by Jayla Kane
I mulled it over. “They can walk through walls. Some kind of… Transparency? So they won’t knock over a chair, for example.”
“They would still have to keep Hunter and I from waking up,” she said, frowning.
“So that could mean two different witches,” I said, “one to keep an eye on y’all, and another one who can walk through walls.”
“Maybe,” Raven said, chewing her lip so hard I wanted to stop, but I knew we couldn’t. We had to be prepared.
“There’s one more possibility,” I said, “that I can think of—but it’s gruesome, Raven.”
“Tell me.” She squared her shoulders.
“The easiest thing to do would be to enchant the mouse,” I said slowly. “And then—”
“So the mouse goes into the room—”
“It’s small,” I said, shrugging. “There’s probably a hundred ways for a mouse to get in there that we would never find.”
“And then…?” She stared at me, and I blanked my mind, not wanting to send her any images of the events as I imagined them; she had enough shit in her head.
“And then the second witch—or the first, I’m not sure, would get the mouse to—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, her expression revolted. “No. That’s impossible. The head was…” She paled. “I mean, it could have… It could have hurt itself on the pillow, and then the body, maybe it… It fell…”
“So there’s a second witch,” I said, surer of myself now; I had some experience at this point, so I had the unpleasantries all worked out. “There’s one who can… Can make the mouse go in there, crawl up in the bed with you; the same power that hypnotizes a mouse could hypnotize you and Hunter. Then there’s a second witch, one that can move things.” I sighed. “I don’t think either of them would have entered the room. It’s probably pretty difficult to control the minds of three living things at once, so the hold on you and Hunter must not have been too strong.” She shook her head.
“I had… I felt hung-over this morning. But I thought it was just from… Everything.”
“Was Hunter okay?”
“How can you tell?” I couldn’t help smirking at the flash of humor, and she shot me a dark smile. The moment passed and I thought harder about what powers it would take to do this—Hunter wasn’t magical, but getting by him—and risking his wrath if he happened to wake up—would be very fucking difficult indeed.
So the second witch had decapitated the mouse from the other room while Hunter and Raven slept. “I think I know how they did it—it’s a more controlled version of what I do with the earth, or water, or ice. I could probably do it myself, if I figured out—”
“Okay, Jake,” she whispered, and I shut the hell up. She didn’t know how easy I was beginning to think it would be to rip the head off of another living thing, even if she’d seen enough just now to make her feel queasy. What are we, if not more organic matter—like tearing roots out of the ground? I shuddered, and realized I needed to get a grip on thinking about things like that; Raven’s eyes were huge. Before I could stop myself, I started coming over to her… She stopped me with one delicate palm, raised towards me like a shield, and I rocked to a halt in the middle of the rug.
“I’m sorry to—”
“Don’t be,” she said softly, and I nodded. “I need to learn how to control my ‘gift,’” she said sarcastically, turning to rub her temples. “And we need to figure this out… It’s horrible, but we can’t leave it until we do.”
“If it’s any consolation, I had another thought,” I said, my voice grim. “These witches… If they’re capable of these actions, these spells, whatever they are—they could have done a lot worse. And they didn’t.”
“You’re right,” she said, her brow furrowing. “Why rip the head off a mouse when you can just—”
“Right,” I snarled, not wanting to hear the end of that sentence; if someone hurt Raven, there was at least a fifty percent chance I would level the Institute without even meaning to. I was just realizing that was a possibility, and it sent a chill down my spine. “Whoever this was, they just wanted to fuck with us.”
“Are you sure they knew it was me in there?” Raven almost looked hopeful, and it hurt me to have to shoot her down.
