Page 28 of Shadow Scorching

I followed her gaze and watched as the flakes drifted down covering the back yard. Everything felt quiet and clean, and for a moment, I was perfectly at peace, untouched by the events of the day or by the worries about my heritage. Life was good, and I soaked it in, because I knew the moment wouldn’t last.

CHAPTER TEN

Penn spentthe rest of the evening reading over what Carson had sent her.

“Isn’t that going to give you the creeps?” I asked. “You don’t want to have nightmares.”

“I have nightmares almost every night,” Penn said, looking at me. “There are things in my life…before I met you…that I’ll never let go of. And…” She paused.

I knew what she was going to say. “Yousavedme, Penn. You were right. If you had let me go through with killing Jace, I don’t think I would have come back. I’m sorry that you’re still paying for it.”

“That price? Was easy to pay. You’re my best friend,” she said, setting aside her laptop. “You remember that I told you I had a cousin who died?”

I nodded. “Shari?”

“Right. I loved her like a sister—she was fully human, my uncle’s daughter. She ended up in a bad relationship and developed a heroin addiction. She slid further and further away from everybody. Finally, her father kidnapped her and took her to the hospital Turns out, she was dying. She had developed severe liver complications and was so thin that her heart…well,it was ready to give out. Her kidneys were failing…everything was shutting down. There was nothing the doctors could do. They gave her morphine to ease her withdrawal symptoms, but they said she only had a few days left at the most.”

Penn looked so stricken that I crossed to the sofa and sat beside her, taking her hand.

“My uncle refused to let them to give her another shot. She was screaming, going in and out of convulsions. The doctor argued with him. He said that the only kind thing to do was to give her more morphine to calm the pain. She deserved to die in peace.”

“And your uncle still refused?” I knew where this was going.

Penn nodded. “He was a stubborn man who believed that if you put your mind to it, you could overcome anything. He believed the doctors were ‘soft’ and that Shari could survive by going cold turkey and then into rehab. But her organs were failing. And still, the drug had such a control over her. And that stubborn jackass refused to listen to the facts.”

“You helped her, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Yes. My uncle was in the waiting room when the doctor left to check on another patient, but I was with Shari. I cast a circle and called on the spirit of death, to claim her. It was only a matter of a couple minutes before she let go. At that last moment, Shari opened her eyes and looked at me. She knew what was happening, and she thanked me. She died holding my hand.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“We grew up together. Shari was the only one who I trusted with all my secrets—until I met you, Kyann.” Penn teared up, ducking her head. “Sparing her the pain that I knew would never leave…that was something I needed to do.”

“That was the kindest thing you could do,” I said.

“Right? But you know what keeps me up at night? It’s not killing Jace. It’s not handing my cousin over to death. It’s thememory ofJace, and what he did to your mother and those other women. It’s thememory ofmy uncle,who was willing to let his daughter go through agony because he refused to accept facts.Those men…the memory of what they chose to do and believe…that’swhat keeps me up at night.” Penn sighed.

“Cut from the same mold. I’m not saying your uncle was in the same class as Jace, but…”

“But he was willing to let his daughter suffer for his own blind belief and his embarrassment that his daughter was an addict. Sometimes, the illness is too great. And all the willpower in the world isn’t strong enough to keep the demons at bay.”

“I wish people understood that willpower isn’t always strong enough,” I said.

“If my uncle had his way, my cousin would have been in agony for days.” Penn threw her notebook on the floor, angry. “So, when I tell you that you shouldn’t feel guilty over what happened with Jace,I mean it. I’d still kill Jace…and I’d still free my cousin, if I had it to do over again.”

My heart swelled. I’d never seen Penn quite so passionate. “How old was she?”

“She was fifteen. I was sixteen. She died on September 2, 1969, during the summer of love. She’d just hitchhiked back from spending a month in New York when my uncle kidnapped her. Shari went there for Woodstock.” Penn sighed and picked up her notebook.

I blinked. “I forgot sometimes how much older you are than I am.”

“I’m part Fae. We age a lot slower than humans. But so will you, since you’re part demon,” she said. “I remember the date because that was the night Hecate claimed me. I went home from the hospital and went to bed. At first, I thought I wasdreaming, but Hecate came to me that night. She called me out of body and marked me as her priestess. I’ve been hers ever since.”

“Is that why you can see spirits?”

“I suppose so,” Penn said. “Ever since that night, I’ve seen and heard ghosts. Hecate decided I should work with the dead, and my powers align with the Veil, and with portals—all the crossroads in life.”

After such a heavy discussion, we decided to watchA Christmas CarolandIt’s a Wonderful Life, and put aside all thoughts of spirits and death except for the three ghosts Scrooge faced. Penn made s’mores, and we drank hot peppermint cocoa, and I did my best to keep Penn from dwelling on her dark past that I had known nothing about.

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