by Chloe Adler
“We can’t always hear everything, Burg. You know what happened last time we tried to hear the Trackers.”
“We’ll get the right herbs this time—I think Sadie already did—and we’ll try.” She patted the side of my face and smiled up at me.
“All right. Let’s do it in the morning. We’ll go to Sadie’s first thing.” I looked at the clock on my nightstand. “It’s getting late now. I’m beyond exhausted.”
“Of course, sweetie. You need me to take care of you so you can sleep better?” She licked her full lips and I rolled my eyes.
“No thanks, I’ll be fine.”
“Should I leave Rex with you?”
“Nah. Why don’t you cuddle with him tonight?” That was the right thing to say.
She bounded off my bed and called for the dog. “Tomorrow,” she called back before closing my door.
By tomorrow, I’d know what the hell Alec’s father was hiding. There was no way I was waiting for Burgundy.
Chapter Seventeen
Waiting up for most of the night was the difficult part; sneaking out of the house was not, since Rex was asleep in Burgundy’s room. The twinge of guilt that hit me only lasted a few minutes, replaced by the now familiar anger over Alec’s injustice.
Once outside I shifted into my fox and headed across town on the access roads and trails. Since the Edge was built on a mountain ridge, it was easy to take the high roads and avoid the main drag by the ocean. It had been planned that way for shifters and vampires.
I had to traverse the entire town, and by the time I reached the Wongs’, the sun had peeked its face above our tallest mountain ridge. I was banking on his parents being early risers. They did have young twins to take care of, after all. Thankfully, when I arrived, lights were blazing in their windows.
They lived in a house indistinguishable from the others in this part of town, on the north end. One story, modern, paneled wood, with high ceilings and rectangular windows.
Had I been in my human form, I’d have chanced a look through a low window, but being a fox didn’t afford me that luxury. Both my hearing and sense of smell were acute, however, and I let my nose lead me to the room they were in. The doctor’s voice was raised. Unsurprising. The man seemed to have only one setting: angry. Poor Alec.
“You will do no such thing,” he was yelling, most likely at his wife.
“I can’t stand by and let them torture and kill our son. What kind of mother would I be? I love him, Xia. I know you love him too even if you won’t admit it.” Alec’s mother’s sounded on the verge of hysteria.
“You will stand by, Li. That’s exactly what you’ll do. Do not make me take the twins back to China and leave you here.”
“What? You wouldn’t!”
Her voice lowered and I couldn’t make out everything she was saying.
“They are . . . not hesitate . . . in China . . . no protection.”
I moved closer to the wall, pressing my ear against it.
“I will hide, I’m good at that. Plus, I will tell Alec your secret and you’ll lose him too, if he ever manages to escape.”
“Xia,” her voice softened even more, “I know you’re angry but I also know that you’re a good man. You wouldn’t have helped that girl in China otherwise.”
“I helped her because of them. I did it because it was a way to remove even one possible Tracker from this world.”
“I don’t believe you. That’s not what you told me when you did it.”
His voice lowered. “There are many reasons for everything we do.”
I waited in the silence that followed, trying to parse their conversation. What had Dr. Wong done to help or hinder the Trackers? Whatever it was it had angered them enough to chase him and his family here and kidnap his son. And what secret was Alec’s mother keeping?
“Please, Xia, there must be something we can do. Offer them money, perhaps?”
“They don’t want money.” His voice was gruff. “They want our blood. Anything in the name of their god. Hypocrites,” he spat.
“Please save our son from these monsters. You cannot have that much hate in your heart. He is your son.” Her tone had become weepy.
“He chose his path, just like you chose yours.”
She was crying softly.
“Your weakness disgusts me.”
I’d heard enough. They weren’t going to help Alec, and his dad was a monster.
I was sitting in the kitchen with freshly made coffee when Burgundy, Chrys and Carter all wandered in together. Their shared bedhead might have suggested recent debauchery, but their frowns and tense shoulders said otherwise.
