“I miss being anonymous. And I miss the movies, the restaurants, and the other people.”
Leon finally brought the cup up to his lips. Her heart skipped a beat when he threw back a gulp. And like that it was over. By the time he placed the cup back on the counter, the Hawthorns’ serum already flowed through his veins. She stood abruptly and refused to meet his eyes.
“I’m sorry. I’m really really sorry, Leon, but I have to go.”
He watched her but no recognition flashed over his eyes. It was possibly the first side effect of the poison now in his veins. Leon finally nodded.
“Thanks for the tea,” he said but she was already out the door. He’d probably finish drinking it or at least a bit of it until he realized something was off. By the time she reached the stairs, adrenaline raced through her body. She descended the stairs and paid attention for the other coven members. The shower was off on the second floor, but the place was quiet. The living room on the first floor was empty and Angie no longer sat on the porch. Adam’s door was still shut.
Adelaide slipped by the kitchen and grabbed the keys from the counter. She never ran into another person on her way out, but stayed ready for her luck to end. One click to the key remote and the Jeep chirped loudly. She was behind the front seat of the Jeep in another minute.
The key felt heavy in her hand and she pushed it into the ignition. She snuck a look back at the house and the top floor. Leon’s window was open but she saw nothing but his curtains blowing in the breeze. She felt for his aura but found it lacking. Leon had to be dying by now.
“Go, Adelaide,” she told herself. She twisted the key and prompted the engine to roar to life. Throwing it into drive, she floored it. The tires squealed when gas flooded the motor and dust exploded from the spinning tires. The Jeep moved swiftly, separating her from the Coltons’ house.
She headed north. While she wasn’t exactly sure of her location, she knew that heading north would eventually led her to a city. The sun shone brightly and revealed the clear road ahead.
For a second, Adelaide remembered how to breathe. It was so easy. It was even too easy.
Then she saw the first shades. They were at least a mile away and had bunkered down in the hills and crevasses. The sound of the car must have stirred them because they began to crawl out of the woodwork. Adelaide pumped the gas again but the car only moaned in response. It couldn’t go any faster than she already pushed it.
Adelaide successfully blew by a few of the shades completely untouched. She drove too fast to decipher how strong they were or if they planned on attacking. She had no aura so shouldn’t have seemed like a target, but that wouldn’t stop a few from coming to investigate.
Watching her rearview mirror, she sized them up. Then the car skidded, the dirt giving under the tires. She turned into the resulting spin, but the car still whirled out of control. Inertia didn’t matter. The Jeep suddenly came to a grinding halt. As the cab lurched forward, she narrowly avoided smacking the dash. The airbags hadn’t blown, but she recoiled regardless. Hand scrambling for the knob, she seized it and kicked open the door. The car’s engine still churned but it couldn’t propel the car to move. Reluctantly, but quickly, she hopped out and faced the only shade that stood in her way.
“Mistel, what are you doing?” she spat.
Mistel stood in the path of the car in all of her glory—cracking porcelain skin below brilliant blonde hair and a trademark twisted smirk. Adelaide looked at the shade only briefly and then glanced behind them. She barely made it a mile away from the house before Mistel had taken out her only transportation. A dust trail could lead the houses’ occupants straight to them.
Worse, the shades mulling in the rocks came out now. Their curious gazes locked onto Adelaide but they hesitated.
“I wanted to come see how you were doing on your important little mission. The one so important that you ran away from me,” Mistel said.
Adelaide resisted the urge to bark something nasty. It would have been going so much better if she could actually escape.
“It’s over and my deal has been completed. You can’t touch me now without fearing the wrath of the Hawthorns. I am protected,” she virtually shouted. All of the shades within earshot should at least think twice now.
Focusing on Mistel, she waited for the woman to give way.
“Leon Colton is not yet dead,” Mistel said.
Adelaide’s heart fluttered. Fearing to look behind her now, she itched to return to the Jeep. She needed Mistel to move and release her hold on the vehicle.
