Page 120 of Balance

“What’s actually wrong with her?” I asked. She’d always seemed fairly normal. Sure, she’d always been strict, and a tiny bit obsessive compulsive, but that didn’t make hersick.

There was the fact that we had maids clean the house a few times a week, and she stressed if anything in the house was out of order. She also avoided shopping, especially in chain stores. Although sometimes she did go out, only after my adoptive father dragged her there.

She also had a particular hatred for fast food.

However, wasn’t this just an upper-middle-class thing?

“Abigail and Jonathan met during the Starwood Festival,” Kathleen explained.

I had no idea what that meant; even Miles was giving her a blank look.

“It’s a hippie festival! There’s camping, workshops, loud music, an overabundance of incense, tie-dye, things like that.” Kathleen rolled her eyes, picking up on the fact that we were both lost. “But they weren’trealhippies,” she clarified, defensive. “That was before their time, but Jonathon always protested society in his own way, and Abigail was a flower child.”

“A hippie festival…” She was lying, my adoptive mother was not that kind of person. “She slept in a tent?”

“Of course not, dear.” Kathleen finally reached on the table, picking up her drink. “It’s a summer event, and they were young witches in love. Obviously, they slept under the stars.”

Obviously?

I stared blankly at her a moment longer. It was hard enough to picture my adoptive mother wearing tie-dye shirts, flower-patterned dresses, or bell-bottom jeans. But she also sleptoutside.

But now random pieces of conversations—overheard over the years—began to make more sense. Once, my adoptive father had commented on her clothing, lamenting the lack of skin-tight pants.

Come to think of it, it was kind of sad.

“Like I said, she was different back then.” Kathleen had correctly interpreted my bewildered expression. “Even before I left, Jonathan was trying to help her through her issues, but you can’t help someone who refuses to change.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Damen

Creature

“It’s still following us,” Julian said, lingering behind me. I turned just as he threw another acorn; this one barely missing my face before it disappeared into the distance.

“Did you just try to hit me?” Even though I knew he wouldn’t resort to such things, I couldn’t help but ask. I mean, it was anacorn, but what if it would have put out my eye?

Julian was quite adept at finding innocent things to use to inflict pain.

“Don’t be so sensitive.” He shrugged, throwing another one into the air and catching it. “I wouldn’t have missed if I was trying to hurt you. Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah…” We broke through the cover of the trees and I glanced back. It hadn’t been long after we hung up with the others before we felt ourselves being stalked. The creature was loud and clumsy, and didn’t feel like much of a threat. We had our own work to do, so instead of detouring for a kill, we’d chosen to ignore it and hope it’d go away.

But it didn’t leave and, instead, seemed to grow more frantic the further we traveled. It used to stop when we stopped, but, lately, had begun to close the distance between us.

“Why are you taking off your shirt?” Julian asked, pulling my attention to the dragon.

Titus had dropped his backpack to the ground and grunted as he turned toward us. And, like Julian had said, was in the process of shedding his clothes.

“I might need to shift,” he said, looking at us as if we were morons. “This is the last shirt I have.”

But we weren’t the ones not making any sense.

“So what?” Could he be losing his mind because of Bianca’s absence? But no, he’d also acted like this earlier—when he shifted with Bianca nearby. Why, though? In the past, he didn’t care about destroying whatever he was wearing.

He’d chosen to be naked much of our youth.

“Because it scares her,” he replied, pulling off the plaid. “And, also, Bianca likes this shirt.” He folded it, an almost reverent gleam to his green eyes. “I need to take care of it.”