creepy hollow 05.5 - scarlett

by Rachel Morgan

  “It’s okay,” he gasped. “It’s okay, I’m okay.”

  “This isn’t okay.” She forced the tears back before they could escape. “I hate that I have no control over this.”

  He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “It is okay,” he said as his breathing began to even out. “It’s better than okay because we just discovered something. Something good.”

  Scarlett’s eyes raked over the strong man she had unintentionally reduced to something so weak. “How is this good?”

  “Your hands,” he said, “are the only part of you that’s dangerous. Other types of touch … a kiss, your lips … they don’t hurt anyone.”

  A small breathy laugh escaped her as she realized he was right. This was something new, something she hadn’t known about herself. And if she had control over other parts of her body, then surely it wouldn’t be long before she could control the magic leaving her hands. She slipped her gloved fingers between his. “I’m still sorry, though. Do you feel okay?”

  “I’ve been worse. Just feeling a little weak, that’s all.”

  Scarlett smirked. “I’ll bet there’s a charm spell to help fix that.”

  “There is, actually.” Thoren moved as if to get to his feet, and Scarlett hooked her hand under his arm to help him up.

  “Do you need a new bracelet for that?”

  “Yeah, I’ll just—”

  “You go lie down,” Scarlett said. “I’ll get it for you.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I can still walk, you know.”

  “Is that why your legs seem to be shuddering beneath your weight?” She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Just go lie down. The workshop’s a lot further away than the storeroom you now sleep in.” Which she would not be staying long in after bringing Thoren the bracelet, she firmly instructed herself.

  She hurried along the tunnels, past the kitchen, and into Malena’s workshop. The box of leather bracelets was still on the shelf above the desk. She pulled the box down and selected a bracelet for Thoren, one with a piece of dark wood shaped almost like a shoe. She returned the box to its place on the shelf and was about to leave when the enchanted flower in the corner caught her attention. Or, to be more precise, it was the open window of the glass case that she noticed. Wasn’t it supposed to be closed?

  She approached the pedestal. Perhaps Malena had made some adjustments to the glacier or lava enchantments and forgotten to close the window. Unlikely. Malena wasn’t the sort to forget important things like that. Scarlett wondered if she should close the window, but she dismissed the idea quickly. Magic was probably required. Something as important as this flower would surely be protected by more than simple glass. She leaned in to take a closer look and noticed that three of the outer petals were grey instead of clean white. And then—as she watched—a single grey petal detached itself from the flower and dropped onto the cushion upon which the bell jar rested.

  Scarlett froze, expecting an earthquake or an explosion of molten rock or, at the very least, a shudder. But there was nothing. Nothing but the sound of—

  Voices. Raised, arguing, moving closer to the workshop. Scarlett dropped to her hands and knees and scooted behind the workbench as Tilda and Malena entered the room. They flung words back and forth at each other like punches, and Scarlett wished she knew what they were saying. Then she heard her name—and she wished with all her heart she’d made the effort to begin learning their language.

  But that was unnecessary, she realized suddenly, because she had a charm in her hand and she remembered the words Thoren had uttered. She put the bracelet on and tightened her fist around the wooden charm—then flinched as one of the sisters brought a fist down on the workbench surface, causing all the glassware to rattle. As Tilda shouted over Malena, Scarlett whispered the three words she remembered. She forced a pulse of magic from her hand, then bent over it to shield the resulting flash of light.

  “—angry? You’re supposed to be pleased with the work I’ve done,” Tilda said. “I mean, for the love of fae, she spent her whole life in the human world and tonight she killed one of them. Willingly. That’s a gigantic step in the right direction.”

  “I’m angry because you’re still lying to her.”

  Tilda growled in frustration. “Of course I am. That was the plan. If I had told her the truth already, she’d be long gone by now.”

  The truth? What truth?

  “Possibly, but you clearly haven’t thought this through, Tilda. If you let her trust you for too long before you reveal the truth, she will feel betrayed. She’ll be furious, and she’ll probably leave anyway.”

