Page 80 of Waysider
Some of the tension eased from Cass’s shoulders, and she released a breath, nodding her thanks at him. All right, she’d stalled enough. Cass pulled the bottle out of her pocket and pressed it to her lips. She tipped her head back and downed the See in two gulps. As the sweetness struck her tongue, Cass lowered her chin. She kept her eyes closed, though.
“Okay, Karen,” she said, frowning in concentration. “If there’s anything else you want to show me, I’m ready.”
The last word had barely left Cass’s mouth when the insides of her eyelids lightened. She opened them and looked around the mausoleum again, making a soft sound of surprise. This time, it wasn’t a dusty, empty place. Tethers glowed against the stone floor. There weren’t many, and none of them seemed to be attached to anything in here, but at least Cass knew the See was working. She closed her eyes again and waited. She wasn’t sure what else to do; Cass had never sought out a revenant before.
They sat there for several minutes. Frustration began to creep in. What if Cass had done all this for nothing? Frowning, she squared her shoulders and focused harder. “Karen Watkins, I summon you,” Cass commanded.
Another moment passed.
Then Cass’s spine straightened with a snap. Her eyes flew open.
Michael said something, his voice alarmed, but she couldn’t answer—Cass had lost control of her motor functions again. She knew what it meant now, and she tried not to fight it. Maybe if she let Karen in willingly, Cass would be able to see her memories more clearly. She sat rigidly, gripping the coffin beneath her so hard that her fingers dug painfully into the stone.
“How could you be so stupid?” a man’s voice demanded. Cass didn’t recognize it.
Then, between one moment and the next, she was back in the library. Their meeting place. Dark bookcases crowded in and shadows clung to everything. A distant patch of moonlight highlighted the looming figure in front of her, but all Karen could make out was the man’s broad shoulders. Fear and guilt lodged in her heart.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said tearfully, fumbling with the buttons on her shirt.
“You told me you were on birth control!”
“I—I must’ve missed a pill. It wasn’t on purpose, I swear—”
The man made a low, strangled sound, as if he were suppressing a frustrated cry. In the next breath, his hands came at her. Iron fingers wrapped around her throat. She reached up instinctively and clawed at them.
“You made me do this,” the man whispered, tightening his grip. “This would ruin me, Karen.”
She rasped for air, hitting at his arms with all her strength. Then she wound up her leg and kicked him in the shin. The man shouted in pain and threw her to the floor. Cass landed on her hands and knees, wheezing.
“If you touch her again, I will end you.”
The male voice cut through the darkness, but it didn’t belong to the man Karen had been arguing with. Michael.
The moment Cass thought his name, she came back to herself. Her eyes cracked open. As Cass registered that she was back in the mausoleum, she felt like she was waking up from a bad dream. Michael was holding her, and Cass remembered the low threat she’d heard him make. Somehow, she knew he wasn’t talking to her. Michael had been talking to the other revenant. To Karen.
Suddenly Cass remembered how the other girl had put a hand on her stomach, at the very end. She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but now the horror of what she’d just learned filled Cass’s throat, making it impossible to speak.
Karen Watkins was pregnant when she died.
“Cass? Are you all right?”
The sound of Michael’s voice steadied her. Cass sat up, still in the circle of his arms. He felt warm, she thought dimly. She hadn’t expected that. “We should get back to Wayside,” Cass said in a hollow voice.
“Are you all right?” Michael asked again, more firmly this time. He didn’t take his hands away. His lingering touch made Cass’s thoughts clear, and she tipped her head back to look at him.
“No,” she said honestly. “I haven’t been all right in a long time, actually.”
One of Michael’s hands rose, and he brushed her cheek with his knuckles. The touch was softer than a whisper. “You will someday,” Michael murmured. “I promise.”
Cass gave him a small smile. Michael smiled back and inclined his head in a silent question, as if to say, Want to get out of here?
She nodded. God, yes. They both got to their feet, and Michael finally let go of her. They left the mausoleum together, and the moment Cass stepped into the fresh air, she felt more like herself. The sensation of Karen’s soul crawling around inside her began to fade. They reached the edge of the cemetery and moved onto the sidewalk.
“What are you thinking about?” Michael asked.
Cass kicked a small rock out of her way. “I’m thinking how wasted it is on me. The fact that I’m here and she isn’t. Karen wanted to live. She fought for it. She had so much ahead of her, and she probably would’ve done amazing things. But she didn’t get to do any of it—instead, someone took that from her. When someone tried to take it from me, I lived. Why did I get a second chance and she didn’t?”
Michael didn’t respond. Cass couldn’t exactly blame him. She was asking questions that didn’t have answers. They finished the return to Wayside in silence, walking at a steady pace through the empty campus. Cass longed to bring up the connection between them, because she desperately wanted to know more about it, but she reminded herself that Michael had already told her everything he knew. She’d just be asking more impossible questions.
