Page 9 of Shadow Prophet (Scythe Grove Academy 2)

"True."

He does have a point. I expected to be faced with murder and missing family members more often than I have been. But the reality is that a lot of what the ghosts think of as their unfinished business is quite dull. Though I've never been faced with anything quite as bad as Mathias' sock losing ghost.

We lapse into comfortable silence, enjoying the movie playing in front of us. The company is the best bit, though. At least for me.

Sounds come from outside the room as other students go about their evening. I don't pay any attention to them. People are almost always moving around the dorms to visit their friends, go to parties and generally enjoy themselves. Nobody pays much attention to the others unless they're joining them.

A scratch at the door finally draws my attention. It swings open and Juliet bursts into the room with an excited look on her face.

I bolt up, putting some space between me and Mathias. I hadn't expected more company. While she doesn't always announce herself during the day, she does at this time of night.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise I was interrupting," she says.

"It's not what it looks like," Mathias tells her quickly.

Hurt dashes through me. What's that supposed to mean? Is he worried she's going to think we're together or something?

I push the thoughts aside for now and focus on Juliet. She looks as if she has something important to tell me. Which makes sense. I doubt she'd be charging into my room without knocking if she didn't have a good reason to.

"We got a match," she says, excitement coming through every word. "On your DNA sample."

My eyes widen. "We did?"

"DNA?" Mathias asks.

"To find Syxe's family," Juliet says by way of explanation. "Sometimes the simple things work."

"Never mind that, what did the match say?" I ask, trying not to get my hopes up too much.

I'm not even sure what the best outcome is. Do I want to find my parents? They may have given birth to me, but they also abandoned me to the care of the Shadow Association, I'm not sure that's the act of a caring parent. Maybe they won't even want to see me.

"I haven't opened it yet, I thought you'd want to do the honours."

I nod, grateful to her for so many things.

Mathias grabs my laptop and pauses the film so I can use it. I don't look at him as I take it. I can't without my feelings showing on my face. What's wrong with Juliet thinking there's something weird about us spending time together? She already knows we do, she's been there for some of it.

I try to ignore my feelings. They're just going to get in the way of whatever news the site has uncovered for me. This could hold the answer to where my parents are.

If I'm lucky. It might also be a false alarm.

I click on the bookmark for the site, and pull up the messages tab. Blood pounds in my ears, the intensity of what I could find when I click open almost too much. A small part of me wants to ask Juliet and Mathias to look and tell me what they find, but that's not right.

This is something I need to do.

I take a shaky breath and open it up.

Relative found.

The two words mean everything and nothing at the same time. Without more information about who the person is, I'm not sure what to do with it.

"Click on it," Juliet insists.

I nod and do as she says.

"I don't understand," I whisper as I read the words on the screen.

Juliet is already on her feet tapping something into her phone. "They've found a relative in Supernatural Retrieval Agency files," she says. "Which means we need to get someone there to unlock them."