Page 54

Elliot Crane

Are you okay?

Seth Crane

Fine.

Why?

You’re reburying your sister today.

It might be difficult.

No.

It’s good that it’s over.

Finally.

You coming?

As soon as I’m done here.

Elliot was at Humbolt’s house, helping to sell off almost everything that had been in my parents’ house.

I’d kept a few things, mostly at Elliot’s prompting—a few things that had clearly belonged to my mother’s parents, like a fine china tableware setting that had been buried in a box on the attic, some quilts and embroidered linens, and the tatty old teddy bear that Noah had loved and which Momma had clearly hidden from my father. Noah might want it back.

I was back at the house with Helen, waiting for Hart and Ray to drive out with Rachael’s body, which had been released by the FBI for reburial.

Once this was done, we could go home.

First thing in the morning.

We just had to re-bury my murdered sister first.

I stood—with the help of a cane, but still, I was standing—beside the graves of my mother and sister, one still newly covered, the other about to be occupied once more. They’d put her in a new coffin, although it was still plain wood.

Noah and Lulu weren’t here. Noah had told me he didn’t think he could handle it.

I didn’t blame him. And Hart was up to his pointy ears dealing with the fact that there were more than three dozen unaccounted-for deaths and burials on Community land.

Ward had summoned them so that Hart could ask them who they were, how they’d died, and where they were buried.

At least two dozen of those three had been the victims of murder.

Hart was placing money that some of the rest were homicide-by-neglect or -accident.

Either way, the whole Community of the Divine Transformation had ceased to exist, the Elders under arrest and several other members under suspicion.

What no one seemed to be able to answer was what would happen to everyone else.

Hart had shrugged at the question and said that the families owned their own property, so while they weren’t allowed to continue to worship, they couldn’t be removed from private property.

I wondered whether or not, without the influence of the Elders and other patriarchs—almost entirely shifters, according to Hart—the families would disperse or whether they would stay. Whether they would cling to their toxic faith or reevaluate it.

I didn’t hold out a lot of hope for the latter.

Either way, none of them seemed to care about what had happened to Momma, much less Rachael.

So it was me, Elliot, the representative from the funeral home—the same one we’d used for Momma—Helen, and Ray.

Helen looked sad, and I knew that she’d at least known Rachael a little.

I wondered whether or not Rachael had been like Noah and me—prone to sneaking through the woods to the Hills’ property in search of snacks or even just to pet the alpacas.

Or maybe Helen had just met Rachael on the rare occasions that she’d walked up the hill to ask to borrow a few eggs or offer extra cucumbers or tomatoes.

One of the funeral home workers, Hart, Ray, and Elliot all stepped forward to lower the coffin using a four-handled strap contraption, the four Arcanids—because the woman from the funeral home was a shifter of some kind—easily managing the weight.

For some reason, that hit me the way that nothing else this whole goddamn trip had.

How easily her body was lowered into the earth. How fragile it had been.

How brutally violated.

If we’d stayed, it would have been Noah.

I didn’t realize I was crying until Elliot returned and reached up, wiping a tear off my cheek before pulling me into his arms.

I closed my eyes, letting the silent, almost calm tears wet his shoulder even more than the heat of the summer day.

I owed her this much.

Because it hadn’t been Noah, but it had been her.

I sniffled, then raised myself back up to my full height, although I kept a hold of one of Elliot’s hands with the one that wasn’t on the cane.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the grave and the ghost I suspected was there watching. “I’m sorry for what they did to you and I’m sorry that no one ever loved you for who you are. And I’m sorry that we never got a chance to get to know you—the real you.”

Ward wasn’t there, so if there was an answer, I’d never know it.

But I hoped she at least could take some peace from it.

And I hoped that I could, too.

I had never been so relieved to be sitting in a car staring down the barrel of a two day drive than the morning after we re-buried Rachael.

Hart had been waiting for us downstairs when we checked out of the Howard Johnson, which had started to feel far too familiar for my comfort levels.

I almost felt bad that most of the desk staff knew us on sight, since if I had my way, we would never, ever come anywhere near Staunton, Virginia again.

Hart had hugged Elliot, then told him to not drive like an asshole if he wanted live goats and chickens by the time we got back to Wisconsin, and then sobered up as he looked at me.

“Don’t you do anything fucking stupid, you hear me?”

I frowned. “What would I do that’s particularly stupid?” Not that I haven’t done my fair share of stupid things, but I felt like this was a more specific warning than that.

“I don’t fucking know,” came the slightly exasperated response.

