Hush (Witches & Warlocks Book 2) (10 page)

Chapter Eleven

I will never, for as long as I live, forget the sounds that bleed through Flannigan’s front door. Some measure of morbid curiosity has me frozen, staring at the building, listening to the massacre that’s happening inside. Or maybe it’s not curiosity. Maybe it’s fear, slinking up my back and holding me in place, icewater in my veins. Whatever it is, I hate myself for it.

I loose a shuddering breath and stagger back, finally freed from stasis, and take off running straight to Luke’s. There’s no doubt in my mind that’s where I belong. I’m not going back to Windsor. Not now. Not knowing that Lucy is the reason all this happened to me. It’d be too easy to find me there. And who knows who else is in on this whole thing? Hell, maybe Daya herself is part of it. Noah. Cora. Maybe everyone I’ve met at Windsor is there for the sole purpose of whatever diabolical plan Lucy has in mind for me.

As I run, I realize I’m crying. I’m crying for Becca, who, for most of my life, was the best friend possible. The person who made it easier to get through my days. The person who held my hand when I struggled, who guided me through the stuff I just couldn’t have gotten through alone. The person who just died in front of my eyes, blood streaming down her shirt, carrying all the color in her face with it. I stumble to a stop and put my hands on my knees, wheezing and retching until I throw up into the street.

When I catch my breath, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and spit a few times to clear my mouth. A man slows in front of me. “You ok, miss?” he reaches out to touch my arm and for some reason, I can’t keep myself from thinking that he’s one of the people who are out to get me. I dart back from him and he scowls but I don’t care. Making sure some random stranger on the street doesn’t have hurt feelings is kind way down on the ‘things I care about’ list right now.

When I get to Luke’s, I bang on his front door, leaning against it as if I might press it open with my sheer desire to get inside. Luke throws it open and I stumble in, a blubbering mess of fear and regret and confusion. He puts his arms on my shoulders and presses me away from him when all I want is to bury my face in his chest and for everything to be ok.

“Zoe! What the hell happened?”

I cringe from the harshness in his voice, it’s almost an accusation. He leads me over to sit on the couch. Too many emotions are fighting my body for control and sitting feels like a prison sentence, but he uses just enough force on my shoulders to keep me down.

“Calm down, or I’ll help you calm down.”

Well.

That might be the worst possible thing he could have said to me at this particular time. “Like you made me fall in love with you? Like that, Luke?” I’m up and off the couch and I rush at him, fists pounding against his chest, the stress and worry of the last couple weeks making it’s way out of my body and into his.

Luke stays calm. He grabs my wrists, his hands tightening around my bones like a vice. “I don’t think that’s why you’re here, Zoe. I think if you just calm down, like I told you, you’d realize that’s a conversation for another day.”

As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. I stop fighting him and meet his eyes, opening my fists and holding them still until he releases me. Once my wrists are free, I wander his living room, spewing my story in bits and pieces, working hard to calm my racing thoughts and get the story out coherently. I tell him about everything that’s happened at Windsor. The garden. The remnant. Noah’s attempts to help me. I tell him about losing control at the coffee shop and about Daya’s insinuations that I could be in more trouble than I realize. I tell him about Becca’s text and he crinkles his brows.

“She invited you out?” There’s so much doubt in his voice that I pause.

“Ya. She said she wanted to explain about everything that happened.”

Luke shakes his head. “That doesn’t make sense. That’s not Becca.”

“That’s the Becca I know,” I say, aware that it’s wrong to use the present tense but can’t bring myself to change it. “And it makes total sense.”

“You never knew the real Becca.” Luke says, and shrugs apologetically. “The real Becca wouldn’t have called you out unless she had another reason.”

“Well, I guess we’ll never find out her real motivations now because Becca’s dead.”

Luke stops pacing and stares at me. “You killed her?”