“I’m pretty sure at this point they know… They know what we’ve done, and that we’re… Bound together, such as it is.” Talking about sex had never bothered me, but I could tell Raven wasn’t okay with it. And talking about it kind of made me want to do it, besides, and she sure as fuck wasn’t okay with that. So anyway. “They probably know any time they fuck with you, it pisses me off, and they know you are willing to take a beating for me.” She winced when I said that. I hadn’t meant it as a dig at her—one day, I suddenly thought, when all this shit was behind us, I would be able to think about that and… And sort out how it made me feel. But it was too fucking complicated on top of everything else, so I focused on the moment. “Do you think they’re trying to frighten us away from the Society? To make us drop out?”
“They must know we can’t,” she said, “if they’ve had this kind of training. That’s what Leo said, right?”
“If you don’t have powers like mine,” I said, frowning, “then I have no idea what it would take to do this. Is it so automatic, like it is for us? Or do they have to work at it?”
“I have to work at it,” Raven said, reminding me with a quirk of her eyebrow that I wasn’t the only witch in the room. “It’s not automatic at all. I think they’re probably more like me.”
“So… Descendants on one side? And they signed the book—must have—so they’re in there somewhere.” We looked at each other. “We’ve got to get back into the Vault.”
“You said you could get in any time,” Raven reminded me, and I nodded.
“In theory, I can. But with this shit going on… And after the last time we were there, I’m not so sure.”
“Can anyone in the Society call a meeting?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s just for the Council members.”
“Did your cameras pick up anybody besides Percy?” So she’d figured that out; clever girl.
“No one that I think could possibly have done this.” We stared at each other in frustration. “The thing that really bothers me,” I said, “is why? Why are they doing this at all?”
“I still like the Tanglewood angle,” she said thoughtfully. “I think someone is pissed you got him kicked out.”
“I didn’t, though,” I said, and she frowned. “We know that now—he’s not in the book, but there’s no way he got kicked out of the Society; he can’t be. I got him kicked out of Ashwood, sure, but he’s still a member of our fucking coven.” I couldn’t keep the frustrated rage out of my voice. “Another goddamn strike against them, as far as I’m concerned. Their criteria for membership could use a fucking overhaul.”
“Jake… What if it’s not Tanglewood? What else could it be?” She had a pensive, nervous look I couldn’t read, and I crossed my arms over my chest and forced my body back across the room just so I wouldn’t try to touch her again.
“What are you thinking?”
“Well… This could have another effect,” she said, blinking rapidly. “I mean, there’s no way they could guess it—except… Well…”
“Raven, I’m not the telepath,” I said. “Spit it out.”
“What if they’re not driving us apart, but pushing us together?” She swallowed, staring at me. “What if they knew—not only about high school, but before? When we were, when we—”
“Right,” I said roughly, my stomach turning. “Got ya. So they… They wanted us to what?”
“Well,” she said, abruptly turning pink, and I raised my eyebrow.
“Forgive me,” I said, “but that seems like a stretch. You don’t date, Raven, let alone that. I mean, everybody knows I’m down to—” Her face darkened, and I bit my tongue. “I’m just saying, someone who knows how close we were would also know
we’d spent the last couple of years hating each others’ guts. What are the chances two people who feel like that would end up… Doing what we did?” What I wanted to do right now, and all night, and every night after that? I inhaled and exhaled slowly, deliberately turning my thoughts away from the vivid memory of her heated body and back to the moment once more.
“Someone who knew us pretty damn well, I’d say,” she murmured, and we looked at each other, our eyes locking for a moment until she broke my gaze and stared down at the carpet, her cheeks heating again. “You’re right; it’s a huge gamble. But if someone wanted to make you super-charged—desperately, for some reason we can’t know, because these powers are also super fucking dangerous and they obviously didn’t care enough about your well-being to consider that—they would… They’d try to get you to do what you so naturally are inclined to with another descendant.” She quirked her mouth in irritation, and I rolled my eyes at her. “I might have just been the closest person who fit the bill.”
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “Percy’s little sister would have been a hell of a lot easier to use if that was the goal. She was halfway there already—”
“Alright, alright, alright,” Raven said, disgusted.
