Tempest

by Laura Marie

  The officer opened the door for us, and we climbed into the car. Like a gentleman, Reece let me go first. Who said chivalry was dead? Even in cuffs, it was flattering.

  When we arrived at the station, it was crawling with human officers. Why were they all awake? What had the police officers so active? They were usually half-dead. If they had been this active when Maggie had been taken, maybe she would still have been alive.

  The officer took us to the front desk and handed us over to a younger officer who looked like she was out of her depth here at the station. She found out our names and called our parents. I could hear Reece’s stepdad shouting at her over the receiver all the way from where I was standing.

  When she called my mom, I couldn’t tell what was being said. Whatever it was, I was sure the storm would hit when they finally arrived.

  “Here,” the officer behind the desk said, holding up a key and nodding to our cuffs. “Your parents don’t need to see those pretty bracelets.”

  Pretty bracelets? Cute.

  When the cuffs were off, Reece rubbed his wrists before stepping to a row of chairs against the wall. I followed him and sat down.

  “So, what brings you here?” I asked him.

  He chuckled. “Same old. Trespassing.”

  “Really?” I asked him.

  Reece shrugged. “I’m a wolf.” He said it as if that would answer my question. It didn’t.

  My mom was the first to storm through the door, with Victor in tow.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” she shouted so the whole station could hear her. “I thought you were in bed. Can you imagine what it’s like to get a call that my daughter is in prison?”

  “It’s not prison, mom,” I said. “And imagine what it’s like to actually be here.”

  “Don’t get smart with me,” my mom snapped.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Reece smiling.

  “This better not be the friend from school that came by the house earlier,” she said, pointing at Reece.

  I shook my head. “That friend would never do this.”

  My mom didn’t look like she believed me. Reece was still smiling, and I fought the urge to smile, too. But that would mean certain death, judging by my mom’s look.

  “We’re leaving, now,” my mom said. Victor hadn’t said a word since they had arrived.

  I looked at Reece.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ll be out soon, too.”

  I nodded and waved at him before we walked out of the door. When I sat in the back of my mom’s car, she started again. I zoned out instead of listening. It was bad that she had had to pick me up from the police station and that she was shouting at me and had humiliated me in front of Reece and all the officers.

  But I had other things on my mind. Like that we hadn’t been able to prove Chloe’s innocence tonight, that she might still be the killer.

  “Emily!” my mom snapped, twisted in her seat to yell at me while Victor drove. “You’re not even listening to me!”

  “Sorry,” I said, even though I wasn’t sorry at all.

  “It goes without saying that you’re grounded.”

  Right. Perfect.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I went to Chloe before school. It was the only time I could get out of the house to see her now that I was grounded.

  My mom had decided that stopping me from going anywhere, even the library for assignments or Pebble Beach to practice my magic, wasn’t allowed as a punishment for trespassing on a crime scene.

  She had never asked what I had been doing there. I would have lied about it if she’d asked me, but that wasn’t the point. I had thought she would care about that, wonder what I was up to.

  But my mom was all caught up in Victor lately, and it felt like our issues were more of a hindrance to her rather than that her daughter might have real problems.

  I had left the house earlier to see Chloe first. My mom had already left for work, but Victor had still been home. At least, he had been asleep. No doubt, he would have offered to drive me to school or something. He desperately wanted to be friends with me.

  That wasn’t going to happen.

  At least, with him still asleep, he wouldn’t have known what time I’d left. Maybe my mom had hoped he would be my jailer or something. But Victor was far too serious about being my friend to get on my bad side. I was banking on that for when I needed it.

  Who knew it could be a good thing that he was in my life? Go figure.

  When I arrived at the abandoned house, the air was crisp, and a light breeze swept through the dried grass on the dunes. The sun wasn’t too bright, but it made everything look colorful.

  I pushed open the wooden door.

  “It’s me,” I called out the way I usually did.

  I was sure Chloe would already be awake. She didn’t sleep at night anymore, as far as I could tell. Maybe she was scared that she would black out if she put her head down to sleep.

  “Chloe?” I called again when she didn’t appear after my initial greeting. I looked through the rooms on the ground floor, searching for her. There were small bits of proof everywhere that she’d been staying here now; a crumpled chip packet on one of the counters, an empty water bottle on the floor near the toilet.

  I walked to the staircase and hesitated. The stairs looked awful. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go up there. But Chloe had been moving up and down these stairs for days now, and it hadn’t been a big deal. She was still alive.

  At least, I hoped. I was scared that something was wrong. I had to go up there and find her. What if she was out cold, what if something had happened to her?

  Fear clutched at my heart, and I swallowed hard, putting my foot on the first step.

  I moved slowly up, step by step. The house groaned and complained around me, and it felt like the steps shuddered as I moved higher and higher. I prayed that I wouldn’t fall through the stairs and hurt myself.

  No one knew I was here. If something happened to me, I was screwed.

