A Lying Witch Book Two

by Odette C. Bell

  Max’s cheeks slackened with obvious hope. “Who is it? Did you manage to catch a glimpse of their face? Any identifying features? Do you know who committed the murder?”

  “Yes,” I answered numbly.

  “Thank god.” Max half closed his eyes and drew in a relieved breath. Then he opened them and settled his gaze on me. “Who is it?”

  I faced him, and I did nothing whatsoever to control my expression. I let the fear, the loneliness, the dejection, the horror – I let all of it just swell and swell in my expression until once more hot tears touched my cheeks.

  Though usually Max did a pretty good job of ignoring my emotion – this time it was obvious my reaction touched him. I saw his cheeks slacken, his eyebrows peak, and he even pressed forward and offered me a somber smile. “Chi, it’s okay – you’re safe. It was just a vision – it didn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “No,” I answered. “It did have something to do with me.”

  “It can appear that way at first. But once you get used to these visions, you’ll be able to separate yourself from the victim,” he schooled in a serious tone.

  I just watched him. In a detached kind of way, I wondered who Max really was. A fairy, sure, my bodyguard, maybe. But underneath? Underneath his scaly exterior, underneath his secrets, underneath that grass-and-sunshine magic? Who was the man underneath? And, more to the point, could I trust him?

  Though my vision of dying was now mostly a mass of emotion and fear, I could still remember what Fagan had said to me – Max had abandoned me.

  I turned my head from him, focusing instead on the door.

  “Chi, it’s important you tell me everything you know,” his voice hardened.

  There we go again – Max trying to be my moral compass, always scared I’d start lying.

  I didn’t answer him.

  So he simply pushed away from the bed, walked around it, and faced me on the other side. His once caring expression now had an edge of anger.

  I stared at that edge of anger, and it deadened me even more.

  “If you don’t tell me everything now, a person could die. Chi, pull yourself together,” he snapped.

  Did he have a timer or something? Was he only capable of being compassionate for about five minutes until his true brutish, angry nature shined through?

  I didn’t answer him. I continued to stare at him with that same dead, cold expression.

  He parted his stiff white lips, showing his equally stiff white teeth. “Chi?” he demanded, voice just as angry as ever. But maybe there was something about my expression, maybe there was something about my cold, withdrawn silence, because he didn’t continue to push me. I watched him take a breath, watched his shoulders deflate like a balloon that had been popped with a pin.

  For several seconds, he couldn’t face me. He tilted his head down, stared at the floor, narrowed his eyes, and then finally, finally tipped his head back and looked at me. “Just tell me,” there was a defeated note to his voice.

  For some reason, that defeated note affected me.

  Not looking at him – never looking at him – I opened my mouth. “Me,” I answered.

  “What are you talking about? Who will the next victim—” he stopped abruptly.

  “Me,” I answered again, that same cold, withdrawn, deadened tone issuing from my cold, stiff, white lips. “Me, I’m the next victim. Fagan will kill me.”

  Silence spread between us. Though silence cannot echo, for some reason it felt as if I’d been transported into a massive empty room and the only two people in it – maybe the only two people left in the world – were Max and me.

  “Me,” I answered again, rocking back and forth against the bed, “Fagan will kill me next.”

  “… Chi, you’re mistaken. You’re identifying with the victim—”

  The numbness holding me in place broke. I snapped my gaze up to Max, tears of anger and defeat swelling in my eyes. “No,” I spoke through clenched teeth, the tears trickling down my cheeks and spreading over my lips, “Max, I’m not mistaken. He kills me. I saw it. He talked to me, taunted me, then,” I tried to push my words through a throaty gulp, “then he plucked up a sword and cut my heart out of my chest. He kills me, Max. He kills me,” my voice kept getting louder and louder.

  Max cast his gaze over his shoulder, towards the door, obviously checking to see if any nurses were about to run in to check on me.

