Authors: Trish Milburn
I see him almost immediately.
Keller is sprawled on one of the kitchen benches and looks about as comfortable as if he were confined to a torture rack. Even asleep and rumpled, he still makes my heart do funny things. I smile, happy to be alive and overjoyed that Keller is okay.
As if he senses my smile—and I’m beginning to believe we can sense such things about each other—his eyes open. Like me, it takes him a moment to fully wake up and realize what he’s seeing. When he does, he slides to the edge of the bench. “You’re awake.”
“Observant.”
“How do you feel?”
“Sore.”
“What can I do?”
“Stop looking at me like I’m at death’s door.” I scoot up to a sitting position with a wince. “We’re mortal, but we heal faster than the average person.”
He wraps my hand between his and brings it to his lips. “You scared me half to death.”
“Sorry.”
“God, Jax. You took a bullet for me.”
I close my eyes for a moment, remembering the hot, searing pain cutting a path across the outside edge of my shoulder. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been as strong as Egan and walked away last night.
“I had to,” I say as I reopen my eyes. “I couldn’t let you die, and I couldn’t let your father live with the guilt of killing you.”
Keller’s face hardens at the mention of his father.
I squeeze his hand. “He did what he thought was right. If I’d been a normal witch, he would have been.”
Keller stands and takes the few steps the RV’s interior allows, the anger wafting off him like waves of roiling steam. “He didn’t even listen to me, didn’t trust me to know the difference between good and evil. Damn it, I’m seventeen. I’ve been hunting and fighting since I was a kid. My instincts are as good as his, hell, better.”
I let him vent. He needs to get it all out so he can move on. His dad will still be here when I’m gone.
I can’t help marveling at how Keller stood up for me, against the father who raised him, who trusted him enough to teach him how to protect himself against the creatures most people think don’t exist outside of horror movies.
After much pacing and ranting, he runs out of steam and sits down beside me again, stares unseeing at the blanket covering my legs. “I’m sorry,” he finally says.
I barely keep myself from wrapping my hand around his. “It’s not your fault.”
“You said you had shielding power. Why didn’t you use it?”
I don’t answer immediately, knowing how he’ll react, but there’s no escaping the question. “I couldn’t use it and the speed at the same time.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you dare blame yourself. I’d do it again. I knew I stood a better chance than you.”
Keller stares out the window. I can almost see the guilt eating away at him, his loyalties being pulled in opposite directions.
“Where’s your dad?”
“At home.” He rubs his hand over his face. “I had to tie him up, left him that way until he swore on the Bible he wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
I can’t imagine what it must have been like for him to tie up the man who raised him, taught him, loved him. “You believe him?”
“I told him I’d leave and not come back if he broke his word.” He shrugged. “Hopefully, that will at least buy us some time.”
The door opens and Egan stalks in.
I raise my eyebrow at him. “There’s this thing. It’s called a knock.”
He grimaces. “Don’t talk so loud.”
I knew he’d been upset the night before. Apparently, he self-medicated by getting drunk. Well, at least as drunk as a witch could get. One burst of power, and the effects of the alcohol would disappear. Evidently, Egan hadn’t decided to mitigate the effects.
“Nice to know you all get hangovers, too,” Keller said.
“Bite me.”
The exchange would be funny if the situation wasn’t so dire. I shift my feet off the side of my bed to the floor.
I catch Egan’s eye. “Any other problems besides your pounding head?”
“Witchy kind? No. And I knocked a hole in the spirit coven’s fun. Made enough of the roadway fall away down the mountain that the state highway department had to close the road and put up detours.”
“How’d you do that without them noticing?”
“Really damn fast.”
I laugh then wince as my shoulder protests. And when I consider Egan’s actions just added to the amount of power signature we’ve been racking up. “You guys had a rough night. Why don’t you both go get some sleep?”
“We’ve got work to do,” Keller says.
I watch him. His need to fight something, someone, is obvious. “I told you that you couldn’t be a part of this.”
“You said I couldn’t face them. Research and brainstorming aren’t going to hurt me.”
“Both of which are easier when you’ve slept.”
I see the argument bubble up in him, but the fatigue wins out. “Fine.”
“Maybe you all should go to Toni’s, make sure she’s safe.”
“I went by, checked everything out,” Egan says without making eye contact. “Everything’s okay there. Nothing out of the ordinary anywhere close.”
“I’ll just go home. Make sure Dad keeps his word.”
Egan grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and steps outside.
I stand and move farther from Keller. I get the impression he knows I’m deliberately pulling away but is frantically trying to formulate a plan to make me stay.
“Please try to get some rest, and let the anger go,” I say. “Trust me, it’ll eat you alive if it can.”
“Easier said than done.” He heads for the door. “I’ll be back this afternoon. Call sooner if you need me.”
“Don’t worry. If there’s danger, Egan will sense it, too.”
Keller looks at me for a long moment then steps through the door, dragging like he’s been awake for a week.
I know how he feels.
I fill Toni in on what happened the night before and try not to notice how her “I’m okay” façade is as transparent as the window in her room. I don’t tell her when I see Egan keeping watch on her house a couple of times.