“I’m just saying, all they had to do was wait another night or two.” And keep you the hell away from me, because you are the only person in the world I would give up everything for—other girls especially. No question. “Do you think they tried? Is that why you were put on the Commons with two other choices for Sineater?”
“Maybe,” Raven said, frowning. “That’s a hell of a lot of guesswork.”
“Yeah,” I said, frowning as I shook my head. “Too much, I think.”
“So we’re back to Tanglewood?”
“Or something we can’t guess yet,” I said, biting my lip. “We can’t know everything about what these people want, because we don’t know a hell of a lot about being a witch.”
“Jake, we’ve got to get in the Vault,” she pleaded; it made my chest hurt.
“Rae—Raven, I really… I hate to say this, but I don’t think there’s a way to go back.” My own words haunted me, and I knew she could see what I was thinking when she clenched her eyes shut in hopeless terror: my hand, writing her name in blood in the book. Pertinent es ad me.
You belong to me.
How things had changed, I thought, swallowing back yet another apology she was in no mood to hear. I knew it—I knew it even when I did it, when I had no real idea of what the repercussions would be; Raven didn’t belong to me. Some part of her past might; I sure as hell had tried to make her feel like she did.
But I belonged to Raven.
Not the other way around.
“We have to try,” she whispered, and I nodded, wanting, in that moment, to be able to change it all—to go back in time. The way she had, when she believed the Vault held the cure for death. “We could ask Percy to help.”
Goddamnit. “Fine.”
She sat up straighter and crossed her arms, glaring at me. “Give me a good reason not to,” she snapped, and I rolled my eyes.
“Because we don’t know him? Because he could be in on this shit for all we know?” Because I fucking hated how much you liked him—because, in spite of the fact that most women seemed to want to fuck me on sight, charming Percy Hatchett somehow eclipsed me in your eyes. Because in spite of the fact that I loved you, you trusted him more than me. Raven was still watching me, her face furious, when I forcibly blanked my mind and glared back at her. “But if you really think—”
“Percy isn’t in on it,” she told me, stubborn as all hell. “You didn’t see him when… When we were all in the Vault together.” That wasn’t strictly true; I’d seen him afterward, and he certainly seemed upset about what happened to Raven. But appearances meant shit to me… Telepathy, however, might prove useful.
“Do you think you could read his mind?”
She flushed scarlet, and I hated him more than I cared to admit. I knew why; I knew she was imagining the intimacy we shared, but with him instead. I couldn’t help the roiling in my gut as I stalked over to the bed and sat on the edge, taking care to breathe deeply so I didn’t upset her by shaking the walls. “I don’t know,” she said. “Do you think… Do you think my ability has something to do with attraction?”
I glanced up at her. “Do you?”
“Well, you’re the only one I…” She let the words trail away when she saw whatever was on my face—I had no idea what my expression might be in that moment; my guard was completely down. The thought of Raven and Percy made me furious, but that was the price for being a dick: the girl you loved might like someone who wasn’t a dick. Although I’d hardly nominate Percy for Mr. Congeniality he’d won Raven over in a matter of minutes. If she wanted him, what the fuck was I going to say? “Jake, it might be worth trying to see if I can. All this other stuff aside, I’m curious to know what I can do.”
“Okay,” I said dully, and stared down at the carpet. “You give him a call, and I’ll work on getting us into the Vault.”
“He might be able to help with that too,” Raven said, and I sighed.
“Fine.”
“Jake,” Raven said, and when I looked up at her, she was shaking her head at me. “I don’t understand. Seriously. You’ve slept with hundreds of girls, at this point. So what if I—I just like him. I don’t have some deep, abiding crush. I’m not—”
“Raven, it’s none of my business unless you make it my business,” I said, unable to keep the growl out of my voice. “But if you’re asking me…” I stopped and gazed up at her. “What are you asking me?”
“Why are you acting so weird about him?” She looked genuinely confused, and for a minute I had to fight the urge to laugh. “What?”
