The boy’s face is so young. So innocent. His expression is blank, though, and it doesn’t change. “I know.”
I cup my hand tighter over Abby’s wound. The boy moves forward. “Don’t do it.”
“Are you going to stop me?”
His gaze falls to the ground, and then he slowly looks back up. “Me? No. I can’t stop anyone. Not yet. Not until the curse finally takes me too.”
My eyes immediately narrow at him, and that’s when I see the resemblance. It’s faint, but it’s there. This young boy, who suddenly looks as scared as I feel, reminds me of Roux Bessette. “You’re Talbot. The youngest brother.”
He doesn’t acknowledge what I said, but he also doesn’t deny it. I know I’m right. I press my hand tighter to Abby. I faintly feel the wound start to heal, but it isn’t enough. I need to distract him. “Where’s your brother? At least, the one who is still alive?”
Talbot’s jaw clenches. “He’s here. He’s waiting for you.”
I’ve managed to stop the bleeding, but I can’t fully heal Abby’s wound without making Talbot realize what I’m doing.
Reid? Where are you? We need you out here now!
“Why are helping him?”
Talbot laughs. “Like I have a choice? You saw the bloody nose I had on Halloween. That was courtesy of my wonderful big brother. A gentle reminder to do my job.”
“What were you supposed to do?”
Talbot’s head drops down, his blond hair falling in his eyes. “To get you here. Preferably alone.”
I look back at Grady, and he’s plastered against the wall like he’s hoping Talbot might forget he’s there. I roll my eyes. I might as well be alone. I need to heal Abby. I need my Sun.
Hurry! Talbot is here.
“Well, you got me here. Now what? Where is your big brother, huh? The one with no name.” I press my hand to Abby’s head, not caring whether Talbot sees me, and I surge as much power into her as I can manage.
“I told you not to do that.” Talbot takes a slow step backward. “I told you he was here.”
A hand grips around my throat, and the air to my lungs immediately cuts off. My hands clasp around his fingers, but I can’t pry them away.
I’m pulled to my feet. Up onto my tiptoes. My head starts to go light. I need air, and I need it now. It doesn’t come. Instead, cold, callous lips touch my ear. “I have a name.”
I glance back, and all I can see is the tuft of blond curls. I recognize the voice, though.
Grady. The other brother is Grady!
I squirm and try to wrestle myself free, but it’s no use. The frightened, cowardly Grady has been a lie. A theatrical production to trick us. I see Talbot bounce on his heels in the corner. “I don’t see why you have to kill her. We have the book.”
“She knows our secret. She wouldn’t have stopped until she figured out my name. Killing her is the only way to stop it.”
I sink my nails into his fingers and send a blast of electricity through his skin. He drops his hand away from me, and I fall to the ground. It’s long enough for me gasp in air. He grabs my hair, jerking my head back. “You’re wrong!” I suck in air as fast as possible. “It won’t end with me. Someone else knows your secret now.”
Grady jerks me around, laughing. He latches his hands back around my throat and pulls a knife out of his back pocket. “Who?”
“My Sun.”
He places the blade at my chin, his smile slow. “You don’t have a Sun.”
The building starts to shake. The wood trembles and vibrates, and the tin roof bounces. I smile back at him. “Wrong again.”
The door behind us rips off its hinges. The tin above us flies off as if being sucked up by a very large and powerful tornado. An angry Reidish tornado.
The wooden walls start to split down the middle. Wind swirls around us. Talbot backs away. When the boards of the back wall fly away, Talbot takes off at a dead sprint into the forest. Grady jerks me around, holding me steady as the wind threatens to uproot us as well. Reid stands in the clearing, the green glow of his eyes almost completely white as the world around us strains under his bidding without him lifting a single finger.
Reid saunters forward a few steps, his voice angry. “Let them go, Grady. It’s over for you.”
Reid glances over at Lyric, who stands next to him. “Go track down the younger one. Bring him back alive.”
