He looked worn-out, tired, and weak. His muscular form had shriveled into skin-and-bones, leaving his face gaunt and his collarbones poking out. He hadn’t had a shave or a haircut in a while and his jeans and ratty leather jacket were rumpled, letting me know that he’d probably been living on the streets.
I knew exactly what that was like. The fear, the pain. Constantly worrying where your next meal would come from or if police or muggers would harass you. Yet, I’d been with Trey. Rowan had no one.
I hated seeing him like this, a paper-thin version of himself.
He didn’t touch me, didn’t take a step toward me, but his eyes roved my body as if frantically looking for wounds. “Charlie, are you okay? I felt…”
I held up my hand and the raw, pink skin that was healing with the help of Disha’s spell. “I didn’t know how else to reach you.”
His eyes narrowed. “You did that to yourself?”
“I did it,” Disha said, sitting up and stretching. “Well, she made me do it. For you.”
“For me? Why?” His hooded eyes searched our faces.
“We think we’ve found the missing piece,” I said. “We think we can heal you.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
SPRING SEMESTER
LATE MARCH
That night, we gathered at the lake. Disha, Rowan and I stood on its shore, prepped and dressed as if for battle. Only we weren’t going to war with a person, we were going to war with a force.
Disha had mended her Catwoman suit and had donned it for this occasion, French-braiding her hair into two long black plaits to look like a beautiful badass. I had opted for athletic gear that was sturdy but flexible. Rowan wore the same jeans, T-shirt, and leather jacket but looked freshly showered and shaved. I wondered how he’d managed without alerting his father or anyone else to his presence on campus.
Rowan and I stared at each other, a pile of unspoken words between us big enough to separate countries.
Disha gave me a knowing look and then nodded at Rowan. “I’ll give you two a minute.”
“Does your dad know you’re back?” I asked while Disha strolled along the shore giving us some space.
He shook his head, watching her until his gaze drifted back to me. “He doesn’t deserve the relief. Let him keep worrying. That is, if he ever did.”
“I’m sure he’s concerned, Rowan,” I said, more as a reassurance than an actual fact. “What about your other family? I’m sure your mom is worried sick.”
His eyes stared off in the distance. “My mom knew where I was. I made her promise not to tell Dad.”
That explained how he’d been surviving. Thank God he’d had his mom, but then, if he was able to contact her that meant he’d been able to contact me.
“Why didn’t you call me?” I asked. “I tried to call you, but you never picked up.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared at the ground, looking embarrassed. “I… I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
“Not even you can be that vain,” I said in a joking tone that did nothing to hide the fact that I didn’t believe his answer to my question.
“Always so perceptive.” A deep chuckle rumbled in his chest, making me want to rest my head against it and feel it better. I fought against the urge to reach for him.
“I didn’t call you because… I want the best for you,” he continued. “You’re doing great here, Charlie, turning into a powerful witch. If you were expelled because of me…” he shook his head, “I would never forgive myself."
I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t want to be expelled either, and yet, here I was, ready to put it all in the balance for him again. He simply mattered that much to me.
He dropped his head, shaking out his too-long hair. “That’s why I think you and Disha should let me do this alone.”
“Don’t start that again. You won’t be able to do it alone.”
“I will try my best. I’ll only need to borrow some magic from you. One last time.”
The last three words seemed to scoop a chunk of my soul out of my chest. One last time? It didn’t sound like he had any hope this would work and maybe he was willing to do it out of hopelessness or worse… in an attempt at self-destruction.
“No,” I repeated, adamantly shaking my head. “If the Tempest gets out of control, it could cause a lot of damage. We all need to join forces to keep it contained.” How could I make him see?
“If it does cause damage, then it’ll only be my fault.” His eyes pleaded with mine.
“Don’t be stubborn,” I said, feeling desperate now. “You might ruin your one chance if it gets out of hand. You need us, Rowan. Why is it so hard for you to let people in? It’s okay to be vulnerable. It’s okay to depend on others when they care about you.”