  “I have thought everything through,” Tilda ground out between her teeth. “Do not interfere.”

  “I don’t have time to interfere!” Malena shouted. “Not when I have to deal with the possibility of our home shattering around us at any moment. But—”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”

  “BUT I most certainly will interfere if I sense you’re about to mess this up for us,” Malena continued. “Controlling her power is the sole reason Scarlett stayed here in the first place, and if you don’t tell her at the right time and in the right way that you can’t actually help her, this will all blow up in your face.”

  Can’t help—“You can’t help me?” Scarlett demanded as she shot, unthinkingly, to her feet. “You’ve been lying since day one?”

  Malena started, but her wide black eyes narrowed a second later. “What are you doing hiding in my workshop?”

  “What are you doing lying to me?” Scarlett yelled.

  Malena pressed her lips tightly together before answering. “How dare you speak to me in that tone?”

  “How dare you give me the promise of controlling my power when that’s the furthest thing from the truth?” Fury pulsed through Scarlett’s veins. “What was the point in keeping me here? So you could force me to suck the life from unsuspecting humans?”

  “You enjoyed that,” Malena snarled, and Scarlett hated her all the more because it was true. “You should be thanking me for pointing you in the right—”

  “Malena, stop!” Tilda shouted, pushing past her sister and moving toward Scarlett with her hands raised. “Scar, this is all a misunderstanding. We—”

  “No, you stop!” Scarlett shouted. “You’ve only ever wanted me to embrace my power, and now I’m going to show you exactly what that means.” She tore both gloves off and advanced on Tilda.

  “You wouldn’t!” Tilda shrieked, stumbling backward until her back met the wall. “We’re like sisters, Scar. You can’t do this to me.”

  “If you were my sister, you wouldn’t have LIED!” Scarlett yelled, pouring all her rage into that last word. She flew at Tilda and wrapped her hands around the girl’s neck. Power rushed through her hands and up her arms, and she squeezed and squeezed and—

  A fierce grip latched onto her arm, yanking her away from Tilda. The younger girl slid to the floor while Scarlett fell against Malena. Sharp nails ripped Scarlett’s skin. She cried out as she twisted and flattened her palm against Malena’s face. The witch slashed at Scarlett’s arm, but she was growing weaker already. Soon she was gasping, then staggering, and Scarlett easily pushed her down onto her knees.

  Scarlett stepped back, her gaze whipping around the workshop. She couldn’t stay here. She needed a—There it was. Half a black candle, standing in a jar of quills on Malena’s desk. Breathless, she lunged for it, knocking over the jar in the process.

  She held the candle up, snapped her fingers, and thought of her old home.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The ‘home’ she thought of was Jack and Zoe’s house—specifically, Jack’s bedroom. She must have been focusing on it more intently than any thought she’d ever held in her mind because Jack’s bedroom was precisely where she landed. She had hoped to find only him, or perhaps an empty room and a few minutes to catch her thoughts, but they were both there—Jack sitting at his desk in front of his ancient hand-me-down computer and Zoe leanin
g over his shoulder, laughing at whatever he was showing her on the screen.

  They both looked up.

  “Holy freaking sh—” Zoe backed up, tripped over the lamp cord, and fell onto her backside, pulling the lamp and a glass of water onto the floor with her.

  The scene froze.

  Then, as if in slow motion, Jack rose from his chair. “Beth?”

  Beth. How long had it been since she’d heard that name?

  Zoe scrambled to her feet and flattened herself against the far wall. “How did you … you just … you just …”

  Appeared out of thin air, is probably what she was going for. Scarlett raised both hands. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have come back sooner, but I was trying to—to learn how to …” Dammit. Where did she even begin?