Lyric nods. Of course he nods. No one would refute Reid right now. At least not anyone sane. Grady shoves the knife to my throat. “You? You’re Willa’s Sun? Now, doesn’t that sound like something you should have told your best friend?”
“I had my reasons.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected someone, but not you. Not my best friend.”
Grady smiles. “You’ve always been clever. Unfortunately, not clever enough to save her.”
“Killing Willa won’t keep your secret now. Too many people know.”
“Maybe so. Maybe my secret is out, but without your leader and your book, you can’t stop us. The Haunted will live forever.”
A loud thud erupts behind me, and suddenly Grady goes limp. His hold on me releases, the knife dropping from his hand. He falls to the ground in front of me. I whip around to see Abby, weak on her feet, one eye swollen half shut beneath the open cut on her forehead that I wasn’t able to completely heal. Abby stumbles up to peer down at Grady’s unconscious figure as Reid lets the winds around us die down. Abby scowls at him. “That was me breaking up with you.” Abby grabs the knife off the ground and points at him. “And this is for lying to me. For telling your brother when Katherine left Sanctuary. For telling him when Willa was alone.” Tears spill over. “Zeke should have never been on that rooftop. Julien should have never had to choose Willa’s life over his own. Your betrayal caused it all.”
She lunges at him, vengeance and pain eating her alive. I grab her. “No, Abby. You can’t kill him.”
“I will. I have to.”
Reid rushes forward and helps me hold her back. “You can’t kill him Abby. Lyric is out there with Talbot right now. Do you want to unleash him on Lyric unexpectedly?”
“We need Talbot,” I say, holding her tight, my grip turning into a hug. “We still need to find my book.”
Abby drops the knife, her tears turning into sobs, and the sobs slowly transform into screaming pain. Her boyfriend, the guy she’d been in love with since she was a child, wasn’t just gone. He never actually existed at all. He’d been one of the Haunted all along. Grady was like Francois and Roux. Their evil existed deep inside of them, masked by the outside façade. Lyric said no one would have ever known his father or Roux were evil unless you knew about what they did behind closed doors. I still couldn’t believe Grady was the same. Our Grady a monster too.
Chapter 18
THE FINAL SAY
We approach the circle silently. Reid and I drag Grady along for the ride. We let Abby give him one good hit to the head to make sure he didn’t wake up until we could get him confined somewhere. Sadie scrambles to her feet when she spots us. “What happened?”
Reid tugs Grady the final four feet. “We’ll get to that in a minute. How is our prisoner? Has the Change completed?”
Julien stands up, his legs wobbly as he tries to find his balance. “Yes.”
Reid glares at him. “I didn’t ask you.”
He looks back to Sadie and she sighs. “He took another screaming spell, and almost passed out. At first I thought he was dead, and I freaked out, but slowly he came back around. I think it was the end. I think the monster is gone.”
Reid eyes Julien again. “We’ll see about that.”
Reid stalks over to the circle, standing in front of Julien to block his view of me. “If I let you out of here, do you promise to behave yourself?”
Julien glares at him. “Define behave.”
It was definitely something his alter ego would say, but I can tell by the tone of his voice that it is still my Julien. He’s j
ust aggravated.
“Behave, as in keep your hands off my girlfriend.”
Julien steps to the side so he can look directly at me. “Girlfriend?”
“Answer the question.”
Julien grits his teeth, but then turns back to Reid, his eyes narrowing. They don’t fade to black, though. “Fine. I’ll keep my hands off of her.” Then he steps up closer, as close to Reid as the circle will allow him. “I can’t promise you her hands will stay off me.”
Reid steps back, the muscles in his arm tight. “The monster is gone. Let the bastard out.”
The flames around the circle vanish, and Julien very cautiously steps out. Reid points his finger at him. “I’ll deal with you later.”
Reid stalks over and grabs Grady’s arm. He drags him to the circle’s edge, and shoves Grady into it. The flames flash back up like it knows evil has come back to it. Reid turns around and dusts off his hands. “Lyric. Bring the other one.”