We don’t talk about when Egan and I will leave, but we both know it has to be soon. Instead, we plunk ourselves down on her bed with a plethora of junk food and attempt to watch an episode of
Firefly
. But there’s too much tension and anticipation and worry for either of us to concentrate on Captain Mal and the gang. I end up pacing to the window.
“What are you thinking?” Toni asks.
“That my shoulder hurts like the devil. Can’t imagine what it would feel like if I’d really taken that bullet.”
“Why don’t you take a nap? I’ll wake you up if necessary.”
I watch out the window for a moment before turning back toward her. “I’ll just head home.”
I sense she’s about to try to get me to stay so I hurry out her bedroom door.
Though I’m tired, I’m too antsy to sleep. Instead, when I get back to my RV I end up pacing its small confines, thinking about what will come after Egan and I leave Baker Gap. If there is an after.
I must look dreadful, because when Keller returns, he makes me go to bed. When I wake, it’s night. My shoulder still aches, but I’m way more rested than I was earlier in the day. Blinking the sleep away, I turn my head on the pillow to see Egan sitting at the table.
“Hey, don’t look that disappointed.” Egan does his best to appear affronted as he pulls the earbuds for his iPod out of his ears.
“Where’s Keller?”
“I sent him to get some more sleep. I don’t think he slept a wink this morning. He was looking like something he normally kills.”
I suspect Egan’s also tasked Keller with looking after Toni.
“Anything going on?” I ask.
“You mean other than me itching to get out of here?”
“You’re right.”
“So, where to?”
“I’ve racked my brain all day, and all I can think to do is go to the source.” At his confused look, I say the one word that is synonymous with witches. “Salem.”
He sits for a moment then nods. “As good a place as any.” He stands. “I’ll load the car and bike.”
I catch a look on his face, one that doesn’t show up there often. Sadness. “Egan, I’m sorry we have to leave.”
“Hey, I never thought life on the outside would be easy.” He tries to cloak himself in his usual carefree attitude, but it doesn’t work. He cares about Toni, that much is obvious.
When I’m alone in the RV again, I let my eyes drift closed. I feel a lot better physically, but the constant anticipation of the covens’ arrival and the still unanswered question of how to permanently deal with the spirit coven drain me. My thoughts meander until they latch on to Keller, to what he said just before his dad had barged into the RV.
He loves me.
I’m replaying those words over and over when the twisting in my gut hits, causing me to gasp. The darkness inside me tugs and claws, making me feel like my skin is going to peel away and the rest of me be consumed by fire. “Oh, God, no.”
I meet Egan’s gaze as he rushes back inside. “They’re here.” I swallow. “And it’s too late to run.”
I feel the coven calling to me, that horrible homing signal I’d hoped never to feel again. I realize it’s only my coven, so I can feel more of their power than Egan can.
He stares outside, on high alert. “Where are they?”
“Shiprock.”
As we both head outside, I thank luck that he was with me now instead of Keller. I don’t have time to waste arguing about whether I’m fit to fight. There’s no choice.
We climb on Egan’s bike because it’s way faster than my Beetle.
“Do we warn Keller and Toni? Their parents?” he asks.
I consider the question, wishing I knew the right answer. “I think we have to, but we’ve got to make sure they stay where they are.”
“I’ve been known to make a pretty convincing threat or two in my lifetime,” he says. “But in person. I don’t trust them to stay put if we just call.”
I nod. “Let’s go. But normal speed. We don’t want to give away our location before we have to.”
Egan pushes normal to the limit as he speeds toward Toni’s house. We’re both off the bike, tossing our helmets to the ground and rushing toward the front door even before the sound of the bike’s engine stops echoing in my ears. I don’t even bother knocking. No time.
A muffled cry causes me to jerk my head to my right. There in the dining room sits Mrs. Dawes, gagged and bound to one of her dining room chairs, her face covered by an envelope taped to her forehead.
“Help me untie her,” I say.
Egan retrieves a knife from his ankle and slices through the rope cutting off the circulation around Mrs. Dawes’s ankles and wrists. I remove the envelope and the gag. Toni’s mom is hysterical, crying and trying to stand. Egan and I hold her down.
“What happened?” I ask.
“They took them. Those people, they took Toni and Keller.”
“Did they say anything?”
A sob bursts from her. “They said for you to look in the envelope, that you’d understand. What is going on? Who are they? What have they done with my daughter?”
Egan squeezes Mrs. Dawes’s hands and tries to comfort her while I rip open the envelope. Three photos fall out of a sheet of paper onto the top of the table. My heart jolts into my ribcage when I see the first one. I can’t breathe. My vision blurs.
“What is it?” Egan asks.
I don’t answer. Instead, I lift the picture by the corner and stare into my mother’s eyes only moments before her death. I swallow hard, feeling like I’m trying to swallow a jagged rock. I place the picture to the side and pick up the others as my heart rate gathers speed. The gagged faces of Keller and Toni stare up at me. Tears pool in my eyes as I rub my fingers over Keller’s photo. I love him, too. I will save him, even if I have to wipe out my entire coven.