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Travis stared at the ceiling, his jaw working. “I’m not the best judge of character, Norah. That much must be abundantly clear to you right now.”

“We all missed the signs, man,” Randy said. “We’ve told you that again and again. You can’t just keep the blame for yourself.” Randy scratched his jaw and turned toward me. “We all know her. She’s a good person, a good witch.”

“Is she an…” I peeked at Travis and then back at Randy. “…an over-user?”

“No,” Randy said. “Nothing like that.”

Well, there went that theory. Though, I wasn’t sure what I was even trying to prove. Ren’s magical whore den didn’t reek of bad magic. Why would the two even be related except for the look on the poor girls?

Liam, who’d been too quiet through all this, coughed. He coughed again and then started to choke. Eyes wide, he stood from the stone bench. “…air…”

I went to run up after him, but he was already up the stairs, the door closed behind him. Randy put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I’ll go after him. I don’t think you should be alone with him right now, Norah. He’s not himself.”

Randy took the stone steps two at a time. A rush of air went through the cavern when the door opened, sending a chill through me.

“It’s weird,” Travis said. “He has to be somewhat himself because we wouldn’t have been able to perform the Akasha ritual if we didn’t have five members. I was worried the familiar might somehow block his Enforcer powers, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

“Well, that’s good then,” I said. It wasn’t enough for me though. I wanted Liam all the way back.

“Yeah,” Travis said. “Except, it doesn’t explain why he’s being such a dick.”

If we were on better terms, I would’ve gone up to him and given him a hug. Instead, I just stood there. “Sorry he said that to you.”

Travis looked up, and we just stared at one another. This was happening far too often lately. It was as if we were trying to figure out what made the other tick.

Chapter Ten

Edgy. That’s what I’d call how everyone was acting. After reading through some Order books the night before and finding nothing, I went to bed. When I woke up, no one was speaking to anyone. Randy was already gone. Gabe acted like he needed a morning just to sleep in, or sleep all day possibly, with the look of the shadows under his eyes. Liam was ignoring me, and Travis, too, seemed stuck in his own head.

The ride into Salem was quiet. They wordlessly dropped me off at the shop, Gabe asleep in the backseat with me. I only had a moment to lean him against the cushion instead of my shoulder, so I could get out of the Jeep without waking him. Now that I was at the shop, the tension I’d been feeling at the house and in the Jeep was more pronounced. My nerves were frayed, and I was restless at the same time. Every time a customer came in and the bell over the door rang, I nearly jumped off the stool. I’d even taken to doing a Google search about how to rid someone of demonic familiars. There were actual websites out there, but none of them seemed like they knew what they were talking about. Which I shouldn’t find that odd because most people didn’t really think that things like familiars existed.

I’d even regressed to searching how to do an exorcism. That’s how bad things were in my head. I wouldn’t quite call it possession, but it was evident Liam wasn’t himself.

I rang up customers, smiling when I needed to, and showing them different things in the shop when they asked, but for the most part, I, too, was caught up in my own head with everything going on. I tried not to wish Granny would visit me again. Every time she did come, I had another question to ask her. If I asked too many, she was going to start thinking I couldn’t take being alive without her. That part wasn’t true. I just wished I’d asked her so much more when she was alive. When she had been around, though, I didn’t care about magic all that much. I even hated it a little. I hated the fact that it made me different from everyone else. It was stupid, but it was true.

A tug started in my stomach. I leaned over the counter to brace myself for the cramps, but they never came. The bell over the door rang. I looked up to find Randy walking toward me. My body hummed in happiness and I sighed in relief. I didn’t wait until he made his way to me. I walked around the counter and threw my arms around him, meeting him in the middle of the store. “Hey, what’s going on?” he asked, rubbing circles into my back.

“Everything’s going to shit, and we don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t have Liam, and Gabe’s tired as fuck. And Travis…well, Travis is being Travis.”

His chest vibrated, and I looked up to find him holding back a laugh. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Sorry,” he said, biting down on his lower lip.

“It’s not funny, Randy.”

“It’s actually not funny. Not at all. It’s just that you kind of word vomited that all out there really fast. And Travisisbeing Travis. I don’t know what to tell you about that. You two are going to have to figure it out.” He paused, smiling once again without fear that I’d yell at him again. “I do have some good news though.”

“You do?”

“Ren called me. He wants to meet. Do you think you can close up the shop for lunch?”

I was already grabbing my keys from behind the counter. “Let’s go.”

I locked up behind us, and Randy and I walked toward his bike. Riding with him was beginning to seem like second nature now. The vibration of the engine underneath us, the wind roaring past my ears, the feel of his firm muscles on the insides of my forearms. It took me away from my problems as a new hope started in my chest. If Ren had the book, we could figure out how to get rid of this familiar tonight. That would move one puzzle piece back into place and then we could work on what the hell had happened to Jules, and possibly even Anna. With Liam himself that would go much smoother.

We stopped outside Ren’s house, which looked even more like a dump in the daylight than it did when we came by here at night. We dodged trash in the yard, and then Randy used his huge hand to knock on the door. A different girl answered this time, but she had the same lost look, the same sunken face and sallow appearance. Despite that she had a different hair color, she could’ve been the same girl from the other night.

“Bring them in here,” a voice called out.

We followed the stumbling girl through the house and stopped once again in the living room where Ren was perched in the same exact spot, and in the same exact clothes he’d worn the other day. “Did you even leave the house to look for the damn book?” I asked, gesturing toward his smelly ass.