“I’ve given him the poison. It won’t be long,” Adelaide insisted. “Don’t argue with me over trifles! Seconds, minutes!”
Mistel’s head cocked to the side. She studied Adelaide with an apparent calculation.
“You don’t actually think that the potion they gave you was poison to induce death, do you? You are mistaken,” Mistel said slowly and very quietly.
Adelaide stiffened. Her mind flashed to the shade in the basement that had said something similar.
“Who told you about the potion?” Adelaide asked. She had told no one and yet every shade out there seemed to know about it. Mistel didn’t answer immediately. The wheels in Adelaide’s mind spun. “How did you find me here, Mistel? Why did you come?”
“I heard about your potion after I talked to the Hawthorns myself. It is an effective potion, but it will not kill him.”
Adelaide did a double take. As if she couldn’t believe what she heard, she rubbed her ears madly.
“All the shades in the world are afraid of Leon. They want him dead. The Hawthorns would not give me a potion that would not work.” Her resolve was failing her though she clung desperately to her logic. Shades lied all the time and it only made sense that Mistel was lying to her now.
“Come on, Adelaide. You are smarter than this.”
Adelaide violently cursed. She glanced behind them again. The shades from the hills became more active. They crawled away from the rocks and their auras fluctuated dangerously. She expected that everyone in the house was awake by now, prompted by the escalation of energy.
“I told you that I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time for you. Let me go!”
Mistel shook her head.
“No,” Mistel said simply and Adelaide growled in frustration. Only the nearby shades stopped her from tapping her aura and giving Mistel something to think about.
Mistel kept talking.
“I talked to the Hawthorns and they offered me a deal too. They want me to bring them Leon. I guess they didn’t want to start a confrontation with the entire Colton coven. It is true that the Coltons are much too powerful together and any takeover would be a waste of shade lives.”
“He’s a dead man, Mistel. You won’t be bringing him anywhere because it’s too late,” Adelaide snapped. This time she heard herself and her own words shocked her. She’d poisoned Leon, killed him, but saying it out loud seemed to cement her actions. A flash of guilt followed but Adelaide fought it off. Her eyes burned, lids lowered, and she bit her lip until it whitened. Her hands blindly sought out the Jeep door behind her.
“You don’t listen. Leon isn’t dead yet. But his coven is about to separate and then he’ll be easier to get to. And this is the one other thing you wholly deserve credit for.” Adelaide’s brow furrowed. It took her a minute to understand. She backpedaled and her elbow nailed the steel door of the car. Mistel simply stood there. The other shades mulled around. The house waited not far away.
It only made sense when she heard his voice.
“Adelaide!” Adam screamed.
She sought out the location of Adam but Mistel found him first. In a flurry of motion, Mistel threw a blast of aura energy that way. The force of the blast caused Adelaide to pinwheel backward and hit the ground. The brunt of the impact hit the Jeep and forced it off its tires. The sound of twisting metal deafening in the air, Adelaide didn’t hear him call again. She did feel his arm wrap around her waist and haul her back up.
Chaos erupting in every direction, she couldn’t pinpoint the source with the explosion of dust in the air. The shades nearby activated their auras in nauseating waves and charged the house. Adam fought back with Mistel while still holding her tightly. Adelaide clawed at his forearm to free her just as they both went careening backward. Adam was hollering something but it was too incoherent.
“Stop!” she commanded. Her cries went ignored. Adam’s grip turned to steel and he yanked her toward the house again. She kept screaming. “Stop, stop, stop!”
If he understood, he never stopped. They only made it a dozen steps before the sight of more shades slowed them down. Their antics with Mistel drew every shade out of the weeds to surround them. Priya and Tony raced out of the house, but the two mages still stood at least twenty feet away. The house was twenty more feet beyond that and the shades were everywhere.
Adam stilled. He sized up the shades around them in complete silence.
“Adam,” her voice whined and broke. His heroic gesture had condemned them both.
Mistel rushed passed them at that moment. Heading straight towards the house, she left them with the other shades. Adam cursed and kept them rooted to the ground. Adelaide glanced toward the house again.