“Did all of you sleep together last night?” I couldn’t help teasing.
Chrys turned the color of our living room couch. Carter laughed, deep and rich, and Burgundy tossed her hair without saying a word.
Maybe I had been right the first time.
“Well in that case, why don’t you all sit at the table and I’ll bring you some coffee.”
They did as they were told.
“What are you doing up so early and full of zest?” asked Burg, narrowing her eyes at me.
“Yes, well . . .” I joined them all at the table, cupping my coffee. “I went to the Wongs’ this morning.”
“Dammit Jared,” Burgundy shook her head.
“I overheard them talking and the bottom line is that his father refuses to do anything to save him.”
Burgundy moved behind me to knead my shoulders. “Whatever you need from us, we’re here.”
Chrys and Carter nodded.
“I need you to come with me to save Alec. No one else is going to.”
“We’re in,” said Carter.
“Do you know where he is?” asked Chrys.
“I don’t but I can track him so it won’t be a problem.”
“But won’t that take days?” asked Chrys. “I mean, you’d have to use your fox and then call us with an address. I could easily scry.”
I did not want them to help any more than they had to, but she was right. I nodded.
Chrys fetched her crystal ball, then placed it in the divot on our wooden table. She leaned in and passed her hand over it, focusing and chanting. “Show me Alec Wong, Alec Wong, Alec Wong.”
We all leaned over her shoulder but the crystal remained clear.
She sighed. “I’ll have to cast a circle first.”
I fetched the necessary items and we all stood back while she lit the candles and went through the incantations, drawing in the guardians of all four directions.
When she passed her hand over it again, a dense fog filled the globe. When it cleared, I could make out a blue-paneled house. A house number was just visible on the curb.
“Where is that?” My voice was shaking.
“Hold on a sec,” she said. “Show me the location.” She passed her hand over it again and a street sign appeared.
“Great work, Chrys. Can we see inside?” I pushed.
“Show me Alec.” She passed her hand over it a third time. This time when it cleared, Alec appeared, tied to a filthy mattress. He was asleep but looked dirty and sick.
The pit of my stomach grew warm, and heat rose up until my chest ached. “Those animals,” I seethed, unable to control myself. “Fuckers.”
Chrys’s hands flew up in a singular motion, the candles extinguished and the crystal cleared.
“What happened?” I cried.
“Calm down, Jared.” Carter moved toward me, his hands held claw-like in front of him.
“I can’t,” I raged, looking for something to throw through the window. I settled on a glass candleholder, grabbing it and hurling it through the air without thinking.
The girls ducked as it sailed through the air, smashing against the far wall. Immediately I regretted my decision.
“It wasn’t enough to break the circle with your anger, you had to break my candleholder too?” Chrys said.
“Shit.” I collapsed on the couch. “I’m
sorry.”
“Here.” Burgundy held a glass of water out and Chrys moved to sit next to me but Carter intervened with lightning speed, sitting between us on the couch and knocking the glass out of Burgundy’s hand.
“Geez, why don’t you all just destroy my house?” she said, going to the kitchen for a towel.
“Sorry, Burg, Jared freaked me out.” He turned to Chrys and touched her cheek. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Not worried.” She pointed to her amulet.
All the Holt sisters wore one and it protected them from harm. I’d seen it at work; evil slipped off of it like Teflon. Too bad it only worked on witches.
I took several deep breaths and closed my eyes. “I’m fine now, everyone. Can I ask Chrys a question?” I said to Carter.
“You can but I’m not budging.” He kept his eyes trained on me.
“So do you think your mother would know of another spell to push out the Trackers?”
She cocked her head. “Well, we think the spell the Founders cast must have failed because the Trackers found a witch to break it.”
“We need one that another witch won’t be able to break,” Burgundy chimed in. “Yes?”
“Exactly.” I nodded. “One that can’t be broken by anyone except the original witch, or witches, that cast it.”