“Because you like him, Rae—Raven. I guess it pisses me off, okay?”
“You’re jealous?”
“Yeah,” I said, standing up and rolling my shoulders. “So?”
“So I just don’t know where you get the… The balls,” she said, and I did laugh at that. “I’m serious! We’ve had—” She stopped short, then stood up and faced me, her expression a painfully adorable mix of defiance and embarrassed amusement. “We’ve had sex twice. And you have slept with so many people I can’t even count them. What gives? Why are you being so weird?”
Because of you, I thought, but I tried to stifle it—too late; she rolled her eyes immediately and I knew she heard.
“What do you mean, because of me?” She imitated my speaking voice, growling out the question, and I wiped another smile off of my face; it was too hard, though, and I chuckled. She was fucking cute right now, too damn cute, really, and she had no idea.
“Raven, do you think there’s any comparing those girls with you? Come on,” I said, and she furrowed her brow. “I mean it. The history we have, the things you’ve seen in my head…” You have to know how I feel about you. At least a little bit.
“I have no idea how you feel about me,” she said, and I swore and ran my fingers through my hair.
“This shit is inconvenient as all hell, you know that right?” I sighed. “When I really wish you would mind your business, you can hear everything, but when you—”
“I guess I have some ideas,” she said softly, watching my face closely, and I blew out another long breath and sat back down on the edge of my bed, crossing my arms over my chest. “I have seen some things in your head. And, when we…” She swallowed. “When we were together, I thought I heard—”
“Please don’t,” I said, looking up at her, “unless you’re willing to forgive me. Otherwise, I just don’t need the reminder. It makes me feel like shit.”
“What? I’m supposed to spare your feelings because being reminded of how you treated me like garbage makes you sad?” She twisted her face up and glared at me. “Do you even hear yourself right now?”
“I think you misunderstood me,” I said, sighing again. I bit my lip, weighing my options, then stood
up to face her. “You did hear me say I love you. Because I do. I always have. But reminding me of it—of that moment of vulnerability, and how fucking scary it was when I was hearing your thoughts for the first time, while we were having sex no less… It makes me feel like shit partly because I hate thinking about how I treated you. Sure. But it also—and I get that you’re not required to give a damn about this—reminds me of everything I lost because of that. There’s a lot…” Okay, this was too much; this was wounds from the past that I didn’t want to dig into, so I decided to wrap it up. “You don’t owe me anything, Raven, that’s not what I meant. But I wish… Well, I wish a lot of things.”
She was standing very still, watching me the entire time, and then finally nodded. I hoped I still had some privacy, that she hadn’t heard everything.
There was a lot I never got to tell her, when we were young. There was a lot I never got to say.
There was a whole future I’d planned, a place I wanted to make in the world for us, there was so much I thought I could count on… And Raven had never known any of that. We were split apart before I could look her in the eye and breathe a word of it.
Saying I loved her and always had was risky, but it wasn’t like she didn’t know—and maybe I just meant it the way we said it when we were young. Growing up together, we’d said it plenty of times.
But… I got a little older, and the word deepened, the meaning of it deepened, just like my feelings for her. And then it got much harder to say.
“So you’re going to go hang out with Percy?”
“Not exactly,” Raven said, sitting down again, her eyes still watchful. “I’m going to message the sign-up page for the Society. He’ll get back to me when he can.”
“You don’t have his number?”
“Nope, and I’m sure as hell not going back to Delta house,” she said, and I felt my body relaxing slightly. I wasn’t sure how we were going to overcome that, if and when Percy’s invitation included a trip to the place where she’d disappeared into a back room with him. I didn’t want to involve Hunter any more, but I’d probably need back-up if she went there. “I have a lot of homework,” she said, looking around, “and I was hoping to get most of it done today… But,” Raven said, turning towards me with wide eyes, “I don’t feel safe at the Institute.”
