It was a blessing and a curse. I still got to see him, hear him. He wasn’t completely gone. But he was a shadow of himself. That thought almost made me laugh bitterly. We were all just shadows of ourselves anymore. My chest ached to be whole, like it had been four years prior. But wishing for the past was an exercise in futility.
I carefully put away my wand and the rest of my roll of parchment before I turned to face my father, wondering what version of him I was going to get today. Was he going to be lost and befuddled? Or would he be on the ball, full of information? My chest buzzed in anticipation, balanced on the razor’s edge between hope and despair.
I studied him, trying to read his gaze. Dad wore brown slacks, an Argyle sweater, and a brown fedora trimmed with a plaid ribbon.
"I told you I hate those hats," I muttered. Fedoras were so douchey looking.
"Why do you think I wore it?" He grinned, patting the brim.
I rolled my eyes, but inside my heart gave a little happy jump and kick. If he’d worn something to bug me, that meant this was a good day. After three years, I would have thought I’d have gotten used to the bad days, but I hadn’t. Each bad day he had was like a punch to the gut—even though it was his memory loss that had let me institute my plan in the first place. When my dad had first appeared to me—he’d been hit by a train, driving distracted only a week after Matthew’s accident—he’d shot down every idea I’d had to save my brother. But, as his memory grew weaker, so had his will. He’d let information slip about his lab and the studies there. The lab that had been bought up by the Pinnacle, because assholes like my stepfather—
“So, why are we in this car?” Dad’s question interrupted my train of thought as he glanced around at the black leather interior.
"Got kicked out again," I told him.
"Congrats. I hope you did my name proud."
I bit down on a smile and gave a little shrug. "Harry? You want me to make the name Harry proud? I think I’d have to stop shaving and join a commune for that.”
Dad laughed, and it accentuated the wrinkles around his dark brown eyes. But not in a bad way, in a way that said he’d been laughing for years—at the world and life and everything. When he was alive, he’d always been ready with a smirk or smile. My heart tugged at me hard. I wanted nothing more than to curl up under his arm and give him a hug.
Though being a Darklight allowed me to see ghosts, I couldn’t touch them. They were only specters of light too far outside normal vision range for anyone else to see. And they were rare, even more rare than my power. Darklights were one in a hundred. Ghosts were maybe one in ten thousand. My dad was only the second ghost I’d met in my life.
We’d debated telling Mom about him at first … but then she’d tried to kill herself the first time, and it just felt like the revelation would make things worse. I shoved down the hurt of that memory, the fact that she’d tried to leave me alone in the world. But I still felt the tears sloshing inside my stomach. There was an ocean of grief under my skin. I was just floating on top of it, on a rickety raft that was this damned plan.
Dad’s laughter trailed off, and he swiped at the corners of his eyes—out of habit more than anything, because he couldn’t cry anymore—he propped his foot up on his knee and linked his fingers together over that leg. “Alright. I’ve got updates. First off, Claudia is a douche.”
I chuckled at dad’s name for mom’s new husband. “Agreed. But is that relevant?”
“He’s cheating on her.”
Zap. It was like I’d been stuck with a cattle prod. I stared at him, shocked, as the car went under a long bridge and cast us into shadow. Dad’s form flickered in the dark. We sat in silence until we emerged from under the bridge. A million images and awful words filled my mind. I pictured myself choking the life out of Claude. The fantasy was satisfying as hell. But when I pictured my mother’s face after …
The asshole was going to get to live. God, I hated that. I smoothed out my face and grabbed my laptop out of my bag. “Who?”
“Secretary. Of course. Doesn’t have a creative bone—”
“Let’s talk work,” I snapped. Dad might be pissed about this, but I had to face the fucker in a few hours. He didn’t. I had to restrain myself. He didn’t. I was already two seconds from boiling over any time I saw ‘the Clod’— which was my nickname for the thickheaded, brutal bastard. I didn’t need to be all worked up when I saw him today. Not when I had fucking goals to achieve. Dammit. I blew out a breath.
Calm down. Focus on other shit, I told myself.
I started up my laptop. Then I pulled a flash drive out of a hidden compartment in my necklace and inserted it. It was old school, the flash drive, but it worked to keep the info I wanted away from prying eyes. I opened the encrypted file where I’d saved folders and articles about my targets. To anyone else, a secret “Crush” file might look like guys I jilled off to, but the file was so much more than that. It was my list of potential recruits. Because I wasn’t arrogant enough to think I could break into the Pinnacle with just dad to help me. Not quite.
I’d need manpower if I was gonna get the serum that Dad said was down in their vaults. And professional established criminals weren’t likely to listen to a two-bit chick like me. I’d tried that route already. Been shot down for a year before I gave up on that track.
I needed bad boys. Didn’t just want them. Needed them desperately.
Assholes like my mother’s shit of a husband, Claude—who sat around on the Pinnacle board getting served coffee and blowjobs by secretaries all day—had decided that since testing had blown up a magical, and a building or two, that the continued search for a serum to cure Matthew and others like him wasn’t safe or in the public’s best interest.
What those dickheads didn’t say was that they were goddamned liars. My dad’s lab had been testing a cure without any explosions. And it had worked—once, at Dad’s lab—before Matthew tried to go Unnatural. Before the government vultures had swept in and “bought” the lab and all its research.
My dad leaned over to look at the screen, and by the crease in his brow I could tell that the lost ghost was gone, and my father was back.
He said, “The serum is in box 94, but the only way to access it is through the vault. But even getting down to the vault is gonna be hard, Hales. You have to get to the vault first, which is no easy matter—let me just tell you—and unravel a level 10 spell that locks the vault door. Then, only one person can enter the vault wearing an Honesty Amulet. Even if you get the serum out of the box, you can’t leave the vault without declaring your intentions. And the vault won’t let you leave if you honestly mean to steal the serum.” Dad was my scout for this whole operation. He’d been shadowing people at the Pinnacle so that I could pull this off when I was ready.
I waved off that last bit. I’d worry about the Honesty Amulet when I got there. That seemed light years away anyway.
“Were you able to watch the guy unravel the spell?” I asked.
He lifted his fedora and scratched his head. “Not enough to see what he wrote. I forgot to add, as far as I can tell, there’s still the timer.”