“I’m only trying to protect you,” he answered quietly.
I huffed. “I can protect myself.”
“God, you’re so hardheaded.” His eyes flashed, heat and passion flooding back into them. Good. At least he was feeling something towards me instead of severing the tie between us completely.
“Takes one to know one.” I shot back, trying for levity in this tense situation.
He smiled, then snorted. Relieved, we both let out pent-up laughter. He took a step closer, leaving only an inch between us. Taking my hand, he laid it on his chest and covered it with his own. He wanted his heartbeat back. I couldn’t not help him make this right.
He pushed a strand of hair behind my ear and caressed my lower lip with his thumb. “God, I’ve missed you.”
My heart shivered at the words, and I was reminded that he did care. Maybe not exactly in the way I wanted him to, but when was it ever that way? People loved in their own terms, and there was no measuring stick to tell who cared the most. You just had to accept and support each other.
He leaned toward me, cutting the thin slip of night air between us in half. Breath pulsed against my trembling lips as his mouth angled towards mine. Our lips met. The tingle that shot through me was cut far too short. The kiss was brief and laden with foreboding for what was to come next.
We shared a weak smile, then I asked. “Ready?”
He nodded in response.
Disha walked back and mock-punched Rowan in the arm. “Yep, we love your stubborn ass.”
I rolled my eyes. Of course, she’d been eavesdropping.
We paused and stood in silence for a moment, then I charged up the cuffs and prepared the Filipino boat-building spell I’d practiced earlier in the day.
“Magkasama ang kahoy at papel.” I dragged my hands from the woods toward the lake.
The sound of branches breaking and roots ripping up crackled through the air as trees flew our way. Soon, saplings and big tree branches were lining up at the shoreline and weaving themselves together like giant Lincoln Logs.
I chanted and vines flew out, securing it all, wrapping joints tightly and filling in cracks.
In a few minutes, we had a very decent log raft, seaworthy and ready.
Rowan glanced at it and then at me. “Gee whiz, I plum forgot my overalls, Huck.” He smirked tiredly.
I picked up his Huckleberry Finn reference and rolled my eyes. “Beggars can’t be choosers, Jim.” I gave my raft a little kick, which hurt my toe. Damn. It was sturdy. It would need to be. “Besides, I don’t see you creating a vehicle so solid.”
He shrugged, averting his eyes. “No magic, remember?”
How could I have forgotten? Quickly, I sent a blast of magic in his direction. I watched as it hit him, the spell changing his posture. His eyes flashed open and the color came back into his cheeks.
He touched his chest right where his lifeless heart lay. “Jesus, I forgot how good that feels.”
I choked on my own feelings for him. He seemed so vulnerable at that moment. Despite what we’d just said to each other, a bead of resentment rolled around in my chest. God, why didn’t he crave me the way he craved magic?
“You two have the
stabilizing spells ready?” I asked, shaking inwardly and focusing on the here and now.
Disha gave me a look. “They’re simple. I just hope they’ll be enough. Have I mentioned how much I hate seaweed?”
“If you two do your job right, we should avoid seaweed altogether,” I assured Disha.
She blew out a breath but didn’t protest. Rowan stared on quietly as if he was not overly optimistic this would work but was left without a choice, no matter how small the hope.
Well, maybe I’d show him.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said, biting my lip and leaning down to shove my massive raft into the lake.
Disha and Rowan helped me push. The makeshift vessel dragged over wet sand, leaving deep grooves, but once on the water, it floated nicely just as I’d pictured. As it glided out, we climbed aboard and sat atop it while Disha used a spell to propel it forward.
“You have the compass?” Rowan asked as he used a branch to steer us further out.
