If she asked for the life of someone else in return … I couldn’t hurt anyone like that. It’s why I’d written the letters. I’d rather lose myself than hurt another creature. And I didn’t want to weigh my friends down with the possibility.
“What are you thinking about?” Brittany asked, and I looked over to find her frowning at me, her knuckles white against the steering wheel.
I sighed. “Everything at once,” I admitted.
“Sounds like way too much.”
“You’re telling me. I’ve been trying to shut my thoughts up for a while now, but they don’t want to listen.”
Brittany bit her lip as we made the turn into the school lot and parked her car. It whined as the wheel turned, and I remembered that Brittany said it was still damaged underneath from a stray bullet during the showdown at RJ’s. Apparently, CHAS had towed it back to town for her but hadn’t sprung for the repairs.
The car finally fell silent as Brittany cut the engine. Neither of us made a move to get out. “What are you thinking?” I asked.
“I was thinking …” She twisted in her seat to look at me and I knew immediately I wasn’t going to like whatever she said next. Her blue eyes were too big and sad. “Look, this might be the last chance I have to say this—”
“Do not talk like that, Britt,” I warned. “Today isn’t the last of anything. It’s just a day. And we’re just going to class.”
“I know, but I have to say this. Just listen, okay?”
I bit back the urge to jump from the car and run. I didn’t want to hear anything that sounded even remotely like a goodbye. It’s why I’d left Alex earlier with nothing more than a quick kiss and a wave. It’s why I hadn’t said a word yet about what they should all do if I failed tonight. Or about the letters I’d left behind for them all just in case. “Fine,” I ground out.
Brittany hesitated. “You should know … This… You and me… it has always been more than a mission to me. You’re the first real friend I’ve ever had.”
“Britt…”
“I mean it. You accept me just the way I am and you don’t talk down to me for it.”
I frowned. “Why would I talk down to you?”
She picked at the steering wheel, suddenly not meeting my eyes. “Our parents had high expectations of all of us. There was a pressure that, academically, I just didn’t live up to and they were—are—disappointed about that. It made them try harder with me, but all that meant was more school, more tutoring, more studying. And it never helped. I know my strengths and my weaknesses more than anyone. Coming here, being your friend, it’s the first time I’ve ever been accepted the way I am. The first time no one has ever tried to change me. I love you for that, Sam.”
Tears stung my eyes, and I reached over and hugged her—awkwardly, thanks to the wide space and the center console between us. “I love you too,” I said.
Brittany sniffled as she drew away. I smiled a watery smile.
“Britt, you have to know that you’re amazing. So smart and funny and fun and a kickass Hunter. I am honored to be your friend.”
“I freaking love you, girl. And not just for your awesome wardrobe,” she said, and I laughed.
I took her hand and squeezed and we both lost it. Tears streamed down both our cheeks, and I grinned through the sniffling. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” I joked.
“What are friends for, right?” Brittany joked back but the humor was lost underneath the tears.
I sniffled again, trying to get myself under control as I checked the time on my phone. I held it up for Brittany to see. “Okay, we have to move our asses. We can’t be late to class.”
“Right. Let’s roll.”
“Um.” I stopped her, pointing at her face.
Brittany darted a look in the mirror and then groaned. “Oh shit, there goes my mascara.”
I tugged on her arm, shoving my door open and inching out of the car. “You’re going to have to try a new look. Come on. If we don’t hurry, mascara will not be the worst part of our day.”
“True. I mean, it could be worse. We could smell like Indra. Okay, I’m right behind you.” Brittany swiped quickly under her eyes, getting the worst of the black rings, and then hopped out.
Together, we headed for what I still considered the silliest and most normal thing in my life: college. It was also the last day I might ever get to be me again. I planned to live it to its fullest.
Chapter Thirty
Alex
Trying to keep Harold focused was a damned disaster. We drove for two hours only to arrive and find his tree already burned to a crisp. Cue the tears. I bit back my impatience and tried to understand that, for him, it was personal. A real loss. But I was out of empathy if it meant wasting valuable time we didn’t have before tonight’s ritual.
Breck called as we were headed back. Harold didn’t even acknowledge the ringing as he stared listlessly out the passenger window of his own truck. Man, I missed my truck right now. Edie swore she’d have it sent back, but with her halfway across the world and me still a fugitive with CHAS, I had my doubts about that happening anytime soon.
“What’s up?” I answered, eyes on the winding road as we headed back down the coast. Beside us, the highway’s shoulder met with a sharp cliff’s edge and the ocean beat against the shore below.
“Did you find a portal?” Breck asked.
“No.” I shot a glance at Harold, not even sure if he was hearing a word I said. I lowered my voice anyway and added, “Everything was burned.”
“Even at the other site?”
“Yes.”
“Shit, man. That means the trees were targeted on purpose after all.”
“Yeah.”
“That also means no help will be arriving tonight.”
