The Cities of Dead (Book 3)

Chapter 2: Heartless

Under the cover of my duvet, I dreamt of fire.

And I awoke to the distinct sounds of metal clanging in the kitchen—not something I'd have noticed months ago, but now I was so used to the silent solitude that any little sound echoed up to my room. I threw off the blanket and sprang from bed, but then groggily stumbled. I grabbed a pale pink cable-knit sweater from a pile on the floor and stretched it over my head as I went downstairs with visions of sandwiches and soup and cereal dancing in my head.

But when I entered the kitchen, there wasn't any evidence of grocery shopping. No empty bags on the floor, no boiling water or signs of food to come. My father finished drying the oatmeal pot and hung it back on the rack above his head. Empty beer bottles had been organized into a bag for recycling. We still didn't have collection service, but he dropped them off at the recycling center every couple weeks because it was next to the junkyard where he scavenged scrap metal.

"Good morning," he said, kissing my cheek.

I winced when his unshaven cheek scraped my skin. "It's four p.m."

"Well, I just woke up, and from the looks of it, you just woke up too."

I opened the nearest cabinet, closed it, and opened the next. There wasn't a grind of coffee or a single bud of chamomile, much less food. I knew we'd both taken a turn for the worse over the last couple months, but this level of absentee parenting was extreme even for his dark times.

"You know what most people do in the morning?" I asked. "Drink coffee, orange juice. Eat breakfast. Eat anything."

He frowned.

I nearly apologized for being snippy, but then my stomach rumbled. I grabbed a bottle of water from the pantry and glugged back a third of it, hoping it would stop the ache, but it only made me feel nauseous.

"Dad, we don't have any food."

"I left my wallet on the counter for you, sweetheart, just like I do every morning when I get home."

My finger pressed into my forehead, and I bit back a snarky response.

"You know . . ." he said, "you could still finish out the semester at Ursuline—"

"Dad, I'm not going back to that place!" I exploded. "We agreed!" We'd discussed this endlessly, but I'd thought it was over. "You said if I completed the correspondence classes— I finished everything. You can't make me go back!" Suddenly, I was there. Being tied up to the statue, my magic being used against me to kill Nicco and Brigitte.

"Sweetheart?"

Then I'm lying on the stone floor, seeing my mother loom over Codi, feeling the panic as I slice open my arm to get her away from him.

"Adele!" My father's eyes widened with worry.

I let go from clutching the counter behind me and glanced at my wrist. No scar, thanks to Nicco's blood. No hint that anything had even happened. Just memories and nightmares and regret. Just something that happened on the school grounds that I couldn't tell my father about.

"Breathe, baby."

I tried, but it felt impossible. I faked a big inhale by standing up taller.

"I'm not making you go," he said with reassurance. "I was just asking if you'd given going back to school any more thought. It might be nice to finish out the year with your friends."

"They said taking a grievance period doesn't affect your records."

"I'm not worried about your records, Adele. I'm worried about you."