Beautiful Darkness(100)

As much as I didn't want to follow Ridley anywhere, getting killed by a pack of Blood Incubuses wasn't an appealing alternative. We didn't discuss it, but Link must have agreed, because we fell in line behind them.

Ridley seemed to know exactly where she was going, though I noticed Liv never put away the maps. Ridley cut across the meadow, ignoring the path, and headed for a cluster of trees in the distance. Her sandals didn't seem to slow her down, and the rest of us had trouble keeping up.

Link jogged ahead to catch up with her. “So what're you really doin’ here, Rid?”

“It's pathetic to admit, but I'm here to help you and your merry band of fools.”

Link stifled a laugh. “Yeah, right. The lollipops don't work anymore. Try again.”

The grass was higher as we neared the trees. We were walking so fast the blades cut against my shins, but I didn't slow down. I wanted to know what Ridley was up to as much as Link did.

“I don't have an agenda, Hot Stuff. I'm not here for you. I'm here to help my cousin.”

“You don't care about Lena,” I snapped.

Ridley stopped and turned to face me. “You know what I don't care about, Short Straw? You. But for whatever reason, you and my cousin have a connection, and you may be the only person who can convince her to turn around before it's too late.”

I stopped walking.

Liv looked at her coldly. “You mean before she gets to the Great Barrier? The place you told her about?”

Ridley's eyes narrowed, and she glanced at Liv. “Give this girl a prize. Keeper does know a thing or two.” Liv didn't smile. “But I wasn't the one who told her about the Barrier. It was John. He's obsessed with it.”

“John? You mean the John you introduced her to? The guy you convinced her to run away with?” I was shouting, and I didn't care if the whole Blood pack heard me.

“Slow down, Short Straw. Lena makes her own decisions, whether you believe it or not.” Ridley's voice lost some of its edge. “She wanted to go.”

I remembered watching Lena and John, listening to them talk about a place where they could be accepted for who they were. A place where they could be themselves. Of course Lena wanted to go there. It was what she had dreamed about her whole life.

“Why the sudden change of heart, Ridley? Why do you want to stop her now?”

“The Barrier is dangerous. It's not what she thinks.”

“You mean Lena doesn't know Sarafine is trying to pull the Seventeenth Moon out of time? But you knew, didn't you?” Ridley looked away. I was right.

Ridley was picking at the purple polish on her nails, a nervous habit Casters and Mortals shared. She nodded. “Sarafine isn't doing it alone.”

My mother's letter to Macon flashed through my mind. Abraham. Sarafine was working with Abraham, someone who was powerful enough to help her call the moon.

“Abraham,” Liv said quietly. “Well, that's lovely.”

Link reacted before I did. “And you didn't tell Lena? Are you really that crazy and screwed up?”

“I —”

I cut her off. “She's a coward.”

Ridley straightened, her yellow eyes glowing with rage. “I'm a coward because I don't want to end up dead? Do you know what my aunt and that monster would do to me?” Her voice was shaky, but she tried to hide it. “I'd like to see you face those two, Short Straw. Abraham makes Lena's mom look like your little kitty cat.”

Lucille hissed.

“It doesn't matter, as long as Lena doesn't get to the Barrier. And if you want to stop her, we need to get moving. I don't know the way there. I just know where I ditched them.”

“Then how did you plan to get to the Great Barrier?” It was impossible to tell if she was lying.

“John knows the way.”

“Does John know Sarafine and Abraham are there?” Had he been setting Lena up all along?

Ridley shook her head. “I don't know. The guy's hard to read. He's got … issues.”

“How are we going to convince her not to go?” I had already tried to talk Lena out of running away, and it hadn't gone well.

“That's your department. Maybe this will help.” She tossed me a battered spiral notebook. I would have recognized it anywhere. I had spent enough afternoons watching Lena write in it.

“You stole her notebook?”

Ridley tossed her hair. “Steal is such an ugly word. I borrowed it, and you should be thanking me. Maybe there's something useful in all that disgusting, sentimental dribble.”

I unzipped my backpack and slid the notebook inside. It felt weird to hold a piece of Lena in my hands again. Now I was carrying Lena's secrets in my backpack and my mother's in my back pocket. I wasn't sure how many more secrets I could handle.

Liv was more interested in Ridley's motives than Lena's notebook. “Hold on. Now we're supposed to believe you're one of the good guys?”

“Hell no. I'm bad to the bone. And I could give a rat's ass what you believe.” Ridley shot me a look out of the corner of her eye. “In fact, I'm having a hard time figuring out what you're doing here in the first place.”

I stepped in before Ridley used another lollipop to get Liv to offer herself to Hunting as a snack. “So that's it? You want to help us find Lena?”