The Trinity Bleeds (The Grave Winner Book 3) Read online

  “Some people might wonder about it, you know? Ask why she’s a hero if she committed suicide, but those people can suck it. They don’t know anything about her life, or what she went through, or what she did when she was dead. And look.” Jo pointed to the smaller headstone next to Sarah’s where a pair of yellow baby shoes tied together at the laces dangled over the side. “As much as I want those adorable things to still fit me, they really, really don’t.”

  “Jo…” I shook my head at everything she’d done, everything she continued to do to keep her top spot as World’s Greatest Forever Friend. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she said simply, and a shaky smile waved over her mouth. “Thanks for being alive and capturing all the heartbeat-challenged and making this kick-ass planet of ours whole again.”

  “Anytime.”

  Miguel nudged Callum with his elbow and muttered, “We should probably go arm wrestle or fix a car or something after all this emotional stuff.”

  Jo sliced a lethal gaze toward him, and he flashed her an innocent smile right back.

  “I can’t.” Callum caught my eye and winked. “I have a date.”

  Jo clasped her hands in front of her chest as a smile burst across her face. “You two are freakin’ adorable.”

  “Oh, okay,” Miguel said, nodding. “We’ll make sure the bat signal doesn’t go off until you’re done then.”

  “Thanks. You do that.” Keeping inside the shade of Ica’s split tree, I knelt at Sarah’s grave to brush my fingers over her wreath. It was weaved together so perfectly in a tight band, so much like Tram used to make. These had been important to him, which made them equally so to me. “Jo, can you teach me how to make these?”

  “Ask Miguel. He made them.”

  He grinned. “I can do some pretty amazing things with my hands.”

  Jo snorted, and a blush burned to the tips of her ears while Callum narrowed his eyes at both of them. I fought back a grin but lifted my eyebrows at Jo so she knew she would get an inquisition later.

  “Um, anyway. Great post-apocalypse weather we’re having today, huh?” Her gaze flitted past me in a desperate attempt to find something else to look at, then her whole face brightened. “Look who showed up to the party.”

  Before I turned, I caught Jo jabbing Miguel in the ribs, then my breath snagged when I saw who she was talking about.

  Mrs. Rios walked up the path toward us, free of both the hospital and the bandage around her head. One of the nurses stayed by her side, the one with black hair who had complimented me on my Three tattoo, and hovered her hand below my Spanish teacher’s elbow as if to support her. Mrs. Rios was paler than normal and stepped with an unsteady gait, but her dark pixie hair was arranged to cover most of her head wounds. She’d probably demanded to be released early so she could attend the funeral for Ms. Hansen, the school librarian, in a couple days.

  Seeing Mrs. Rios again brought back so many memories, some good, some bad, and some I still wasn’t quite sure were really mine. But she was here, alive, and that was all that mattered right then.

  Tears filled her eyes as she approached, and when she held out her arms toward me, I darted into them.

  She hugged me tight and choked out, “I’m so, so proud of you, Our Trammeler Sorceress. You won.”

  Back at the Crumbly Motel, our home away from home every time our house went all Nightmare on Holly Street, brought all my festering doubts to the surface of my skin.

  Maybe it was the small, enclosed space. Maybe it was because we stayed in the exact same room as before, which made me think I had to relive everything all over again. Maybe it was emotional exhaustion from Ms. Hansen’s funeral, trying to explain to both Lily and Tram’s adoptive parents the sacrifices they made through written letters, plus everything else I’d been through. Or maybe it was because my Trammeler Sorceress duties, of which there were very few right then, gave me too much time to think.

  Like why I laid Mrs. Star flat when she was about to rid Darby of the spider poison inside her. I knew exactly what she was doing, had even gone through it myself, but instinct or a sisterly sense of protection had taken over. At least, I thought so. I did have a problem with a blind lady stabbing my little sister, but had it been something else, too? Had the darkness that might lurk inside me wanted to keep the poison inside Darby? But that made no sense.

  And what exactly happened to Ica? If Darby had killed her with the amount of darkness inside her, then…then I didn’t know what. But ever since Darby had read the inscription on Dad’s coin, un-suppressing her Sorceressi powers, she hadn’t been my same book nerd little sister who asked if Merlin could read to me.

  How had all of this started? Not with Sarah being kicked out of the Trinity grave to empty it. It began with a pair of sisters, Gretchen and Gabriela, or One, who were two of the darkest Sorceressi who ever lived. Gretchen had a need to be reunited with her children, and One did everything in her power to help her.

  Sisters. Sisters who would do anything for each other.

  I sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair against the far wall and watched my sister sleep while I thumbed the surface of Dad’s coin that he used as a bookmark. Maybe I could suppress her powers like Mom did and hide them in the coin for safe keeping. Or maybe together we could work on controlling our darkness. Darby was far from stupid, though, so even if I did hide her Sorceress powers, she would find it. Taking something away from her would only piss her off even more, which might make this whole situation worse.

  No, I would train her. We would work on ourselves with each other and with honesty for as long as it took. We would be on the lookout for thorns growing out of either one of us.

  Just to be sure, I rubbed my hands together. Nothing stabbed me, but almost a week after punching the Counselor’s head, my knuckles were still blackened from hawthorn pricks. As if the darkness that might exist inside me had risen to the surface, lying in wait to push needles from my skin at any second. My skin flaked from all the searching and rubbing I was doing, but I couldn’t stop.

  A fuzzy, static sound filled the room, and I jumped a mile in the chair. I stood to look around in the near-dark, my pulse slamming an erratic beat between my ears. The television was turned off. Neither Dad nor Darby stirred in their sleep.

  A voice like a hiss slid through the noise and wormed a cold trail up my spine. “Watch…”

  It sounded like Gretchen, as if we were somehow still psychically linked, not by death but by blood. After all, her blood had been mixed with Trinity blood in the vial I’d poured down my throat.

  I made my way toward the door, careful not to bump into anything with trembling limbs. Watch what? What did Gretchen need me to see?

  At the foot of Darby’s bed, Gretchen’s next word slammed me into a block of ice. “…her.”

  THE END OF THE GRAVE WINNER TRILOGY

  About the Author

  Lindsey R. Loucks works as a school librarian in rural Kansas. When she’s not discussing books with anyone who will listen, she’s dreaming up her own stories. Eventually her brain gives out, and she’ll play hide and seek with her cat, put herself in a chocolate induced coma, or watch scary movies alone in the dark to reenergize.

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