  He pushed forward, clamped a hand over my wrist, and stared at me, his eyes becoming so narrowed it was like he was attempting to stare at me through straws. “Chi… you have to be mistaken,” he said. There was a strange quality to his voice. It was all screwed up, all twisted as if someone had suddenly clamped two hands around his throat.

  Though all I wanted to do was turn around, grab the pillow behind me, and cram it over my tear-streaked face, I scrounged the courage to face him. “No, Max. I’m not mistaken. Like I said, he taunted me – used my name. It was me. He wants my power. And he is going to get it. Because he is going to…” I trailed off, incapable of saying anything more.

  My body felt so broken. Too much emotion had torn through it, too much fear. All I wanted to do was roll over, press my head against the covers, close my eyes, and make it all go away. I didn’t have that option, though. For, a second later, Max got down on his knees and leaned beside me. I had no option but to stare right into his eyes.

  “Chi, there has to be some kind of mistake,” Max tried once more.

  This time, I looked right at him unflinchingly. I shook my head. “No mistake. I am Fagan’s next victim.” I paled as I tilted my head back and saw the sun streaming in through the window. For the first time, I realized what it meant. “Hold on, what’s the time? When you took me to the police station, it was the evening. But now it’s sunny….” I didn’t finish my thought, just paled even further as a truly sticky sensation spread through my gut.

  Max stiffened, too. “You were out for most of the night. You gave your head a nasty bang. I would have dealt with it, but unfortunately, you had to faint in the police station. They called an ambulance.”

  I knew what Max meant when he’d suggested he would have dealt with it. He would have used his grass-and-sunshine magic to make me better.

  That didn’t change the fact it looked as if it was late morning already.

  When I’d gone to save Bridgette, it had been about 7 PM at night.

  Which meant… which meant.

  I brought up a hand, covered my eyes, and grit my teeth.

  Again, Max was right by my side. “Chi, it’s okay. We’ll figure this out. There has to be some kind of mistake,” he began, but his voice was so weak, it was obvious he couldn’t finish his statement.

  It was finally dawning on him that I wasn’t lying, ha?

  Well, I wish I were lying – it would be a heck of a lot easier than facing the awful prospect that in seven or so hours, I would be killed. Violently. And some rich bastard with leather shoes would eat my heart out.

  Tears began to touch my cheeks again, but this time, I didn’t fit around in a hysterical mess. Nor did I turn towards my pillow and use it to cover my distress. I pressed my lips together and faced Max.

  He faced me, too. And though his gaze was unflinching, there was something about his pale cheeks, about his drooping lips that told me he was genuinely afraid for my safety.

  “What do we do now?” I asked quietly, hesitantly, words little more than shaking gasps from my mouth.

  Max didn’t answer right away, and that made me just feel all the woozier. If I hadn’t been lying down, I would have fallen down.

  Max darted his gaze to the left, appeared to calculate something, then faced me. “Tell me everything you remember. Everything.” His voice rattled on the word everything.

  So I did. I told him all about waking up on the plastic-covered floor. I told him about the strong lights. I told him about Fagan’s shoes, his suit, his sickening smile. I mentioned Dimitri, then… then I hesitated.
>
  Max, as always, picked up on my hesitation and scowled. This time, it was softer than usual, just a bare press of his lips against his teeth. “What is it? I told you not to leave anything out. Chi, any details could mean the difference between life and—” he stopped abruptly. He didn’t need to say it. I’d been the one to experience my own death.

  There was a problem, though. While I appreciated what Max was saying, I doubted he wanted to know the full truth. Though I’d already told him everything else, there was one fact I was keeping from him. That apparently the only reason Fagan had managed to capture me was that Max had abandoned me at the last moment.

  Max pressed forward, his insistent glare coming close to my face. “Chi, if you hold back—”

  “The only person to die will be me,” I snapped, but the move was soft, kind of defeated, little more than a gust of air.