  A war of emotions played across Jack’s face. In a voice that spoke of months of confusion, pain and anger, he asked, “What happened?” It twisted her heart to think of how she’d betrayed him, how she’d laughed with and dreamed of and kissed someone else. She opened her mouth, but no answer came out. “What did you do to me?” he asked, his voice so quiet it was barely a whisper. “I don’t understand what happened. I felt as though my life was being drained from my body. I blacked out, and when I woke, you had vanished. The police searched, but they came up with nothing.”

  “The police?” But of course the police had searched for her. She had almost killed someone and then disappeared without a trace. That wasn’t something that went unnoticed. Jack extended his hand to the side and Zoe took hold of it, gripping tightly. Almost as if … as if the two of them were scared of her. “Jack, I was as confused as you were, I promise,” Scarlett said, “but I can explain now.”

  “Can you?” His tone was wary. “Everyone kept trying to come up with a sensible explanation for what happened to me, but all I could remember was how unnatural it felt. How … supernatural. I told myself that thoughts like that were crazy, but now, seeing you appear here—literally out of nothing—confirms that I wasn’t crazy at all.”

  Scarlett slowly shook her head. “You weren’t crazy. It’s …” She swallowed, then dared to say the word out loud. “It’s magic.”

  Zoe shook her head vigorously from side to side. “No, no, no, no, no. Don’t go there. We just—we just want things to go back to normal, and now you’re bringing this craziness right into our—”

  “I didn’t do this on purpose, Zoe. I had no idea it was going to happen.”

  “Just … you … you need to go.”

  “What?” Scarlett had known this would be difficult, but she’d never considered that her friends might want nothing to do with her. She would explain the whole story, they would eventually understand, and then they’d support her. That was the way this was supposed to go. “Please hear me out. Just give me a few minutes to explain everything.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jack said carefully. “I remember feeling …” His gaze moved to the floor. “When I looked at you, I wasn’t in control of myself. I remember thinking I’d do anything you asked. I’d go anywhere, be anything. I would have drowned myself in the lake if you’d told me to. And that …” He shook his head, his eyes still focused on the floor. “That terrifies the hell out of me, Beth.”

  “I would never ask you to hurt yourself, Jack. I would never, ever exert any kind of control over you.”

  His only reply was silence, and eventually it was Zoe who responded. “You’re not denying it. You’re not denying that you could control us if you wanted to.”

  “Not both of you, just—” Just Jack, she’d been about to say, but that definitely wasn’t going to help her case in this moment.

  “What have you become?” Jack whispered.

  She clenched the candle in her closed fist. “Seriously, guys, I’m still me. Zoe? Will you give me a chance? Please?”

  “I … I can’t.” Zoe’s fingers tightened around her brother’s as she struggled to meet Scarlett’s gaze. “You’ve changed. You look … different. You’re too beautiful. People shouldn’t be that beautiful. I don’t know what you are, but you don’t belong here.”

  “Of course I belong here, Zoe.” Scarlett’s tone was desperate as she tried to convince herself as much as her best friend. Because if she didn’t belong here, then where would she go? The magic of her own world called to her with an irresistible pull, but she would never return to the witches. Never return to those who wanted only to use her. “We’ve been best friends for years, Zo. I belong here with you and Jack. And I know I’ve—I’ve changed, but we can figure things out as we go. We can get things back to normal. We—”

  “Jack was in the hospital for three days! What if that happens again? What if you do it to someone else? Gah, I don’t even know what ‘it’ is, and I don’t want to know!”

  “Then you don’t have to. I won’t tell you anything that makes you feel uncomfortable or—”

  “No. We don’t want any part of this. You need to leave.”

  “I don’t need to leave!” Scarlett yelled, and a cushion erupted on the bed, sending balls of fluff shooting into the air.

  Jack’s arms went around Zoe, and she clung tightly to his side. Their eyes couldn’t possibly grow any wider as they watched the puffs of white float down to rest on the bed.

  “I’m sorry,” Scarlett whispered, trying not to frighten them further. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That was an accident. It won’t—”

  “Please just leave,” Jack said, his eyes still fixed on the bed.

