Given (2 page)

“I believe you.”

He sighs. “You do?”

I nod. “I’m not sure why, but I do. I wish I didn’t.”

“If Becca’s still around—whoever raised her from the dead, they …they might have plans for her.” Aidan looks at me with a serious, almost pleading expression.

“Plans? What kind of plans?”

“I don’t know,” he tells me. “But if she has unfinished business with you, you need to be careful.”

“You need to take your own advice,” I say. “Go inside your house and don’t set foot out of your front door. Don’t text anyone or call anyone. Just mind your own business, Aidan.”

“Okay.”

“I won’t bail you out again, man,” I tell him. “I mean it.”

“I know,” he says. He puts his hand on the door, then turns to me. “Thanks, Cam.”

“Just do what I said.”

He gets out and I watch him enter his house. Part of me wants to just sit out front and keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t try to sneak out like he did last night. But I can’t be Aidan’s babysitter.

No, I need to try to figure out what’s going on around here. I need to get a handle on how Becca could be dead but still alive, how Nat and Raine can have these powers, why Aidan is changing.

And me. I need to know what’s happening to me as well.

The question is, who can help me? Who has answers?

I sit in my car and brood.

Hadley knew things. If she was still alive, I could ask her some of these questions. Granted, she probably wouldn’t have given me many answers, but at least she might clear up how Becca could have been raised from the dead. And why someone might do it.

But Hadley isn’t alive.

Thinking about her brings me back to the compound. The woods. The night I woke up in that cave and she was dead, her neck snapped like a twig while Raine stood over her, giggling.

My arms have broken into gooseflesh.

Hadley’s not alive anymore, but there’s still a way she might be able to answer a question or two.

Hadley’s house. I can picture it in my head. Those empty rooms, how she never even bothered to buy furniture or truly move in. And now that she’s dead…the house is probably just as she left it.

My heart’s starting to pound in my chest. I lick my lips. If the house hasn’t been touched, then maybe, just maybe, Hadley left something that could help me. Something that could help me help Natalia.

I make a quick turn onto Circuit Street and step on the gas.

***

When I arrive at Hadley’s house, the sun is high in the afternoon sky, but the air is cool as wind ripples across the yard.

I get out of the car and make my way up the walkway to the front door. Peering inside the big picture window (the same one that was broken by a flying body and promptly fixed with a spell), all I see is an empty room.

I swallow the feeling of dread in my throat. It’s too creepy. A dead girl -- a dead witch’s --house. That can’t be good.

Do you really want to go wandering around in there?

I force myself onto the porch and try the doorknob. It’s locked, as expected.

So I go around the back and try that door, but it’s locked, too. For a moment, I consider just grabbing a rock and smashing the window, then reaching in and unlocking it that way.

And then I see someone’s already broken a window to get in. It’s right at ground level, and there’s glass scattered nearby.

Didn’t Nat say she found Raine tied up in Hadley’s basement?

Somehow it’s comforting to know that Natalia was here. Right here, doing the same thing I’m about to do now. I’m going to climb into the damn basement and hope no one else has decided to take up residence in the meantime.

I’m a lot bigger than Nat so squeezing in through the opening isn’t that easy, especially since there’s glass poking out of the frame. She cleared most of the stuff at the bottom, but there are plenty of shards left at the top and some of it scrapes my back as I slide in.

I drop to the floor and look around.

One dim bulb shimmers overhead. It’s eerie to think that this same bulb was shining when Hadley was torturing Raine. There’s the chair she was tied to, and the rope on the floor that bound her. I kneel down and touch it. There’s specks of dried blood on the ground, the chair, and even stuck to pieces of the rope.

“What a mess,” I say aloud, and instantly regret it. My voice sounds weird down here. There’s a slight echo.

The day I was here is so vague that I don’t have much memory of it. I was under Raine’s spell, and Hadley was mind-controlling me too. But being in the basement conjures up a ghost of an image. Raine sitting there, her face bruised and bloodied, and Hadley watching us both. Waiting for something to happen.