Lyric comes up over the hill carrying Talbot over his shoulder. He throws him down on the ground in front of us. Talbot immediately throws his hands up in surrender. “I won’t hurt anyone.”
Reid looms over him. “Where is the book, Talbot?”
Talbot’s gaze darts away. “I don’t know.”
Reid kicks him. “Your family stole it. We’ve killed one brother for it. We have another captured, and now we have you. You’re running out of brothers to protect you. Tell me where it’s hidden.”
Talbot starts to shake all over, his voice rising. “I told you I don’t know. I don’t have it.”
Julien groans in the background. “You’re doing it all wrong, Thomas.”
Reid glares over his shoulder at Julien. “You think you can do better, Cote?”
Julien rolls his eyes. “Let me have him.”
Reid steps back. “Go ahead.”
Talbot stares at Julien. “You’re a Cote?”
Julien smirks and walks over to take the knife Abby still holds in her hand. “Do you mind if I borrow this?”
Abby nods, and then Julien turns back to Talbot. “I am. That’s my little brother there who I assume captured you. So, let me make this nice and clear to you. I’m the Cote now. My father, who I’m sure you met in Charleston at some point, is dead. I killed him myself.”
Talbot swallows loudly. Julien twirls the knife around in his hand, and suddenly my side hurts. There’s a sharp pain and an image of cold eyes looming over me. I take a step back, but Reid immediately grabs my hand.
It’s okay. I’m here. He’ll never hurt you again.
Talbot eyes the knife. “Are you going to torture me?”
Julien laughs. “Torture? No, young Bessette, you deserve something much worse than torture.”
He glances over his shoulder at Grady who still lies unconscious on the ground. “Is that your big brother?”
Talbot doesn’t answer.
“You’ve got thirty seconds to tell Mr. Grumpy Pants there where Willa’s book is hidden.” He looks around. “Who has a watch?”
Sadie holds up her hand and Julien smiles. “Good. Start the countdown now.”
“And what if I don’t tell him?”
“Then I’m going to take this knife and send it through your big brother’s heart.” Julien’s eyes narrow. “If I know anything, it’s the fear in your heart at becoming one of us. Take it from me, little Bessette. You don’t want to become him.”
“You can’t kill him.” Talbot’s voice panics. “You’ll never find the book without me.”
Julien shrugs. “That’s the thing, though. I’m one of the Haunted. I don’t need reasons. I kill just to kill. I like it.”
“Ten seconds,” Sadie says, looking at Talbot.
Julien backs toward the circle, flipping the knife effortlessly around in his hand. He doesn’t even look at Talbot again. He pulls Grady’s shoulder over, until he’s face up. He straddles him, grasping the knife with both hands directly over Grady’s face. He smiles and pulls back before heaving the knife as hard he can toward Grady unsuspecting heart.
Talbot jumps forward frantically. “No! I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you.”
The knife sears the ground less than an inch away from Grady’s cheek. Julien stands up, pulling the knife out of the ground. “You’re lucky. If the Changing hadn’t completed, I wouldn’t have been able to stop.”
Talbot scurries to his feet. “Look. I’ll tell you where the book is, but you have to promise not to tell anyone I told you.”
Reid stares at him, not agreeing to anything. Talbot inches closer. “You don’t understand. We didn’t want to hand over the book. We didn’t have a choice.”
Reid’s stare grows harder. “Who has it?”
Talbot’s eyes go wide, fear overtaking him. “She’s crazy. She’ll kill us all if you go after it.”
Reid grabs Talbot’s shirt collar and jerks him forward. “I said who?”
“Erika Prescott.”
Reid’s fist immediately releases and he takes a giant step back as if Talbot caught fire. Abby moves in front of him. “Erika is back?”
“Yes. Maybe a month? She showed up one night and demanded Grady give her the Book of the Moon. Grady made the mistake of telling her no.” Talbot moved closer to Reid, his trembling hands balling into a fist at his chest as he willed Reid to believe him. “You don’t tell Erika Prescott no.”
“Reid.” I say it loud enough to catch his attention. His gaze drops to the ground.
I know. I won’t let her hurt you.
