Call Spirits in Your Past **Book Two**

Chapter 30 (Tuesday)

Kwayo rolled over, groaning. Somebody shushed him and held him in place, and he was too disoriented to resist. He could barely open his eyes and the light hurt, so he just closed them again.

"There's people right outside Kwayo, so if you'd please..." Zillie whispered.

What was Zillie doing in his bedroom?

His memory slowly trickled back--they were in the hideout, not Kwayo's room. The hideout actually reminded none of them of a hideout, but since none of them had better names, the hideout it was. They'd found it in an abandoned corner of a basement, underneath three floors of academic classrooms. And fortunately, it had more than one exit. One out into the dusty labyrinth of the basement, and another through a half-buried window. Never mind that they had yet to open said half-buried window, despite his and Bella's frequent trips to sneak food from one of the many kitchens on the school campus. But just in case they all needed to run away, again, they had two potential exits.

"It sounds like they're gone now," Manuel whispered, footsteps scraping by the door.

The one downside to hiding out in an empty corner of a basement was that empty basements tended to attract people trying to hide. Mostly, students skipping classes, but they still might report on the seven of them. And they didn't want to chance that.

"Are they awake yet?" Bella asked.

Kwayo nodded and sort of groaned.

"Dryda's not," Rielle said.

"What on earth did you do?" Zillie asked from right above him.

Kwayo's jaw worked, and his dry throat scraped out words. "What did I do? Why'd you just assume I'm the one that did something?" Zillie didn't respond, and Kwayo opened his eyes. "What?"

"I think he's okay," Zillie said.

Kwayo tried pushing himself up and found his arms terribly shaky. "The only thing we did was try to contact Teremki and Ana."

Zillie stared at him sideways. "What?"

"You don't have anything on you," Rielle said. "None of us do."

"Oh, right," Kwayo managed to push himself to a seated position, but then flopped sideways against the wall. "It's, like, kind of telepathy."

The room fell silent. The overhead light flickered, and he glanced toward the window, where faint moonlight spilled to the floor.

"Is anyone else as confused as I am?" Bella asked, seated on a large box next to Rielle. Everyone else nodded.

Kwayo sighed. "It's kind of complicated. Like, Cassandra poisoned Dryda and Te--"

"Kessandra poisoned Dryda?" Rielle exclaimed.

"No, no, not Kes-sandra. Cuh-sandra." They stared at him blankly. "She was the crazy lady who made potions--never mind. You never met her. Wait," he said, remembering. "She killed Kami."

"What?!" they exclaimed.

Kwayo wanted to bang his head on the wall. Which he would have, except it already hurt. "Right. You didn't know that either," he paused. "What did they tell you?"

Manuel and Tago exchanged glances. "They said Kami resisted the occupation by the evil school," Manuel said. "That's about it."

"So you didn't even know Kami was dead?"

"Well," Bella stared at the floor. "We kinda assumed everyone who wasn't us...didn't make it."

Tago slumped down by the door. "Is it just me, or do you guys have a lot of secrets?"