Page 27

Chapter 27

The Method to the Madsens’ Madness

T he tires spin as Freddie stomps the gas pedal, and I grab the back seat to steady myself. The smell of wet dog and old rubber fills the back of the vehicle, nauseating.

“You think you can just force me to work for you?” I spit out. “What are you going to do, put me on a leash and take me out curse-hunting?”

“I’m not kidnapping you. I just want to talk.” Through the grate, Freddie’s blue eyes flick to me in the rearview mirror. His cheeks are rosy from the struggle, his breaths coming fast.

I let out a bitter laugh, feeling for a way to open the rear door from the inside. “Nothing says friendly chat like stuffing someone into the back of an SUV.”

“I had to get you alone. Those freaks never let you out of their sight—shit!” A log slams into the passenger side, branches scraping the windows, and the vehicle wobbles.

A deep rumble fills the air, the road splitting beneath us. A bubble of hope inflates in me. Maybe they can still stop the car .

“Those witches don’t know when to quit.” Freddie accelerates, driving over the cracks and bumps, using the car’s four-wheel drive to get through every obstacle the Shadows put in our way.

We skid around a corner into a residential area, and the car steadies. The ground has stopped shaking.

“God dammit!” I punch the wall in frustration. Why couldn’t he be a terrible driver in a terrible car? The earthquake should’ve been enough to stop us.

There’s a dent in the hard plastic where my fist hit the wall.

Wait, what?

I stare at the gauntlet on my wrist.

Another punch for good measure.

It dents the wall again.

I scowl. Why didn’t Natalie tell me this thing gives me a good punch? Was this another of her secrets, trying to prevent me from knowing too much or having too much power?

“What the fuck are you doing?” Freddie cries, checking over his shoulder. He sees the damage and groans. “Oaklyn’s going to kill me…”

Maybe I can smash the window and crawl through. I mean, I’ll probably slice myself open in the process, and I’ll break something when I fall from a moving car, and Freddie will just pull over and stuff me inside again…

I’m so screwed.

Sinking down, I dig into my jacket pockets, my hands numb from the cold and stinging from all the scrapes. An overwhelming wave of relief crashes over me as I close my fingers over my phone.

I can text Natalie.

Better yet…

Trembling, I unlock my phone and share my location with her. Then I put it on Do Not Disturb mode. I don’t need a beep or a buzz to give away my only hope .

My heart pounds, desperation squeezing my chest. As long as Freddie doesn’t come back here and throw my phone away, Natalie will be able to use my location to track us.

“What I find interesting,” Freddie says, “is that you aren’t stopping the car with your mind or chucking boulders in front of us. This tells me you can’t do magic.”

“Of course I can’t do magic,” I snap. Does he not remember how I needed Natalie to save me on New Year’s?

I scan the trunk and the back seats. It’s empty—rubber mats on the floors, nothing to use as a weapon. The grate is between the front and back seats, so there’s nothing stopping me from crawling up to sit properly instead of on the floor… but I don’t want to get any closer to this asshole than I have to, so I stay in the trunk.

Maybe I can smash the lock on the back door with this gauntlet next time we come to a stop.

Then what? Hobble away on a mangled ankle? my inner voice sneers.

“You mean to tell me you’re working for them but they haven’t told you the truth?” Freddie asks.

“They’ve told me plenty,” I say defensively, though my need-to-know situation renders this frustratingly untrue.

We turn a sharp corner, and I brace a hand on the back of the seats, wincing at the pain in my palm. Damn, I got beat up. I don’t even want to look at my ankle, which feels like it’s on fire.

“Are you and Nat… you know… a thing?” Freddie asks. He lingers on me in the rearview mirror, stealing glances at my reactions.

I don’t need the Madsens knowing about my personal life, so I scoff like the idea is ridiculous. “No.”

I scowl out the window as if memorizing every turn will help me understand where he’s taking me.

“So she hasn’t explained why all these items are cursed?” His voice is calm and even .

I bristle. It was one of the first things I asked Natalie. Her response? That’s one question I can’t answer.

“The witches have told me everything I need to know,” I say.