It isn’t me I’m worried about.
His gaze darts over to me, and I know he can tell I’m serious. Erika loved him. He’s the one who turned her down. He will be the one she wants to destroy. Julien steps into the line of vision between us. “I’m sorry, am I missing something here?”
Hatred, anger, and…jealousy? It flushes through me, but it isn’t my own. It’s Reid. He doesn’t even realize he’s sending me all those things.
I step up to answer him. “Zeke’s little sister Erika has the Prescotts’ curse now. She wanted it. When she heard about her brother’s death, rumor has it she killed her father herself so it would pass to her. She’s a little crazy.”
“Sort of like you were when you changed,” Reid says, shooting Julien a dirty look.
That’s when it clicked. The difference between Julien and Grady. The reason why Grady, Francois, and Roux could hide their evil, while Julien, and mostly likely Erika, can’t. Julien killed his father with his owns hands. Erika the same. They chose to take on the curse. They chose it for different reasons, but it still makes sense. Choosing that kind of life left a mark.
Reid grabs Talbot and shoves him forward. “Let’s go tell Mom and Jade what’s happened.”
We start following him down the hillside, and I find Julien beside me. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, but he uses his elbow to lean over and nudge me. “You okay?”
My brow raises, surprised by his sincerity, especially after our last conversation. He smiles at me. It’s his old smile. The same one he gave me when I met him for our first date when he appeared out of nowhere holding two sticks of cotton candy.
“Just because I’m mad at you,” he says whispering between us, “doesn’t mean I can stop loving you.”
Reid’s gaze immediately whips around and glares at him. Julien pulls his hands out of his pockets and holds them in the air. “What? My hands didn’t touch her.”
I sigh deeply. This isn’t going to be awkward at all.
***
The late evening brings a calm quiet to the hollow. The chill of a looming winter calls me to go dig out my heavy coat. Mostly I want to escape the brewing tension. I rifle through my closet until I find the one I want. I take my time putting it on, stepping to the door to listen to the voices circling downstairs. A plan is being formulated, and I know I should be a part of it, but I can’t leave the safety of my bedroom. In this bedroom everything is still okay.
Today was too close. Grady cou
ld have killed Abby. I might not ever have been able to hear the long cadence of her laugh, or sit out back on the steps of the porch and talk until the moon goes to sleep on us.
“Hey.” I turn around, and it’s her. Her long brown hair is in a tight braid down her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Why do people keep asking me that?
I rush to her and throw my arms around her and squeeze her tight. Thank goodness this is still an option. “Don’t worry about me. How are you? Did your mom finish healing your head?”
I pull back long enough to see, and sure enough, the wound is gone entirely. There isn’t even a scar. She rubs my shoulder with her thumb. “Physically, I’m fine.”
“I am so sorry about Grady.”
Abby attempts a smile, but it comes out all crooked and gruesome. Tears glisten in her eyes. “Me too.” She cups her hand over her mouth to keep from crying. “I still can’t believe it. Some part of me still thinks he’s running late again, and he’ll be here in a few minutes ready to take on the world with us.”
“I know. I can’t believe he was able to conceal that he transformed that night in Charleston from us. Julien transformed, and he immediately turned into this enraged, psychopathic killer.”
“You heard what Lyric said. His father was like that too. Calm and collected and chose to make small, calculated maneuvers to get what he wanted. Grady has been helping Roux spy on us since we were kids.”
Abby’s tears finally spill over. “I mean, my favorite story about Grady was how shocked he was when he found out I was one of the Innocent. It was all a lie. He knew who I was, and he sought me out.”
I pull her into my shoulder, holding her close as her words slowly turn into sobs. Sadie appears in the doorway, her hand clutched over her heart. “I wondered how long it would take for the shock to wear off.”
I hold my hand out to her, and she joins us. I hold them both tight, unwilling to let either of them go. Reid knocks on the door. I glance over my shoulder at him, and he grins. “Can I join too?”
Raven Ridge (Witches of Sanctuary Book 2) Page 16
