The Whispering Night (Luminaries #3)

Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

“The official story is that you got hurt last night at the hotspot and you’re a hero who has graciously handed your crown to L.A.” This is the first thing Erica says once she hits the unlock button on the Lexus—which Winnie now recognizes as her ride to the Saturday breakfast a few days ago.

“Uh, trunk for you!” Erica snaps, when Winnie aims for the passenger seat. “You’re covered in paint. Also, what if people see me driving you out of here?”

Both points are good ones, so Winnie crawls into the trunk space as soon as the door is wide enough to fit through. Then she lies on her back and folds up her legs.

God, she’s tired.

In seconds, Erica is backing them out and resuming her story—though louder now, to be heard over the crunching gravel and car engine. “Only me, L.A., Trevor, and Bretta really saw that Tuesdays took you, not Monday ambulances. And… well, we’ve all been threatened with cell time if we say a word during the Masquerade.”

What about after the Masquerade? Can you blab then? Winnie doesn’t ask this. “What about my mom? Or Darian? Do you know where they are?”

“No.” Winnie can hear the pity in Erica’s voice. “I haven’t seen either of them all day—oh shit! They’ve got a blockade at the exit, Winnie. There are scorpions raising their hands for me to stop.”

Winnie screws her eyes shut. “Stop then, E. When they find me, act like you didn’t know I was in here.” Maybe this time I can look for Mom and Darian before I escape.

Erica does not stop. Instead, the SUV lurches. So hard, inertia yanks Winnie back against the door. She hears gravel spray like firecrackers. Then she hears furious shouts and yelps rebound off the SUV.

Erica whoops: “HELL YEAH.”

And Winnie shoots up to a seated position, jaw to her sternum as she gapes out the tinted window at four scorpions chasing them down the road. One is also bellowing into a radio.

“They’re going to come after us!”

“Yep!” Erica grins into the rearview mirror. Her eyes look slightly unhinged; her energy leans toward chaotic neutral . “But you know what they say about Thursdays!”

“Your clan is too uptight?”

“Never without a plan!” Erica bangs both hands against the steering wheel. “And believe it or not, Winona, I actually have a plan for a day like today!”

“When Tuesdays would chase you through Hemlock Falls?” Winnie doesn’t mean to sound screechy, but she definitely sounds screechy. “Because there is a Hummer pulling out of the estate now!”

Erica laughs, also a screechy sound, except it’s less panicked bear and more overzealous bell. “Not quite that, but trust me: I got this.”

Winnie wants to trust Erica. She really wants to trust Erica—especially because she has no seat belt on and they are currently accelerating to warp speed on a residential road. Which is basically what all roads in Hemlock Falls are. The roads are also all peppered with approximately three billion stop signs.

One of which Erica blows right through. Hi, Monday estate! Bye, Monday estate!

Well, at this point, Winnie supposes she has no reason to remain in the trunk. They are both fugitives now. Agents Wednesday and Thursday on the run. She clambers over the seat into the back seat. “They’re still behind us.”

“I can see that. But it’s just one Hummer.”

“For now.” Winnie feels the lock on her seat belt engage. Oh, and there goes another stop sign—with a car in the intersection too.

Who is, understandably, laying on the horn.

“Where exactly are you taking us?” Winnie demands, grabbing the oh-shit bar. She’s seated diagonally behind Erica, and if she weren’t already totally alarmed by everything going on, the excited flush currently rising up Erica’s cheeks would definitely worry her.

Erica is having fun right now.

Like a lot of fun.

Winnie adjusts chaotic neutral to chaotic evil.

“We’re going here,” Erica replies right as she slams on the brakes and executes the kind of turn Winnie thought was only possible in a Fast Winnie’s too. And if Winnie thought the stares on the clan banners were disapproving on Sunday morning… well, ha. Ha. She’s pretty sure the Wednesday bear would climb down and tackle Winnie right now if it could. And that Tuesday scorpion definitely wants to eat her.

At the locker room, Erica slings inside. “Grab your training gear,” she orders. “You look like you were in the prom scene from Carrie .”

This reference flies past Winnie, but she obeys all the same, and in seconds, she and Erica are sprinting onward again. Erica has a black duffel; she crams Winnie’s clean clothes inside. Except now, rather than lead Winnie toward the back door and the shadowy freedom of encroaching night, Erica pulls Winnie toward Coach Rosa’s office. It’s just past the showers, right before the door to the obstacle course.

The window beside the door is dark; Rosa is at hunter training, of course.

Erica tries the knob. It resists, but that doesn’t slow her. She digs out a single key from the duffel she had in her locker, and with practiced ease, she slides the key in. This time, the knob turns. This time, she shoulders in easily before tugging Winnie along.

Once they’re both in the dark, Erica locks the door. And in case this wasn’t already too much for Winnie’s brain to keep up with—although yes… she’s starting to remember how comfortable Erica was sneaking into the school on Sunday—Erica is now hissing, “Come on, Winnie. Come on .”

