Page 23

Chapter 23

W hite noise rang in my ears, and an icy sensation crept over my skin before delving deeper into my chest and freezing over my heart. All my questions disintegrated into dust and scattered inside the void that had opened up in the bottom of my stomach. Insults rose and sank in my throat, wanting both to hurl them at him and keep them tucked away so he wouldn't know how much he hurt me.

I expected tears or anger, or something . But my entire body shut down, smothering every impulse and feeling that wanted to surface all at once.

Hecate scratched and mewled at the door, but I barely registered it.

"I made a mistake, Bea." Asher's blank face didn't falter as he straightened up. "A moment of weakness. An old habit still dying. Call it whatever you like, but last night meant nothing."

"Then why did you help me?" I asked. "Pity?"

Asher snorted. "You don't think you're pitying yourself enough for the both of us?"

The void split me in half, consuming everything; every thought, every feeling, and every memory. My mind turned into a blank slate as it fought to keep the agony at bay by rendering me unable to conjure a basic thought. But my body knew what to do, and I let it take control.

Without another word, I wrenched the door open and strode past a yowling Hecate as I headed back to my room. All the effort I had spent trying to avoid him and yet he had still managed to pluck my heart out for a second time.

It wasn't until I had shut my bedroom door that I crumbled; curling up into a ball at the foot of it and sobbing into my knees. How had I been so stupid? All this time I thought Asher couldn't hurt me anymore because he had already done the most terrible thing he could have by breaking up with me. No matter how much I wanted to deny it, he still had far too much power over me. And I had stupidly let him get close enough to twist the knife he had already left in me.

Hecate mewled on the other side of the door. "What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it," I said. "Go away."

I listened for her but heard nothing, so maybe she had respected my wishes.

Grabbing a blanket off my bed, I wrapped myself up in it and pushed open the door to my secret workspace. I couldn't wallow. If I was going to feel miserable, I needed to channel it into something productive. Taking a few minutes every so often to cry into a tissue, I got to work on one of the overdue grimoires.

The methodical construction of the spell books allowed me to sink into the numbness that slowly smothered my grief; not destroying it, but keeping it at bay for a while. I worked the dyed blue leather and punched holes into it with a little more force than necessary, fixed the metal clasps in place, and cast a spell to meld the rounded crystals into the cover.

I ran my fingers over the cover, testing where the leather met the crystals to ensure they were embedded correctly. Testing the clasps, I gave them a few solid tugs and snapped them into place a few times in case they didn't quite fit each other. But as ever, Laura's craftsmanship knew no bounds.

Eventually, I had to get up out of my nest to my cabinet of collected powers. Tissues trailed along the floor with me as my blanket caught them, and I reached up into the glowing shelves to grab the power I needed. This client had chosen an interesting perk for their grimoire; to make whoever tried to steal their spell book lose all memory of why they were there.

I sat cross legged on the floor and unscrewed the jar, tapping into my power to guide the ball of magic into the biggest crystal on the book's cover. The grimoire quivered, each crystal lighting up as the power seeped into the rest of the cover.

I paused as I screwed the lid back on the jar. One touch with my bare finger and maybe I would forget everything Asher had said to me that night.

Slamming the jar down next to me, I gritted my teeth. I was supposed to distract myself from what had happened that day and still the memories crept in. Besides, even if I forgot what Asher had said, he might still find a way to tell me all over again.

"Why do you care?" I snapped at myself as I grabbed a packing box from the pile behind me. "Why do you still care?"

I had aimed to get over Asher in a matter of months and over half a year later, his rejection still cut as deeply as it had on day one of our separation. All I wanted to do was flee; get as far away from here so that he couldn't hurt me again. And how dare he come back to my home and treat me this way in the first place?

I packed up the grimoire, groaning when I accidentally taped my hand to the box while wrapping it. Maybe it was time to get some space. The timing made sense; with the Franklins already getting their claws into an investigation, I could stand to take Troy's power elsewhere while things died down. That, coupled with the fact that everyone wanted me to quit stealing powers to put in grimoires and that Asher would always come home whether I liked it or not, made me feel as though a little distance would do us all some good.

Penny didn't need me. While I had prepared myself to take care of her, Edward had taken the reins on that one. The only one who really needed me was Hecate, and even then she would probably be fine here without me. Maybe it was time to go somewhere to decompress for a while. Somewhere with more sun and fewer memories.

A timid knock sounded on the door, and it opened with a small creak. Hecate trotted in, jumped onto the table, and then onto the box I had just finished taping. She leaned up on her back legs and pressed her paws to my chest to nuzzle my face.

"How did you get in?" I asked.

"I brought someone to help me open the door."

"You can open doors by yourself. Why are you getting other people to do it for you?"

"All right, I needed some backup," Hecate said.

"Is this a bad time for me to step in, then?" Penny poked her head around the door, her face falling at the sight of me. "Bea...what happened?"

I sniffed and turned away to stack the box on top of the other one. "Nothing."