But that frustration lingers in the pit of my stomach. As much as I want to ignore Freddie, the answer hangs suspended in the air between us.

I tear my gaze from the rear door to meet his eyes in the mirror.

He shakes his head. “Katie, your buddies are the ones to put curses on items in the first place.”

I scoff. “Is this your attempt at getting me to join your cause? CSAMM is trying to contain magic, not create more curses—”

“Listen. A curse is meant to deter someone, right? It makes a person want to get rid of the thing causing them harm.” He’s a confusing mix of hardness and softness, like his gentle tone might put me at ease if he hadn’t just shoved me aboard the Kidnap Express.

“Uh-huh. So they’re cursing bags of chips to stop anyone else from eating them?”

“They’re cursing what’s hiding underneath—the power fused to these objects.” Freddie turns onto a quiet residential street, slowing down. His gaze darts from mirror to mirror as he checks whether we’ve been followed.

I furrow my brow, trying to grasp what he’s saying. “Explain.”

He pulls over in front of a blue ranch-style house. Cars are parked along the street, their windows frosted. On the opposite side, a woman in a knee-length parka walks her Golden Retriever and tows a kid in a wagon—life carrying on as normal.

“I want you to understand what’s going on,” Freddie says. He puts the car in park and turns around in the driver’s seat to face me. “Witches curse objects to hide the real magic underneath.”

I stare at him, my heart thudding. I didn’t consider that curses are there to protect something, but it fits. CSAMM is trying to regulate magic, and what better way to stop someone from accessing it than by hiding it beneath a curse?

“What kind of magic?” I ask, skeptical.

“All of it.”

When I keep staring in confusion, his thick eyebrows shoot up. “Wow, Nat hasn’t told you anything, has she? Katie, witches are made , not born.”

“That’s not…” I trail off, my mouth dry. Did Natalie ever actually say she was born with magical abilities?

My pulse quickens. The urgent need to escape the vehicle fades, replaced by a burning desire to understand what Freddie brought me here to tell me.

I swallow, finding it harder to sound unconvinced as my voice trembles. “You’re telling me every time I’ve laid hands on a cursed item, I’ve been holding the ability to become a witch?”

The purple gemstones flash through my mind’s eye. Is that real magic appearing after a curse is neutralized?

Freddie nods, his mouth a thin line. His blue eyes are piercing against the drab, wintry sky. “They’ve been lying to you. They’re making you do their dirty work without giving you the option to have the magic you’re helping to destroy.”

Doubts crash through my mind like waves in a storm. I feel small, pathetic, a tag-along on all these assignments. Is Freddie right? Have the witches ever thought of me as one of them, or am I just a workhorse?

“But why would they want to destroy magic?” I ask.

A car approaches, and Freddie snaps his gaze ahead. But it’s just a red minivan. As it passes, he lets out a breath and continues. “It’s in the name. The oath. The Coven of whatever for Managing Magic. Their whole goal and purpose is to stop anybody but themselves from using it. All that means is they’re hoarding it. ”

“They’re keeping the public safe,” I say—but I’m spewing what they’ve told me. Do I really believe this? A knot forms in my stomach, twisting tighter with each word Freddie speaks.

“You agree with the oath, then? Do you think nobody, even yourself, should have the right to magic?” His voice is gentle, his cheeks rosy, his eyes bright, reminding me of when we met on New Year’s. I thought he was nice before his intentions became clear. He’s like a shapeshifter, one minute a terrifying criminal, and the next, this normal guy trying to explain his cause.

I grind my teeth, unsure how to respond. A pang shoots through my temples, like my brain is working too hard to try and sort through this information. How am I supposed to work for CSAMM when I don’t know the full truth about what they stand for?

“You’ve been fighting against me and my family without understanding why,” Freddie says. “We just believe the coven has had an unfair monopoly over magic for long enough. Don’t you think anybody should be free to use magic? Yourself, even? This is about equality.”

I don’t know what to say. Yeah, I’d like to be a witch. I’d love to be able to move the earth the way Natalie can.

My brain feels like a wasp nest, and I suck in a breath, trying to calm my racing thoughts. Is CSAMM creating a class system by hoarding magic? Do they have the right to decide who can and can’t access it?

