IT WAS THE most solemn road trip I’d ever been on in my life. Nate and I sat on the back bench, Xander and Sariah in the back captain chairs, and Evelyn was in front with my mom. I wondered if my siblings had done that deliberately, but I figured they probably had. They were very protective of me. Despite all we had done to save her, in their eyes Evelyn was a threat. I couldn’t imagine what they were thinking since both their faces were completely blank. I couldn’t help but wonder what they were feeling, if they were struggling with emotion like I was. It was unfair that I felt constantly on the brink of tears, beating myself up for weakness as they sat staring out the window blandly.
“We can turn it off, Lia. It's part of being demonic.” My eyebrows rose. Sariah was reading my mind! She turned toward me, a slight grin tugging her lips and an eyebrow arched in amusement. “I’m not reading your mind, Lia. You’re just very open. I can feel you thinking.” She smiled at me, but it was tinged with sadness. “If I couldn’t turn it off, it would drive me mad. But you’re not just feeling your own pain—you’re also channeling Mom’s. I’ve never felt anything like it. You started doing it back at the Matthews’s house.”
“I’m what? Is that even possible?”
Her brow quirked at me in amusement again. “After everything that’s happened to you in the past few months, do you really need to ask that?”
I was so certain my eyebrows had disappeared into my hair I almost checked. With wide eyes, I glanced at Nate. He shrugged, sticking out his lower lip. The silliness of the gesture made me laugh a little. It reminded me of a time when things had been easier, before I knew about gaia, and demons and murders. Laughing felt good, even if it was just a little one.
Too soon we pulled into an apartment complex parking lot. Mom got out and went inside one of the brick buildings while we stood around the car. She came out with a woman wearing a black and red dress that had to come from either Hot Topic or a Halloween store. Long, stringy black hair, that was obviously a cheap dye job, fell into narrow muddy-green eyes. She was heavy set, short, and met almost every stereotype for a Goth chick. I heard Sariah snicker, and I narrowed my eyes at her wondering if she was telling the truth about not being able to read my mind. She shook her head with a smirk.
“We'll give you a free pass since you're bringing our sister to us, but then you must get the demons out of here. I don’t care for your assurances, gaia. I trusted your husband, and you and your true daughter are welcome in our circle anytime. But their kind is an abomination!” She practically spat the last word. How much hatred and malice went into that one sentence shocked me. I finally understood what my parents told me about hostility between the different races. I remembered Xander making me promise to run if I ever saw a demon other than him and Sariah, and I felt goose bumps on my arms. I suddenly felt very cold.
“Keep her safe,” Mom said. She spoke to the witch, but her eyes met Evelyn’s as she spoke. “She'll be a powerful witch one day, but she has been led astray. Her parent’s blind hatred has warped her understanding of the Otherworld. In the end, her heart won out and she protected our family—maybe even saved my daughter’s life.” She walked to stand in front of Evelyn. “For that you will be remembered fondly.” Mom hugged her and climbed in the car. Nate and my brother and sister followed right behind, leaving me alone with her and the strange witch.
“You are dear to my sister, I can tell. You should know she didn’t mean to do you harm, but she tapped into powers she didn’t understand. The spell she did will have no lasting harm for you.”
Words escaped me as I cocked my head at her. I hadn’t even considered the idea that the spell could have lasting effects. With no idea what to say to her in response, I turned my attention to Evelyn. She’d been my best friend for so long, And despite the hatred her parents had tried to spoon-feed her, she risked everything to protect me. Earlier today she had saved my life and probably not for the first time. I couldn’t forget she was capable of murdering people like me, but I was finally able to forgive her. There was no way I would allow us to part on bad terms since we would probably never see each other again. There was too much good between us to let it end that way.
“I forgive you, Evelyn,” I said quietly as I took her in my arms.
“I never stopped caring, Lia.” I felt her tears on my neck as she clung desperately to me. “You'll always be my best friend, but I know you can’t forget what I did. What I helped them do. If it takes the rest of my life, I will make it up to you.”
“You take care, Evey. Remember, no one can tell you what to think. Don’t blindly accept anything just because it’s all you’re told. You have a good heart, and you need to learn to trust it. I’ll miss you.”