Feeling the weight of the Elemental item in my pocket, I nodded. I’d kept it hidden in my room all this time. Ava Marie had given me permission to use the compass, no one else. Plus, she’d said I alone had the power to control the Tempest in my cuffs. It was my responsibility.
Fleetingly, I wondered, was I doing this for Rowan or for myself, just to prove I could do it? Was I as bad as he was, dragging Disha out here in the middle of the night on some other quest that didn’t concern her other than the fact that her best friend was a lunatic in love with a masochistic vampire?
A stiff wind drew my attention back to the lake. We were far from shore now. The water below us was deep and murky. I remembered those winding weeds at the bottom that tried to drown us. What other creatures lurked in this lake?
I shivered, despite the heat in my body. My cuffs throbbed once as if in warning. I thought about stopping, about telling Disha she should go back to shore. I was a fool to let her come out here, but I knew that if I said anything now, she’d just argue with me and insist on staying. I shouldn’t have involved her in the first place.
Disha bit on the end of her braid nervously. “Are we far enough out now?”
The water lapped against the rafts’ sides, dark and foreboding. The smell of seaweed and regret clogged my senses.
“Yes,” I said, standing up. “It’s now or never.”
My cuffs throbbed again. They were ready. And I was as ready as I would ever be.
Closing my eyes, I held the compass and tapped into the energy stream coursing through the air and the water. The tingles began as they always did, but this time, I dug deeper and deeper, feeling as if I was mining down into the depths of the earth, slogging through dirt and mud with my bare hands.
Then I spoke the words Disha and I had pieced together that we hoped would bring the Tempest to life, the very last recorded words of the pirate Darius VanWent.
“I command the winds of change, north, south, east and west. I command the winds of change to do my bidding. I command the winds of change and bind them. Now, Tempest, come forth!”
The wind picked up to a steady breeze. Then doubled, tripled. My hair whipped away from my head and I had to grip the compass hard to keep from losing it. The water began to churn and swirl and the boat rocked.
When I glanced down to see how Rowan and Disha were doing, both were locked in casting their stabilizing spells. Our raft seemed peaceful enough even though the water raged around us. The smooth ride must’ve been their doing because the storm was starting to rage out of control.
A swirl of wind and water grew up around us, making it appear as if we were in the middle of a small hurricane. Water sprayed my face and soaked my clothes which I’d expected, but what I had not was the speed of the swirling water. Our little raft, though somewhat stabilized by their spells, had started to spin around and around so fast I could barely keep my feet. The landscape began to blur before my eyes as we were dragged around faster and faster.
This was getting out of hand despite my best efforts. I tapped into my cuffs to try to “control it” as Ava Marie suggested, yet there was nothing for me to direct them to do other than to stop the Tempest. But I couldn’t do that since the storm hadn’t had any effect on Rowan. I didn’t feel any magical energy flowing in his direction. He looked exactly the same except wet and worried.
Once again, this was all going horribly wrong.
Enough. I was calling it off. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Taking a deep breath, I shouted the words to cancel the spell into the storm.
When I opened my eyes, the storm still raged. The spell hadn’t done anything.
I tried, again and again, to stop the storm, shouting, screaming, but it only raged faster and faster. The vortex of water we’d been circling began to suck us in. I’d seen enough movies to know what happened next.
“Disha, Rowan,” I shouted against the wind. “We need to get out of here!”
They both looked up at me with fear on their soaked faces. Nothing they were doing made any difference.
Crouching down, I gathered them into my arms as the vortex spun us out.
Then the raft flipped and the water tore them from me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
SPRING SEMESTER
LATE MARCH
Disha and Rowan went twirling away from me, pulled outward by the force of the vortex, headed up, away from the funnel. Wind and water swirled together tugging my friends upward into the waterlogged air.
Desperately, I watched their limbs flailing, struggling to stop the force as it sucked them into the sky. Disha’s eyes were flung wide and her mouth uttered spells that were yanked uselessly into the wind. Rowan just looked pissed, his face a mask of rage as he spun further away until I could no longer see him.
