Page 88 of Thrall
Well, she said.Natalie Baker isn’t dead. Athena Barnes didn’t run away. And there’s one more thing.
Lucy could feel in Vanya’s posture the moment he was about to break away from her. He straightened, leaning his cheek against the top of her head, and it seemed his good cheer was back: He laughed as the tension drained from his body, laughed again as Lucy held on to him to keep them both upright. The euphoria Laurentius had talked about was rushing in. It seemed he was still young enough for it to go to his head.
Go now, Lucy thought.
What?Sadie said.
Lucy didn’t dare take her attention away from Sadie or Vanya too long. But as she turned to look at Sadie, she caught Mila’s eye in the process. And she winked.I wasn’t talking to you,she replied.
“Mmm.” Vanya reeled back in her grip with the soft eyes of a drunk man. “Your turn.”
Lucy smiled, and looped another arm around his neck. She imagined the chain of events that must have been playing out above her head. Hiro, back in the broadcast studio, listening for her signal. Hiro picking up his phone to send Athena a message of his own. Athena preparing the last word.
Lucy held tight to Vanya. “Yes,” she said. “It is.”
There was a deafening scrape overhead, metal dragging against metal. The halo of light that Lucy had stepped into, that Vanya had met her in, shuddered with the sound. And somewhere aboveground, Athena pulled back the manhole cover above their heads. Lucy felt the sunlight cascade over them, but her eyes remained on Vanya. She wanted to see the moment he realized.
And he did. He jerked back, away from her, but Lucy was ready for him: She clenched around him like a jaw, both arms around his back, one of his legs between both of hers. She was exhausted, but as she’d hoped, the euphoria made Vanya slow and clumsy. He twisted and clawed as his skin bubbled beneath her hands, but he couldn’t break her grip.
Addison was screaming. She took a few steps toward them, but there was no way for her to make it, not without leaping into the sunlight herself. The black bag with Mila’s bow had dropped from her nerveless fingers. Mila, now completely unrestrained, watched it happen.
That last thing, Sadie?Lucy said.Is that your sister just gave my girlfriend her bow back.
Mila broke away from Sadie and Addison. Addison was still screaming, still darting from side to side as if there was some safe angle to save her maker. Sadie was as still as she’d been asked to be. So when Mila picked up the bag—the bag where she always kept a spare arrow or two in case of emergencies—no one stopped her.
“Lucy!” Mila bellowed as she nocked her arrow. “Out of the way!”
Lucy released Vanya and flung herself to the side, rolling twice and landing on her back. She levered herself upright just in time to see Mila’s arrow hit home. Straight through Vanya’s heart.
He was so much older than Whitney. But it seemed age didn’t slow the inevitable. He had enough time to look down to where Mila’s arrow was lodged in his chest before his skin sloughed from his muscles like wet clay. His eyes burst, coursed down his cheeks, and when he opened his jaw to scream, it detached, landing on the ground with a softthud. His hair, the sandy blond that Lucy had first noticed standing there in the kitchen, thinned and crumbled. And finally, his bones broke down to dust and scattered. The thing that had killed Jon, had turned Sadie and Addison and Whitney, had terrorized Athena for nearly her entire adult life—he made for a surprisingly small pile on the concrete.
Addison bolted. If she was fast before, she was beyond human eyesight now: there one moment, down a tunnel the next. Sadie faltered long enough to look at Lucy, just long enough for Lucy to see that her ever-dull eyes were lit with curiosity. Then she too was gone before Mila could nock another arrow.
Lucy saw Mila consider chasing them. But she was barely upright. Even the exertion from that single shot had her shaking badly. She ran for Lucy instead. She was shaking—or Lucy was, or they both were. They had to lean hard against each other to get Lucy to her feet.
But when Mila pulled Lucy into her arms, there was no strength missing from her grip. Lucy clung to her in return. The bruise she’d left on Mila’s neck was right next to her cheek. Lucy turned to press her lips against it.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Lucy said.
“Yeah, well.” Mila kissed Lucy’s forehead in turn. “If you were working on that performance, I’ll forgive you.”
As they stood there, holding on to each other, a voice entered Lucy’s head one more time. Not a whisper this time. Not slipping through the cracks of her mind as smoothly as her own thoughts. It was just a voice. Just Sadie herself.
Addie got ahead of me, Sadie said.But I don’t think you’ll have to worry about her, once I catch up. She’ll miss him, for a while. But she’ll still have me.
Lucy gripped Mila tight as she said,And do I have to worry about you?
Well, Sadie said. And Lucy thought she heard the smile from that missing poster, breaking through at last.That’s for both of us to find out.
“Is that mold?”
Lucy paused halfway to the next step so she could reach back and give Jillian Easting’s arm a gentle tug. “There is no mold in this library, Mom. It’s a black scuff.”
“Itsmellslike mold.” Jillian gave the wall, which in Lucy’s opinion was quite definitively scuffed, a narrow-eyed look as she passed. “Do you remember when we moved into the apartment on Hodges? It smelled exactly like this.”
Lucy frowned over her shoulder. “Was that moldy? I thought it was just wet.”
Jillian sighed as she stepped onto the landing of Johnson Library, B2, reaching back to sweep a stray cowlick from Lucy’s face. “Yes, darling daughter,” she said. “The wetness was the entire issue.”