I gave her one last hard squeeze and stepped back, grabbing her hands. Something strange passed through her watery eyes. Her face went blank and emotionless as if she was no longer there. Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she fell to the pavement twitching and bucking like she was having a seizure. I gasped and jumped back, not sure what to do. The witch knelt beside her, and I saw that strange shadowy outline as she knelt next to Evey. She laid her hand on my friend’s forehead. Instantly the convulsions and Evelyn went still.
“Someone is attempting to draw too much on her. Her spirit is weak and cannot fight this. Feed me your strength, earth sister. I will help her.”
I didn’t pause to think. I took the woman’s hand. I reached to the soil beneath the parking lot and began to pull that energy through me, sending it out through the palm of my hand into her. I watched the shadow that surrounded the witch begin to engulf Evelyn. As it did, I saw what looked like a glowing cord stretching off into the distance. I understood the cord would point directly towards Monica. She was still far away and not coming any closer at the moment.
“She draws too strongly. She will kill her daughter if she does not stop.” What was Monica doing that took so much energy? I was afraid, and my mind was moving sluggishly. “Send your mother for the rest of the coven, sister. It will take all of us to sever the tie before the girl dies.”
I was reluctant to release her hand, but she pulled away and gave me a shooing motion. Dashing to the van, I relayed the message. Mom hurried into the building as I rushed back to Evelyn. I dropped to the ground hard taking the witch’s hand. Monica had a serious grudge and there was no way to know what her response would be to us taking Evelyn. Perhaps she thought we’d turned her daughter against her, or maybe she just didn’t care. Who knew what she was doing with all the energy she was drawing, or what sort of nastiness she had in store for us? All I knew was we had to stop her, and I would pull the energy from this whole city if it would do that. I couldn’t lose any more of my family. Anything to help was a sacrifice I was willing to make. I suddenly understood the man from the story my mother told me last fall. I wondered what they would call the desert I was prepared to create to help stop this.
“You do not need to kill the mother, earth sister,” the witch looked at me with a smirk. “We will save your friend. Just a trickle of the mother’s power will sustain me.”
I realized what I was doing was the equivalent to shoving a watermelon through a hose. I’d only pulled energy a few times, and it had always been massive amounts. I never tried working with smaller amounts. I found it was simply like drinking through a straw—the harder you pulled the stronger the flow. After a moment of adjustment, I fed her a small trickle and the witch gave me a smile.
Mom came out of the building with several other witches. Some obvious and some I wouldn’t notice if I passed them on the street. They instantly knelt around Evelyn, and the shadow engulfed them to the point that I could barely make out their individual forms. The cord faded, but as it did I realized Mrs. Matthews stopped drawing from her daughter and was drawing closer. It took forty-five minutes to drive here from Lincoln, so I didn’t feel too urgent. Despite that, I prayed it wouldn’t be too long until they disconnected Evelyn from her mother.
I lost track of time a
s the sisters worked. A glow began in between them. Slowly Evelyn’s body began to rise, floating in the center. The cord stretching into the distance contracted and swelled for a moment before it snapped. In that moment, I felt something unnatural wash away, yet I could still feel it in the distance like a storm approaching. She was coming too fast. If she was driving, she had to be doing a hundred easy. A green flame suddenly engulfed one of the witches. She shrieked and fell to the ground, but no matter how she rolled the flames didn’t go out. One of the other witches muttered a few words and waved her hand over the screaming girl. The flames extinguished and the poor thing stopped moving. I wasn’t sure if she was still alive or not.
“How is she still doing this? I saw the tie with Evelyn sever! Where is this power coming from?” I looked at my mom, who knelt on the opposite side of the circle feeding energy to another witch. From the horrified expression on her bloodless face, I could tell she knew the answer. “Mom? What’s going on?
“It’s Peter. He must have survived. She used that massive pull of power to draw from Peter.”
“Our brother is very strong, one of the most powerful warlocks I’ve ever met.” The leader stood next to us, her muddy colored eyes wide. “We cannot defeat her. We can hold her off because we are too many for her to take. But I fear she will turn to follow you as soon as she realizes she cannot take the young one from us.”
My mom nodded, her expression grim. “There’s only one solution. I have to stay here. We need something to keep her here while my children get away. The time it takes her to kill me should be enough.”