Chrys stood up, brushing her hands over her face. “Interesting. We’d have to ask her, and I don’t think that I should be the one to do that. I’ll call Iphi.”
I’ll admit, the thought of having to save Alec from the demented Trackers worried me less than facing Chrys’s mother.
Chapter Eighteen
In less than an hour everyone was on board for the “save Alec” plan, more or less. I wanted to run in there with powers blazing but they talked me into waiting until it was dark. To me, this did not bode well. I wanted to make an excuse and sneak out to save him myself but I needed them. Otherwise, I’d end up on the filthy mattress next to his, or worse.
“How are we going to kill this day?” I complained to Burgundy.
“Why don’t you go help Sadie with her landscaping job?”
“Not what I wanted to hear,” I grumbled.
Burg was sitting on the couch, painting her toenails. Her long dark legs were perched on a sheet she’d placed atop the coffee table. She looked up, batting her lashes at me. “I can think of a few other ways to pass the time. You can do me or go pick up a twink at the club.”
I snorted. “The last thing I want to do.”
“Go help Sadie then.” She took out her phone and dialed. I slunk into the kitchen, hoping she was calling anyone else. I did not want to do anything that didn’t involve saving my shifter. A minute later, my own phone rang. Sadie.
“I’ll help you if you help me,” she said when I answered.
“You were gonna help me anyway.”
“You want out of the V, you want to help Alec, and there’s nothing you can do right now.”
“I can sleep.”
“I’ll text you the address. Get your ass in your car and come help.” She hung up.
Burgundy was waving a magazine over her lacquered toenails when I peeked my head back into the living room. “Fuck you very much, Burg.”
“Love you too, sweetie.” She blew me a kiss.
Grumbling to myself, I headed out to the address Sadie had texted me. Of course it was in the nicest part of town, high on the hill above us. The streets were narrow, only room for one car, so anyone driving down the hill had to pull over and yield. I was rounding a corner when a white truck came speeding toward me. I threw on my horn. He stopped in front of me, blocking the entire road.
“Back up,” I said, motioning to him with a hand.
He shrugged his shoulders, which I took to indicate that he couldn’t figure out how to back up his huge truck. Great. Another brainless transplant. He pointed at me and motioned to a driveway on my right. The last thing I wanted to do was comply with this jerk but I had to keep my wits about me, try and get through the day. So I pulled into the driveway, mouthing asshole. He moved his truck forward, parking behind me and blocking me in. Then he got out of his car and came up to my window.
“What the fuck did you just call me, pussy?” The guy was big. Like wrestler big.
I rolled my window down a crack. “I called you an asshole because I had the right of way and now you’re bullying me, so you are definitely an asshole.”
“Get out of your toy car and say that to my face, fruit.” He was red and spitting at me.
But I was angrier. This man represented all the homophobic hatred I had endured my entire life. I opened my car door and he pulled it open the rest of the way, grabbing me by my collar at the same time and slamming me against the side of my car. The punch was expected. In the second it took me to register that it was indeed a sucker punch, I had grabbed his balls, squeezed, twisted and pulled—right through those white overalls.
He let go of me and doubled over in pain, holding his sack and howling.
“That’s what being a fruit’ll getcha—we know where your balls are, motherfucker,” I snarled at him. And while he was doubled over, I took my aggression out on him. A voice in my head, almost lost in the storm of rage, kept insisting this was a bad idea, but dammit, this guy was a bully and a prejudiced prick.
“Stop,” he screamed. “Please stop.”
He was the kind of guy to yell stop and then get up and slam my head into my car, so I kept going. Growing up, I’d not only been picked on, I’d had to fight. A lot. And when I’d gotten tired of losing, I’d learned to fight dirty. Still, it had been years since I’d had to stick up for myself this way. Though I hated violence, this time, my anger felt cathartic. Probably falsely so.
