Page 89 of Tracking Snow

My brain and my body seem separated by a great distance, and the pain that exists in both places cannot seem to cross it. Cotton, I think. Someone has packed cotton into the whole length of that distance, and the pain comes through only as pressure, as a vague and muted thudding, the way a sound travels through a wall.

One had dropped a kiss on my forehead even as the sirens echoed between the tall skyscrapers, heralding their arrival, and then when I opened my eyes, he was gone.

I can’t say I’m surprised. He couldn’t even bear to take me to the hospital, so I don’t blame him for not sticking around for the cops to show up. He hid his face, hid his powers, hid anything that might let someone pin him down. Standing next to me when the officers showed up would put him in reports, statements, official records.

But I do blame the ones responsible for Carolee, who still lays too close yet so far, underneath a blanket.

And I have a real damn good idea of who that is.

I don’t remember if I called the cops first or went in and told Rap. I just remember moving through the dancing, oblivious throng of Poison Apple, but it felt so slow, so difficult. Like moving through molasses. Ariel tried to catch my eye, but I ignored it.

I don’t even remember what I said to Rap, but her expression hollowed out, as if I’d scooped out her insides.

That same expression is on her face now as she talks to the cops, but she isn’t looking at them. She’s staring over the officer’s shoulder, arms crossed. Anyone else who saw that pose would think she was in defensive mode, but I see it for what it is. A protective stance, to keep from caving in on herself too.

Ryder stands next to her, his attention completely affixed on Rap. Concern has settled so deep in the lines of his forehead that I wonder if they’ll stick that way.

For a while, Ariel sits with me on the stoop, her hand trapped in mine. We cry together, and I hold on so hard her rings bite into my palm. She keeps whispering my name like she can tug me back by the sound of it, but my brain won’t stay where she is.

It keeps going back to the van.

The thud.

The blanket.

The empty space where One had been before the cops arrived.

I was the one who found the body.

My memory replays that sound I heard that only now makes sense in hindsight. The sick thuds of her body hitting and rolling on the ground as some bastards dropped her off like a sack of potatoes.

Carolee didn’t look like Carolee, she looked like...

Her face was grayed, ashen, as if the life had been drained out of her. I overheard some cops wonder if a vamp had sucked the blood out of her to make her look like that, but their partner quickly ruled that out.

But I’d seen it before. It looked like the same sickness Rosie had. Like something stole her life force. Sucked it out of her.

And I was going to find out who did it.

Chapter 28

How We Save the World

ONE

Iuse the back entrance. The alley behind Queenie Fairchild’s Beacon Hill brownstone is narrow, private, and watched. Cameras blink out for two seconds when I arrive.

I didn’t want to leave Snow there, looking so fragile, so devastated. I wanted to wrap her in my arms forever until her hurt stopped. But with the sirens heralding the arrival of cops, it was time for me to go.

The less people knew about us, the better. Hospitals and cops both came with forms, cameras, questions, and people paid to notice when the answers didn’t line up. We need to stay a ghost.

No one sees me. No one hears the door seal behind me as I let myself in the grand estate.

The house smells like polish and flowers. I move through the service hall without sound. Past the kitchen. Past the framed photo of Queenie shaking hands with the mayor and a wall of framed headlines touting her crime reduction initiatives, youth safety programs, and sweeping public health reforms.

Light spills across the carpet from the slightly ajar door to her office.

Slowly, carefully, I push the door open.