The Lost Daughter (Denali #2)

Chapter 7

It’s hard going on 6 am runs at any time of the year, but in January, the brisk air burns your lungs. Still, I’m thankful for it. That pain keeps me occupied as I run next to Ray. It keeps me from thinking too much about how well the running scarf curls around his annoyingly kissable neck. It keeps me from thinking about how much I hate him.

There’s no talking. Just crunching of gravel and frosted dirt. I stare ahead, focused, and determined, and—

The world swirls and unbelievably sharp roots split into my knees. The same evil roots that I must have tripped on, given that I’m on all fours and my running gloves are slipping around in the gravely mud. Ray bends next to me, his hand on my back. “You okay?”

I shake my head and swivel away from him to sit on the ground. “No,” I say as curtly as I can, which is pretty curt.

He frowns as he rests on his haunches and folds his hands. “Are you upset about what you saw in Las Vegas? The Captain told me you viewed me in the hotel.”

“He asked me too,” I blurt back, surprised at the edge in my voice.

“I know,” he says, raising his hands. “I wasn’t accusing you. I just…you probably have questions, right?”

“I always have questions. But you seem to enjoy keeping things from me, so…” I swipe the mud off my hands so I don’t have to look at him.

He rubs his head and looks down the path. “I trust you more than anyone. But…”

“Yeah, I know, ‘but….’” I busy myself with brushing gravel from my knees.

“I can’t,” he growls. I look up at his tense face. It’s like when we first met. Impenetrable.

I swallow and look at the lake. “Are you in love with her?”

He laughs, this sort of annoying laugh and shakes his head, as though I said something funny. “No, of course I’m not in love with her.”

I nod. “Of course.”

He sighs and sits cross-legged, across from me. “Denali, you’re the one I care about. You know that.”

Maybe it’s the cold or the pain in my knees or the fake that my chest hurts too much whenever he says stuff like that now. “I’m sick of your sh*t,” I say softly. And it’s like saying the words makes it even truer, despite the way his mouth opens and his shoulders sag. “I’m sorry, okay, I just don’t appreciate being jerked around. Either you care about me and want to be with me or you don’t. I don’t want to hear anything in between.”

He picks up a piece of frosted grass and runs his thumbs along it before crumbling it in his fist. “That’s fair,” he whispers in this scratchy, sad voice. God I want to spoon him.

No, I don’t. I shake myself a bit. “So this girl…”

“We call her LV, for Las Vegas,” he says, seemingly as thankful as I am to talk about something else. “She’s homeless. She’s been doing magic tricks on the street for years, only the magic tricks seem a little too unbelievable. She hasn’t wanted to come back with us. We’ve been trying to convince her for a while.”

“Okay,” I say. “Thanks for telling—”

“That’s not all,” he says. “She could be the lost daughter. Dr. Patel is examining her now. Soon we’ll know for sure.”

“Who’s the lost daughter?” I ask, though the phrase sounds familiar, like something I’d heard in the background at the Tempest Tavern a couple times, something I never paid attention to before.

He sits up a little more, I try not to think about how much I want to pin those shoulders to the ground. Focus, Denali, focus

He continues, “You know about the leader of the KBK. The woman Nashquittin hung years ago.”

I nod, “Joel told me.”

Ray flinches, but keeps his eye on me. Why did I volunteer that? It’s the truth. But did I want to see him flinch?

No. I want him to bury his face in my neck and have him tell me he’s decided, spontaneously, to stop being an incomprehensible asshole who hides behind some secret “noble” ideal.

We both stay still.

“She had a baby a few months before she was executed.” He talks lower now, even though no one else is on the path. “The night the KBK left, they took her with them. Nashquittin calls her the Lost Daughter. LV’s the right age. She has the right skills. And she doesn’t know who her parents are.”

I cross my arms. The air feels a lot colder than before. “What did you mean when you said that soon we’ll know for sure?”

“Blood testing. They test any girl who’s around that age.”

“I wasn’t test—” I start to say until all of Dr. Patel’s poking and prodding comes into focus. He did take my blood. 

“They did test you,” Ray says.

“Okay, yeah.” I rub my temples. “But why? My mom’s alive. She clearly wasn’t hung years ago.”

He shrugs. “They like to cover their bases.”

“Why is the lost daughter so important?”

If I though he looked tense before, he’s downright rock-like now. “She’d be one of the most powerful psis, but, more importantly, it’s symbolic. They think that brining the lost daughter back to Nashquittin would show they’re in the right. They think it’s a sure way to victory. And they probably have other uses for her as well.”

“They?” I ask. “You mean, ‘we.’”

His eyes grow dark. “Yeah, of course, I mean ‘we.’”

As you may have picked up, I haven't been great at doing the weekly updates. I have a few other fun projects in the works that are taking priority, so it’s hard to find time to dedicate to Denali, much as I love her. :)  I’ll keep updating this as frequently as possible, but the schedule will now be annoyingly sporadic. The best ways to keep up with it are to follow me and/or add this to your reading list. The best way to keep up with my aforementioned other fun projects is to sign up for my newsletter: www.caitlinsinead.com/newsletter.

Thanks for your patience and, as always, for reading, commenting, and voting! :)