Leon stumbled onto the front patio. Even at this distance, she saw him reach the end of the porch, brace the banister, and continue standing. Her jaw dropped.
Adam called for his brother but she could barely understand what he was saying. She did recognize when Adam gained Leon’s attention, but then Leon tapped an aura. Adam suddenly released Adelaide and threw her back toward the rocks. She crashed into the ground in time for Leon’s wild magic to reach them.
Twenty-two
It felt like her stomach dropped out from under her. Vertigo swept over her senses, leaving Adelaide struggling to right her person. Her fingernails bit into the rock, broke, and bled. Dust and smoke filled her lungs and she coughed violently. She pressed a hand to her throat and stole a clean breath. Blinking the burning grit out of her eyes, her vision finally cleared with tears. In the wake of the blast, she’d been thrown a few feet but the rocky formations did miracles in protecting her. Then she saw a lump of a person covered in orange and crimson.
Adelaide staggered forward, reaching for the body. Her fingertips made contact with the limp figure and her fingers knotted into the bloodied fabric of his shirt. Heart thundering, she rolled him over. The sunlight hit Adam’s face.
“Adam?” she croaked. His face held no color and he didn’t react to his name. “Adam, wake up!”
She tracked the source of blood to an open wound in his abdomen that reached his hips. His frayed clothes embedded in the wound and hid the extent of the damage. She slipped her hands up to his neck, wiping away sweat and grime to feel for a pulse. Though weak, she felt it beat.
Relief flooded through her veins and prompted her to look around. The Jeep was within jogging distance but looked too much like a lump of twisted metal to be useful. On the opposite side was the house where she spotted Leon collapsed on the front steps. The shades who had avoided the impact of the blast now rushed the house from opposite directions. Tony and Priya engaged them.
Returning to the house meant returning to the epicenter of the battle. At least that also meant most shades ignored them for the time being. She could run away without Adam and maybe get a mile or two while the shades took the house. But then Adam would certainly die.
Adelaide focused on Adam again and tore apart his shirt. Using the material, she wrapped it tightly around his body as a makeshift bandage. It absorbed the blood fairly well but would be soaking in minutes. They needed to move or they were waiting, bleeding victims.
“Adam, wake up. Wake up or we’re going to die here,” she whispered. Her arms snaked under him and she yanked his body upright into a sitting position. Some tension lingered in his muscles and he shook his head. He never fully came to though.
“I can’t lift you. You have to help me help you walk.”
He moaned and she took that as a sufficient response. She positioned her shoulder beneath his arm and pulled. He lifted himself but put too much weight on her, nearly tumbling them over again. She grunted, already heaving to stay upright.
“Move with me, Adam,” she hissed.
Adam’s head shook again as if trying to reorient himself.
“We need to get out of the open. We need a tactical advantage. I know where to go,” she huffed for what it was worth.
He groaned again but said nothing to stop her. She pulled them forward. After the ten most agonizing feet of her life, they reached the opening. Below was the tunnel spring they’d spent time in a few days ago. It appeared deeper than she remembered and she couldn’t see the water on the bottom. Her stomach dropped with the abyss.
That’s when she heard a shade approach. The battle that raged on the house apparently hadn’t distracted them all.
“You gotta drop,” she hissed. With his arm over her, it was difficult to see the shade that crept up on them. It stayed a few feet back, watching and waiting. Maybe the shade heard her threat to Mistel earlier. She hoped the shade believed it now.
Adam resisted falling even in his semi-conscious state. Nothing about the drop into a pool that wasn’t that big seemed safe, but she knew they were out of options. She let him go, slipping out from under his arm, and he stumbled. She pushed and he fell. Hearing the splash, she jumped in after him.
The water softened the fall but also flooded her senses. She broke the surface of the water, spat, and rushed to grab the ledge. Gazing upward, she searched the darkness, but the shade never followed them. Turning her attention to Adam next, she swam to him. The water must have woken him from his daze because he blinked madly. She helped push him to the edge and they clawed their way out.
