She stands and stretches. Her feet slide into the slippers she’s brought, and she shuffles over to the half-wall a little way beyond the mattress.
Resting her palms on the top of the brick, she peers out around her. The ground is four stories down. A guest parking lot is directly below her, and a park sprawls farther out. The tips of some tall trees surrounding the complex poke up around the building. And beyond it all, she can see city lights in the distance.
Turning back to her sleeping wolf, she considers his prone form. Minute rumbles come from his chest, which slowly rises and falls. His breathing is so natural—now that she allows it. Her foot kicks against one of the plastic bags she’s since discarded on the ground, and she remembers the surge of power while she was holding it over his face. He must be taught that she gives and she takes away. She is life, and he is still here only because she allows it.
The experience was satisfying, but it’s time to move her game to the next level. His peacefulness irks her as if her spell has given him an out of his suffering.
She deserves happiness—but does he? And that’s what her enchantment has given him: a free pass. A ticket to a place of permanent euphoria, except the times when she cuffs him to one of the pipes and reaches her threads for Graham.
It’s time for things to change. It’s time to release the dragon.
Graham sat bolt upright. The darkness brought disorientation, and for a moment he forgot where he was. Then it all came rushing back, along with the meaning behind his dream.
“Chloe!” he hissed, reaching for the chair where she dozed nearby. He slapped at the air, then felt her arm.
“Hmm?” she mumbled.
“Wake up,” he said. “I had a dream about her.”
“You dreamed about Violet?” Her words were thick with sleep, but he could tell she was coming around.
He glanced at the digital clock’s blue light and saw that it wasn’t yet morning.
“What time is it?” Chloe asked, and the rustling told Graham she was sitting up.
“Almost three.”
She yawned aloud. “Oh, man.”
“Listen,” Graham said. “I think I know where Violet is.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. We’ve got to wake Jade.”
~
The full moon hovered in the sky above Violet’s condo. Concern rippled through Jade’s mind as she and her friends crept through the bushes outside. She held all their worry inside her own head. Chloe stood with her arms around herself and her brow knit while Graham inserted a key into the lock.
“This door will take us to the roof?” Jade asked.
“It should,” Graham said.
“How did you get a key?” Chloe asked.
“From Dad—he asked me to keep an eye on her.”
“Well, we’re doing more than that, I’d say,” Chloe said.
“How are we going to get the pills without Violet knowing?” Jade asked.
“In my dream, they were in her bag,” Graham said. “Should be pretty easy to find. I’m hoping she’s asleep.”
“And what if she wakes up?” Jade asked.
“Then I’ll restrain her,” Graham said.
“Think you might need some help with that?” Chloe asked, eyeing him sideways.
Jade could feel Graham’s embarrassment peak for a moment, but she couldn’t help but wonder the same thing. He wasn’t that big of a guy, and if Violet got wild, he might not be able to hold her.
“I’ll have to,” Graham said. “Neither of you can risk getting close to her. If she touches you, she’ll have you under her power.”
“I hope that works,” Jade said under her breath.
“If it doesn’t, you’ll have to try your powers on her, Jade.”
Jade swallowed, realizing what he meant. But to influence Violet’s emotions, she’d have to spark them in herself first.
“I don’t know how….” she said.
“You’ve been through a lot in the last year,” Graham said. “Those incidents in Pueblo and Carlsbad you told me about. Surely you could use them as a trigger.”
But Jade didn’t want to think of either abduction. She’d hoped she’d never have to go there mentally again. She bit her lip and didn’t say anything.
The three of them entered an interior hall and found a metal stairwell. Up four flights was a door marked Roof Access.
“This is it,” Graham said. “I should probably go out first, to make sure she’s not awake.”
“And if she is?” Jade said.
Graham shrugged. “You’ll have to come after me. We’ll figure things out from there.”
Jade held her breath as he pulled the door open and slipped out.
