The Secret Circle: The Complete Collection: The Initiation and The Captive Part I, The Captive Part II and The Power, The Divide, The Hunt, The Temptation
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It seemed impossible. The lighthouse had been burned to the ground. In its place was a pile of soot and ash.
Irrationally, Cassie thought they must’ve arrived at the wrong location. How could a structure so sturdy and steadfast, so permanent in its vigilance, have melted down to this? But the anger in Adam’s eyes forced Cassie to accept the harder truth. Not only was the lighthouse gone, but someone had destroyed it on purpose.
Melanie spoke first. “That was a historical landmark,” she said. “It’s been there for, like, three hundred years.”
“That’s what you’re thinking about right now?” Nick said. “How about how the hunters knew exactly where to find us?”
Diana placed her hand gently on Nick’s shoulder. “Hold on, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. We don’t know for sure it was the hunters.”
Nick shrugged off Diana’s hand. “This was a message, loud and clear. How much clearer would you like them to be?”
Diana turned to Melanie and Laurel. “You two were the last ones here, weren’t you? Are you sure you didn’t accidentally leave any candles burning?”
Melanie’s eyes widened. “Are you accusing us of burning down the lighthouse?”
“I’m not accusing,” Diana said. “Just asking.”
Cassie couldn’t stand to listen to any more arguing. She made her way over the grass, toward the edge of where the entrance to the cottage once stood.
Cassie heard Adam come to Diana’s defense against Melanie and Laurel. “It would be better for all of us if you had been the ones to burn it down,” he said. “Then at least we’d know for sure it was an accident and not an act of—”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Cassie called out to them. Her voice echoed over the space between them like an ocean wave. Right where the entrance to the light keeper’s cottage once stood was a symbol burnt in ash on the ground. It was the same symbol that appeared on Constance’s forehead.
Adam was the first to reach her. “The hunter symbol,” he said, just in time for the others to fall in line behind him. They saw it now, too. They couldn’t not see it.
“The coven has been marked,” Cassie said.
“Faye, this is all your fault,” Nick shouted out. “Because you had to do magic.”
For once Adam agreed with Nick. “They tracked your love spell.”
“I told you,” Melanie said. “I told you this would happen.”
“That’s enough!” Faye’s eyes flamed with rage. “What makes you all so sure it was my fault?”
She pointed her longest red fingernail at Diana. “You’re always so careful not to jump to conclusions. Stop for a moment, call off the dogs, and think of who could have actually done this.”
Then Faye twisted her neck around to glare at Cassie while keeping her shoulders squared to Diana. “I think Scarlett would be a reasonable suspect,” she said. “Especially since Cassie brought her here just the other day.”
Cassie remained silent.
“I saw you,” Faye said.
“Don’t try to turn this on me,” Cassie said, but that was all she could say. She couldn’t deny it.
Adam and Diana stared at Cassie with identical expressions of disbelief.
“Is that true?” Adam asked. “You brought Scarlett to the lighthouse?
Cassie looked down at the horrible symbol burned into the ground, with its serpentine W and satanic-looking hexagon. This wasn’t the work of Scarlett. She was sure of that.
“Cassie, how could you?” Diana couldn’t contain her exasperation.
Cassie looked pleadingly into Diana’s infuriated eyes. “She was with me when I dropped off some herbs for Melanie and Laurel,” Cassie said. “But I didn’t let her inside and I didn’t tell her anything. I swear to you, she had nothing to do with this.”
“You weren’t supposed to be seeing Scarlett at all,” Melanie said. “And you brought her to our sacred space.”
Faye was thoroughly enjoying the bloodbath she started. How easy it had been to divert the attention away from her forbidden love spell. Faye addressed the group. “What Cassie has done is unforgivable,” she said malevolently. “She betrayed us.”
“You betrayed us, too, Faye,” Cassie said. “And how would you even know I brought Scarlett to the lighthouse unless you were spying on me?”
“That’s not really the point,” Diana interjected. “I agree with Faye on this. Bringing Scarlett to the lighthouse was a betrayal. And we need to unify now more than ever. No Outsiders can be trusted, no matter what.”
Cassie lost the little bit of control she’d had left. “So let me get this straight,” she said. “Your idea of unification is siding with Faye?”
Adam replied on Diana’s behalf. “It’s for your own safety, Cassie. Scarlett isn’t one of us. And under no circumstances did she belong anywhere near our meeting place.”
“Maybe it’s me who isn’t one of you,” Cassie blurted out before she could stop herself.
That was the last straw for Diana. She screamed then like Cassie had never imagined she could. “Of course you’re one of us, Cassie. You’re more crucial to this Circle than any of us. Don’t you think we all realize that?”
Then Diana turned to Faye. “And you’re not off the hook either. Cassie’s right that you also betrayed the group. Max is off limits, and so is your magic.”
“Or else what?” Faye said.
Diana didn’t even blink. “Or else you forfeit your privileges as a leader of this Circle.”
A few seconds passed before Adam broke the deathly silence. “The coven has been marked,” he said. “But do the hunters know who we are, individually?”
“Good question,” Melanie said. “But either way, we have to figure out a way to fight them.”