  I was so very confused. My heart was telling me one thing, but my mind was telling me another. All the warning signs were there – from my grandmother’s journals to Dimitri, to Max’s general secretiveness. Max, on the face of it, could not be trusted. And yet my heart – my heart kept promising me something completely different. It told me that no matter what happened, we would prevail in the end. No, not just me – we.

  I shook my head.

  He obviously took this as an indication that I had zero intention of filling in the rest of the tale.

  “Just tell me,” he demanded one final time.

  So I did. I tilted my head back and made eye contact. I really looked at him, too, using the totality of my analytical power to pick up every micro-expression, every shift in his darting gaze. “Fagan told me that the only reason I’d been captured was that you had abandoned me. That you left me to die. And that, Max, is everything.” Though I’d started off making eye contact with him, I quickly broke it. Because I simply couldn’t maintain it.

  He’d been so determined to find out every scrap of information I had, but as soon as I admitted that he was the reason for my death, he broke down again. Just shattered. It reminded me exactly of what I’d seen last night outside of that garage when I’d said that Max would be the reason I would die.

  He was usually such a determined, controlled, collected character. You got the impression when you were around him that you only saw as much as he wanted you to see. But now? Now Max’s raw emotion crumpled his brow, slackened his cheeks, and made his gaze at once as fiery as the sun and yet as dead as a corpse.

  Silence spread between us once more. This time, it was the edgiest silence I had ever experienced. If silence could somehow be ropes, it would be wrapping around my entire body, pinning me to the bed.

  Finally, Max made a move. He straightened up, took a heavy breath, and pushed back. “Fagan said that?” he questioned, voice low and controlled. It was so controlled that I wasn’t entirely sure what he was thinking. Did Max think I was lying?

  Before I could react to that thought, I simply pressed my lips together and nodded grimly. “That’s what he said.”

  Maybe there was something about the way I couldn’t look at Max, about the way my cheeks were still as pale as snow – but he didn’t push the point. Nor did he turn on me and snap that I was lying.

  Instead? He turned sharply, walked towards the window, pressed two rigid hands against the windowsill, and stared outside.

  I watched him as the seconds ticked by. My gaze drifted over his stiff shoulders, down his equally stiff back, and locked on the side of his face. His brow was pressed in consternation, a dangerous look in his eyes.

  The silence drew on and on until it became too much for me. “Max?” I said in a quiet, careful voice. “What happens now? Would you really…” I trailed off as I realized I couldn’t possibly ask the question that had been forming in my mind.

  He turned sharply. He looked at me. And just as moments before I had used all my attention to pick up his every micro-expression, now he appeared to be doing the same for me.

  I took heavy breaths, letting them lodge in my chest.

  “Do you trust me, Chi?” he suddenly asked. His tone was neutral. Okay, it wasn’t neutral – there was clearly a hell of a lot of emotion behind it, but he was doing a good job of masking exactly what that emotion meant.

  My whole body became tense as tight, nervous tingles powered up and down my back.

  Did I trust Max?

  It was a question I’d been grappling with ever since I’d met him. Heck, in every quiet moment I turned my mind to that question once more. Because it seemed so very important – and, mind the pun, the difference between life and death.

  Now, as I faced him, I realized I had to come to a decision.

  Though my mind told me not to do it, begged me to think this through, my heart took control. I found myself nodding before I could stop myself. “Yes, I trust you,” I said in a quiet tone that was nonetheless full of emotion. “Don’t ask me why – you don’t always give me reasons to trust you. It would have been kind of nice if you’d trusted me today. It would have been kind of nice if you’d let me know where we were going and who we were going to see. Regardless,” I dropped my gaze for half a second before ticking it up with a determined move, “I trust you, Max. Now what do we do? It looks like it’s late morning out there – so I have less than eight hours, don’t I?” I started off strong, but my voice began to shake.

