Free Banishing the Dark (The Arcadia Bell series) by Jenn Bennett

white lies to Mr. and Mrs. Holiday and a little bit of stealth. So for maybe the first time in his life, he decided to follow his father’s advice and keep his mouth shut.

Lon scanned the gas-station shelves. I could tell by the glint in his eye that he was brewing up some kind of devious plan, but I was suddenly dead tired and angry-hungry. Whatever he was planning, it was all just going to have to wait.
    “Screw Wildeye and my mother right now. There’s got to be an In-N-Out somewhere up the road.” I was having Donner Party fantasies—blame it on the mountain atmosphere and talk of sleeping on the hard ground. On top of feeling ravenous, I had to pee. Again. It was getting a little ridiculous.
    Lon saw me eyeing the restroom. “Go on,” he said. “I’ll just have a look around and see if I can find a couple of things.”
    “Food.”
    “Food, too. Then we can head to the motel. If we’re stuck here, let’s make the most of it and get a little research done.”
    After emptying my bladder and using a criminal amount of paper hand towels to shut off the dirtyfaucet, I discovered that whatever Lon had in mind involved a tarp—the kind you use to cover a tent when it’s raining—and some spray paint. I started to ask him what it was for, but he shut me up with a packet of smoked almonds. I downed them in the two minutes it took us to drive to the motel.
    “Wait in the car,” was all he said, handing me some orange juice. Leave it to him to find the only halfway healthy things in the gas station. Before I could see what else was in the bag of goodies he’d bought, he strode out from beneath the orange neon of the Sierra Woodland lobby and jumped back into the driver’s seat.
    “What’s going on? Did anyone know Wildeye?”
    “No luck.” He handed me a chunky blue motel key fob with a room key attached.
    “Cottage thirteen?” I read from the diamond-shaped plastic.
    “They’re all individual cabins. Ours is down this hill.”
    A funny sort of panic washed over me as we drove past tiny log cabins to a parking space in front of the one marked thirteen. Thirteen? Really? Not that I was superstitious about numbers, because most of numerology was total bullshit. What concerned me more was the single cabin. And the sharing. I guess I just figured we’d have adjoining rooms or something. But hey, it wasn’t as if we were here to sleep, so what I was so worried about?
    I grabbed my overnight bag out of the back of theSUV and opened the cabin door. Lon carted the stuff he’d bought at the gas station inside as I flipped on the light. Sort of musty. All the furniture was the bad end of retro, and the bear-print curtains burned my eyes. At least it seemed fairly clean, and the bathroom had soap and towels. And there were two twin beds—a small relief. “God, I hope this isn’t bedbug country,” I said, setting my bag down on a luggage rack.
    “Probably more likely to find those at one of the four-star hotels in Morella. The problem has more to do with the lack of tech.”
    “No TV,” I said, realizing. “Wait, no phone, either?”
    “According to the German lady at the desk, it’s so you can leave the real world behind and relax,” he said, tossing a motel pamphlet onto one of the beds. “Let’s hope we get a mobile broadband signal.”
    “What are we going to do if we don’t?” I said, digging out my phone. “Are there even electrical outlets? I need to charge this thing.”
    “I have a signal,” he said. “Barely.
    “I don’t.”
    “Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged out of his thin leather jacket, revealing tightly muscled golden arms. Never in my life had I been around a man whose body wound me up the way Lon’s did. Not even salacious parts of him, either. Just everyday parts. His arms and hands. His feet, even—how absurd was that? And I couldn’t even bring myself to think about his bare chest without having a hot flash. I’dseen that chest, in my backyard, when we’d built my