Black Bird of the Gallows(83)

“You’re generous. She should have let your dad take you.”

I laugh, remembering what my dad said about himself and his youthful days. And Mom’s paranoia. “Yes, but I can’t do anything to change it now.” My smile slides away. “And neither can she.”

I can sense, rather than see, him nodding. He doesn’t press the issue. “This is the most you’ve ever talked about yourself,” he says quietly. “After all these years of us being friends, it takes me being on the verge of psychosis for you to open up.”

“Yeah well, now if you tell anyone, no one will believe you.”

He laughs. It’s a good sound—familiar and real. It makes my heart warm to hear it.

“I’m curious how you knew this place was here,” I say. “I’ve never known you to muck around in abandoned mines.”

“Why not? If there was a mine anywhere in the county, someone I’m related to worked it. We’re not like Lacey’s family, where everyone has attended some fancy music school in Switzerland or whatever. I’m not related to anyone who’s been to college. Most never finished high school.” He shifts around, and suddenly I get it—the reason he’s uncomfortable with Lacey’s interest. He thinks she’s a class above. Too good for him.

I smile in the darkness. Interesting how despite my dad’s money, I’m not in this category. My druggie mom apparently leveled the field. That, and my dad’s family were miners, too.

“And before I found music, me and some of the other low-valley kids had bush parties out here. Never underestimate the powerful combination of boys, intense boredom, and the allure of signs that say ‘No Trespassing.’”

I smile. “You could have been hurt.”

“That was the point.” His clothes rustle in a shrug. “If there was no danger in it, there’d be no point in doing it. Just like you stealing your mother’s boyfriends’ remote controls. Bet they would have been pissed if they’d caught you.”

“Yeah.”

“Angie? I don’t feel homicidal. Just…angry sometimes. Like Lacey gets when she can’t get a chord progression right.”

My reply is immediate. “You’re not homicidal.”

“But you all said—”

“Beekeepers typically sting people who are unstable to begin with,” I say. “We’ve established that you weren’t unstable, but…” Ah, hell. I shake my head in the dark. “You have changed, Deen. You’re kind of…jerky. Reckless, too. Whatever is in that venom will continue to change you.”

“Unless…?”

“Unless nothing.” I reach for a bottle of water. My throat is so dry. “Reece says there’s no undoing a Beekeeper sting.”

“And you believe him?”

My thoughts spin, pulling distant memories, stitching them to recent events. “He knows more about them than I do.”

“Maybe he’s wrong.”

I wince at the hope in his voice. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Suddenly, I can’t bear to be alone in here with him. I feel like I’m running out of oxygen. I hate telling him that magic bees are corrupting his mind, that nothing can stop it. I stick my head out the open rear door and gulp in a breath. “Hey! Where are you guys?” I call to Reece and Lacey.

“We’re here.” Reece’s voice is close. The side of the Bus dips and groans as Reece and Lacey climb inside.

“We were eavesdropping,” Lacey states. “It was wrong. A shameful breach of privacy and I apologize for it.”

“Refreshing, not to be the one apologizing for a change.” Deno murmurs.

Lacey’s sigh of relief is audible. “Oh good. You’re talking.”

“Never thought you’d say that, did you?” There’s a smile in Deno’s voice.

“We didn’t want to interrupt your conversation,” Reece adds. “It sounded…important.”

Maybe it’s the darkness, making me hypersensitive to the voices around me, but there’s an edge to Reece’s words. It pricks my attention, making me think of the smell of milk left out too long in the sun. Maybe Reece would have liked me to share all that ugly stuff about my childhood with him, but Deno needed the honesty. He needed to be trusted with something important. To know he still could be trusted.

The Bus falls into silence. Except for the rustle of a bag of chips being opened and then the sound of someone crunching.

The smell of salt and oil and processed potato fills the space. Not a particularly alluring odor under most circumstances, but I grope for the backpack and pull out a random snack bag.

Pretzels. Eh. Figures. I resign myself to my least favorite snack. “Maybe the magic affecting harbingers and Beekeepers is changing. Maybe you aren’t screwed, Deno.”

Reece smiles, I can sense it. “Angie, you’re turning into an optimist. Is this a new hat for you?”

I stick out my tongue at him, and he laughs as if he saw it. “Can you see in the dark?”

“No,” he says, but I’m not sure I believe him. “Who knows? The magic is changing. I can feel…” His voice fades off to a hush. He rubs his hands together. “I’ve soaked up more death than this and not burned so hot.”