The Darkness Within (19 page)

“Take that exit,” Dylan said. “I know this place. There’s an old playground. No one will be there now.” No, everyone was in school. Everyone except delinquents like us. Ethan pulled off the highway and followed Dylan’s directions to the playground. He parked and leaned his head back against his seat. I could see the weight of the situation on his shoulders. The worst part for me was that he blamed himself. He loved me so much he couldn’t even see this was my fault.

“I never meant for any of this to happen. You know that, right?” He touched my cheek, lightly, like he was afraid he’d hurt me. “When I brought you back, I thought we’d get our second chance. I thought the universe owed us that much. Just in case this doesn’t end well, I want you to know, I don’t regret bringing you back. You’ll be fine.”

Tears burned my eyes and throat because I knew he meant I’d be fine without him. No, I wouldn’t.

“Don’t say that. I’m not losing you. I refuse. You’re right. The universe owes me, and I’m cashing in.” I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. I didn’t care that Dylan and Shannon were sitting in the back seat. I didn’t care that Ethan was afraid to touch me. I needed to kiss him. I needed to feel close to him again.

Dylan tapped my shoulder. “Guys, we need to do this spell before Ms. Matthews and the coven of teachers find us. I doubt they’d approve of us seeking out a witch who might be consumed by dark magic.”

Shannon smacked him. “You’re such a tool. Can’t you see they need a minute?”

“We don’t have a minute to spare.”

I pulled back, but my hand stayed on Ethan’s face. “Dylan’s right. We have a witch to find.”

Ethan nodded. Until he’d said it, I hadn’t thought about why he’d felt responsible for all this. I’d traced it back to my sickness—the one Nora had inflicted on me, the one that had made me a monster. But Ethan went back further than that, to bringing me back. He’d been the one to contact Nora and get her to help me. He’d made the deal to slowly end his life in order to save mine. I could see things through his eyes now, but I still didn’t blame him. He’d acted out of love, and I could never hold that against him.

We got out and met on the merry-go-round. Shannon said the circular shape would help with the spell. It sort of made sense since we were a coven of four and made more of a square than a circle. Shannon created flames from her fingers again. After this was all over, I was going to have to ask her how she did that. Dylan was twisting herbs together, tying them in elaborate knots. None of it made sense to me, but I wasn’t about to slow the spell down by asking them to explain.

“This may take a few tries,” Shannon said.

Ethan looked like he’d been spinning on the merry-go-round for an hour—one step from losing his lunch. I ran my hand down his arm. “We’ll find her. No matter how hard she’s trying to hide, we’ll find her.”

Shannon and Dylan exchanged a look. They weren’t as confident as I was choosing to be. That wasn’t going to stop me. I knew my magic was strong. I’d figure out how to tap into all that power. It would be a crash course. I was fine with that. Shannon nodded to me, like she was reading my mind. I could always count on her not to be afraid of the big spells. Dylan held back sometimes, probably because of his dark-magic phase. Ethan would probably do the same, not wanting to risk tapping into Nora’s dark magic inside him.

“Wait!” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. “Dylan, didn’t you tell me that magic isn’t evil? It’s only magic? It’s how the person uses it that makes it dark?” I knew he’d told me that. Before Ethan killed Nora, I worried about this exact thing happening. Dylan assured me it wouldn’t. “Did you lie to me? Did you use Ethan
because you wanted Nora dead?” I swallowed hard, looking at Dylan like he was no better than Nora had been.

“I didn’t lie, Sam. I didn’t think this would happen. When my magic turned dark, it was because I let it. I liked the power, and that dark magic left a trace inside me, corrupting the rest of my magic, which is why Mirabella had to take it.”

“So you’re saying Ethan used dark magic on his own and it tainted the rest of the magic inside him?” No way. I didn’t believe that for a second.

“No. One of the reasons why I wanted to be the one to help Ethan is because I wanted to look for signs, ones I’d remember from my dark days. But there weren’t any signs that he’d caused this.”

“Then who?” Dylan turned away, so I looked at Shannon. She must have known. “Who?”

