or any pre-teen, for that matter.”
“Poor Lissa.” My heart hurts for her, an almost physical pain.
A shadow descends over Jake’s features, and he shifts his weight on the sofa. “Yeah.”
I can tell he’s thinking about when the truth came out about him.
It turns out, the real Jake died in a car accident years ago. This Jake is nothing but a clay statue imbued with powerful magic.
“Jake…” I begin helplessly, but he shakes his head, wordlessly telling me to drop the subject. So I do. “Have you heard about my bio fathers?”
Jake flashes me a relieved smile and nods once. “Only what I’ve overheard eavesdropping.” He leans forward conspiratorially. “Silas and Mr. Remington are your fathers?”
“Apparently.”
I still don’t know how I feel about that. They both lied to me for months, and I’m pissed. Really, really pissed. Yet another part of me is desperate to learn about my past and my birth mother. What truly happened to her? Did my fathers love her? How did I end up in the foster care system?
“And who is this Travan fellow everyone keeps talking about?” Jake continues, scratching at his jawline, where the hint of a beard resides.
“I’ve heard that name before,” I tell him, thinking of the witches.
Everybody seems almost…scared of him. But why? Who is he?
“Are you going to call them?” Jake arches an eyebrow.
“I should, shouldn’t I?” A wave of nervous energy ripples through me, and I find myself fiddling with the hem of my shirt.
“So…?” Jake presses.
“So…the witches took my phone. I have no way of contacting anyone. Unless…” I stare at him expectantly, and with a roll of his eyes, he digs his phone out of his pocket and hands it to me.
“I have Silas’s name saved under Boss Man.”