  Max held my gaze, and it was goddamn clear that he was trying to ascertain whether I’d meant what I’d said. Whether I’d used my renowned abilities to lie, or whether I’d spoken from the heart – literally.

  Hey, I had spoken from the heart. And if he’d pressed forward and locked an ear against my chest, he would have heard that.

  He stared at me for one more single second, his brows knotted together. Then he shrugged. “We stop Dimitri, we stop Fagan, and we keep you safe,” he said, reeling off the list with the kind of forceful determination that told the world he would not accept failure.

  The memory of being killed and having my chest sliced in two was still raw and visceral, but his words – his determination – gave me hope. I pressed my lips together and swallowed. “How?” I asked that all-important question.

  Briefly, he dwindled back into silence. He even brought his hands up and looked at them. Then he faced me once more. “You leave Dimitri up to me. As for Fagan – it’s time to go to the police with everything we have. If we can get him on the run, at least we can buy some time.”

  My brow crumpled. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he has been murdering at the same time every day. He’s either fulfilling some contract, or accessing some propitious magical hour. I would say if we can keep you safe until at least 7:08 tonight, then we’ll have another 24 hours to track him down.”

  I had absolutely zero idea if what Max was saying could be true. I nodded nonetheless. His sheer determination was pulling me on, finally kindling hope in my heart. And that hope? Moment by moment, second by second, it was pushing back that awful memory of being sliced in half.

  “I have some contacts who will be able to help us with Fagan, even if the police can’t find him in time.”

  “Who?”

  Max looked directly at me. “The witches. And they’ll want to help you, too – considering you saved Bridgette.”

  Well, kind of. Sure, I’d stopped her from getting shot – but she saved me, too. And as for Sarah? Jealousy aside, it certainly seemed as if she felt indebted to me.

  I pressed my lips together and swallowed. “Is it really a good idea to bring them in on this?” I found myself asking out of the blue.

  He frowned. “What’s your point?”

  “That Fagan is after them. Though he’s been meticulous in murdering in exactly 24-hour blocks, I really doubt he is going to pass up an opportunity to capture a witch for later. Is there anyone else we can call on?”

  Max didn’t answer. In fact, it took a long time for him to cast his searching gaze over mine before he p
ared back his lips. “I guess you’re changing already, huh?” he commented softly.

  I shook my head. “Sorry?” A part of me understood what he was suggesting. Finally, somehow, I was growing a sense of responsibility. But he didn’t push it, and neither did I. I really didn’t want to get into another argument with Max right now. I just wanted, funnily enough, not to die.

  “Your concern for the witches is touching, but trust me – they have absolutely no intention of losing another one of their kind to Fagan. Mark my words, they’re going to want revenge.”

  I gave a muddled half-frown, half-smile at that. “Do you really think vigilante justice is a good idea? I thought you were pushing for the police to solve this?”

  Max looked directly at me. “We can’t let a man like Fagan wander the streets. But yes, you’re right – I don’t agree with vigilante justice. But you’ll find the witches can measure their hands. Plus, they won’t want the bad karma of killing a soul. And, hopefully, they’re going to appreciate that if they hand him over to the police, they’ll be able to bring down the man behind him.”

  I ticked my head to the side. My eyes narrowed as I suddenly remembered something I hadn’t told Max. “The Lonely King,” I commented, words quick.

  Max’s eyebrows crumpled down – I could practically hear them like old levers shifting with thumps. “Sorry?” There was a quick, flighty quality to his words.

  I swallowed, undone by his reaction. “The Lonely King,” I said again. “I suddenly remembered that Fagan mentioned him. Who is he? I think Fagan was somehow working for him – collecting hearts for him.”

  Max appeared to take several seconds to absorb that fact. He dropped his gaze, locked his dark eyes on the floor between us. He also drew his phone out of his pocket, typed something on the screen, and finally faced me. “Yeah, guys like the Lonely King. But…” he trailed off and shook his head.