A new kind of pain hits me, a betrayal so deep my chest aches. When I came to CSAMM with a skill the witches desperately needed, they could have granted me magic. Instead, they’ve kept me on the outskirts, dangling scraps of information while taking advantage of my ability.

My nails dig into my palms as the truth bubbles through me like lava.

Freddie opens his door and steps out. Through the window, he walks around to the back. He swings open the trunk door, and a blast of cold air hits me.

He stands there with his arms at his sides. I don’t move .

“How do you access the magic once the curse is neutralized?” I lift my chin to look up at him, my voice trembling.

Freddie crosses his arms over his broad chest. “That’s what we’ve been trying to answer for years. We can never do it before the curse’s full power takes hold and…” He trails off, and I think of the lackeys Natalie mentioned. The people they send in to grab cursed items. Each one they acquire must be a race against time—a desperate quest to figure out what to do with it now that they have it.

“But you know how to neutralize a curse?” I ask.

“Those vials they always whip out?”

“Yeah.” Between Natalie telling me nothing and the fact that CSAMM won’t let me be on everyone else’s level, rage simmers inside me, and bile creeps up my throat. “I don’t know anything more than that. I’m lucky she even showed me Alchemy 13.”

Freddie steps closer, his piercing eyes widening. “You have access?”

I shake my head. The exhaust from the running vehicle clouds the air, searing my nostrils.

“Where is Alchemy 13?” Freddie asks, an unsettling sharpness in his tone. There’s his dark side again.

A pang of guilt cuts through my fury. I shouldn’t have mentioned the room. I let anger take over and didn’t consider who I was talking to.

But he can’t get into CSAMM anyway, so maybe it’s fine.

“Was today all a setup?” I ask, deflecting. “You wanted to get me alone, so you brought me and Natalie to a curse in a graveyard, where she wouldn’t be able to fight properly?”

His lips quirk into a smile—and there’s his soft side. “Took a while for a curse to show up in one, but we got there in the end. Touché for bringing the whole SWAT team along. Didn’t expect that.”

“Well, you suck at being sneaky.”

He chuckles, the lines in his forehead softening .

A pair of crows on a power line fill the silence. Too much information is swirling around in my head for me to really feel anything.

Freddie steps back, putting more space between us—as if to show me I’m free to step out of the car. “I just needed you to know we’re on the same team. We deserve the magic the witches have been keeping from us.”

I say nothing. We are definitely not on the same team.

But we aren’t on opposite teams, either.

Dammit, why did Natalie have to keep secrets from me, while Freddie Madsen , of all people, is standing here telling me everything I wanted to know?

He extends a hand, offering to help me get out of the car. His palm is soft, worn, a couple of calluses and scars he no doubt acquired doing something shady.

I don’t take it. I swing my feet over the edge of the trunk and hop out, avoiding putting weight on my injured ankle.

Freddie drops his hand, his lips twitching as if he’s about to smile. He doesn’t apologize for making his dog treat my leg like a chew toy.

We stand in the billowing exhaust, surrounded by a putrid haze that mirrors what’s going on in my brain.

Freddie reaches into his coat pocket and takes out a white card. “I was serious when I said I have business cards, by the way.” He holds it out cautiously as if trying not to startle me. After I take it, he puts his hands up in surrender. “Think about what you want.”

The card is thin and discreet. Black ink, Times New Roman, with his name, number, and email. That’s it.

“You’ve got your phone on you?” Freddie asks.

My heart jumps into my throat. I say nothing, unsure which answer would be in my favor .

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says. “I assume the witches know where you are, which means they’ll be here any second. I’m going to drive away now. I just ask that you consider what we talked about.”

I nod, keeping my jaw clamped. I’m not making promises. As surprised and relieved as I am that he’s letting me go… “This doesn’t change that you’re an asshole.”

He winks.

As he gets back in the car, I cross my arms and shiver. If Natalie doesn’t give me a valid explanation for everything Freddie told me, I’m going to have to decide what I really believe—and whether the Madsen family might have a point.