Soul Screamers Collection. Rachel Vincent

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СКАЧАТЬ bravado with my smoldering anger, I pinned my uncle with the boldest stare I could manage. “So I’m not human?”

      He sighed. “You never were one to beat around the bush.”

      I only stared at him, unwilling to be distracted by pointless chatter. And when my uncle began to speak, I clutched Nash’s hand harder than ever.

      “No, technically we’re not human,” he said. “But the distinction is very minor.”

      “Right.” I rolled my eyes. “Except for all the death and screaming.”

      “So you’re a bean sidhe too, right?” Nash interjected, oiling the wheels of discourse with more civility than I could have mustered in that moment. At least one of us was calm …

      “Yes. As is Kaylee’s father, my brother.” Uncle Brendon met my eyes again then, and I knew what he was going to say from the cautious sympathy shining in his eyes. “As was your mother.”

      This wasn’t about my mom. So far as I knew, she’d never lied to me. “What about Aunt Val?”

      “Human.” She answered for herself, stepping into the living room with a steaming cup of coffee in each hand. She crossed the carpet cautiously and handed one mug to my uncle before sinking carefully into the armchair across from his. “And so is Sophie.”

      “Are you sure?” Nash frowned. “Maybe she just hasn’t had an opportunity for any premonitions yet.”

      “She was there with Meredith this afternoon,” I reminded him.

      “Oh, yeah.”

      “We’ve known from the moment she was born,” my aunt said, as if neither of us had spoken.

      “How?” I asked, as she slowly, carefully crossed one leg over the other.

      Aunt Val lifted the mug to her lips, then spoke over it. “She cried.” She sipped her coffee, her eyes not quite focused on the wall over my head. “Female bean sidhes don’t cry at birth.”

      “Seriously?” I glanced at Nash for confirmation, but he only shrugged, apparently as surprised as I was.

      Uncle Brendon eyed his wife in mounting concern, then turned back to us. “They may have tears, but a bean sidhe never truly screams until she sings for her first soul.”

      “Wait, that can’t be right.” I’d cried plenty as a child, hadn’t I? Surely at my mother’s funeral… ?

      Okay, I couldn’t actually remember much from that age, but I knew for a fact that I’d screamed bloody murder when I rode my bike off the sidewalk and into a rose bush, at eight years old. And again at eleven, when I accidentally ripped a hoop earring through my earlobe with a hairbrush. And again when I’d been dumped for the first time, at fourteen.

      How long had I been making fatal predictions, without even knowing it? Had I thrown inconsolable fits in preschool? Or had my youth largely kept me away from death? How long had they been treating me like I was crazy, when they knew what was wrong with me all along?

      My spine stiffened, and I felt my cheeks flush in anger. Every answer my uncle provided only brought up more questions, about things I should have known all along. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded, teeth clenched to keep me from yelling and waking Sophie up. I’d missed so much. Wasted countless hours doubting my own sanity.

      When what I really should have been doubting was my humanity!

      “I’m so sorry, Kaylee. I wanted to.” Uncle Brendon closed his eyes as if he were gathering his thoughts, then met mine again, and to my surprise, I realized I believed him. “I started to tell you last year, when you were …in the hospital. But your dad asked me not to. The damage was already done, and he hoped we could wait a little longer. At least until you finished high school.”

      That’s what they’d hoped I’d have more time for! Not life, but a normal, human adolescence. A noble thought, but somewhat lacking in the execution

      “I’m surprised your little farce held up this long!” I found myself on the edge of the couch as I spoke, Nash’s hand still grasped in mine. He was the only thing keeping me seated as I vented the geyser of anger and resentment threatening to burst through the top of my skull. “How long did you think it would be before I’d run into someone on the verge of death?”

      Uncle Brendon shrugged miserably but held my gaze. “Most teenagers never see anyone die. We were hoping you’d be that fortunate, and we could wait and let your dad explain all this … later. When you were ready.”

      “When I was ready? I was ready last year, when I saw a bald kid in a wheelchair being pushed through the mall in his own private death shroud! You were waiting for him to be ready.” For my father to finally step up and earn his title.

      “She’s right, Brendon,” Aunt Val slurred, now slumped in her chair, her linen-clad legs splayed gracelessly. I watched her, waiting for more, but turned back to my uncle when she lifted her mug to her mouth instead of speaking.

      “Why keep it a secret in the first place?”

      “Because you—” Aunt Val began again, gesturing in grand sweeps with her half-empty mug. But my uncle cut her off with a stern look.

      “That’s for your father to explain.”

      “It’s not like he hasn’t had time!” I snapped. “He’s had sixteen years.”

      Uncle Brendon nodded, and I read regret on his face. “I know—we all have. And considering how you wound up figuring it out—” he glanced apologetically at Nash “—I think we were wrong to wait so long. But your dad will be here in the morning, and I’m not going to step on his toes with the rest of it. It’s his story to tell.”

      There was a story? Not just a simple explanation, but an actual story?

      “He’s really coming?” I’d believe that when I saw him.

      Yet my chest tightened, shot through with a jolt of adrenatine at the thought: my dad had answers no one else seemed willing to give me. But I might have known it would take an all-out catastrophe to get him stateside again. He wasn’t coming to see me. He was coming to do damage control, before my aunt reversed the charges.

      Uncle Brendon frowned at my obvious skepticism—he could probably see it swirling in my eyes. “We called him this afternoon—”

      “I called him,” Aunt Val corrected. “I told him to put his ass on a plane, or I’d.”

      “You’ve had enough.” My uncle was on his feet before I could blink, and an instant later he held his wife’s mug. She slouched in her chair, eyes wide in sluggish surprise, hand still curved, as if around the cup handle. “I’ll get you some fresh coffee.” He stopped in the threshold between the living room and dining room, Aunt Val’s mug gripped so tightly his knuckles were white. “I’m sorry,” he said to Nash. “My wife isn’t taking any of this well. She’s worried about the girls, and she’s a friend of Meredith Cole’s mother.”

      Yeah, but she and Mrs. Cole were gym buddies, not conjoined twins. And I’d hardly СКАЧАТЬ