Page 96 of Ghosts of the Dead

Rage boils up again, sharper than before. My voice shakes as the words tear out of me. “I found her as a rotter.” My throat closes around the memory of Summer’s vacant eyes, and the wet sound of my knife sliding into her brain. “I had to put her down. My own sister.”

Lucy blinks up at me while she processes this. Her face pales and her head shakes in disbelief. “I didn’t know. I swear, Autumn, I didn’t know she was dead.”

“Then tell me what you do know,” I hiss out, tightening my grip around her arm until she winces. “Tell me how you think you helped her before. Tell me everything.”

Lucy flinches, but she doesn’t try to pull away. “My brother and I, we find people. The lost ones, we call them. The ones barely hanging on. We give them somewhere safe to go. A place with food, shelter, and protection.”

“Safe?” The words taste like poison on my lips. “I found Summer’s name scratched into the floorboards of a bunker that looked more like a prison. “Purple hair—traded to G.L. Ring any bells?”

Her brow furrows deep, and she shakes her head. “I don’t know what bunker you’re talking about. That’s not…we don’t trade people. We help them.”

I shake her harder, and she whimpers when my fingernails dig into her skin. “Don’t lie to me, Lucy.”

“I’m not,” she snaps back. Fire flashes in her green eyes for the first time. “I spoke with Summer after my brothers found her. She was scared, hurt, and lost, but she was alive and safe. When I went back to check on her a few days later, they told me she’d moved on to somewhere better. Somewhere with more resources. Like they all do.”

My breath comes in short bursts. “You expect me to believe that? Hell, do you believe the words coming out of your mouth right now? That she just…moved on like all the others? Get a grip on reality, Lucy.”

Her eyes shine with unshed tears, but I feel no sympathy for her. All my compassion died with Summer. “I don’t know what happened after I left her with them. I swear on my life, Autumn. I thought I was helping. I thought—” Her voice cracks. “I thought I was saving her.”

“Where are your brothers?” I growl out the words before shoving her back against the brick wall, making her gasp. Dirt rains down from the impact. “Where the fuck are they, huh?”

She clamps her mouth shut, her jaw set with stubborn loyalty. Too bad she’s loyal to the wrong people. Luna snaps at the air near Lucy’s leg in warning.

I try another angle. “Why didn’t you meet me that night? You told me to come alone. You said you would be there. Well, I’ve been there for three days. Where were you?”

Lucy’s face twists with frustration. “I was there; I showed up. I waited hours for you. Then I heard screams echoing from the tunnel along with gunshots, and what sounded like the whole damn thing collapsing.” Her hands fly around in wild gestures. “Then there was nothing but silence, and I thought you were dead. I sent my brothers to check it out, but they came back saying the tunnel was sealed and there were no bodies, no survivors, nothing.”

“Bullshit. We’ve been camped outside that tunnel and the laundromat for days, Lucy. Waiting for you.”

She shakes my hand off when she throws her arms wide. Her voice rises to match the desperation of mine. “I don’t know what to tell you, Autumn. Maybe they saw your camp and thought it was a dreg trap. After all, you were supposed to be alone, not bring your freakishly suspicious bodyguards with you. Or maybe my brothers lied to me, I don’t fucking know anymore.”

“Then find out,” I snarl, pressing in closer. “Find your brothers. Make them tell you the truth about what they did to Summer. About this G.L. they traded her to. Some sort of secret lab. Better yet, take me to them and I’ll confront them myself.”

“I told you. We don’t?—”

“Someone did. Someone took her while she was sleeping, experimented on her, and let her die alone.” My voice breaks on the last word. “She was supposed to be safe. She should have been with me.”

Footsteps pound the ground behind me so hard the loose asphalt shakes. I spin around to see Mars, Jace, and Caspiancharging down the alley toward us. Mars’s flannel streams out behind him like wings. Jace has his weapon drawn, and Caspian’s eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them.

I whip back around to face Lucy again. “Don’t you dare?—”

But she’s gone. The alley stretches empty before me, nothing but broken bricks and shadows. No footprints in the dust. No movement in the debris. No trail, like she was never there at all.

“Fuck.” I slam my fist into the dumpster near where she stood. Pain shoots up my arm, but I don’t care.

“Don’t you sprain your wrist again, Autumn. It’s finally healing.” Jace scolds me before stopping to take care of a rotter that stumbles into his path.

Luna sniffs at the spot Lucy previously occupied, then whines in confusion at the vanished scent trail. A rotter stumbles out from behind the dumpster. Without thinking, I pivot and drive my fist straight through its eye socket. Bone cracks and rotter brain matter squelches between my fingers. The rotter drops, and I stand here with gore dripping from my knuckles.

“Autumn.” Mars reaches me first, but his hands hover near my shoulders without touching. “Tell me that was her.” He glances down at the rotter on the ground. “The living person, not the rotter whose brain you tickled.”

I nod, unable to form words. I can’t even laugh at his stupid joke. My hand throbs, though.

“What did she say?” Caspian asks when he catches up. He picks a semi-dirty cloth from the debris and takes my hand to wipe it clean.

“She didn’t know Summer was dead. Claims she was trying to help, and that her brothers never abducted Summer, but they helped her and took her somewhere safe.” I let out a bitter laugh. “Clearly that was a lie, but she doesn’t believe me.”

Jace scans the alley. “Where’d she go?”

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