"That's clearly not true." Penny slipped inside and shut the door. "What happened? Hec said you and Asher talked and-"

"Penny." I turned around, my eyes already burning again. After all that crying, I assumed the tears had dried up. Apparently not. "I really don't want to talk about it."

She made her way around the table and wrapped her arms around me. "Okay. But I'm going to hug you for a bit. Is that okay?"

"Sure." Under Penny's comforting embrace, I sank to the floor, more tears dribbling down my cheeks.

Hecate jumped down onto my lap and nuzzled at my neck, and for a moment, I crumbled in a tiny cocoon of friendship.

With sleep not an option that night, I gave up trying at about 3am and clambered as best I could over Penny who had insisted on sleeping in my bed that night. Hecate stirred and watched me with starlit eyes as I dressed and took the grimoire box. I waved to her before closing it.

I drove off to the nearest teleportation circle, shooting straight through to Detroit. I kept the hood of my baggie hoodie low as I headed toward Belmont. The dodgiest part of town was the easiest place to offload my goods, but I didn't want to linger. As soon as I had deposited the grimoire into a public locker, I shot a text from my secret phone to the buyers.

With that, I drove off into the night. For a long time I drove with no direction, not wanting to return home, especially not when everyone would wake up in a few hours. Eventually, when I felt I had put enough distance between me and the clients about to pick up their goods, I stopped at a twenty-four-hour diner and slid into a booth.

The floor was sticky, but the damp swipes on the table suggested someone had cleaned it recently. Content enough with that, I leaned my elbows on the table and grabbed a menu. A black coffee and a plate of bacon and eggs later and I leaned back in my seat, heaving a sigh.

Out here in the world, where nobody knew where I was, the pressures of my problems lifted off my shoulders. Not gone, but no longer suffocating me either.

I pushed my empty plate away and released a long breath, easing a little more of the tension that had built within me. The occasional screech of tires and horns honking in the distance was music to my ears. Little distractions that kept my brain from spiralling into absolute chaos. It gave me room to think.

All that had happened with Penny and Asher had nearly thrown me off my path; the path to discovering what Romilda had seen about my future. I had Troy’s power tucked away in my cabinet and although I still had to learn how to use it, the hard part was over. Of stage one, anyway.

I ran both hands through my hair, planting my forehead onto the table and squeezing my eyes shut. Everything in my life tugged me toward it and pushed me away at the same time, and all I could do was allow it all to shake me like an angry child with a rag doll. All the while I reached for something I wanted so badly but kept vanishing from between my fingers, turning into smoke whenever I drew near.

When Asher and Hecate had helped me escape from my old family, I had finally built a life just the way I wanted it. But while I had everything I had ever wanted; a family that loved me, best friends I could talk to about anything, and a job I was in control of that I enjoyed whole-heartedly. Better yet, it brought out the sinner in me, and that was someone I had needed to see far more since escaping my imprisonment.

But everyone, even Edward, had expressed their wishes for me to stop what I was doing and get a “normal job”, and the urge to learn about my prophecy never dwindled. If anything, it only grew from glowing embers back when Asher and I had been together, to a full on inferno that consumed everything.

I raised my head and dug my hand into my pocket to retrieve my phone. There was only one thing to do, and that was push on.

I scrolled through my phone to the number I had stolen from Asher a few days before, my thumb hovering over the ‘call’ button.

Past conversations with Asher surrounding this contact of his circled my mind, like a vulture waiting for me to give in.

“Why can’t I talk to them?” I had asked, as we lounged together on Asher’s bed, me pressed to his chest and his arm curled around me. “I know what you want. Let me ask for it.”

“Because this is someone I spent ages building a relationship with.” Asher pressed a kiss to the top of my head, before returning his attention to his phone. “They get skittish easily. We need to keep things nice and predictable for them.”

I pulled a face at him. “When are you going to trust me to be an actual partner in all this?”

“Don’t I already?”

“No. You do all the important stuff, and I just tag along for the ride.”

“Bea.” Asher squeezed me tighter against his chest. “This contact isn’t safe, okay? You put a step wrong with them and they’ll have you sign your whole life away. Just trust me.”

The memory sent a fresh wave of agony gushing through me and I squeezed my eyes shut as if that would help block it out.

I had wanted to become a part of Asher’s life in more ways than his girlfriend. I wanted the kind of charismatic ease that he exuded and all the perks it came with; to learn how to become so in control of my life that I could become an asset to us both. We were going to become the dream couple: connected, assertive, and effortless in achieving our goals. And we were going to do it together.

Or at least, that was what I had thought. But Asher leaving me hadn’t changed the fact that I wanted those things. Now I just wanted them for myself, and learning my prophecy would make it all happen. Everything I needed to do to get hold of it would turn me into the person I wanted to be, and I would do it all without Asher.

Swallowing the last of my reservations, I pressed ‘call’ and held the phone to my ear. Dangerous or not, this contact would help me get what I needed to climb out of this hole.