When the guy was in too much pain to try and come after me, I leapt into his truck and drove it into the next driveway. By the time I got back to my car, he was staggering to his feet, bloodied and swaying, hate written all over his entire body. He must have scratched his face on the driveway because I had been careful not to hit him there.
“I’m going to kill you, faggot,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Take a fucking number,” I barked and tossed him his keys.
I jumped back in my mini, backed out and continued up the hill.
Obviously, I was late to Sadie’s job. I parked behind her brand new truck, Sadie’s Designs stenciled brightly on the side. I let myself in through the back gate. Sadie was bent over an area in the yard cordoned off with pieces of wood, maybe for a planter.
“Heya,” I called out.
“Jared,” she exclaimed, running over to hug me. Then she took a step back. “What happened to you?”
I looked down at my jeans and T-shirt, embellished with the man’s blood. “It’s not mine. Long story. Tell ya later.”
“Should I be worried?”
“For the other guy, probably,” I said and she grinned, obviously thinking I was joking.
“Hey, guys, this is my friend Jared. He’s going to help us today. Jared, this is Pablo and his crew.” Sadie motioned to a large man who was digging with some others off to the side.
“Hola amigo, welcome,” Pablo called out.
“Pablo and a few of his men are prepping that area for the deck and I’m working on the vegetable garden.”
“Nice. That’s a big crew. How are you paying those guys?” I asked, inclining my head toward Pablo and his men.
“Burgundy gave me a loan to start the business. I used it to buy the materials, put a down payment on the truck and pay their rates.”
“Did she use all her savings?”
“Most of it, yes, but I’ll pay her back.”
“I know you will.” Blueprints were spread out on a small card table. I jutted my chin toward them. “Impressive.”
“Thanks. A landscape architect at school drew it up for me for free so he can use this in his portfolio.”
“How much money will you make on this?”
“Nothing. The owne
rs are responsible for material costs.”
“That’s not a good business model.”
“It’s not sustainable, no, but it’s what’s suggested for students to assemble their portfolios.” She shrugged.
A few hours later I knew this was not the vocation for me. The work itself was backbreaking and although I was gym fit, I was not manual-labor fit. But Sadie was in her element, which was a refreshing and happy sight. Plus, all the heavy lifting didn’t leave me much time to think about my troubles.
We worked through lunch, which, in retrospect, was not the best choice but Pablo kept pushing his crew. There was a deadline to meet. If Sadie kept everything on schedule, it would earn her references and she needed that.
At around four o’clock, right before quitting time, one of the younger men, Mateo, was carrying a large piece of redwood by himself. Things were going so well that we were already laying out the deck and Mateo thought he could handle this piece. He collapsed, yelping in a heap, before he reached us.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and ran over to him. He was lying flat on his back, his eyes pressed tightly closed, his face scrunched.
“Don’t touch him,” Sadie yelled. “I’ll call Ryder.” She moved aside to place the call, and I crouched by Ian.
“Does it hurt to breath?” I asked.
“No,” he said through a clenched jaw.
“Can you move your fingers and toes?”
“Yesss.” His voice was thin.
“Can you turn your head?”
He tried to look to his left and yelped. “No,” he moaned.
I touched the top of his head, palming his skull. There was nothing sticky and no dark spots on his hair or the area around him. Luckily, he had landed on the grass. I remembered my old anatomy teacher telling me about a man who’d fallen on concrete and kept talking and said he was fine, so bystanders had tried to lift him up. But unbeknownst to everyone, he had smashed his skull, and when they lifted him, the back of his cranium remained on the ground and his brain fell out. It was probably an urban legend my teacher had told the class to keep squirrely teenage butts in their chairs, but I touched the back of Mateo’s skull just to be sure. With his head cradled in my hands, my fingers started palpating the top of his vertebrae. I had no idea what I was doing, but my fingers did. I let go of all thought, letting intuition guide my prodding fingers. Calm settled over me, like I had reached the eye inside a tornado, the place where everything stood still while massive havoc and devastation were wrought just past the line of sight.
