Taken by storm(55)
“It’s settled, then.” Caroline—who hadn’t said a word since Griffin had told us the only time he felt pain was when Lake did—was all business. “We all go. Bryn calls Callum. And if this thing does show up …”
Her baby blues glowed with predatory hunger.
“Somehow, some way, we damn well make it wish it hadn’t.”
Those were big words from such a little girl, but eminently effective, because within moments, we were headed down the mountain, Maddy, baby, and all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“GRIFFIN?” CALLUM SAID THE NAME THE SAME WAY I would have said Lucas’s, like Lake’s twin was the one he thought about—his regret—staring up at his ceiling at night. “Mitch’s son.”
“Yes.” I didn’t say much more than that. I waited for Callum to answer my unasked questions, to tell me that I was right to trust Griffin or vaguely hint that the choices I was making were wrong. But for once, Callum sounded like he hadn’t seen this coming. It was a novel enough experience that I figured he might need a moment.
After a few seconds of heavy silence, I decided he’d had enough time to adjust. “We don’t know how or why we can see him now, but whatever happened went down on a full moon three months ago. Maddy was Shifting at the time.”
Another silence fell. This time, it was Callum who broke it. “You think her baby had something to do with it.”
I hadn’t actually told Callum Maddy was pregnant, but I wasn’t surprised he knew. In fact, the only thing surprising about this was that he’d thought Maddy might be the Rabid in the first place.
He hadn’t seen this turn of events coming at all.
“We don’t know for sure that it’s the baby,” I told him. “But Maddy’s never had a problem with ghosts before.”
That was an understatement—like the rest of us, she’d had no idea that ghosts even existed. The question was, had Callum?
“Griffin says that he never left, that he was always here, and we just couldn’t see him.” I waited to see if Callum would take the bait.
He did.
“He stayed for Lake.” This time, there was no question in Callum’s voice.
“He stayed for Lake,” I repeated, and then, because I couldn’t help myself, I asked the question never far from my mind where Callum was concerned. “Did you know?”
Did he know that Griffin’s spirit hadn’t ever really left Lake? Did he know what kind of person Lake’s brother was now?
“There are stories, Bryn. Old stories, about what happens when a female werewolf outlives her twin—but if you’re asking if I knew that there was a way, any way, to bring a Shadow back, the answer is no.”
“Old stories,” I parroted. With Callum, there was no telling how “old” the stories in question might be. “About Shadows.”
The word felt funny on the tip of my tongue, but given that Griffin claimed to have been watching Lake for years, going where she went, aging as she did, it seemed somehow appropriate.
He’d been her Shadow, in more ways than one.
“I didn’t know it was more than a story, Bryn.” On the other end of the phone line, the man I’d come to see as omniscient expelled a breath. “This explains some things.”
I waited for him to elaborate. Given proper motivation, I could use patience like a weapon. He’d taught me that.
“I’ve never seen a future that included Griffin,” Callum said finally. “And when I foresaw the murders, I only saw Maddy.”
There’d been a kind of cold comfort in knowing, these past couple of years, that Callum could see the future. No matter how awful the situation I got into was, the fact that he’d probably seen it coming had helped me believe that there might be a way out of it.
Experience had taught me that Callum might willingly step back and let me go through hell. He would let me, maybe even make me fight my own battles. But I didn’t believe he’d let me die.
“You can’t see ghosts.” I said the words out loud.
“Shadows,” Callum corrected. “Ghost is a human word, and Shadows aren’t human. They never were.”
“Fine,” I amended. “You can’t see Shadows.”
“No.” That admission seemed to cost him something. “I can’t.”
“And you’re just now figuring this out?” Maybe I shouldn’t have sounded so shocked, but Callum had been alive long enough to see entire empires rise and fall. There wasn’t much he didn’t know.
“Werewolf twins are relatively rare, Bryn. One twin dying a violent death while the other lives on is even rarer—and besides, this is the first instance I’ve heard of where anyone except the living twin has been able to see, feel, or interact with a Shadow in any way.”