“That’s right,” Diana said. Her voice regained its angelic timbre. “And I wanted to share something very important with you all tonight. Before all these surprises.”
She looked at Cassie and then at Faye, scolding them each individually with her eyes. Then she dug through her bag and pulled out her Book of Shadows.
“I found a spell,” she said. “A spell to destroy witch hunters.”
“What?” Adam asked, sounding outraged Diana had kept this discovery from him. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
“I wasn’t sure if it was what I thought it was,” Diana said in her defense. “The text was mostly in Latin and needed to be translated. But now I’m sure. That’s why I wanted to meet tonight, to tell you all at once.”
“Let’s perform the spell right now,” Melanie said, sounding hopeful for the first time in days.
Diana shook her head. “First we have to know for sure who the hunters are.”
Nick shot a look to Chris and Doug. “Let’s do it on the principal. We’re sure enough.”
“No.” Diana’s green eyes flared. “The spell will only work on a real hunter. If we try it on someone who isn’t one of them, we’ll only be exposing ourselves as witches. Not to mention hurting someone innocent.”
“Wow, that’s big news,” Faye said. “We have a spell we can’t use.”
“We will use it.” Adam gave one last look at the symbol burnt on the ground. “When they strike again. At this point, I think we can count on that happening.”
“But what happens then?” Melanie asked. “If we do this spell. Will the hunters die?”
Diana hesitated. “It’s a little unclear. The translation left a lot to interpretation, but it seems like the effect of the spell depends on the hunter.”
“So they might die,” Melanie said.
“Let me have a look at this.” Faye grabbed Diana’s Book of Shadows from her hands and scanned the page. As her eyes moved back and forth across the ancient script, she appeared to be drawing in her breath and backing away from the words in disbelief.
“This isn’t a spell,” Faye said. “It’s a curse.”
Diana stared at the ground. “Yes,” she said. “Technically it is a curse.”
“Dangerous,” Diana said. “We’ll only use it as a last resort.”
Chapter 16
The rain was only a drizzle, and although it was nighttime, people were out and about. Scarlett had invited Cassie out tonight. Of course Cassie declined, but she wished she didn’t have to. That’s just what Cassie needed to clear her head—she needed to see other people, non-witches. She decided to drive into town. Even if she couldn’t join the crowds of people going about their normal lives, she could at least watch them from inside her Volkswagen.
But she’d barely made it to Bridge Street when the light rain amplified to a hammering downpour. Everyone out on the streets scrambled for shelter inside restaurants and stores; some hovered within doorways and beneath overpasses. Cassie was dry and safe inside her car, and she felt like she was inside a snow dome that someone had shaken up, submerged by the shuddering rain on all sides but also untouched by it.
And then she suddenly felt stripped of that safety. Her heart started to pound in her chest, and she began to sweat. She felt like she was being followed, but she didn’t see any cars behind her. She kept checking the rearview mirror, and all she saw was the wet darkness in her own back window. Still, she decided to take a detour, in hopes of shaking the feeling.
With a sharp turn of the steering wheel, she veered onto Dodge Street, a secluded road that would lead her back to the turnpike. Cassie had to slow down to maneuver its many meandering curves, but when she stepped on the brake pedal, her foot emptily dropped to the floor.
She tried again and again, but there was no use. Her brakes weren’t working.
The car suddenly felt to her like it was speeding up, an angry vessel set on racing her to her death. She couldn’t stop it, and letting up on the gas pedal was only doing so much. Panicked, she gripped the steering wheel and tried to bear off to the side of the road, where maybe the grass would slow the car enough so she could jump out to safety.
But the grass did nothing to reduce the acceleration. Cassie’s only chance was to jump out while the car continued full speed ahead. Panicked, she clutched the door handle and pushed the door open. But before she had the chance to leap to the ground, the car smashed right into a giant, thick-barked oak tree.
She blacked out for a moment, maybe longer. When she opened her eyes, she saw she’d been thrown from the car, through the windshield. She checked her arms and legs to see if she could move them and searched her face for blood. Unbelievably, she was all right.
But her car was totaled. Looking at it through the dark rain, it reminded Cassie of a crushed soda can, flimsily accordioned to the tree. It was a miracle to be alive.
She stood up slowly, continuing to take inventory of her surroundings, and recognized that the evil feeling was gone. Whatever dark presence had been following her had disappeared, but Cassie couldn’t shake the feeling that this was no accident.
She welled up with tears then. It wasn’t a miracle. It was the protection spell that had saved her.
Cassie hated to do it, but she knew she had to. She checked her body and clothes for that awful ancient symbol. It reminded her of searching for deer ticks after a day out in the woods, except the consequences in this case meant ultimate death. She was relieved not to find one. Cassie may have nearly been killed tonight, but at least she hadn’t been marked.
With shaking hands, Cassie pulled out her cell phone to call for help. But out in the middle of nowhere, she couldn’t get a signal. Cassie started to panic even more. She was stranded out here, a sitting target.
Cassie never should have gone out alone, without telling anyone where she was going. She was naïve to think the hunters wouldn’t come after her again the first chance they had. There was no escaping them.