  I made it to the first floor without incident and let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

  I looked around. The wooden floors, the same as the ground floor, we're just as silvered. The paint on the walls had started peeling, and one of the windows upstairs had to be knocked out, judging by the cold wind that whipped around the first floor.

  “Chloe?” I asked, walking again from room to room. The rooms had all been bedrooms once. One of them had an old dresser in it, with a fractured mirror. I wondered when the mirror had broken, and how.

  I found the room Chloe had been staying in. A sleeping bag? had been rolled open on the floor, and her bag was half-open, with clothes hanging out like it had been gutted. Her magic was thick in the room, a clear indication that she slept here if the other things weren’t enough proof.

  But Chloe was nowhere to be found. I had been worried that something had happened to her, but now I was starting to worry that it was more serious than that. That she had run again and not told me where she had gone this time.

  I doubted the vampires would have found her here.

  Fear clawed at me, creating a block of ice in my stomach. What if something serious was wrong? What if she was never coming back? I had to believe that this wasn’t the case, but I was terrified for her sake.

  I couldn’t stay here much longer. I had to get to school. I was late as it was.

  The trip down the stairs was as scary as coming up, but I made it out of the house in one piece and ran for the bus stop, hoping I could catch one to take me to school.

  When I finally arrived at school, chaos reigned. I had been preparing a speech on the bus, an excuse for why I was late. But it didn’t matter now, no one was in class anyway. The receptionists in the office were all on the phones and teachers moved through the hallways looking panicked or angry or both.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Reece when I spotted him. He stood with his football friends.

  �
�There have been more kills,” he said.

  “Kills?” I asked, “Plural?”

  Reece nodded. “Three of them. Just this morning.”

  Shit.

  “Tell me you talked to Chloe,” he said.

  I shook my head, my stomach sinking. “She wasn’t at the house when I went to see her. She’s gone, Reece.”

  He blanched when I said it. This was bad news. Very bad news. What if the kills really had been her? It looked like it was, more and more. I looked at Reece, and his face was somber. I didn’t have to tell him what I was thinking.

  We thought the same.

  “What now?” I asked in a whisper.

  Reece shook his head. His face was blank now. As if he had checked out emotionally. A bell rang.

  “Now we go to class,” he said and turned away from me.

  I hated that it was how he had responded. There was a sense of defeat and carrying on with life as usual. But he had been right, of course. There was nothing else to be done about it. If it really was Chloe committing the murders, there was nothing we could do about it. Who were we, other than a couple of kids who had hoped reality to be different?

  If she was really gone, I couldn’t bring her back any more than Reece could.

  I walked to class in a daze. The students moved around me in slow motion, and I felt like I was looking at myself and my surroundings from somewhere far away.

  Where was Chloe? How could she have left without telling me?

  What if it was true, she really was the killer?

  I didn’t want to believe it, but it was starting to look worse and worse, and we would have to move on with our lives at some point, no matter what the truth was.

  I hoped that it wasn’t true that Chloe had done this, but I didn’t know what to believe anymore. Dmitri had come to my house, and I had been sure that he’d only tried to contaminate the way I thought about Chloe.

  But what if he was right?

  I didn’t want to believe that snake had any foot to stand on when it came to Chloe, but he was the Master Vampire of the Safety Beach vampires, and he knew them. He always knew what vampires had been, being the last to come over from the Old Country.

  Which meant that there was a chance that he was actually right.

  I didn’t want to think about it anymore. When I walked into class, I focused on the lessons. I furiously took notes, put up my hand to answer questions, and I took every spare moment to do my homework in bits and pieces or to start on assignments. Anything to stop me from thinking.

  The weather outside was changing. Slowly, clouds gathered and the sky grew darker and darker. Thunder rumbled, and I knew it was me. It was my magic that was getting out of hand because I was so upset.

  What made matters worse was that, in every class, I missed Chloe. I missed being able to turn to her with something that bugged me. If this hadn’t been about her, it would have been the exact thing I would have talked to her about.

  But I couldn’t, because Chloe was gone. And she had taken the lives of other people with her before she had left.

  No, I told myself. It wasn’t true.

  But that statement was getting harder and harder to believe.

  When it was time for lunch, I wanted to run away and hide. I always sat with Chloe during lunch. It was a stark reminder that she was gone.

  Reece came to find me in the line at the cafeteria.

  “Do you want to sit with us?” he asked, nodding toward the football players that all sat on top of one of the tables as if the chairs were meant to be footstools. I nodded. Reece was nice. He knew I must have been going through hell and that I didn’t want to sit at Chloe’s and my spot alone.

  I followed him to the table, and the football players whistled.

  “She’s just a friend,” Reece said, and even though they still tried to bug him about it, Reece ignored them. He was pretty stable, and it was nice to know that I had someone, at least.

  I ate in silence, listening to the football players’ banter. They seemed to be a great group of friends. Two of them – Zephyr and Corona – werewolves, too. I could see it in their eyes, their wolves trembling underneath their skins.