“I know.” My thoughts flicked to Indra and whether she’d make good on her promise to help. If she didn’t—
I didn’t let myself think about it. I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone in case she flaked. Nor had I mentioned what she’d said about my blood. What would happen if I tried to conduct magic for Sam? I wasn’t sure if I wanted to find out. There was still a good chance Indra was playing me. In fact, my injured arm pulsed underneath the bandage as if to prove it.
We were both silent.
“I’m not feeling great about our chances, man,” he said finally.
“Same here. If you have any secret witch friends, now’s the time to call them,” I said.
Breck was silent for a beat and I wondered if maybe I wasn’t far off the mark. “Actually, I think I do know one.”
“Seriously? Who? Fucking call them.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Actually, it is that easy. Sam needs magic. You know someone who has it. Boom. Super easy, bro.”
He sighed, and I could picture the scowl he wore when he made that sound. “Who the hell do you know that’s close enough to get here in time?”
There was a beat that I was certain held a fair amount of anguish from him. Finally, he rasped, “You.”
I muttered a curse. “Breck, now is not the time—”
“Dude. Now is most certainly the time. You have magic. Sam needs you.”
“I don’t know how it works,” I said through clenched teeth, my fist tightening around the wheel.
“Then get your ass back here and we’ll figure it out.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, ready to tell him to fuck off. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. He was right. Even if I didn’t exhibit any real magical powers, by blood, I was a witch. And I was Sam’s only hope.
“I’ll see you in twenty,” I said in a flat voice.
“I’ll be the cyclops,” he shot back.
I hid a smile as I hung up.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sam
The sun beamed brightly down on us on the ride home from school, a cheerful yellow that seemed way too wrong for what we were going to do tonight. Brittany was quiet on the drive, and I
left her to her thoughts, all too happy to lose myself in mine. It all came down to this. Tonight. At least after this we would know. I’d either be Sam. Or I wouldn’t.
As usual, the border of Harold’s property was lined with werewolves who either didn’t notice us or didn’t care as we drove past. I tried not to count how many there were—or how many would attack us when the wards went down tonight.
Hopefully, Breck’s contact had come through on the tranquilizer bullets.
“Where’s Alex?” I asked Safar, spotting her at the kitchen table, a tray of dried herbs and candles before her. My stomach clenched at the sight of the ceremonial supplies so I ignored them and went to the fridge for water.
“In the forest with Breck.”
“Already?” I frowned, checking the clock on the stove. We still had a couple of hours before dark.
“They’re walking the perimeter of the wards,” she explained. “Looking for places to station Breck and the others for when the wards come down.”
“Right.” I swallowed hard. “Smart.”
Brittany studied me, and I turned away, heading for the stairs. “I’m going to shower,” I called, knowing I was avoiding their questions of concern. But they let me go. And I didn’t care that, for now, I needed to run away. To just breathe.
I turned the hot water all the way up, stripped down, and climbed inside, propping my forehead against the cold tile as the steam filled the stall. The water was nearly hot enough to burn, and I shut my eyes against the sharpness of it against my skin. My thoughts were out of control, running rampant every which way, and I remembered what Jin had said. About doing nothing without thinking.
Meditation.
I hadn’t tried it since we’d left Oregon. Mainly because I didn’t want to invite any sort of magic to the surface. Not when Hina always came with it. But now … I needed something to ground me. And maybe Jin’s advice would prove to be what was missing. No thinking, no doing anything.
Control through surrender.
Isn’t that what Jin had said?
I took a deep breath and blew it out again—in for four counts, hold for seven, out for eight. That’s what Jin had said. I shut my eyes and held to the pattern, concentrating on the white ball of light that always seemed to hover just above my closed eyelids when I went inward like this. It got bigger as I focused on it until it blotted out the darkness and left a tingling in my fingers and toes that I wasn’t sure had anything to do with the shower water anymore.
Slowly, my grip on control, on the bars that kept Hina at bay and the two of us separated, slipped. The gate opened.
My skin heated.
Spears of light radiated from the center of my lids outward. Like seeing the sun with my eyes shut. I sucked in breath after breath, drinking in an energy inside the very oxygen I breathed that felt like pure life force. Sushna had called it prana.
I’d never noticed it before, but now I couldn’t ignore it. The way every breath contained life itself. The exact force I needed to replenish myself even after a grueling and depleting healing.
The light continued to brighten until I was almost blinded by it. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I took one final inhale and opened my eyes—and gasped.
The shower stall had been transformed.
The walls slid back and forth like their solidarity or very presence here was only thanks to my own imagination having decided they exist at all. If I decided they weren’t here, they wouldn’t be.
The water droplets falling from the shower head slowed as they fell and then finally stopped altogether, hanging suspended in midair. I reached slowly for the droplet nearest my face. When my fingertip touched it, it popped and then clung to my skin as I pulled my hand away.
I turned to the curtain and found it was open. Or gone, I realized as I looked closer. Like it had never been there to begin with. Or maybe, like the walls, it was only there if I decided it was.