  It was then that she saw this scene as if from high above. Saw it for what it truly was. The predator on one side of the room, and the weak, cowering prey on the other. She would never dream of hurting them, but they were right to be afraid of her. After all, it had been only hours since she’d killed one of their kind, and the part of her that enjoyed it had far outweighed the part of her that was horrified by her actions—if that part even existed anymore.

  She did not belong here.

  She could have used the candle, but she didn’t want to waste it, nor did she want to further terrify her friends. So without another word, Scarlett walked out of the bedroom, pushing down the hollow sickness in her stomach as the last vestiges of her old life crumbled to pieces in her wake.

  Jack and Zoe’s parents didn’t seem to notice her as she stalked out of the house in her glittering dress and fur-lined cloak, perhaps because she didn’t want them to. She walked down the path, onto the sidewalk, and turned into her father’s property. She had no plan yet as to where to go next, but perhaps she should gather some of her old things and take them with her. Or perhaps not. Did she really need anything from this dreary old life of hers? She stood on the front porch, ignoring the widening cracks in her heart, and considered her options.

  And that’s when the front door opened.

  Her father stood before her, unsurprised, as if he’d known before he opened the door that it was her he’d find on the doorstep. Scarlett folded her arms over her chest and said, “I would ask if you missed me, but I already know the answer.”

  He waited in silence, his hands clenching into fists at his sides, before murmuring, “You’re as breathtaking as your mother.” Given the bitterness of his tone, she doubted it was a compliment. He stepped forward into the light of the bare bulb that hung above the front door, and only then did Scarlett notice how different he looked. How much younger. It was in this same moment that she became aware of a source of magic other than her own. “Surprised to see me as I truly am?” her father asked. “I assume you can see past my glamour, now that your own magic has awoken.”

  “You … you’re magical,” she said. “What the hell are you?”

  “A faerie. A faerie who wanted a simpler life and no magic. A faerie who was perfectly happy living in this world until he got dumped with you.”

  “You … you’ve been lying to me my entire life.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” He pulled his head back. “Are you under the impression th
at I owe you the truth?”

  “You’re my father!”

  “And that’s why I was forced to take you in when your mother no longer wanted you. I owe you nothing, Beth. If anything, you’re the one who owes me.”

  She laughed, loudly and without an ounce of humor. “Owe you? Owe you? For being a spectacularly awful father? You don’t deserve to be called Dad. I don’t even know why you kept me. You could have passed me on to someone else, just as Evaline did.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’m not a monster. I’ve seen the horrors of the foster care system in this world, and I didn’t think a young child deserved that. Besides, if your mother ever came back for you and found I’d handed you off to someone else …”

  Scarlett shook her head. “So that’s why you kept me. You’re afraid of Evaline.”

  Sparks of light danced around his clenched fists, and a shock stung her skin. The same kind of shock she’d felt on the evening of the red dress when Dad had told her to get out. He leaned closer and growled, “I kept you because nobody else would ever have wanted you, miserable, plain little girl that you were. And after you almost killed your own boyfriend with freakish powers that no human will ever accept, I doubt there’s anyone left in this world who will ever want you.”

  Fury and pain blazed simultaneously through Scarlett’s body. Her hand flashed forward and gripped her father’s neck. He tried to fight her off, but she held on until his legs gave in. She let go. As he clutched his chest and gasped for air, she lit the candle. She held it tight and walked out of her old life for good.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Scarlett pictured steep slopes and snow-capped mountains, but her thoughts were vague and scattered, and when she arrived at the edge of a forest where the freezing wind whipped at her hair, she had no idea where the witch candle had sent her. She pulled the cloak tighter around her body, squinting through the darkness at the rushing, tumbling river on one side and the dense trees on the other. She closed her eyes and tried to hear nothing but the swish of leaves, the screaming wind, the roar of water. Anything to drown out—