Cassie couldn’t stop shaking while she waited in the pouring rain, hoping a kind stranger would drive by. But every sound and shadow made her jump at the alternative, and she grew stiff as a silver car slowed to a stop before her. But then Cassie recognized the face inside. It was Scarlett.
“Oh my goodness, are you all right?” Scarlett jumped out of her car and ran to Cassie, leaving the door open. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay,” Cassie said, breathing a sigh of relief at a familiar face.
Scarlett hugged her close to her chest, nearly as stupefied by the sight of the crushed car as Cassie was. “You could have been killed,” she said. “And you’re soaking wet!”
She dashed to the trunk of her car and retrieved an enormous wool blanket. She wrapped it around Cassie and rubbed her arms until they warmed.
Cassie was too freaked out by the accident to resist.
“You’re okay,” Scarlett said in a voice as comforting as the thick wool around Cassie’s shoulders. “I’ll take you home.”
The next day at school, everyone was talking about Cassie’s recent brush with death. It was like the accident brought her popularity points in a sick and twisted way. Even Portia Bainbridge made her way through the crowded hallway to catch a look at Cassie at her locker. She turned her thin nose up at Cassie and narrowed her cold hazel eyes. “So glad you didn’t mess up that pretty little face of yours when you flew through the windshield,” she said.
The thought crossed Cassie’s mind: Could Portia have cut the brakes in her car, or was it one of her moose-head brothers?
But Portia had retreated from messing with the Circle after their final blowout last fall. Since then she’d been distracted by a new boyfriend and barely seemed to think about much else. And her brothers, Jordan and Logan, were both at college. Cassie would have heard if they’d been back around the island.
Just then, Sally Waltman stepped to Cassie’s side. A head shorter than Portia, Sally still crossed her wiry arms with the fierceness of a taller, stronger person. “She’s been through enough, Portia,” Sally said. “She doesn’t need your harassment on top of it.”
Portia scowled. “Don’t forget which side you’re on, Sally. You don’t want to start being confused for one of them, or you might get hurt.”
“Let it go already.” Sally forcefully took Portia by the arm and urged her away. “Come on, we’re going to be late,” she said, and shot Cassie a look of apology over her shoulder.
Sally standing up to Portia meant a lot, considering she’d once been one of the Circle’s most hated enemies. If the group’s relationship with Sally could come this far, she didn’t see why they couldn’t be more accepting of other well-meaning Outsiders, like Scarlett. Not all of them were as vile as Portia. Why couldn’t the Circle see that?
At lunch, the group gathered at their spot in the woods and grilled Cassie for details. She told them about the bad feeling that came over her just before the accident and how her brakes failed, but some details she kept to herself. She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and she couldn’t handle what their reaction would be if she told them about Scarlett showing up just after the crash.
“But were there any clues about who the hunters were that did this?” Diana asked.
“No,” Cassie said. “None.”
“I saw Portia harassing you at your locker this morning,” Nick called out. “She’s been off our radar too long, I don’t trust it.”
Diana looked doubtful but said, “It couldn’t hurt to consider Portia and her brothers possible suspects.”
“And Sally Waltman,” Suzan said.
Diana shook her head. “Sally’s been pretty straightforward with us. Of all the Outsiders, I think she’d be the least likely to want to hurt us.”
“You guys are getting sidetracked,” Deborah said. “These hunters are strong. Whoever they are, they weren’t in town before now, or we would have known it.”
Melanie agreed. “That ancient symbol didn’t come from any of our old schoolmates.”
&nb
sp; Adam had been pacing back and forth the way he always did when he was nervous. He hadn’t calmed down since he learned of the accident. “I still wish you could have called me,” he said to Cassie. “How’d you even get home?”
Cassie hesitated.
It was a simple question. There was no need for such a long pause, and the entire group picked up on it.
Adam stiffened and turned accusingly to Nick. “Did she call you? Were you the one to drive her home?”
Nick appeared blindsided by Adam’s accusation, but he quickly mirrored Adam’s aggressive posture with his own. “No, she didn’t. But I wish she had,” he said.
“Stop it, both of you.” Cassie didn’t have a choice. She had to tell them the truth.
“I didn’t call anyone to come pick me up.” She paused, not wanting to go on. Cassie looked down at her shoes. Run, she thought. Just run away from this awful moment. But there was nowhere to run to, and she knew it. Almost inaudibly she said, “Scarlett happened to drive by while I was stranded. She drove me home.”
Adam shook his head, sidestepping Nick, who’d also dropped his bravado. Diana reached for a nearby tree to steady herself. They were speechless, but Faye had the words right at hand to announce what the whole group was thinking.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Scarlett just happened to drive by, finding you in the middle of nowhere. What a lucky coincidence!”
Cassie wasn’t having it. The last person she owed an explanation to was Faye. She stepped to her, boldly. “Why would she have helped me if she’d been the one trying to hurt me?”
“You’re being stupid,” Deborah said, not holding back an ounce of disgust. “It can’t be a coincidence.”
“She’s not being stupid,” Diana said. “Cassie’s just blinded. She wants to see the best in Scarlett.”