Chloe put a hand on Jade’s shoulder. “You’ll get him back,” she said.
Jade knew she didn’t mean Graham. She nodded silently. A few moments later, the door’s handle jiggled, and Jade inhaled sharply.
It opened, and Graham peered in at them. “All clear.” He gestured for them to follow.
A short brick wall bordered the edge of the roof. At first, Jade only saw mechanical units protruding from the surface. As they walked farther, she saw an air mattress laid out with some boxes and baggage nearby. A sleeping form lay still on the bed. It was Logan, bare-chested, in flannel pajama pants with a sheet haphazardly draped across him. Violet wasn’t anywhere in sight.
“Where is she?” Chloe whispered.
“I don’t know,” Graham said. “Maybe she went to use the restroom.”
“We better hurry,” Jade said.
He nodded.
Jade stepped past him to kneel at the partially unzipped suitcase. It took her only a moment to find the pills, which were on top, right where he’d said. She shoved the bottle into her pocket.
“Got them,” Jade said.
“Great, let’s get out of here,” Chloe said, edging back toward the door.
Jade’s gaze fixed on Logan.
“We’ll come back for him after the pills wear off,” Graham said.
Jade bit her lip. What would happen if they left him? What if Violet flew off the handle when she realized her pills were missing? Would she hurt Logan?
She felt a tug at her elbow and glanced up at Graham. His eyes were filled with understanding, but he shook his head. “We have to go before she gets back.”
“Do we?” Jade asked. “Maybe we could just hide somewhere. So when her pills wear off, we’re nearby.”
Graham hesitated. “I don’t….”
A few paces from the roof access door, Chloe mutely watched the debate. Her face was awash with concern.
“Or take him with us,” Jade said. Whatever she did, she knew she couldn’t leave Logan. Not like this, completely defenseless under Violet’s power. She knelt next to the bed and touched his arm. Red rings encircled his wrists. A spike of anger filled her.
“Logan,” she hissed. She jostled his shoulder, and he mumbled something unintelligible. Watching his brows wrinkle and smooth out again wrenched her heart.
“Jade, we can’t—” Graham began.
She ignored him. “Logan,” she said again, louder this time. He opened his eyes and met hers. An ache built inside her, flickering with the rage, like two colors of flames licking up the fuel. These feelings were hers, and they pulled her in deep. She grabbed at his bare arm, pulling him up to sit. He blinked sleepy eyes at her, seeing but not processing who she was or why she was here. Or maybe he knew but didn’t care.
“We’re going to get you home,” she said.
“Are we doing this?” Chloe asked. She’d took a few steps nearer them and now stood midway between the bed and the door.
Jade glanced at Graham. “I’m going to need your help with him.” She wouldn’t be able to drag Logan away on her own, especially if he tried to resist. She’d experienced how hard it had been to convince Graham to leave the stage.
Graham’s expression was concerned, dubious.
“Come on,” she sai
d. “If we can get him away, she can’t make him come back—that’s what happened with you, remember? As long as she can’t call him, she can’t—”
“Well, well, well.” The voice reached into Jade’s mind like a spike, piercing her hope. She craned her head around and saw Violet standing near the door to the stairwell, barefoot and dressed in only a white silk nightgown. Still, her presence gave the rooftop a threatening ambiance.
“Isn’t this just a precious picture?” Violet strode past Chloe, barely giving her a glance, and made her way toward them. The words were spoken coolly, but Violet’s auburn brows pinched in fury. Jade knew her anger was influencing Violet. She thought about what Graham had said. Maybe she could use her ability after all. It had worked with Ethan back in Carlsbad, though she hadn’t even known what she’d been doing. Jade cringed to think of it, but if she could keep the girl off balance, maybe they could create a distraction.
Violet approached them, but she directed her words at Graham. “I knew if I tried hard enough I could get you here.”
Graham’s jaw tightened, and he shoved Jade behind him, forcing her farther from Logan. “Get back,” he hissed. “Don’t let her touch you.”