  Strangely, I felt at home. Reece had never really been my friend. We knew each other and got along, but Chloe had been our common denominator. Now, it was just Reece and me, and it turned out he was a solid guy.

  I was lucky that we had become friends during all of this.

  After lunch, I picked up my bag, thanked the guys for letting me join them, and walked away. Not long after, Reece caught up with me.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I shook my head. I was far from okay.

  “Yeah, me either,” he said. “I’m so pissed at her.”

  I blinked at him. I was sad, but Reece was furious.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because she knows better. I thought… she was different.”

  He sighed, and beneath the rage, I saw the look of defeat.

  “Yeah,” I said softly. “Me too.”

  “Look, if you want to hang out with us again tomorrow, you can,” Reece said. He sounded snappy, but he was offering me a place to belong.

  “I’d like that,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Reece said and stormed away from me.

  He was off with me, but I knew why. He had lost so much more than I had. Chloe was my best friend, but she’d been so much more to Reece; a good friend for years, and I was sure she’d been some kind of love interest.

  Whatever she had been to both of us, she was a point of despair now.

  And we were all pretty torn up about it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The weather did not get better. In fact, it got worse. I knew it was my fault. Either it was my magic spinning out of control because of how upset I was, or I had somehow ripped a hole in the witches’ weather cloak.

  Whatever it was, gale force winds ripped through the little town. The ocean was so wild no one could go to the beach, even if they wanted to, with these winds. And lightning danced across the sky every now and then, threatening to zap someone or something.

  In any other situation I might have been proud of the reach of my magic, the fact that I was getting this strong. But I was pissed off or depressed, or a healthy mixture of both.

  After school the second day after Chloe’s disappearance, I got a call from Calder.

  “You haven’t been to the coven in a while,” he said.

  “I didn’t think you wanted me.”

  Even if I had had time to go, the coven was the last thing on my mind right now.

  “Come on, E. Don’t be like this.”

  E. If I weren’t in such a bad mood, I would have thought the different nickname was cute. But Calder hadn’t exactly stood up for me when I had needed him to. He hadn’t turned against me, but being in the middle without choosing sides was a little more pathetic, even.

  “Do you want to tell me what’s going on? The forecast said we would have a clear, sunny day.”

  “Not really,” I said, answering his question. “I can’t help what’s happening.” The statement was loaded with double meaning.

  “You should come to the coven. We can help you.”

  “You mean you can show me how to suppress who I am.”

  Calder sighed. “Don’t be like this, E. The coven only wants to look out for you. We know so much more about magic. It’s not a bad thing to listen to your elders sometimes.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Of course, it’s normal for your elders to shun you. What makes you think I feel welcome at the coven anymore? Everyone is making it look like I’m a freak.”

  Calder started to say something, to defend the coven, but I wasn’t in the mood. I was already in a shitty place. I didn’t need him, of all people, to preach to me.

  “I appreciate you calling, Calder,” I said, cutting him off. “But I don’t think I’m coming back to the coven. I trust you’ll tell Mirta for me. I k
now I’m a constant topic of conversation.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “No? Did you decide by yourself to call me and tell me to stop my magic?”

  He didn’t answer that. I knew it.

  “Just turn to someone who is willing to help you, okay?” Calder said. “Mirta is still the High Priestess who had come to fetch you, asking you to join the coven. Talk to her, if nothing else.”

  “Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  I hung up the phone before he could say something in return. I took a deep breath and swore under my breath.

  But maybe he was right. If nothing else, Mirta could give me advice about what to do with this new magic that was getting out of control. I was starting to realize that my powers had a lot to do with my emotions. Anger brought fire. Sadness brought storms? What else could I do?

  I dialed Mirta’s number against my better judgment.

  “We haven’t heard from you in a while,” Mirta said when she answered the phone.

  “Yeah, I’ve been struggling with…personal issues.”

  “I can tell,” Mirta said. Right, the weather.

  “Will you come over and help me?” I asked.

  Mirta agreed to come to the house and see me. My mom was still at work and Victor, thankfully, had crawled back into his hole for a while.

  It didn’t take very long before Mirta arrived. I let her in and offered her coffee the way my mom always did. When she only asked for a glass of water, I ran to the kitchen and took it to her.

  I sat down on the couch opposite Mirta and cleared my throat.

  “I need you to help me find Chloe,” I said.

  Mirta looked at me with a frown. “Excuse me?”

  “I know you think I called you here about my magic, the weather and all that. But I don’t care about that. I need you to help me find Chloe with a locator spell or something. I know you can do that. I need to find her before the vampires do.”

  Mirta narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re asking me to help you find a rogue vampire?”

  I rolled my eyes. I was almost sure Chloe was the killer now, but that didn’t give Mirta the right to call her any kinds of names. I still cared for Chloe. I still believed she could be helped.