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I breathed in deep, frustration overwhelming me.

Wait.

I breathed in again. A smell perforated my senses until all at once it felt like a blanket of fog was all around us, and that blanket of fog smelled like rotten eggs.

Gas.

In my mind, I was alert again. My eyes flew open. I struggled to move, but I—the me that was my physical body—was still asleep. No. No, this wasn’t happening. I sent out alert messages trying to get someone else to wake up. I couldn’t move. I focused on my fingers, trying to get them to wake up. If they could move, maybe the rest of my body could too.

If this place was filling with gas, we could die. Or maybe it was a dream. Or maybe it wasn’t gas at all. Bad magic smelled like rotten eggs.

I breathed in again, almost choking on the foul aroma. Maybe someone or something had gotten through the wards. Maybe someone spelled us into not waking up.

In my head, I turned toward Travis. Granny had been able to come to him before. Maybe I could come to him too. Maybe I could send him a message to wake up. To help us out of this. In my head, I knew something was going on even if I didn’t know if it was magical or real-world problems.

When you’re magical, but you can’t even save yourself from dying a normal death. Ha. Hashtag real-world problems.

“Travis!” I shouted. My lips didn’t move, but I felt the urgency straight through to my toes. “Wake up, please, Travis! Something’s going on.”

I pictured his faith in people. His love for me, and his coven. His leadership qualities, and of course his assholishness that sometimes knew no bounds. But at his center, he was so good. So kind.

“Travis, we need you!”

His eyelids fluttered. It was working! I refused to think that my mind was making this up. I couldn’t think like that.

“Travis, get up! Something’s going on and I can’t move. I can’t get out of here and if I can’t, maybe the others can’t either.”

His eyes flew open. He stared at me. Still not moving, our gazes locked. Fear rang through his. If he was trying to talk to me the same way I was talking to him, I couldn’t hear it, but I hoped he smelled what I did. And if he did, I hoped he could do something about it.

“Get up!” I urged him. “Figure out what’s going on!”

His nose moved first. Then his lips. Then his head started to shake. The movement worked its way down his body until every appendage of his moved. Fingers, legs, and even though I couldn’t see them, his toes probably did too.

His face strained, he sat up. He dropped down onto all fours in front of me, narrowly missing Liam’s head. He stared down into my eyes. I wasn’t sure what he saw. Did he see the me I felt now? The me with her eyes wide open pleading with him to do something? Or did he just see what I saw in the rest of them. Me sleeping there calmly, wrapped up in Randy’s arms.

“What’s going on?” I heard him say.

He looked around, taking a deep breath. Immediately, he started to focus. He stood, his feet shuffling from side to side as if his equilibrium was off. At the same time, a spark of red came from his hand. He moved to the center of the room and I the red grew. At first it was just centered on the outside of his hand in one little pin point. Then it got bigger and bigger until it encompassed his whole hand.

Then I felt it, the wind. My hair tracked over my face and goosebumps sprouted over my body.

The window by the door flew open, and Travis’s wind blew that direction. For a few moments, it felt like we were inside a tornado. The lid to the pizza box flopped wildly and empty beer cans topped over onto the rug.

Gabe moved next. He woke much quicker. His eyes only blinked a few times before he threw a hand over his face. “What are you doing, man? It’s in the middle of the night.”

The wind died. “Gabe!”

“Mate, you’re making a mess.”

“Something’s wrong. Get up,” Travis said.

In my own head, I tried and tried to move. My body just wouldn’t cooperate though. The air was better in here, fresher. I didn’t smell the overpowering gag-worthy rotten air as much though it had traces.

“Wake everyone else up,” Travis said. “Get them up.”

I could see Gabe sniff the air. In in an instant, he was up and off the couch. He jumped over the coffee table and landed just in front of Liam. He kicked him, “Get up.”

Liam grunted.