Jade blinked away her thoughts of Logan, though her glances kept straying past Graham. There had to be a way to rescue him.
“Stop hurting my friends!” Chloe shot out. But she had the sense to stay back, far out of Violet’s reach.
Violet ignored her. She stepped up, nose to nose with Graham, and stared him down. “You shouldn’t have stuck your fat schnoz in my business. Now I have to take you out, too.”
Graham squared his shoulders. “What makes you think you can?”
Beyond Graham, Jade saw Violet’s eyes flash with venom. “You know I can.”
“You can only control one of us at a time,” Graham said.
“So I’ll restrain him first,” she said. “No biggie.”
Jade couldn’t listen to this any longer. The thought of Logan being tied up was too much. She had to get him away from Violet before it got any worse. She swallowed a deep breath and realized she had to use her ability. She still wasn’t great at controlling it, but it was her only weapon against this mad, power-hungry woman.
She’d used love back in Carlsbad and anger in Pueblo. If one emotion didn’t work, she’d try another, and then another, the way she’d practiced with Graham. Only she’d have to come up with her own triggers this time.
The fury still roiled inside her, so she chose that one first. Summoning every morsel of anger she could, she released herself into its beckoning arms.
Graham craned back to look at her, his eyes wide with understanding.
“You, I expected,” Violet said to Graham. “But why’d you have to bring her along?” She jabbed her narrow chin toward Jade. Her voice turned to a seething richness, like molten acid. “She’s part of the problem.”
The anger inside Jade ramped up, and to add kindling, she thought of Violet going to see Logan and of him not telling her. Her hands curled into fists.
“She has to go,” Violet said.
“You’re out of control, Violet,” Graham said.
Violet’s eyes ignored him, trained onto Jade like arrows taking aim. “I’m not out of control!” she yelled. “She has no right to be here!” She spun to Logan, and her face hardened. “Take care of her,” she said. “And, to clarify, when I say that, I mean kill her.”
Logan stood, as calm and unaffected as if Jade’s volatile anger wasn’t spiraling around them all. Her emotions were feeding Violet and making Graham’s eyes squint in concentration as he tried to fight it. Apparently being under Violet’s power made Logan immune to Jade’s.
But Jade had little time to appreciate or even consider any of it. Logan strode toward her, a determined set to his jaw. His hands stretched toward her neck. She backed away.
Graham’s panicked eyes flitted between them. “No!” He launched himself onto Violet. She tumbled backward onto the mattress, and he pinned her there, hands holding her arms down and one knee against her midsection.
“You think you’re going to stop me?” Violet said.
Jade expected Violet to drop her hold on Logan, but she didn’t. He grabbed Jade by the shoulders. A gasp slipped through Jade’s lips. He picked her up and launched forward, and she realized her assumption had been wrong. He wasn’t going to strangle her—he was going to body slam her.
~
Graham’s knee pressed hard into Violet’s sternum, making her gasp in pain. Fury rippled through her.
She couldn’t get traction to push him off with the slippery mattress beneath her. No matter how she fought, her arms were pinned tight.
Graham launched his head into hers.
Crack!
An explosion of pain shot through her vision like fireworks. Her world spun. The colored contrails vanished, and Logan slipped from her grasp.
Violet gasped sharply, and the oxygen fed her spinning brain. She gained the coherence to resummon the threads and shoot them at Graham. His hold on her instantly relaxed, and she shoved him off.
Violet sat up, sucking in deep breaths of air. “How dare you? You deserve to suffer!”
“Suffer? How?” Graham asked, his forehead creased above his idiotic glasses.
“Hit yourself,” she said.
He looked abashed for only a moment. Then he slapped himself across the cheek. His hand left a bright red splotch.
“Good. Again,” she said. Graham obeyed, hitting the other side of his face hard enough to knock himself sideways onto the mattress.