“Nora.” The flame in Shannon’s hand flickered. Her emotions were making her lose control of the spell. “When she knew she was going to die, she did one last spell. Dylan and I felt traces of it in the air, but we didn’t know what it was until recently.”

I should’ve expected Nora had gone down swinging. “What was it? What did she do?”

Dylan gripped the bars on the merry-go-round. “She focused on the traces of dark magic inside her, making it corrupt all of her magic. She cursed Ethan for taking it from her.” He pushed off the bars, looking back and forth between Ethan and me. “I’m sorry. I was the one who told Ethan to kill Nora. I feel responsible.”

There was a lot of that going around lately, people feeling guilty. Only the problem was that the one person who truly
was
responsible was dead. She didn’t feel bad about any of this. She was probably smiling up at us from Hell. “This is Nora’s doing. All of it. None of us brought this on. I’m done feeling sorry for something she did.”

“Hear, hear!” Shannon’s ball of flames grew again. She released it into the air, letting it hover between us. “Let’s fix this now. To hell with Nora. We’ll show her we’re stronger than her pathetic attempt to curse Ethan.”

I wasn’t sure how pathetic it was. Ethan was in bad shape, but I appreciated Shannon’s enthusiasm. “I’m ready.”

Ethan and Dylan nodded, and we all joined hands. I had a feeling
this spell was going to be intense. Shannon started it, saying words I knew weren’t English. How were we supposed to chant along with her if we had no idea what she was saying?

“Focus your magic on Shannon, on mimicking her,” Dylan said. “Your magic will let you repeat her words even if you don’t know what you’re saying.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and did what Dylan had said. I let my magic thread its way to Shannon. I felt her words fill me. They still made no sense, but I could at least repeat them.

We all chanted along. The magic swirled around us and the ball of flames grew bigger. Shannon’s words changed. She must have been digging deeper, trying to find a stronger spell. Mirabella didn’t want to be found. Shannon shook, and since she was holding on to Dylan and me, we shook, too. And then we started to spin—or the merry-go-round did. Faster and faster. My stomach lurched. The golden glow of magic whipped around us, picking up strength as the merry-go-round circled.

I thought I’d throw up, but suddenly we stopped. We were torn apart, landing hard on the grass. My back slammed into the ground, knocking the air out of me. I lay there for a moment, trying to fill my lungs. I choked, and so did the others. Raising my head, I saw a blast of green magic burst from the ball of flames in the center of the merry-go-round. It flew right at us, knocking us down. My head hit the ground, and everything went black.

20

M
Y
eyes fluttered open. I felt like a Mack Truck had run me down. I moaned and propped myself up on my elbows. Ethan was about twenty feet away, lying in a crumpled heap. I rolled onto all fours, feeling the pain of every move, and pulled myself over to him. “Ethan.” My voice was weak and hoarse. Someone groaned, but I didn’t look back. I had to get to Ethan. I had to make sure he was okay.

“Sam?” Shannon called.

“Check Dylan.” I grabbed Ethan’s shoulder and gently shook him. “Ethan, can you hear me?” I brushed the grass and dirt off the side of his face. “Ethan.” Panic gripped my heart and lungs. I didn’t know what kind of magic it was that had hit us or what it had done to Ethan. I gently lifted his head, noticing the cut near his temple. “Shannon!”

She rushed to me. “What? Is he hurt?”

“He’s bleeding. He must have hit his head on something.”

“Like that.” Shannon pointed to a sharp rock sticking out of the ground.

“Can you help me heal him?”

She bent down next to me. Healing took a lot of energy. She held her hand over the gash on Ethan’s head. I placed my hand right on it, careful not to hurt him further. I wasn’t scared of a little blood, especially not Ethan’s. We both focused our magic on healing Ethan’s
head. I felt the cut closing under my fingers, and I knew the magic was extending deeper, healing any damage we couldn’t see. Ethan stirred, and Shannon pulled away. I lowered my hand and touched his chest, holding him back so he didn’t try to get up too quickly.

“What was that?” His voice was hoarse, but otherwise he seemed okay.