“No!” I’m appalled that he’d even think that about me, but considering in the short time we dated, I killed eight people, I guess I can understand how he jumped to that conclusion. I tell him about our night at Flannigan’s, the vampire that stopped me at the bathrooms and asked me such a strange question, and about what Becca said to me about Lucy. “And when we were leaving, the vampire just killed her. Just tore out her throat and wandered back into the bar and started killing the people inside.”

“And you came here?”

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

Luke nods and makes his way over to me, moving slowly, careful to let me see his approach. I appreciate the effort he’s making, but it’s pointless now, I’ve calmed down. In fact, I just feel heavy. Worn. I’m just so very tired.

“Do you know why the vampire asked you to change her back?”

‘No.”

“Because there’s a rumor going around that you can. A rumor that says you are as proficient with dark magic as you are with light magic and that you can combine them to return vampires to their human state.”

I just stare at him. When I say nothing, he shrugs and continues.

“Why would people be saying that, Zoe? Is it true?”

I shake my head, but my thoughts are ticking away, swirling into little tornados of ideas and questions that seem to have very logical answers. What did I do with that remnant outside the movie theater? She was hollow. And I’m pretty sure that right before she passed on, she was light. I took the light and dark energy from the people coming out of the movie, and twisted it all up and used it to change the remnant and then pass her on. That’s like, really close to using both forms of magic to, what? Heal the death out of a vampire?

“What, Zoe?” Luke grabs my shoulders. “You can’t do it, can you?”

I shake my head, more emphatically this time. “No.” How honest can I be with him? I mean, what if I
can
cure vampires? What does that mean? And how did the rumor get started? Is there someone else out there who knows the truth about what I did to that remnant?

He stares at me for a second, his thoughts racing ever so transparently across his face. He’s not sure how much he should trust me, either. “Ok. Well.” He shrugs. “With that little rumor going around, getting all tangled up with whatever made Lucy want to keep control of you in the first place, well, sweetie, things aren’t looking very good for you right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. If Lucy, a
vampire,
is the one who wanted you out of the way, and now here you are, very much back in the way, plus, all the vampires are thinking that you can make them human again…”

I come to the conclusion he’s trying to lead me to. “Not all vampires want to be human again. Especially not a vampire like Lucy.”

“Exactly. Someone like Lucy, someone who enjoys all the power she’s amassed over the years would very much
not
like having the playing field equaled.”

“But I can’t do that.” Or maybe I can, but at the very least, I haven’t tried, at least not with a vampire.

“Doesn’t matter. If she even thinks for a little bit that you can, she’s going to be out to get you.”

Shit. He’s right. I’m in trouble.

“How many offensive spells have they taught you?”

“None.”

Luke’s eyebrows shoot into his hairline. “None?”

“I can heal things. I can protect myself. I can levitate and transport myself, but they don’t teach offense at Windsor. Goes against their values or something.”

Luke snorts. “Not Daya. But she’s only there because of you. She’s all about the offensive stuff.” There’s an awful look in his eyes. His faintly red eyes.

“Could you teach me an offensive spell?”

He curls a lip into a smile. “Now that is my specialty. Folllow me.”

Luke leads me outside, chanting a series of protective incantations, trying to keep us as inconspicuous as possible. We hop into his car, while he explains that using magic leaves a kind of trail that anyone with any magic at all could use to follow us, and drives out of the safe part of town and into the grungy grimy, ugly part of town. The houses grow tighter together, yards disappearing as the buildings themselves eat up the space. Paint is chipping and gutters hang off roofs. Leaves go untended in the overgrown grass and empty flower beds. We come to an overpass and he pulls over.

“This is kind of homeless central, here. It’s where I come to practice.”

“Practice?”

“Ya. Magic gets rusty. If you don’t use it, it gets weak. Surely you know that.”

I nod. I know it, but I’m not so sure I like the implications of what he’s saying.

He wanders forward, his eyes sweeping the area until he finds a man tucked into a corner of the overpass, swathed in blankets, huddled over a fire.

