Read Rogue for Free Online

plan until they collected the rest of their party, an event that Lex was simultaneously really anticipating and really dreading.
    On the one hand, she’d get to see her friends again. She could stock up on some of Elysia’s soul-restoring hugs and maybe feel a little less horrid about all that unpleasant business of starting a war.
    On the other, nastier hand, unless Ferbus had drunk himself into oblivion since the last time she saw him, he’d notice that his best friend had been turned into some sort of ghostish creature. And he’d blame Lex with the fury of a thousand orange-haired dragons.
    And he’d be correct in doing so.
    Which meant there was a very good chance that Lex would be receiving a kick to the face or a knee to the gut, or he might just go balls-out and rip out her circulatory system. It would be interesting to see what approach he would take, but not so interesting that Lex was looking forward to finding out.
    The car ride was mostly silent, with the exception of the occasional snicker or gasp from Driggs, who seemed to be having a ball testing out the new benefits of having an intransigent body. “Ghost perk!” he said. “Look what I made.”
    Lex had been staring out the window, lost in thought, but when she looked at him, all she got was a face full of snowball.
    “That’s just great,” she said, wiping it off as he demonstrated how he’d stuck his hand through the roof to gather up the snow sitting atop the car.
    “And check this out.” He put his hand through the front seat and jabbed Uncle Mort in the back.
    “Ow!” Uncle Mort turned around with an annoyed look. “Must you use your newfound powers solely for irritation purposes?”
    “Would you rather me wallow in the sad fact that my soul will outlive all of yours and I’ll get to watch all of you die yet never be allowed into the Afterlife myself?”
    Lex did a cursory search of the car for a bag to vomit in. Uncle Mort went similarly pale. “We don’t know that for sure.”
    “Well, until we do, I’m going to try to focus on the positive of this here unbearably terrible thing that has happened to me. That okay with everyone?”
    The rest of them nodded, mute.
    “Thank you.” He went to remove his hand from the seatback, but he had returned to solid mode and it wasn’t coming out. “Hmm.” He pulled a little harder, but it wasn’t budging. “Well. This is an interesting development.”
     
    After about twenty more minutes, the sun began to rise. Lex stared blearily out the car window at the lightening sky. Was it morning already? She hadn’t even known what time it was when Zara broke her out of the prison in the Bank’s basement.
    Was that only a few hours ago?
Lex thought. So much had changed. Zara dead, Driggs half dead, Norwood Damned, Grotton alive (sort of), war started. Her world had been put into a food processor and set on purée, and all before the sun came up.
    She cracked her knuckles and looked at her hands, marveling at the things they could do. They could Damn a person with a single touch. Just last night they’d wrapped around Zara’s neck and squeezed the life right out of her.
    A shot of bile rose up Lex’s throat, stinging her insides as it went. She’d killed Zara. Really killed her, and it had taken
effort
. It wasn’t like Killing or Damning, both of which required only a quick grace of the finger against the skin. Murdering Zara—because that’s what it was, murder—had taken a full, agonizing minut Conied onlye. Lex could have stopped at any time. Every second that ticked by was another chance to let Zara live. But she hadn’t stopped.
    She had kept on squeezing.
    Lex folded her hands away and told herself not to obsess over it. Zara used to be her friend, true, but then she’d lost her damn mind. She’d slaughtered a whole bunch of people. And now she was dead. These things happen.
    But you’ve slaughtered a whole bunch of people too
, Lex’s nagging conscience reminded her.
    She