Page 54 of The Mist of Stars

“I do find it a little weird that my father didn’t think to erase the footage himself. Everyone knows the academy has security cameras, so why would he take the risk?” I ravel a strand of hair around my finger. “I think it points to possession.”

“Agreed. It makes me uneasy, though, that we have a keeper—a foreseer—wandering around, possessed by some creature daring enough to walk into the academy during business hours and kill Professor G.

I unravel my hair from my finger. “Makes you wonder why Professor G.”

“Good point.” Alex taps his finger against his bottom lip. “I think I need to go back to the crime scene.”

I pull a face. “Gross. The body’s still there.”

“I know, but it’s worth dealing with that if it means getting an answer to this. We don’t know much about the professor. I think it’ll help if we know more about him.”

He has a valid point.

“I’ll go with you,” I offer, but he shakes his head.

“With the death walkers after you and someone trying to frame you for the professor’s murder, I think you should probably stay away from the academy for a while.”

“But it’s almost graduation,” I gripe. “I was looking forward to being done so I could get the hell out of this town. If I don’t attend classes, it’ll set me back.”

Alex gives me areallylook. “That’s really what you’re worried about?”

I grimace. “I get that it’s way bigger than that—I do—but it still sucks balls.”

“Well, hopefully, we can figure this out so we can get back to our regularly scheduled lives,” he says flatly.

“You sound kind of emo about that,” I remark. “Do you not want to go back to your regular life?”

Instead of responding, he smashes his lips together.

My mind drifts back to his father and what I saw him make Alex do. Maybe he doesn’t want to go back.

“Where are we going to stay tonight?” I decide to change the subject that’s clearly making him gloomy. “Or are we just going to sleep here?” I gesture at our hideout. It’s not like I want to sleep in the dirt, but it might be for the better, since I have deadly creatures chasing after me.

“I think we should get a hotel,” he answers. “In the next town over. We can pay with cash so it’s untraceable, and then Laylen and I can go back to the academy.”

“You want to do all of that tonight?”

“We have to get it done tonight. They’ll discover his body by tomorrow.”

“Right.”

My mind starts spinning. What if we aren’t able to solve this? What if the death walkers keep coming after me? What if my father did murder Professor G.? What if this framing me thing actually works, and I get arrested for murder?

In the keeper world, that means getting locked up in your own personal hell of a realm where nothing but you and solitude exists. I’ve heard stories about it, about people getting locked away in their own minds, and it sounds more terrifying than even death itself.

17GEMMA

When Aislin and Laylen return, we instantly take off, heading for the next town over.

As Alex drives down the dark, desolate highway, we fill Laylen and Aislin in on what we discovered while they were gone. They momentarily go into shock and are completely quiet. But Aislin finally breaks the silence.

“It has to be possession. Your father is the nicest man I’ve ever met. He’s what a father is supposed to be.”

“I know. I think it’s possession, too, which means my father is walking around, being controlled by some sort of killer monster.”

“We should get into the keeper archives and see if we can figure out what kind of monster it could be,” Aislin says from the back seat. Laylen is sitting on one side of her, and her bag is on her other side. “You and I can do that while these two dingdongs go back to the academy.”

“What’s with the name-calling?” Laylen asks with his head turned toward her. “It seems a little bit uncalled for.”