Page 2 of Bad Blood

Ours are clean, but it’s only a matter of time.

I know that in the same way I know my sister, Ella, is really sick, and she might not be getting better.

Glancing out of the car window again, I watch the gargoyles on the outside walls of the church turn from stone-gray to white. They’re starting to look like angry angels. I guesspapáwas right. Some monsterscanbe beautiful at night.

“Why the hell is it so cold in New Jersey?”

Edier yanks his gray beanie down lower over his face until it’s hugging his eyelashes. He’s nine years older than me, but he never treats me like a little kid. He once told me he did most of his growing up when he was my age. I know bad things happened to him before he was adopted by one ofpapá’sfriends, but I don’t know what. Sometimes you only need to look into a boy’s eyes to see their truth, and his are swimming in it.

He’s slouched in the driver’s seat, chewing his gum. There’s a notebook balancing on his knee, and he’s pencil-sketching the church. His drawings are unreal. My bedroom walls back home are covered in them. In another life, he might have been an artist, but he’s stuck in this one now, and there’s only one job description.

“Anywhere is cold outside of Colombia, numbnuts.” Sam appears in the gap between the two front seats again, scraping his scruffy brown hair out of his eyes. “This weather is so chilly…it’s ‘snow’ joke,” he says, grinning goofily at me.

“Ugh, Sam, you’re so lame.”

“Lame-o, same-o.” He laughs. He’s only happy when he’s breaking rules, and we’ve brokena lotof them tonight. Sneaking out ofpapá’sapartment after a family party… Stealing Edier’s bodyguard’s car… Driving across state to a place that’s forbidden…

Edier wouldn’t let it go. After our fathers left during dessert, he’d wanted to follow, and nothing was stopping him.

“Cut it out,” I say crossly, as Sam tries to ruffle my hair.

“Where do sheep go to get a haircut?The baa baa shop.” He collapses with laughter again, so I smack his shoulder a couple of times with my glove. “Ouch! Stop! Thalia, that hurts!”

I hate it when he takes our age gap and stuffs it full of bad jokes. He thinks he’s funny, but he’s nowhere near as funny as his stepdad is.

“What’s that?” he says suddenly, his face turning serious.

“What’s what?”

He jabs a finger between us. “That.”

Edier leans forward in the driver’s seat to swipe his sleeve across the fogged-up glass. One of the black car doors has opened up. As we watch, a dark shape climbs out and walks slowly in our direction. His head is braced against the storm, his arms wrapped tight around his body. Meanwhile, the black car has zoomed off down the street and disappeared into the night.

He stops under a streetlight that’s more mellow yellow than amber, a couple of feet away from us. He looks both ways, and then he’s raising a cell phone to his ear.

It’s the shortest conversation ever. Before I can blink, he’s pocketing it again.

“Do you think he’s part of the meeting, Sam?” I whisper.

“He’d be inside the church if he was.”

“Can he see us?”

“I doubt it.” Even so, Edier leans across and shoves his notebook in the glove box—just in case we need to make a quick getaway.

“What if he’s cold?” I muse out loud. “He looks cold. It’s so cold out there.”

“You can’t tell from this distance if a person’s cold or not, dummy,” Sam mutters.

“But his ride went and left him!”

Just then, a violent gust of wind divides the driving snow like curtains. At the same time, the hunched figure turns in our direction, and our eyes meet in the darkness.

“He’s a boy,” I gasp in surprise. “He’s the same age as you, Sam.”

“I amnota boy,” he huffs out, sounding offended.

“Twelve isnota man,” I retort, tossing him a look.