The Girl Who Brings the Dead by Alessa Winters

Author:Alessa Winters [Winters, Alessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-02-10T16:00:00+00:00

In the end Jackson wraps her in a tight hug, so tight that her ribs ache.

“Please be careful,” he whispers into her hair, as he clings to her in a way he hasn’t done since he was fifteen and she was going off to community college. “Please don’t put yourself in harm’s way.”

“Yeah, stay out of trouble too,” she says, patting him on the back.

He releases her, but his brows remain pushed together as they walk out of the little shop, her little takeout container with her half sandwich in her hand.

Melekai strides after them, eyes immediately scanning around. “I don’t want you back on the train, not today,” he says, stopping both of them in the tracks. “Lyra, let me take you back?”

“How…” Jackson trails off, and he grabs at his hair again. “What is…”

“He can teleport, but only to someplace he’s been before.”

“Or where you are,” Melekai interjects.

“Or where I am,” Lyra follows up, which isn’t quite better, and Jackson’s eyes narrow. “But it’s handy.”

“Can I see?” he asks, the lawyer voice coming back out. “I want to see.”

Melekai jerks his head down the street for them to follow, and leads them down the short street, to a barely disguised alleyway.

“Text when you get home?” Jackson asks, and his voice wavers, just a bit.

“Of course?” she says, and, formal, Melekai holds his hand out to her.

With one last comforting smile to her brother, she takes Melekai’s hand, and has only a breath to prepare herself, before they’re back in her little living room, her cat twining around her legs.

“I hated that and I never want to do that ever again,” Melekai says, almost petulant, but still holds her hand as she texts.

LYRA (1:32 PM): I’m home safe. What did you see?

“What, a simple trip on the light rail is what got you?” Lyra says, then stretches her neck, her back twinging.

JACKSON (1:32 PM): You just vanished.

JACKSON (1:33 PM): When things aren’t crazy I want to video tape it. Maybe over Christmas break?

Melekai squeezes her hand, and the pain lessens, just enough to be noticeable.

She eyes him, but his gaze is locked outside their window.

Outside her window, down the gravel driveway she never uses and into the road, stands Terese.

Before she can register what’s happening, Melekai shoves her back, blocking Terese from seeing her.

Terese doesn’t move, just stares through the window at them, her jaw jutted out.

She locks eyes with Lyra, from behind Melekai’s back, but remains still. Remains frozen.

The line of muscle in Melekai’s shoulders stiffens.

“She can’t get in,” he murmurs, and she mostly feels like it’s for himself, not for her. “The protections are holding.”

Lyra shies close to him. “She can’t get any closer?”

He shakes his head, all of his attention out the window.

A frightened meow echoes from her bedroom, and she would bet actual money her cat is under the bed again.

She can see nothing actually stopping Terese from crossing onto the meager patches of dead grass and ice she calls a lawn, but Terese doesn’t move forward, her pale eyes just watching Lyra.

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