“Catch on fire because you insist on running into burning buildings? Get some sort of goat-borne disease? Break your fucking knee again and fall down the stairs? Don’t do any of that shit.

Because we’ve buried enough goddamn members of your family for a whole fucking lifetime, okay? ”

I cocked my head at him. “I wasn’t planning on any of that,” I said. “But okay.”

Then I found myself being hugged. “Don’t break his heart, okay, Seth?” Hart murmured into my ear.

I hugged him back after a split second of surprise. “I like you, too, Hart,” I whispered back, earning a laugh.

“Also,” he said, a more familiar sardonic gleam in those lavender eyes when he pulled back from the hug. “I think you made the right call. The Mayses are some fucked up nutters.”

“Fuck’s sake, Val,” Elliot muttered, rolling his eyes.

Hart grinned. “The Cranes, for the record, are also batshit, but in a less destructive sort of way.”

I couldn’t help laughing at that. “They’d have to be,” I replied. “They basically adopted you.”

Hart chuckled. “Can’t say you’re wrong about that,” he agreed, then grew a little more sober. “Seriously, though, drive safe and don’t do anything Taavi wouldn’t want me to do.”

Elliot grinned at him. “Oh, so you’re saying we actually have to be careful? How very unusual.”

Hart snorted. “Yeah, yeah, asshole.” He hugged Elliot again. “Love you, Bucky.”

I watched Elliot’s shoulders bunch as he squeezed back. “Love you, too, Link.”

“Dorks,” I muttered, and Hart flipped me off before sticking his hands in his pockets. “I’ve got to go dig up a couple dozen bodies, but text me when you get back home, okay?”

“Okay, Ma. ” Elliot rolled his eyes again, and bent down to pick up most of our stuff. I had the cat carrier and one bag over my shoulder, but I still needed the cane, so I was less useful as a pack animal. “Don’t find anything that’s going to fuck shit up too much.”

“If I do, I’m blaming Seth’s fuckhead of a father.”

“Completely fair,” I replied, hobbling after Elliot. “Completely fucking fair.”

We’d stopped for drive-through coffee and pastries before getting on 64, and I settled back in my seat, feeling my body actually relax for the first time in… I had to count back way too far. Five goddamn weeks.

I let out a long breath, and I felt Elliot’s hand come to rest on my thigh.

“You okay, baby?”

“Yeah,” I answered honestly for the first time in those five weeks. “I’m good.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him glance over in surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I said again. “Really. It’s over. Finally . I don’t ever have to come back here again, ever .”

“Not even to visit Helen and Ray?”

I let out an annoyed breath. I wanted to say that they could come visit us, but they had an alpaca farm to run, and I figured it would be a lot more difficult to get someone to alpaca-farm-sit than it would be for us to bribe Henry to feed the goats and chickens.

“Mrow!”

And Sassafras.

“I’ll think about it,” was my answer to Elliot’s question.

He let out a soft sound.

“What?”

“Not a damn thing,” he replied mildly. The hand on my thigh squeezed gently.

“I’m just—” He paused, and I could tell he was thinking.

“It’s good,” he said, finally. “That you’ll even think about it.

” He let out a barked laugh that was a little dark.

“Fuck, you’re more okay with this shit than I was okay with Dad’s death for like a year. ”

“Your dad was murdered,” I pointed out.

He looked over at me, incredulous.

“Okay, fine,” I grumbled, since he was right—both my parents had, in fact, also been murdered.

One by the other, and the other by a corrupt guard or cop or paid-off prisoner.

And he’d also murdered the sister I hadn’t known existed.

“But I didn’t like my parents, and I’d certainly stopped loving them a long time ago.

You actually had a father who cared about you . It’s totally different.”

He was silent for a little while. “You know I’m proud of you,” he said softly, his voice as serious as I’d ever heard it.

“Why?” I asked, confused, but not displeased.

“Because despite all that absolute shit ,” he said, softly.

“You somehow managed to come out of it an incredible person. You didn’t let them turn you into someone bitter or cruel or even change who you are or wanted to be.

” The hand on my thigh tightened just a little. “You’re an amazing man, Seth Crane.”

I couldn’t help the lump in the back of my throat, and it was the good kind. I covered Elliot’s hand with my own. “I will never get tired of hearing that name,” I said softly. “Thank you for letting me share it.”

He turned his hand over on my leg, lacing our fingers together. “It’s yours for as long as you want it,” he told me.

“El?” I said after a while.

“Yeah?”

“Can we go home now?”

He laughed a little—I didn’t blame him, considering the fact that we were on the highway doing just that. “Yeah, baby. We can go home.”