“I don’t know, but take it easy, okay?” I looked back at Dylan. He was sitting up, but he looked a little dazed. “You all right?”

“Working on it.” His eyes closed as he focused on healing his injuries. Finally, he stood. “Broken wrist. I’m okay now.”

Even though I’d just helped heal Ethan and watched Dylan heal himself, I couldn’t get over the extent of our powers. Forget modern medicine. Being a witch was a thousand times better.

I helped Ethan sit up. “We healed your head, but are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No. I’m okay. A little freaked by whatever that thing was that attacked us.”

“Do you think it was Mirabella? Was she blocking us, fighting back?” My eyes traveled the coven, searching for theories.

Shannon shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Great, so we were basically clueless, and we hadn’t located Mirabella. “What now? Do we try again?”

“No way.” Ethan stood up. I kept my hand on him, making sure he was steady on his feet. “Sam, I’m not going to break. You can relax.”

Shannon and Dylan turned away, pretending to check out the merry-go-round for clues about what that green burst of magic was and where it had come from, but I knew they were trying to avoid the awkwardness of the situation between Ethan and me.

I sighed. “Ethan, I don’t mean to coddle you, but you’ve been pulling away from me so much and relying on Dylan like you need a babysitter.”

“I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else. Do you think I like having Dylan hovering over me all the time?”

“You seek him out, and you find excuses to avoid touching me.”

He looked down at the ground. “Because I’m scared.”

I rubbed his arms. “We’re going to fix this. You’ll be yourself again soon.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” He met my eyes. “If I ever hurt you…”

“You can’t. I’m wearing—” Oh, God! The necklace hadn’t stopped that magic from reaching me. I was thrown with everyone else.

“What?” Worry lines creased Ethan’s forehead.

“Guys!” I waved Shannon and Dylan back over. “The necklace. It must not work anymore.”

Shannon held her hand out. “Let me see it.” I took it off and handed it to her.

Ethan stepped back. “Sam, back away from me. I don’t want you near me without that on.”

“It didn’t protect me. I was thrown off the merry-go-round just like you were.”

“Damn her!” Dylan yelled.

“What is it?” Who was he talking about? Had Mirabella destroyed the necklace somehow—removed the spell on it?

“Nora.” Dylan threw his hands in the air. “She removed the protective spell from the necklace. This wasn’t protecting you at all.”

My eyes went to Shannon. I half-expected her to look away in shame, but she met my gaze head-on. “You never tried to do a harmful spell on me.”

“I only had to make Ethan think I did.” She shrugged. “It worked, so you can’t be mad at me for not really trying to cover you in blood and sic hungry animals on you.”

Ethan looked horrified. I reached for him, but he pulled away. “Don’t.”

“Don’t you see? You didn’t hurt me. Even without the necklace protecting me, you didn’t hurt me. Think about it, Ethan. In sculpture, in the clearing in the woods, you didn’t hurt me either time.”

“That’s true,” Shannon said. “Only Dylan and I felt the wrath of your dark magic. And by the way, thanks again for that.”

I shot her a look before grabbing Ethan’s hands. He tugged, but I persisted. “You won’t hurt me. You could have several times already,
but you didn’t. Something inside you is stronger than this magic. I don’t need the necklace because
you’re
protecting me.”

“Oh, gag me.” Shannon rolled her eyes. “Don’t break into a whole ‘our love is stronger than any evil’ speech because I’ll throw up right here, and I promise to hit your shoes.”

“Give the sarcasm a rest, Shannon,” Dylan said. “This is serious.”

Ethan was quiet for a minute. “Can you put the spell back on the necklace—or better yet, on her ring?”

Put a spell to protect me from Ethan on the very ring he’d given me? No! “I don’t want a spell put on my ring. I love this ring, exactly how it is. And for the thousandth time, I trust you, Ethan.”

“Well, I don’t!” He pulled away from me and ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re giving me too much credit. I’m not like you, Sam. I didn’t battle cancer. I didn’t fight back from a spell that made me kill or die all over again. You survived those things. All I did was watch helplessly from the sidelines.”