I shake my head as if trying to wake from a dream. It feels like there’s still a lingering after-effect of Raine and Hadley’s presence in the room.

But other than the chair and the rope, there’s not much down here; some old rags, a few pieces of plywood, some two by fours, and an empty cardboard box.

I walk up the rickety steps as quickly as I can and head into the rest of the house.

The kitchen is just as bare as the basement. Hadley was using plastic plates and silverware. There’s a little garbage in a trashcan, just some old food. I open all of the drawers and cabinets, going as fast as I can.

This place just feels wrong.

It feels dangerous.

The living room is totally empty but for a few dust bunnies and a package of curtains that was never opened.

Finally, I get to Hadley’s bedroom. It’s the most lived-in room in the entire house. There’s a mattress and blanket, but no box spring or bed frame, which is pretty bizarre for a girl. There’s a dresser filled with clothes, and I open the drawers and quickly pull them out. But there’s nothing else in there.

I’m starting to feel like this is a total wild goose chase. What do I expect to find in here, exactly? A DVD of Hadley telling me what her plans were before she was unexpectedly murdered?

But still, I keep going. After all, I’m here and I’ll likely never get another chance to look around. Hadley must have had something -- a journal or a book or a computer.

Maybe a digital camera. Something that can shed light on what’s happening.

The closet has some clothes hanging in it but not much else.

And then I’m down to the last few boxes sitting piled in the corner of the room.

I’m working up a decent sweat now, but a lot of time has passed. Shadows are moving across the floor, and it seems like a warning.

Hurry up, Cam. You’re in danger.

I pick up each box and unceremoniously dump its contents on the floor. The first box is filled with books and magazines, but there’s nothing strange about any of them.

They’re just typical chick books, romances, and the magazines are things like US Weekly and InStyle.

The next box is full of shoes. High heels, sneakers, flip-flops, boots.

I’m starting to think this was a big fat dead end. I’ll probably have nightmares tonight, but other than that I haven’t accomplished anything.

And then it happens. I pick up the box that was on the bottom of the pile. It’s been nearly flattened by all of the crap on top of it. There’s clearly not much in here.

But there is something.

Papers. Handwritten papers. I pull them out and stare at them, trying to make sense of what’s written on them.

One seems to be a letter or something, but it’s not dated and it’s not even finished.

It just says:

Justine,

You have to realize that Raine knows less than we thought. But

she does know enough to be dangerous. She’s formidable, if a bit naïve

and self-absorbed. Then again, what teenager isn’t?

As for Campbell, he’s got no clue of his own importance or the

power he possesses. Nobody has told any of them about their pasts. But

as we know, the past becomes the present.

If Campbell and Natalia are going to stand a real chance, they

need to be together. You see

It ends there, as if she stopped writing mid-sentence and simply never returned to it. I wonder who Justine is.

Beneath the letter is a piece of paper with what looks like a scribbled family tree.

There are branches with names I don’t recognize, and question marks next to some of them, little notes next to others.

On the bottom of the tree are three distinct branches. And each branch has two names on it. The name in the middle branch is Leonid Veris. Next to it, in parentheses, is my name. Campbell Elliot.

On either side of my and Leonid’s names, are two separate branches. One says Alessia Terris and in parentheses, Natalia Moore. And on the other side of me, Sasha Terris and in parentheses, Raine Marsden.

My mouth is dry, and I lick my lips. What is this? Is this some kind of game Hadley was playing, making up names for us all? But somehow I don’t think so. At the top of the page, she scrawled that phrase again: “The past become the present.”

The family tree has other names going up the branches. Weird names that I don’t recognize, and then next to some of them, names of kids in Santa Anna.

Becca has a question mark next to hers.

Aidan’s name has an asterisk and a little jotted note. “Can he be Leonid’s second in command?”

I shake my head at the absurdity of it all. Aidan second in command to some dude named Leonid? What planet am I living on?

Then again, nothing can truly surprise me anymore. And nothing can truly be beyond possibility, either. There has to be something in this family tree that can help me.

