Page 118 of A Witchy Spell Ride

Briar burst into the doorway, glitter a war paint slash on her cheek, eyes gone feral. “Where is she?”

“Found,” I said. “Not yet saved.”

She grabbed my forearm, nails biting through leather. “Bring her home.”

“Count on it,” I said, because there was nothing else to say that wouldn’t be a prayer I didn’t deserve.

Banks sagged in Rattle’s grip, relief, and terror warring on his face. I stepped close enough to fog his vision with mine. “If you’re lying,” I said, quiet, “I’ll know.”

“I’m not,” he whispered.

I believed him. It didn’t make me like him. It didn’t make him safe.

We moved. The clubhouse turned itself into a weapon: gate lowering, shutters sealing, bodies funneling to purpose. I hit the garage, grabbed what I needed without thinking, slim pry bar, spare blade, a low-vis comm Cross tossed me without looking. Bones handed me a backup mag. Vex slapped my shoulder once and grinned like a wolf about to come home bloody.

Out in the lot, the air had that late-night taste: oil, river, the faint sugar of someone’s bad decision two blocks over. I kicked the bike, and the engine came alive like it had been waiting to be useful.

“Route?” I asked.

Cross’s voice filled my ear bud. “Two rights, one left, cut through Dauphine. Van last seen heading toward the industrial strip east of River Grove. Blue door building is three blocks past the scrap yard.”

“Reaper?” I asked.

“On your six,” he said, and when he says it, it isn’t a comfort. It’s a fact the night has to negotiate with.

We rode. Streetlights stuttered past like a metronome counting down a song I hated. People moved out of our way without knowing why; some things read as danger even in a city built to ignore it. I threaded through alley shortcuts my hands remembered before my head did. Vex covered the blind corners with a reckless grace I trusted; Bones played anchor, unflashy and necessary.

“Blue door,” Cross said. “Bear left at the rusted gate. Kill your lights the last half block.”

We did. The night swallowed us with a satisfaction I understood.

The building rose ahead, cinderblock, single high window with trapped cardboard, security light flickering like a dying star. In the lot: the white van, magnet slapped on crooked this time, driver-side window fogged with breath. A silhouette behind the wheel fidgeting, nervous.

“Two inside,” Cross said. “Pacing signature’s larger. That’s your boy. The still signature is seated. Not prone. Not cold.”

Alive. The word bloomed in my chest like something I’d water with blood. “Copy.”

“Clock?” Reaper asked.

“10:37,” Cross said.

We sheltered in the building’s shadow, syncing breath without trying. I felt Selene the way you feel weather in my bones, in the fine hairs at the back of my neck.

“You good?” Vex murmured.

“No,” I said. “Go anyway.”

We moved on Reaper’s count because rituals matter when you decide to live. Vex popped the security light with a gloved fist. It died without drama. I slid the pry into the lock, felt the old metal consider its loyalties, and choose us.

Inside smelled like bleach and bad plans. Fluorescent hum. A scrape. A voice — male, soft and wrong. And under it, the sound I’d been begging the world for: Selene’s breath. Shallow. Angry. Alive.

Everything after that was muscle memory and bad intentions. We went low. Left. And found the scene I’ll see when I’m jackknifed awake at eighty: her, tied to the chair like a queen on a bad throne. Crown crooked. Mouth blood-red. Eyes very, very awake. And Briggs — our average, our overlooked — with ritual on his face and a blade he didn’t deserve near his hand.

He reached. I broke his reach. The rest was technique dressed as inevitability. Vex pinned him with zip ties so tight they’d leave his future smaller. Bones and Reaper peeled the driver from his seat outside and taught him a lesson he’d remember every time he sat down.

I cut Selene free. Nylon fell. Blood returned. She sagged for a second and then righted herself with a stubbornness that made my throat hurt.

“You hurt?” I asked.