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A muscle in Ren’s jaw twitched. “These were good people.”

“I know,” Randy said.

What else could we say?

Ren sat up straighter as life began to return to him. He looked more like the Ren I knew from before. Not the Ren from the Reid’s house. That had been an extra clean, more business-like Ren. The Ren who sat on the couch now looked like the Ren from when we first met. He leaned forward, his elbows coming to rest on his knees. “While he was leaving, he told me to give you a message.”

My heart dropped into my stomach.

“He knows where your other coven member is, and he says he knows he still has the familiar on him. He’s been watching him. He wants the familiar back.” Ren looked up. “He thinks the only way to get the familiar off is to kill him.”

The world blurred in front of me. Liam…dead? That wasn’t going to happen. Gabe’s fingers sank into my shoulder, grounding me.

“He said that was how the familiar got onto him in the first place. He told me he was going to kill him unless you guys found him first.”

Travis swore. “How would he know where Liam is, and we don’t? We’re the ones connected to him.”

Gabe ran his hands through his thick blond hair. “Maybe Dupre’s connected to the familiar and since the familiar is the one taking things over, he’s more attuned to him than we are to Liam.”

“Fuck!” Randy roared.

We all cowered a little at his outburst. Randy wasn’t scary. He truly wasn’t once you got to know him, but shit, I was right there with him. I wanted to break something or maim something, especially Dupre.

Ren stood, pushing us all back. He swallowed as he noticed all the bodies on the floor, but then he moved around the room, looking at things and under strewn pillows and broken glass while clutching his side. Finally, he turned. He stood up straight, or as straight as he could get, his hand outstretched holding a piece of lined paper. “The spell you need to get the familiar off him.”

I ran forward, tearing the paper out of his grip. “You got it? From the book?”

He nodded. “Turns out Dean wants to do business with me and was all too willing to give me this spell from his father’s book. You never would’ve gotten into the room, star baby. It has a familial lock on it. Only Reid’s can access it. I just played it off like one of the girls was so cracked out she thought she had a familiar on her and wanted to prank her about getting it off. He thought it was funny. Even led me down to the room to get this. The book is old, dark. The room itself is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It gave me the creeps just being in it.” Goosebumps spread out over his body as he told us the story. “That guy, Dupre, he doesn’t need that familiar. If he gets it, he’ll be too powerful to take out.” Ren looked over, his scowl etching further into his skin as he found Cassie’s body. “And he needs to suffer like they did.”

I couldn’t agree more. He’d killed enough people.

Gabe took the spell from me and read it over. Travis stepped forward and told Ren to clear out of the house and go somewhere else for a while until they could get the house picked up. It was one of the jobs of the Order. We’d probably have to call in Walter and the other superiors to take a look. I peeked at Ren. He’d probably gathered by now that I was more than just Randy’s girlfriend. If he brought me up in front of the superiors, they were going to ask questions.

Gabe pulled on my hand and we left the house, stepping our way over trash and dead bodies. It made me sick to my stomach to see the way these people died and in these gross conditions too. Dupre was a special brand of fucked up. He needed to be taken out, so he didn’t hurt the people, or witches, of Salem anymore.

Despite not knowing where to find Liam, we all picked up the pace toward the Jeep. Travis connected with Seth Hartle but shook his head afterward. Whatever Dupre had going on, Seth Hartle wasn’t involved with it anymore. He’d dropped his goon and went on to more disgusting things.

“Liam wouldn’t have gone very far,” Randy said. “He’d stay in Salem. I know it. Let’s go back there and see what we can find.”

Gabe and I both buckled our seatbelts, preparing for Travis’s death-defying driving. We needed to find Liam before Dupre did. However, there was no chance of that happening because Dupre already knew where he was, and we hadn’t a Goddamn clue.

“Listen,” I said, “Granny said we were stronger now that Travis and I…”

“Fucked?” Randy suggested.

“Yes,” I said matter-of-factly. “Let’s just do a locator spell again. Throw everything you have into it. If we don’t get to Liam…” I trailed off. No reason to beat the implications of not finding him over their heads. We’d all heard Ren and knew what was at stake.

“We should go to headquarters and do one on the pentagram,” Travis said. “We’ll be stronger there and we could use every bit of magical help we can get.”

Now that he had a destination, I sat back, watching the world pass by as if nothing else was wrong with the world. The trees still swayed in the wind, the clouds still rolled in. Nothing could change nature. No matter what was going on outside it, it didn’t relent. Just because a piece of my world was falling apart, didn’t mean the actual world was slipping through the cracks. It seemed so contradictory. So wrong. If Liam really was in danger, wouldn’t something in the world be going wrong? Maybe the sun wouldn’t come up tomorrow. Or maybe the birds wouldn’t sing. It was only fair that some other jaw-dropping thing would happen alongside it. If someone like Liam died, the world should feel it.

But no, I couldn’t think like that. Liam would be fine. We wouldallbe fine.

Gabe leaned over and pressed a kiss to my ear before whispering. “Ren knows too much. When we call in the Order…”

I nodded, understanding what he was saying. Liam wasn’t here, but we’d procrastinated too long. Gabe interlaced his fingers with mine. I sat forward, clearing my throat. Randy twisted in his seat and Travis caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “I know this isn’t the best time to bring this up, but Gabe and I have been keeping something from you guys. Something we haven’t been able to figure out an answer to, and now that we’re most certainly going to have to come out as a coven now, it’s going to affect everyone.”

Shadows moved in under Randy’s eyes. He glared at Gabe first, then me. “And?”