“Stop it!” The voice belonged to the blonde girl who’d been hovering near the stairwell. “Don’t hurt him! He’s done nothing to you!” Out of nowhere, she hurled herself onto Violet, knocking her backward. Violet’s hand made contact with the girl’s arm, triggering her enchantment to flicker. She snapped the colored cords onto her.
In an instant, Graham was scrambling off the bed and away from Violet. But it didn’t matter. She could control him again, the same way she had the fate of the blonde in her hands now.
She looked across the roof where Logan had launched himself at Jade. They seemed to have tumbled onto the ground, but now Logan was far from killing Jade, let alone hurting her. Instead, he lay on his side with worried eyes probing her stupid face. And Stupid Face was giving him goo-goo eyes. That look rivaled the way Violet’s dad used to look at the tramp of a nanny. Disgusting.
A new feeling replaced the biting anger coursing through her. Violet cocked her head at the two, suddenly looking at Logan different as he rose to his feet. He was so handsome it made her heart ache. Every part of her wanted to meld with him, to be with him forever. Even the sensation from earlier—that of wanting to punish him—dimmed to a tiny pinprick and winked out. Punishing him didn’t matter. She was unabashedly, unquestionably in love with him.
Then her eyes narrowed on Jade, who had regained her footing, a hand supporting Logan’s arm as he rose. Why was she touching Violet’s man? As if Stupid Face had any right to embrace him the way she was now. As if Violet should share him with anyone!
Violet would make him kill Jade. But first, she had to even the playing field. There were too many of them. So she would begin by getting rid of blonde.
Violet met her blue, too-eager-to-please eyes. “Go jump off the building.”
Graham swallowed. His throat was a tight channel. It only registered when Violet’s hold on him released. She’d taken control of Chloe!
Chloe put one determined foot in front of the other, walking toward the edge of the roof.
The only balm was that Violet hadn’t told Chloe to run, which gave him a handful of seconds to do something. But Graham felt helpless, knowing if he ran to her, Violet would just take over him again. And he couldn’t help at all if that happened. He had to use these last few moments to stop it some other way.
Chloe’s trajectory would put her between Jade and Logan in a matter of seconds. Graham locked eyes wit
h Jade and saw she’d realized it too. He exchanged a meaningful look, and she gave a tiny nod. Good. Graham knew she and Logan would stop Chloe from jumping. It would give him a few moments to come up with a plan. Now he had to figure out how to knock Violet off her game. And make sure she didn’t enchant him again. Jade’s ability hadn’t helped, despite the inner whiplash he’d felt when she tried.
Maybe there was another angle. Would reason work on her? “Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“Because. You all found out too much. I can’t take the chance you’ll blab on me the way you did when you were five.”
“When you snuck in and ate half of Dad’s birthday cake before the party?”
She tossed her auburn head. “You always were such a tattle tale.”
Graham’s jaw tightened at the memory. For him, it elicited a different sensation. They’d had laughter and fun times. They’d been a whole family, not a broken one. He’d felt that kinship with Violet years before discovering they were actually related. As a kid, he’d craved it. It was what kept him going when he sat alone wishing his mom would come home from work. If his biological mother didn’t have a lot of time for her son, Graham still had one place where he would feel like family.
“But why do you need Logan so badly?” he said. “And can’t you just get a boyfriend the normal way?”
Her eyes flickered with dark anger, and for a moment, he thought she would take control of him again. But Chloe hadn’t yet jumped. She’d only just reached the others. Jade grabbed her friend around the shoulders, and Logan helped restrain her. Chloe mumbled something and tried to pull away. Fortunately, Violet’s back was to them. Graham just had to keep her attention on him.
“I don’t need him for a boyfriend,” she said through tight lips. “First I thought it was destiny. We were supposed to be together.”
“How’s it destiny if you’re controlling him?”
“Why else would I have been given this power?” she asked.
Enchanter: The Flawed Series Book Four Page 27
