Chapter 7

Shelton

I went downstairs in the morning and saw Sapphire, Amber and Leo sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast like everything was normal. Sapphire had a pile of strawberries and a cup of Mom's green tea, while Amber and Leo each had a more typical American breakfast. The only sign that they had been awake half the night with Sapphire's nightmares were the dark circles under Amber's eyes. I'd heard every time Sapphire had woken up screaming. A few seconds later Amber would come up to the third floor to get Leo, he'd go sit with Sapphire until she fell asleep and then come back upstairs and doze off until the whole cycle repeated after less than an hour.

I'd concluded that Richie could sleep through the explosion of the Death Star. He didn't wake up once.

"Morning, Shelton," Leo said. "There's bacon in the oven."

"Thanks," I said. "Coffee?"

"Should be done in a minute," Amber said. "This two shouldn't have coffee, so make sure you keep it away from them."

Leo grinned. "Us? I don't know what you're talking about."

He was eating with one hand and the other hand was constantly moving—drumming his fingers on the table, tucking Sapphire's hair behind her ear, building a model of the Parthenon with napkins and cutlery—so I was pretty sure that Amber was right about not giving him coffee. I didn't want to know how he acted when caffeine was added to the unholy amount of energy he had at seven in the morning after a sleepless night.

Once I'd gotten a cup of coffee I made some toast and fried an egg to make a breakfast sandwich with a few strips of bacon. I added more bacon to my plate before sitting next to Amber. Hey, wolves are carnivores. Bacon may be like ninety percent fat, but it's still meat.

Leo put an origami roof on his miniature Parthenon and immediately started fiddling with the necklace that was partially hidden by the collar of his shirt. "So, does anyone know what we're doing today?" he asked.

"I think my mom said something about a museum," I said.

Amber laughed. "Museums. I have great luck with museums."

"Don't remind me," Sapphire grumbled. "I hate mummies."

"That part was your fault, not mine," Amber said, gesturing with her fork.

"If you hadn't—" Sapphire looked at me and immediately stopped talking.

"If it's a felony, you haven't met Tory yet," I said. "She's talked us into breaking a lot of laws."

Off the top of my head there's been trespassing, multiple break and enters, concealing murders, and going outside during a hurricane. If the last one isn't illegal it really should be.

"Someday we are going to compare felonies," Leo said, "when there aren't any parents around."

"Good choice," Mom said as she walked into the kitchen, somehow managing to look a level of sophisticated that Tory's stepmother would approve of while wearing pajamas, a bathrobe, and turtle slippers. "Is there coffee left?"

All of us except Sapphire pointed at the half empty coffee pot. Mom chuckled and went to pour herself a cup.

Sapphire muttered something in the language that I still didn't know despite listening to dozens of recordings of people speaking in different languages the night before. She stood up and put her dishes in the sink.

Leo said something in the same language that sounded like a question. Sapphire replied and shook her head.

"She'll be back in a second," Leo said to Amber as Sapphire left the room.

Mom yawned. "What language were you speaking? It sounded like...It's on the tip of my tongue. Something to do with scientific names."

Leo and Amber looked at each other.

"Greek," Leo said. "Sort of. We took at class at summer camp and kind of just made up the rest."

Well, half of that smelled like a lie, I just couldn't tell if it was the Greek part, the summer camp part, or the making up a language part.

Before I could start asking clarifying questions, Sapphire came back into the kitchen. Leo took one look at her and was at her side so quickly that even my wolf senses had trouble keeping track of him. Considering that she was so pale that dead Jon Snow looked healthier than her I was pretty sure that Leo had the right idea. Printing paper isn't the normal colour palette for human skin.

"What's wrong?" Amber asked.

"There's a dead girl in the front yard," Sapphire said. "Someone should probably call the police."

Mom dropped her mug. As if the sound of shattering ceramic was some sort of psychic trigger, Sapphire sagged back into Leo's arms in a dead faint. Okay, "dead" was maybe not the best word to use under the circumstances, but she looked dead. I'd seen enough recently dead people to know. I mean, I'd seen one recently dead person but that's more than enough for me, thanks.

Though, if Sapphire wasn't mistaken, there was another dead person right on my front lawn. Since re: Morris Island is in the east end of nowhere, a random dead body had to mean foul play and foul play meant murder, and murder on Morris Island meant a mystery that all of the Virals had a stake in.

Tory was going to be thrilled. We hadn't needed to commit any felonies for months.

I wondered if there was any way to avoid telling her about this.