Page 6

Randy was red in the face now, trying to control any reaction he might have had. Gabe put his hand on Travis’s shoulder and moved him away. “He was all our friend, Mate.”

“Not like he was with me. You guys all know it. I’m not trying to be mean, but you know how long we were friends. I can tell that the real Jax is still in there. It’s like when Liam had the familiar on him. He couldn’t control what he did, and as soon as we got the familiar off him, he was back to being Liam. It’s going to be the same way with Jax.”

Liam and I exchanged looks. What Travis was forgetting was the fact that Jax called the demon to him. Liam never asked for the familiar to jump onto him. Never. He didn’t even possess whatever quality it was that would let him do that. Maybe it was like Randy said, Jax was a prick. It was that kind of attitude, that kind of mentality, that would let someone use a demon to gain their witch powers back.

“I don’t care what you say,” Randy said, his teeth clenched. “That’s not Jax, and when the time comes, I’ll take him out myself.”

Travis staggered back a few steps. I held my hands out to steady him. When I looked around to his face, it was white as if a pale sheen had fallen over it. “You wouldn’t.”

“I have to do what’s best for everyone.”

“That’s not what’s best for everyone,” Travis said, moving forward again, this time with a hint of pleading in his voice. “It’s not what’s best for me.”

“It’s what’s best for the majority, and that’s how we always vote, remember, Travis?”

He shook his head. He looked at each of us. “You all don’t think that, do you? You all don’t think that we need to kill Jax, do you?”

He looked at me first. Even though I held his gaze, I didn’t know what to say to him. I’d been in Jax’s presence the most, and I wasn’t sure there was any good left to him. But I couldn’t tell him that. He looked so lost.

“I agree with Randy,” Liam said.

Travis looked as if shy, quiet Liam slapped him across the face.

“It’s what’s best for Norah. He wants to hurt her, Travis.”

“Because of what we did to him,” Travis said. He moved forward and grabbed both of Liam’s shoulders as if he was going to shake him. “He only wants to do that because we turned our back on him. He wants to get back at us for what we did to him.”

“I know you think that,” Liam said. He opened his mouth to say something else, but Travis had already moved to Gabe.

He walked straight up to him, causing Gabe to stand up with his shoulders back. “What about you? Do you think Jax needs to die?”

“I don’t know,” Gabe said. “We certainly can’t let him go around Salem doing what he’s been doing, that much I know. It’s safer not only for Norah, but everyone else. He has possession of a demon, Travis. That’s not something we can just look past.”

He backed up, not bothering to look twice at Randy, but his gaze roamed over Gabe, Liam, and then back to me. “Norah…”

The building shook. Puffs of dirt exploded into tiny particles away from the walls, and for the first time, I recognized it for what it was. Someone had breached the wards.

3

We sprang into action. Liam threw up a visibility spell so fast I almost got dizzy when the walls disappeared and I saw nothing but the exterior parking lot.

Travis and Randy took point in front of Liam, Gabe, and me. Travis, though, inched forward as if all he needed was a reason to run out in front of us.

His hang-ups were deeper than I thought. Maybe this hadn’t been the best of ideas since it turned out to be a rag on Travis meeting. I just really wanted us all to start thinking and planning again. I’d have to sit down and talk to him by myself to see where his head was at. Maybe he’d open up to me more about it. Maybe then I could understand it because right now, I was just trying to make sense of his words.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Randy said. “It’s the Order.”

Gabe and Liam relaxed. Gabe never liked to see them, but Liam at least was relieved to see that it wasn’t Jax, I thought.

Liam took down his invisibility spell and Travis quieted the wards. We walked down the stairwell slowly. I didn’t know how the rest of my coven felt, but just because they knew I existed now, that didn’t mean they gave me all the warm and fuzzies. And an unannounced meeting was never good.

Gabe echoed my sentiment as we walked down. None of us responded, most likely because we were all thinking the same things in our head.

We met them by the side door. They nodded at us as they moved into the main room. In front of our eyes, chairs from the surrounding seating lifted and flew through the air to the center of the pentagram. Five seats facing another five seats.

Well, that was cozy.

Walter sat in the middle, and Travis took the spot opposite him. I sat next to him with Randy to my right. Gabe and Liam flanked Travis on the other side.