“Where?” Winnie asks. It’s a room with only one door! No. Wait. She spies a second, much tinier door in the room’s corner, tucked next to a filing cabinet. It’s the kind of door that would block a crawl space, and honestly, Winnie would never have noticed it if not for Erica. It’s the same boring beige as the wall.

But now Erica is opening the hatch with the key she used to access the office, and… now she’s crawling into total darkness. “Come on, ” she snarls again, and though Winnie would really like to ask, WHERE DOES THAT GO, THANK YOU?! she also understands the stakes of her situation. Right now, she is wanted by the Tuesdays for witchcraft and breaking out of their bunker.

It’s safe to assume that Tuesdays are pouring into the school. They will search everywhere, including this office. And if they are actually good at their jobs (unlike poor Isaac), they will also circle behind the school to close off locker room exits.

In other words, Winnie is trapped and the only way out is through that hatch.

So Winnie gets on her hands and knees and starts crawling. She shuts the hatch behind her with an awkward hook of her heel on the knob. All light falls away. And Winnie’s rods freak out. If there are any photons here, her eyes sure aren’t finding them.

Until a light flips on—small. Targeted. Winnie recoils. Her cones go haywire.

“Sorry,” Erica whispers. “There’s a ladder straight ahead. We’ve got to go down.”

“To where?”

“Pump room,” she replies before chomping onto her phone with her teeth and continuing to crawl. Her light, now aimed straight down, doesn’t offer much guidance to Winnie’s eyes. Still, it’s so much better than the darkness, she could cry from relief. Or maybe that’s stress that makes her eyes prickle. Or exhaustion. Or the adrenaline that has been pumping in her veins since she fled her Tuesday cell.

The light ricochets. Erica whispers, “Here’s the ladder.” Then Winnie hears a metallic clanging replace the previous rustle of clothing.

Moments later, Winnie reaches the ladder too. Pump room, she thinks, remembering what Jay said when he found her in the steam two days ago. He offered to sneak her out of class this way.

“What if scorpions check where we’re going?” They must know the pump room exists.

“They won’t.” Erica’s voice is breathy from exertion. Or perhaps elation.

“How do you know?”

“ Because, Winona. Remember what I said about having a plan?”

“Hard to forget, given that I’m currently being dragged through it like tin cans on a just-married car. But you know what would help, E? If you told me the plan. And then explained why you have one in the first place.”

“Patience, please.” Erica’s voice sounds different now. More solid, like the walls have changed shape around her.

Which they have, because now Winnie has also reached the ladder’s end and the pump room spans before her, lit only by Erica’s swinging flashlight. Pipes stretch and loop, connecting vats and heaters in a complex embroidery of copper and steel.

“This way,” Erica murmurs, hefting the duffel onto her shoulder. “And yes, Winona. Before you nag me again: once upon a time, I became a Diana, and the first thing they taught me was to make sure I hid my stuff in weird places.”

Once upon a time, I became a Diana, and the first thing they taught me was to make sure I hid my stuff in weird places. Places that have absolutely nothing to do with me, so if anyone ever finds my mask or—god forbid—my source, they won’t have any way of tracking it back to me.

My mask was easy to hide because it’s flimsy and foldable. I put it in a Ziploc, put that Ziploc in another, and finally hid it inside a toilet tank on the second floor of the history library.

No, Winnie, that isn’t gross. The water in a toilet tank is clean, okay?

As for my source, that was riskier to hide. Because unfortunately, when hiding a source, you need it to be contained by running water— yes, I know. I thought of the toilet tank trick again, but when you put a source in its dampener, it’s too big for a tank.

And the source has to be in the dampener if you’re going to do magic with it. It not only prevents Luminaries from finding the source, but it also preserves the magic within. Which, I mean… I was definitely trying to do magic, even if I wasn’t really succeeding.

Yeah, that means I was burying my source in the forest regularly to absorb spirit magic.

How long does it take to absorb? Only a week to charge it fully, though if you’re a really experienced Diana, you can charge it faster than that, by finding the most powerful spots in the forest to go to. But I never got good at sensing those areas. And I needed to be able to access my source in the forest easily, so I buried it not far from the southeasternmost tip. It was walking distance from the Thursday estate.

Anyway, when it’s not buried, a source needs to be somewhere easy to get to with lots of running water. And I was actually in the hot room during Coach Rosa’s class when I suddenly realized there must be pumps that feed into the underground maze. All that steam would need running water, right? And once I figured out where the plumbing was—by following Rosa one day after class—it wasn’t hard to actually steal Rosa’s key and slip inside.

I spent almost a full two hours exploring this space that day. Because I mean, look at this! It’s huge in here. Not only does it feed the hot room, but also the training lake and the pool. And then the entire school too, and the Sunday library. There’s one spot, though, that no one knows about. Like, it’s so forgotten there are three water heaters blocking it, and the only way someone would know about it is if they study old blueprints.

So how did I find it?

Because Jenna found it first.