The moment the idea crossed my mind, everything shifted again. I shrank—or the shower grew—until it was as if I were only a foot off the ground looking up and up and up at the walls and ceiling that seemed to rise up dozens of feet around me.
The water became something to avoid at all costs, and I shook until I’d backed far enough away to avoid the droplets still hanging suspended. My feet shuddered as I picked them up and shook them off, leaping out of the shower and back to the safety of the rug.
My breath caught as I swore I caught sight of a paw in place of my own foot as I jumped to safety.
Fear crowded in and the spell broke.
Feet firmly planted, I blinked, and everything collapsed back in on itself.
I doubled over, gasping for air that suddenly tasted stale compared to a moment ago. My feet and legs were flushed from the heat of the water, but they were definitely not paws.
Relief flooded through me followed quickly by a disappointment I didn’t understand. I looked up through the cold, wet wall of my hair, unsurprised to find that the shower curtain was back, and the tiled wall on the other side of it was solid.
I peeked inside. The shower water continued to fall against the tile. I stepped gingerly back underneath it, bracing myself for any repeat of whatever had just happened. Nothing happened, and I hovered under the water, letting it stream into my hair and down over my shoulders before hitting the floor and escaping down the drain.
I stared at the drain where the water leaked away, reeling.
Had that been real?
Was it a hint at what would happen to me later? To Hina? When she took over… And where had the paws come from?
Minutes passed—maybe an hour—and still I didn’t move to get out.
I turned everything over in my mind. Slowly, months’ worth of resistance was being chipped away.
Maybe, if it could be like that, I’d be okay with letting Hina in. Not in charge but as an equal. Even as I thought it, the magic inside me relaxed. It slid into some compartment of myself I hadn’t even known I possessed. Still there, ready to be called out at a moment’s notice, but not overflowing into everything else.
I took a breath.
Safar had said witches had used the merge for as far back as time went. Calling down the power of the moon. Merging two halves to become one being. Human and witch. After tonight, nothing would be split anymore. No fighting for control or the upper hand. I’d assumed that meant giving up more of myself than I was willing to lose, but if what I’d seen in the shower was real, allowing Hina to have equal residence might not be a bad thing. There was so much beauty and power there; the power to really see the world as it could be. Not just as it was.
The power and the freedom to become my whole self. Maybe a merge wasn’t about losing myself, but about finding—and accepting—the goddess inside me. Maybe it was the answer after all.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Alex
Sam looked different as she walked into the ceremonial circle Safar had prepared. Her hair was wavy and still wet at the ends, framing her face in wild waves and falling over her nearly bare shoulders; a stark contrast to the white of the dress. It was the same dress she’d worn for the first ceremony we’d done months ago, I realized with a jolt. And my breath caught at all the memories that fell between that day and this one. But none of that explained the sparkle in her eye and the purpose in her steps. She looked … sure. Maybe even ready. And that worried the hell out of me. Had she given up? Made peace with losing herself then? Because I felt anything but ready as we all gathered into a loose circle in the darkening forest.
Shadows slid in along the candlelit border Safar had created, but above us, the moon rose steadily, and I knew we wouldn’t be wanting for light tonight. In fact, I almost wished for more darkness to cover us. But then, that wouldn’t hide us from the monsters that would be searching for us now. No amount of hiding would stop RJ if he’d merged with Ea.
Sam stepped up beside me, derailing my thoughts as she smiled softly, sliding her hand into mine. I squeezed it a
nd told myself letting go of her was not an option.
Across from where we stood, Breck caught my eye, the glint in his own hard and determined. The swelling had reduced so that he at least had both eyes again, but a dark bruise still covered his left cheek. It made him look pissed as hell and just as dangerous—even when he smiled. I thought back to our afternoon together and my mood plummeted.
At his insistence, I’d reopened the wound Indra had made on my arm. He’d spent nearly an hour experimenting with my blood, dropping it onto the plants and even the dead trees—waiting to see what would happen. But the moment the blood had touched any of it, the sizzling and burning had only amplified inside me—and killed whatever else it touched.
In the end, we’d come up with absolutely nothing magical in terms of hidden abilities from me. In fact, the more I tried, the more convinced I became that my blood was poison. A trap set by Sushna to try and trick me into hurting instead of helping.
All I had was Indra’s deal—she’d help Sam and then I’d help her. Hopefully it would work. Tonight, we needed a miracle. Or I was going home with another woman taking residence in Sam’s body.
“Does everyone know their places?” Sam asked.
Her voice was steady. Clear. My contrasting fear made me want to stab something.
“Breck and I are taking the north and south ends respectively,” Brittany said, gesturing with a nod of her chin toward the direction she would go.
Sam nodded, and I felt the slightest tensing in her at the mention of the defensive positions we were taking. I knew the wolves outside the perimeter had her concerned. Hell, they had me terrified. Hopefully, Edie’s call for backup would help—even if it did put Sam and me at risk.
That’s where Breck’s idea would come in.
Defiance (Heart Lines Series Book 5) Page 21
