Bruja Born (Brooklyn Brujas #2)(37)

Rose brings the mop and bucket from the kitchen and I go and close the door. Two sets of footprints trail blood from outside.

“I’ll clean out here,” I tell her.

I limp around the side of the house to grab the hose and spray the cement where the blood leads directly into our house. I can’t get enough slack on the hose to go down the block. I curse at the heavens. I can only pray for rain.

My street is too quiet for this time of night, but I’m grateful I don’t have to explain the bloody sidewalk to my neighbors.

I wrap the hose around my shoulder and close the fence behind me. For the first time in my life, I don’t feel safe in my own house. I was born here, literally in the living room. When my mom went into labor three weeks early, I sped into this world screaming and eager. Alex took forty-eight hours. Rose was right on time.

After everything I’ve done, a dark thought tugs at me. I wonder if I’ll die here too.

Up on the second floor, the light in my room is still off, which is a small relief. I can see shadows moving in the infirmary window. There’s a scream, like the call of a banshee trailing in the wind.

“I should help,” I say out loud. “Even if I’m not ready, I should help.”

Then, I jump as a shadow moves at the side of the house. And I realize, it’s not a shadow. It’s a man dressed from head to toe in black.

“Who the hell are you?” I shout.

He starts to run. It’s so dark I can’t see his face. The light at the porch isn’t turning on, so I fumble with the hose, point it in his direction, and spray.

I hear him grunt, the blast hitting his side. He’s fast and, in two swift movements, jumps over the side of the porch and into the neighbor’s yard.

“Stop!” I shout. I start to run, but a pain shreds my sides. I take a knee and wait for it to subside. “Alex!”

She comes running out. “What’s wrong?”

“There was someone watching through the window.”

She comes over and pulls my shirt up. The look on her face tells me something is wrong.

“Forget that,” she says. “I have to heal you again.”

I start to shake my head, but the pain is too much, and so I sling my arm around her shoulder. Step by step, we get back inside and sit in the living room.

“Did you see the patient?” I ask her, eyes darting up the steps after our mystery callers.

“Ma said to wait until she needs me. Rose is up there now. Whatever it is, it sounds like it’s really bad.”

I laugh, a bitter, manic thing.

“What’s so funny?” she asks, setting me on the couch.

“Remember when all you wanted was to be a normal girl, and I’d get mad at you?”

“I was an idiot.” She smirks, making her face brighten with mischief.

“You were smart.”

“Don’t tell me you want to trade in your powers. Because I’ve been down that road and it doesn’t work.”

We’re quiet, the scurry of footsteps on the ceiling and the cry of the injured man is our soundtrack for the evening.

“Everything will be fine,” she says. Her ponytail swishes from side to side when she moves. She lifts up my shirt and examines the area. I see her make a face, then try to cover it up.

“What?” But I feel the itch and burn of part of the scar opening up again.

“I healed this last night. It isn’t taking. I’ll do it again.” She walks into the foyer and makes a right toward the supply closet.

“Ma needs you,” I say.

She shouts back, “She has Rose and Dad.”

“Alex.”

“Just lean back.” She holds a six-inch quartz crystal with raw edges. She places the cold stone on my warm skin.

Her conjuring magic thickens the air with a velvet mist, cycling around her hands, and I sigh with relief as the pain lightens. Her dark brown eyes focus on the aura around me. As hard as she tries to hide it, I see the worry coiled in her stare, and I fear things might be worse than she’s letting on.

When my sister’s magic touches me, a tender warmth spreads from the bruised area on my side. My muscles relax, and if I didn’t have so much to do, I’d fall asleep right here and now, even though I slept through most of the day.

“There,” Alex says. The crystal is pitch black, a sign that the malady is gone. She holds it up for me to see. Crystals can usually be cleansed, but when they’re used to suck sickness out of the body, they turn black like this and there’s no going back. We usually bury them or throw them out to sea. “Want to keep it in a jar and name it?”

“Thanks,” I say, standing. I wiggle my toes and find I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to feel no pain. “But no.”

“Do you hear that?” Alex asks. She sets the crystal on the table and looks up at the ceiling.

“The screaming stopped.”

As if reading each other’s thoughts, we head upstairs. We stand outside the infirmary door. Mom’s and Dad’s voices are quick and worried. There’s another voice, familiar and strange all at once. I can’t place it, but then I see Alex’s face darken with anger. The lightbulb in the hallway makes a sound like ice breaking through glass, and then we’re cloaked in more darkness, and I wonder, why are we always trailed by shadows?