With a slow wave of his fingers, Luke gathers his magic. “Serpentium mortem,” and the creeping, crawling fog that is Luke’s power rushes from his hand. It gathers at the man’s feet and sneaks into his nose and mouth. The man coughs, bending over and hacking, gasping for air, clutching at his chest and throat.

“Now you.”

“What?”

“Your turn, Zoe.”

I look at the guy, tears pouring out of his reddened face. I don’t think I have it in me to hurt anyone. I’m not sure I want to be the author of such pain. Using my magic to help, that’s good, and right, and all the things I should be. Hurting people, that’s bad, right?

“I don’t think I can.”

“You have to give into those darker emotions, Zo. They’re a part of you and if you continue to ignore them, then you will only be half of what you’re supposed to be.”

“Is reaching my full potential, worth that?” I indicate the guy who’s spasming and choking on the pavement.

“Yes. You have no idea how good it is to live without bars, to live without consequence and questions. Just to know yourself and be yourself. It’s worth it.”

I can’t take my eyes off the guy. I reach out my hand, summoning my power, calling on the deep, dark parts of myself, the parts that Noah has taught me to bury over the last couple months. It’s just … there. Waiting and ready. I flex my fingers and it surges forward, covering the ground like a sickness. A swarm of locusts, ready to destroy everything in its path.

“That’s my girl.” Beside me, Luke smiles and I don’t like the way it looks. All toothy and wrong. Too wide. Too happy to be doing what we’re doing

I flinch. My magic pauses. I look at Luke, caught on the razor’s edge of decision and he curls a lip in disgust.

He clenches his fist and the man gags and then dies. Alone under a bridge, beside a fire so small it sputters and disappears when he rolls into it.

Chapter Twelve

The air crackles with energy, charged like lightning, and my feet tingle as if a current runs through the ground underneath them. Someone grabs my shoulder and I shriek, certain Lucy has found me and I’m living the very last second of my life.

“You’re gonna have to come with me, Zoe.”

I have just enough time to realize that it’s Daya’s hand on my shoulder and not Lucy’s before I’m wrenched from my spot near Luke and find myself in Daya’s office once again. I don’t know if it’s the after effects of the spell, or the result of seeing Luke kill that man - or maybe both - but I’m woozy and unbalanced. When Daya sends a chair sliding over to me with a flick of her finger, I collapse into it and hang my head in my hands.

Part of me is relieved. Like, a big part. The part that doesn’t want to die at the hands of Lucy, the part that doesn’t want to kill homeless people on the street with Luke. But there’s another part, a smaller part, that’s disappointed to find myself back in Windsor again. Disappointed that I’ll have to go back to holding my thoughts and emotions so tight that it hurts just so I don’t lose control.

“What the hell do you think you were doing out there?” Daya strides behind her desk and takes a seat, her eyes burning small holes into my forehead.

“Trying to decide if buy into your whole deal here.” The words are out before I even know what I’m saying. My stomach drops. I may have just buckled myself into a ride I really don’t want to be on.

“Excuse me?”

Oh, well. I’m all strapped in and the car’s leaving the station. Nothing to do now but hold on tight. “I’m tired of living here, only learning half of what I need, feeling like an outcast because I’m two things instead of just one. I want to go where I can be appreciated for what I am, for the duality of my nature, rather than be taught to be ashamed of what I am.”

“Is that what you think we’re doing here?”

“Are you trying to tell me that’s
not
what you’re doing here?”

Daya takes a deep breath and nails me to the chair with her gaze. I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that I just told her exactly what I’m thinking, but you know what? I’m tired of just standing in line and doing what I’ve been told. I’m tired of not asking questions and worrying about whether what I’ve done is right in the eyes of the people around me. It’s time that I start worrying about my choices being right for me, not for other people.

“Please,” I say the word and let it show on my face that I mean it, “tell me what you
are
doing then. Because I’ve been learning a lot, but I get the feeling you’re only teaching me half the story. Half of what I need…” I trail off and sigh.