“What do you want, Fallon?” The words came out sounding harsher than I’d intended.
I braced myself for a sarcastic retort, but instead, he just looked at me with this weird expression on his face. If I hadn’t known him so well, I might’ve said he looked sorry for me. But that wasn’t possible. This was Fallon we were talking about.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice surprisingly quiet. Almost caring, even. I nearly snorted at him for mocking me, but something told me he was being serious. It threw me off so much that he had to repeat himself just for me to believe he’d said it.
I wanted to tell him to mind his own business, but I didn’t have the energy to be mean to him. Not tonight. Besides, it seemed wrong somehow, to start something up when he appeared to be waving the white flag on our frenemy war.
“Honestly? Not really,” I answered finally. I looked down at my hands to avoid his eyes, because how do you tell someone something like this? That my mom was dead and his parents were too? How could my mom and Jasmine have actually thought that I’d be able to do this, not once, but over a dozen times?
“Look, Fallon, something serious is going on and it’s heavier than anything I’ve ever dealt with before. I have to tell you guys something, but I really don’t know how. I don’t think…” I got choked up and had to stop talking in order to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to do this.”
I had no idea why I was being so open with him. He was my least favorite person, pretty much ever, and it went against everything I believed to show weakness to anyone, let alone an enemy. But hard as I tried, I couldn’t hold it together. I knew there was a chance that Fallon would use our private conversation against me. But I just couldn’t shoulder all the responsibility alone anymore, and Fallon was asking to be let in.
“So what do I do?” I asked, staring down at the table.
He was silent for a minute and I resisted the urge to look up at him. “Use the Band-Aid approach,” he finally said.
“Huh?”
He rolled his eyes at me, but it wasn’t malicious for once. “You know. If you pull a Band-Aid off slowly, then you feel every single hair rip out of your body. And it hurts like crazy. But if you pull it off nice and quick”—he made a quick tugging motion at an imaginary wound—“it’s over fast and it hurts a lot less.”
I crinkled my eyebrows.
“Oh, come on. This is sort of common knowledge, Hadley,” he said, teasing me now. “Where have you been?”
“I don’t rip off my Band-Aids. I use magic to make them disappear,” I said simply. “Why would you willingly rip off a Band-Aid? Unless you’re a glutton for punishment, and in that case…” I let the sentence trail off as I raised my eyebrows at him.
“Fine, fine, whatever, but you get my point, right? Tell us quickly. It’ll hurt less that way. Don’t think about it, just do it,” he said. Then he looked straight into my eyes and said it again, more as a command this time rather than a suggestion. “Just do it.”
I took a deep breath and did as he said. “There was a fire where our parents met last night and they were caught inside,” I blurted out, not able to look at him as I said it. “Fallon… I don’t think anyone survived.”
There was total silence, and after about thirty seconds I dared to peek at this boy whose life I’d just turned upside down. I felt awful about being the one to break the news because I knew exactly what he was feeling. He was realizing that the life he’d once had was over. That it would be a long time before he felt safe again.
When I finally looked at Fallon, he was staring out the window behind me, his body as still as if he were frozen in place. His mouth was pulled tight in a straight line, but other than that, I had no idea what he was thinking. I was almost scared to find out but knew I had to check if he was okay. After all, I’d done this to him.
I reached out my hand and placed it on his arm, hoping to give him some solace. But almost as soon as I’d touched him, he pulled away and turned his gaze back at me. “So,” he said, taking a deep breath, “what do we do now?”
It wasn’t what I’d been expecting him to say, but I was glad I wasn’t going to have to get all touchy-feely with him. He wasn’t my favorite person, and the truth was, I had no clue how I was supposed to help him with his emotions when I hadn’t been handling my own all that well.
“Well, first I think we need to tell everyone else,” I said, still hating this part of the plan. I had a feeling not everyone would react like Fallon had.
“Then what?” he asked.
“Then we get out of here. Go someplace the Parrishables won’t come looking for us.”
“Any ideas on where that might be?” he asked.
Remembering my mom’s suggestion of our family’s cabin, I nodded. “Yeah. I think I do.”
“Okay,” Fallon said, getting up from his chair. “Let’s do this, then.”
“Rip it off like a Band-Aid?” I asked.
“Just like a Band-Aid.”
Chapter Nine
It felt like the longest day of my life.
And the most exhausting. I knew it would be difficult telling everyone what had happened to our parents, but I had no idea it would be like this. In a way, I should have known it wasn’t going to be a quick fix. After all, how long had it taken me to simply become coherent again after figuring out what had gone down at the Elm?
After my talk with Fallon, we’d gathered the Cleri members who’d been at the Elm and discussed what we were going to do next. I told them about the dream I’d had of Mom and shared my suspicions that the Parrishables were, indeed, back. Given the circumstances, they couldn’t argue with this fact and quickly agreed. But identifying our enemies didn’t help to make us feel any better.
“I know this is beyond painful, but we’ve got to be strong for the others,” I said quietly. I studied each of the five faces that sat around the table in my kitchen. “They’re going to be devastated and scared. Some are going to fall apart. But we have to pick them up. I think our lives depend on it.”
A few people nodded, others sniffled, still trying to get a handle on their emotions. Jasmine, who’d been so strong just a while before, had mascara lines running down her face. I doubted she’d cried in front of anyone else, but it was evidence that she was hurting just like the rest of us. Sascha, who was usually so bubbly, had clammed up and wasn’t talking to anyone, and Jinx had her arms wrapped around herself, like the action was the only thing keeping her from crawling out of her skin. Peter seemed to be in shock.
And me, I felt uncomfortable, sad, and helpless. I had no idea how to make any of them feel better, and we’d just agreed that I would be the one to tell the rest of the Cleri—which meant I was about to double the grief in the house.
Once we’d all pulled ourselves together the best we could, we joined the others in the living room. Some had no idea what was going on, while others started crying as soon as they saw us. I choked back my own tears, remembering that the more I held it together, the better off we’d all be.
Then I commenced to give them the worst news they’d probably ever get in their lives. It dawned on me that from here on out, whenever they thought about the day that their worlds came crashing down, they’d be reminded of me. It wasn’t exactly the way I wanted to be remembered. But it was too late to worry about that.
Taking Fallon’s advice, I told them quickly, sparing them the more graphic details; no reason to give them nightmares on top of their nightmares. They were going to have a difficult time sleeping as it was. I used my powers of persuasion to try to fill the atmosphere with soothing vibes, willing them to feel comfort and a sense of calm as I explained that our parents wouldn’t be coming home and neither would we—for a while at least.