Adam collapsed just at the edge of the pool. She rolled over, wet and cold, to watch their exits.
“Adelaide,” Adam whispered.
“No time, we need to get further down the tunnel. Move,” she commanded while pulling at his uninjured arm. Every second she gained more cooperation from him, but every second he bled more from his wound. She gave him one last push forward. The green strip glowed on the floor and lightly illuminated the darkness.
Adam gave up and hit the ground. She dropped down to be closer to him and wiped her hands on her jeans before positioning them on the wound and pressing down. The water distorted the amount he bled, but she increased pressure just in case.
As she’d hoped though, they limited their vulnerabilities by limiting the ways to reach them. She watched for the shades to follow them but while her attention lingered on the north, she heard footsteps coming from the south. The tunnel’s cavernous walls distorted how far away it was, but she released Adam and prepared herself to fight. Adam’s hand suddenly budged. He snatched her elbow so hard she jumped.
“Adelaide,” he groaned, again managing nothing but her name. She tried to free her arm but he held her in a tight grip. He repeated her name again, but she ignored it. She struggled to listen to the sounds in the tunnel. She listened for the incoming footsteps, but couldn’t fight with Adam holding her.
“Don’t,” Adam whispered.
“I have to,” she said.
He was too weak to stop her from breaking free. Readying herself for a fight, she crept forward carefully and listened. That person came into view, and seeing the familiar face of the shade from the basement took her by surprise but not off guard.
“Hello, Adelaide,” he greeted her before she got a word out.
“What are you doing down here?” she asked but partially knew. The inside of the house had fallen. That was good news for no one in the Colton coven.
“I just wanted to see your lovely face. How did that poison work out with Leon? You know, since it didn’t kill him like you thought?”
“He’s not dead?” she asked, feeling shell-shocked.
“No. Just like I told you. I bet you don’t feel so migh
ty now. I bet you wish you had let me out. At least I would have left your little boyfriend alive as an act of gratitude,” he hissed.
She remembered that the monster she spoke too was not bound in any way. When he shifted, she drew upon her aura quickly. Hurried, she dropped the blast of magic until it exploded off the side of the rocks. The cavern shook but concentrated the blow. The shade dove back, avoided the attack, and bared his teeth.
“I can kill you!” he said but hesitated.
“But you won’t. You won’t tap your magic because all of those shades you’re avoiding will know you’re here! I’m not dumb. That’s why you’re in this tunnel. You’re afraid of the others because for some reason, you obviously need to fly under the radar.” She wasn’t dumb but even she was surprised with how quickly she put that together.
His pale face confirmed she was right.
“You’re smarter than the Hawthorns give you credit for.”
His eyes shifted to Adam who was nearly ten feet behind them and as incoherent as ever. She tapped her aura again carefully. It produced just enough energy to make the shade twitch. She didn’t want to bring any shades down here either; they were at a stalemate.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll meet again, Adelaide,” he hissed.
With the last word, the shade ran away. He blew past Adam and continued on his way out. Adelaide chased him only back up to Adam’s side. His footsteps disappeared and she listened until she was certain he wouldn’t return or others would follow.
Adam’s eyes were shut and a thin layer of sweat coated his pale skin. She dropped to her knees and reexamined his wound. Mages might have been endowed with many talents, but super healing was not one of them.
She squinted in the darkness to see properly. He needed stitches and a hospital but the nearest civilization meant hours in a car. The odds were stacked against them and she grimaced. If the shade from the basement escaped and Leon was taken by Mistel then the battle must have been ending. How many shades, if any, would be looking for them now was unclear.
She held her breath and urged her heart to slow. Using magic so rarely left a toll on her body and that was on top of the roughhousing it took to arrive here. If Adam was going to survive, she needed to hold her panic at bay. She glanced up in time to find Adam watching her. His hazel eyes were glossy and pupils dilated, but he seemed attuned to her.
Burning in a Memory Page 17
