Page 18 of A Witchy Spell Ride

That night I climb the same rooftop, settle behind the same dead plants, and let the Quarter sing. Selene and Briar sit outside again, legs up, flask between them. They look like trouble and salvation, and maybe that’s what they were. They laughed. They whispered. They let the night lean close and didn’t flinch.

I watched, and the watching felt like something holy and something criminal at once. I didn’t mind. I’m not a saint. I’m a weapon with a name and a purpose and a preference. My preference is her being alive and laughing.

When Briar finally leaves and the light upstairs went soft, I told myself the same truth I’d been telling since Reaper said, “keep eyes.”

Selene didn’t know I was there.

And that’s exactly how I wanted it until the day it wasn’t.

Because something was coming. I could feel it in the broken hair, in the sedan’s slow roll, in the way men’s shoulders go when they decide a thought is theirs to keep. When it came, I’d be there. Not a sound. Not a warning.

Just a hand on a wrist in the dark, a knife that meant no, and the quiet certainty that for once, my gut and my ghosts agreed.

Chapter Seven

Selene

Something was shifting.

Not just in the air, though that was thick and slow like honey left too long in the jar.

Not just in my chest, I’d woken with dreams I couldn’t explain and a tightness in my throat that had nothing to do with allergies.

No, something had changed.

I just couldn’t name it yet.

“Do you believe in fate or fear?” I asked Briar as we sprawled across my balcony floor, legs tangled in mismatched blankets and old throw pillows.

She was halfway through braiding my hair, her fingers quick and sure, her glitter nail polish catching the setting sun.

She paused at my question, a rare moment of stillness.

“Both,” she said after a beat. “Fear makes you look. Fate makes you see.”

I tilted my head. “That feels like one of your weird fortune cookie answers.”

“Don’t knock it, I’ve written actual fortune cookies. Cross made me stop after I slipped in a death threat.”

I snorted. “You didn’t.”

“I did. ‘Your lucky numbers are 7, 12, and if you don’t pay up by Tuesday, 42.’”

“God, you’re insufferable.”

“And yet here I am, your best friend.” She tugged my braid harder than necessary, and I swatted at her knee.

The city buzzed below us, muffled jazz, clinking glasses, some guy yelling about hot sauce from three streets over. And yet, none of it touched us. Up here, it was just us.

Me.

Briar.

And that feeling.

That tight little knot behind my ribs that whispered: Something’s coming.

We didn’t talk about the stalker that night. Didn’t talk about the vase, or the charm, or the open lock.