Page 26 (1/2)

And yet--she was tempted Nadia itched to discover it, even if it were likely to blow up in her face like Pandora’s box

To have power--real power--beyond anything Mom had ever known, to be able to stand up and say, See what you walked away froer than anyone You shouldn’t have left me behind

Nadia blinked, shook her head The shudder of vengeful fury that passed through her was gone in an instant, but the uneasiness it left behind lingered

And she realized--that fury hadn’t entirely been her own It had belonged, in part, to whatever lay beneath the lab

Now Nadia understood that mysterious presence as she never had before It did not ed to break free--

--and wreak vengeance

Vengeance on what, she didn’t know She no longer wanted to The only thing she understood was that it couldn’t be directly causing any devastation in Captive’s Sound; it lacked that power, and she was grateful

Whatever lay iood reason The entity she sensed was buried beneath any retrieval, and they were safe from it, and that was actually all she needed to know for now

Besides, at the moment, her attention should be focused on whatever she’d done to Mateo

It wasn’t as if she could cast any elaborate spells right here in the ht be effective, if Mateo’s problem hat she suspected

If he was cursed--truly cursed, the inheritor of a dark ht potentially react to ic in a different way Nadia wasn’t exactly sure how that would work, but it seeht ic … unstick

Well, it orth a shot, anyway

Nadia’s fingers found the sredients together:

Helpless laughter

Washing ahat cannot coiveness

The first tere easy --

Her thirteenth birthday party, when they put a pair of Cole’s Pull-Ups on her best friend’s Boston terrier and they all got hysterical, rolling on the floor