Page 50 of Just a Little Wicked (Wicked Sisters #2)

“Some party girl told me to stop being a little drama queen about everything.”

Stacy’s eyebrows lifted. “Brave,” she muttered.

“Which means I’m not running,” Winter clarified. “From anything. Not anymore. Consequences be damned. Let’s fight.”

Erikson’s head cocked, but he didn’t look relieved.

Instead, his brows pinched, like he was waiting for the catch.

She knew she deserved his doubt. She’d been pushing him away from the day they’d met, forever finding excuses to keep him at arms-length instead of being vulnerable.

Rather than ask others for help, she’d turned away from them, and rather than it making her strong, it had made her weak.

Only now was she beginning to realize that she’d been running and hiding instead of fighting.

That there was strength in vulnerability and trust.

She walked over to him and he sat back, his lids half-lowered as he studied her. She cupped the back of his neck, touching his bare skin for the first time since she’d learned what the consequences of letting herself go with him could be. “Let’s fight together.”

And then she was gone.

Startled, Winter looked around, but Erikson wasn’t there even though she could feel his presence.

This wasn’t even her house. Shit , she thought as she glanced down beside her, this wasn’t even her time .

Standing next to her was a little girl dressed in a white nightgown with her hair in two plaits down her back.

They were both tucked in the shadows at the bottom of the stairs.

It was late at night, because lamps were flickering in the hands of the three women whispering urgently in the living room.

That’s when she realized where she was: she was hiding with little Elizabeth at one in the morning, a month before the end of the Civil War.

Except this time, she wasn’t watching events unfold through Elizabeth’s eyes.

She was there herself. That was new. Winter had seen into the past before, but she’d never joined a memory in her own body.

“They will hunt mercilessly for it,” Elizabeth’s mother warned. “The Shadow Council will not stop until they have it in their hands and they have burned the world to ash.”

“Their hunger for power will handicap them. They will alienate my Wicked sisters, and one day they will rise against them,” said Lupin, her voice eerily prophetic.

Her silky, dark Wickedness coated Winter’s tongue, and she knew she was mere yards from one of the most powerful Wickeds she’d ever been in the presence of.

Even more powerful than the Shadow Council.

Her Wickedness practically oozed from her pores.

“How do you know this? Have you seen it?” Elizabeth’s mother demanded.

The Wicked touched her forehead, and then peered into the darkness of the stairwell, staring directly into Winter’s eyes. “I know this because it has begun.”

Winter’s skin crinkled. Could the Wicked see her? No, that was impossible, wasn’t it? She was a spectator in this memory, not a participant.

“They’ve waited centuries for you,” the Wicked continued, her eyes still burning into Winter.

“Who are you talking to?” Elizabeth’s mother asked, glancing at the stairs. Winter caught a flash of a white nightrobe and knew that Elizabeth had dashed upstairs before she could be caught.

The powerful Wicked continued, ignoring Elizabeth’s mother, and Winter was certain that she was talking to her, however insane that may seem.

Winter opened her mouth to speak—what she would have said she didn’t know—but it didn’t matter, because she found she could not.

The Wicked stared deeply into her eyes, and Winter’s chest burned.

It was as if the other woman were peeling away the layers of her mortal body to read what was etched on her soul.

After a moment the woman nodded, a quick bob of satisfaction.

“Winter, you shall not find what you seek until you stop running from what you fear most.”

Before Winter could process the words, before she could react to the fact that—holy shit—the voice Elizabeth had remembered hearing after running upstairs was the Wicked speaking to her , she was yanked out of the past and back into the present, where she was curled in Erikson’s lap, trembling like a leaf.

“Winter? Winter?” Missy was kneeling by the chair, her hands clasping one of Winter’s. “Oh my God, what the hell was that Winter?”

Winter kept her cheek pressed to Erikson’s chest for another heartbeat before opening her eyes.

He was gripping her so tightly that she had to fight to get him to loosen his arms. His jaw was tense, and his eyes were wild with worry.

He released her enough to let her sit up, but kept his arm around her waist, not allowing her to stand, which was fine with her because her limbs were trembling like jelly.

She finally licked her lips and glanced around the room. Every single person was ashen and wide-eyed. Stacy was pressed against the wall, her mug frozen halfway to her mouth.

“Why are you all looking at me like that? You’ve seen me have visions before.”

“No,” Missy said fiercely. “That’s never happened before.”

Winter frowned. “Missy, what are you talking about? I have visions all the time.”

“Not like that.”

Winter noted uneasily that even her aunts were looking like they’d seen a ghost. “Winter, you faded,” Missy explained. “Like, you literally faded until you were see-through, and then you started shaking, like you were a hologram on the fritz. It was scary.”

“Are you messing with me?” Winter turned to Erikson, and the way he tightened his arms around her again, like he was afraid she’d fade away entirely, was enough to confirm that her twin wasn’t screwing with her. “That’s . . . not possible.”

Holly pushed her sunglasses on top of her head. “What was your vision about?”

“It was pastsight. I went back to the moment Stacy told us about earlier. Elizabeth was hiding and eavesdropping on her mother.”

Connor tilted his head. “It was a repeat vision?”

“No,” she said slowly. “This time I was there. I wasn’t seeing it through Elizabeth’s eyes. I had a body and it was mine, from the present. The Wicked spoke directly to me.”

She might as well have dropped a bomb on them for all the shock on their faces.

“I know it sounds crazy,” she said at last.

“No, not crazy,” Stacy breathed. “ Rare . Very, very rare.”

Connor pounced on that. “What’s rare?”

“Timewalking,” Stacy said, looking at Winter with a mixture of awe and fear. “Winter is a timewalker.”