After all, Hadley was truly one of them, a real witch with knowledge of their history and inner workings.

I fold up the papers and stuff them in my back pocket.

“How pleasant to find you here,” the voice says from behind me.

I spin around. Reed’s standing in the doorway, his arms folded, a big grin plastered across his face.

“Holy shit, you startled me,” I say, breathing heavily from the shock of seeing him here.

“Startled you? You’re in my house,” he says, still with that smile on his face.

But his eyes are dark and the smile doesn’t touch them. He’s watching me very closely.

“But that’s all right, Campbell. I don’t mind. You’re a friend of Natalia’s after all, and any friend of hers is a friend of mine.”

“This isn’t your house,” I say, trying to stay calm. “This is Hadley’s house.”

Reed starts chuckling and then he breaks into a wild laugh. “And who do you suppose bought this house for her to stay in?”

“Oh. Well…I’m sorry. I thought it was unoccupied.”

He looks around the room. “You’ve certainly made a mess of things in here.

What, pray tell, were you looking for?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. A necklace to help Natalia.”

His eyes bore into mine. “A necklace?”

“Yeah. I thought Hadley might have had a spare or something. Hadley was powerful, so…”

Reed nods, but I can’t tell if he believes me or not. “Well, did you find anything useful?” he asks.

I wonder if he can read minds. Or if he can somehow tell if I’m lying by the way my eyes move or my heart rate goes up. “I didn’t find anything. There’s nothing here but clothes and books.”

His smile fades and then returns. “Come with me, Campbell.” He turns and walks out of the room.

I wonder if I could jump out the window before he has a chance to get to me. But I know he’s probably ten times faster and stronger than I am. Even if I did manage to get out the window, he’d grab me on the front lawn. So I follow him into the hallway.

“Come downstairs,” he says. “I have something for you. Something that might help.”

“I don’t know,” I say, trying to sound calm and casual. “It’s getting late and my mom’s expecting me back soon.”

“Relax, Campbell, this will take just a second.” He opens the door to the cellar and starts trotting down the stairs.

I stand at the top of the stairwell. “You know what, Reed? I really have to go.”

He looks over his shoulder and his eyes darken. The smile drops. “Come downstairs, Campbell.”

Suddenly, my feet begin to move of their own accord. Like in a nightmare.

Slowly, I’m going down those steps. The wood creaks beneath my weight.

Reed is standing at the bottom, waiting for me. “I just put a teeny tiny spell on you, Cam. Just to nudge you in the right direction. You weren’t being very cooperative.”

“Let me go, Reed.”

“You want to go? Make it happen, Cam,” he challenges. “Turn around and leave.”

But we both know that I can’t. I keep walking until I’m at the bottom of the stairs. Back in the godforsaken basement.

Reed’s very close to me now and his eyes are on mine. His eyes seem to have grown larger somehow. Like they’re swallowing his face. Which is a weird thought to have. I mean obviously his eyes can’t swallow…his…

“I’m going to try and make this as painless as I can, Campbell. Even though I don’t really like you very much.”

“Hey…what…what…” my mouth is going numb and my words are slurring.

“But things will be better for everyone—especially Natalia—if you’re just…removed from the situation. I’m very, very sorry about this. Truly. Now just relax.”

The world is going dark. My vision is narrowing into a tunnel, just a small circle of light and sound. The rest is black.

I feel Reed’s hands around my neck. He can snap my neck with one quick motion. One second, maybe less, and I’ll be dead.

Somehow, in this moment—everything slows down. The whole world slows down. And yet inside of me, deep inside of me, I’m awake and aware and conscious. A part of me I never knew existed is awake. A part of me that’s stronger, wiser, that knows all there is to know.

If you die, Natalia will be destroyed.

She needs you, Campbell. She needs you to live. You have the strength,
Campbell. Fight. Do it for her.

In my mind’s eye, that piece of paper from Hadley’s room is blindingly vivid, as if it’s on fire.