“No!” I screamed uselessly, my arms reaching as Rowan and Disha turned into tiny blurs in the misty distance, battered by the tempest.
Water pummeled me until I felt I might drown, even this high up in the air. My body tumbled around like a sock in a washing machine until I couldn’t tell up from down. Through the turbulence, I caught glimpses of the lake’s shore as it became smaller and smaller.
I reached for my magic again, trying to focus it with my cuffs, but it felt… it felt pinned up. Pinned? It was a sensation I’d only felt once before, even if this time I wasn’t frozen.
Mink!
He’d tied up my magic in Turkey, but I had broken free. Could this be him again? But if so, then this meant that it must have been him from the very beginning, probably since we found the compass. What if he planted the compass in the lake?
I’d thought he’d followed us to Turkey and Hilton Head, but what if he had lured us all those places? But why? Why go through all this trouble for Rowan?
But if I was right that would mean Ava Marie was with him. And Bridget? Her, too? My heart ached at the possibilities, even as the force spun faster, tumbling me sideways then head over heels. I didn’t know which way was up anymore. I was inside a blender set on pulverize. Lake water flooded my senses, but I had to focus or we’d all be dead in seconds.
Pushing away the hurt of betrayal, I began unpinning my magic. I’d done it before, and I could do it again. One, two, three… I undid the restraints much faster than the first time.
Still, the force of the vortex grew stronger, spinning like a centrifuge, pulling on my legs, my arms, and… my cuffs!
God, it felt as if the storm was trying to slip them off me. My fingers bent inward as the cuffs squeezed over my wrists. The spell seemed willing to rip my hands off if it meant it could suck my cuffs into its watery throat.
A raw scream escaped my mouth as I worked frantically to release my magic at the same time that I tried to pull in my legs and arms so I could curl up into a ball. The cuffs had moved along my wrists and were so far up my hands that I thought my thumbs would break.
Three, two, one pin left.
I tore at the magical bond with all my might. It broke. At my command, the
cuffs snapped back into place, tight around my wrists.
Roaring with anger, I aimed my hands at the center of the vortex and released a blast of magic into it.
Water exploded in every direction, waves, and waves of it. I was caught by one of them and, as if it were a hand, it grabbed me, wrapping around me, trying to force itself into my mouth and drown me.
I formed a ward around my body, one that Professor Fedorov had taught Disha and me. It repelled water as well as dirt, and it worked to keep the violent wave at bay. Sucking on air, I drew ragged breaths into my burning lungs even as my body began to plummet.
The vortex was destroyed, and I wasn’t spinning anymore, but I was falling, the wave that had caught me trying to do the most damage possible even as it dissolved. My hair whipped into my eyes as my body flipped end over end. I couldn’t tell which way was up or how far off the ground I was. I was falling too far, too fast.
I had to stop myself. Now.
At the last second, I threw my hands down, slowing my fall, but not stopping it.
I slammed against something hard, then went rolling like a discarded ball. I tumbled and tumbled until I came to a stop. The world around me kept spinning, even though I knew I was lying on my back, motionless. Dirt and grit filled my mouth along with the lake water I had swallowed. Everything ached as if all my bones had been broken and stitched back together. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the dizziness to pass. I took in big gulps of air as I chanted insistent orders inside my head.
Get up, Charlie. Get up and find your friends.
Fists and teeth clenched, I rolled to my stomach, retching water until I could properly breathe. Then I pushed up to a standing position, my clothes dripping with frigid water. The world continued spinning, though it had slowed down.
Swaying on my feet, I opened my eyes. There was darkness all around me. I had thought we would be spit back out on shore or dashed into the lake, but we were somewhere else entirely from the looks of things. Without waiting for a command, my cuffs began to glow, illuminating a dilapidated space that seemed somewhat familiar.
Supernatural Academy: Sophomore Witch Page 19
