I had a whole list. Because my father was an abusive, homicidal asshole. Because my mother hadn’t even tried to save any of her children. Because there was a whole Community dedicated to abuse and deprivation. Because I’d been denied a childhood with people who loved me. Because they’d tried to take Elliot from me. Because they’d thrown Noah in jail. Because they’d killed Momma.
“Why aren’t you?” I asked her.
It felt like the air went cold, dry, and weirdly dark.“I am.”
I shuddered, and Elliot took a step away from Rachael. “Jesus fuck,” he whispered.
“The fuck is going on over here?” Hart demanded, his eyes narrowed at my sister’s ghost. She turned toward him, then bared teeth that werewaytoo sharp for a human mouth, dead or alive. Hart’s skin shimmered gold, and I sat back, alarmed. “Oh, no you fucking don’t, missy,” the elf hissed.
“That’s enough, girl,”Lady R snapped, wrapping an insubstantial hand around her arm as Ward rolled his way over the lumpy ground, grimacing as he wrestled his way across a root.“These are not your enemies.”
Rachael turned her empty eyes back on me.“You look like him,”she said, but she seemed to deflate, heat and humidity returning to the air.
I clenched my teeth, jaw aching. I didn’t want to be reminded that I looked like my father. Rachael didn’t. Like Noah, she looked like Momma. Small features, slender bones. Unlike Noah, she had dark hair. I couldn’t tell what color her eyes had been.
“I’m not him,” I told her.
“No,”she agreed.“He tried to kill you.”She continued to study me, although I couldn’t figure out what she was trying to find.“He failed.”
I wasn’t sure where she was going with this.
“He killed me,”she said, then.“They all did.”
“The fuck do you meanthey all did?” Hart wanted to know, and I jumped a little, having forgotten he was there in the handful of seconds since he’d last spoken.
Rachael turned her empty eyes on him.“The Elders,”she replied.“Father. Jeremiah Porter. Elijah Greub. Obediah Stewart. Amos Martens. Lazarus Ziemer.”
“Howdid they kill you?” Hart asked, his voice tight.
She turned to stare at him.“They ate me.”
Nausea rolled through me.
“Fuck,” Elliot hissed.
Rachael turned to stare at him.“You curse a lot,”the ghost observed.
Lady R snorted. I hadn’t known ghosts could snort. But I understood why. She’d spent enough time around Hart that Elliot’s occasionalfuckswere nothing in comparison to what Hart came up with.
Elliot stared at her.
“Cursing is a sin,”she told him.
“I don’t believe in sin,” Elliot informed her, his voice even, although his body was tense.
She cocked her head to the side, still staring.“What do you believe in?”
“Okay, not that I object to philosophical discussions in principle,” Hart drawled. “But this is a murder investigation, so I’d really rather cut the crap and get to the details.”
Rachael turned her attention to him, bearing her teeth.
“I don’t think she likes you, Val,” Elliot observed.
Her gaze swung back to him.“You’re like them,”she said.“But not like them.”
Elliot regarded her. “I’m a shifter, yes,” he said softly. “But I’m not a wolf.”
She stared again.“Why?”
