The Returned by Bishop O'Connell

exactly something I researched.” He shrugged. “But after what Dante said about Wraith and some of the things she could do, I’d be inclined to say yes.”
    â€œWho could do something like that?”
    â€œNot a clue.” He watched Henry pace in front of the counter. “The question is, what do we tell him?”
    â€œYou’re kidding, right?” Caitlin asked. “He’s your best friend. We tell him everything. There’s no living a happy ignorant life now, and he deserves to know the truth.”
    Edward opened his mouth.
    â€œAs someone who was in a very similar situation not too long ago,” Caitlin said, “there’s no easy way to tell him, but he deserves the truth.”
    â€œTruth about what?” Henry asked, then sat down and looked at them expectantly. “Well?”
    Caitlin looked at Edward and nodded.
    â€œOkay, here goes,” Edward said. “Do you remember the news reports about the terrorist attack in Seattle last year?”

 
    CHAPTER SIX
    W raith woke up and immediately regretted it. Her safe house was basically a brick box with no windows. However, she’d used magic to entangle the roof of the building to the ceiling in her room. The effect meant the room lit up with natural light when the sun rose. A second spell stored excess light that was used at night via a dummy light switch. And now sunlight shone on her like God’s flashlight.
    Her face was buried in the cushion of the couch, and from the wet spot under her cheek, she’d been drooling like a Saint Bernard all night. Her body was twisted in a position she would’ve previously thought unachievable. Her back was probably stiff, but the pain in her head was so all consuming, her spine could’ve been removed during the night and she wouldn’t know.
    â€œOw,” Wraith thought she whispered, but it rang through her head like she’d screamed it through a loudspeaker.
    When she turned her head, light burned through her eyelids and stabbed her brain. “Ow!” she said again. And again regretted it.
    After several minutes of lying there, wallowing in her misery, she decided to try moving. Reluctantly, she began disentangling herself. Every movement made her wince, and she would’ve whimpered if she could’ve done it without making her head explode. When she finally rolled to her back, her arm went limp and fell to the floor, knocking something over. Blindly—no way was she going to open her eyes—she groped for whatever it was. Her fingers, still tingling from having been slept on, found a bottle.
    I love you, Benji , she thought to herself, hoping that wouldn’t hurt as much as talking.
    It did.
    After fumbling for a minute, she got the cap of the bottle off and began sucking down water. It was warm, but it was wet, and she could practically hear her body soaking it in. When she shifted her grip on the bottle, she noticed something attached to the bottom of it. Carefully, she opened one eye just enough to see a single-dose pack of aspirin taped to the bottle. She tore it open and swallowed the pills with another mouthful of water.
    Somehow, she’d get that boy canonized for the saint he was. Maybe Brigid could help with that.
    She finished the bottle, then just lay there quietly with her eyes closed. An indeterminate time later, she thought she might be able to open her eyes all the way without dying. She opened one, then the other. Her head didn’t explode, which she took as a good sign. Once the aspirin kicked in, she sat up, very, very slowly. Her stomach then added its own complaints to the mounting pile from her body.
    â€œI know why they call them Southern Storms,” she said to no one. “I feel like a hurricane, a tornado, and a tsunami ganged up and kicked my ass.”
    Eventually, she started to feel like a human being again. She went to the two clothes hampers set against one wall. They were entangled