Mitchell sat in a wingback chair in front of the unlit fireplace not saying a word, and that did not help Amelia’s mood one bit. He was giving her a look that plainly said he did not approve of her outburst.
Amelia gritted her teeth and glared at Mitchell. What the hell was wrong with him? The argument had been going on for just over an hour now and he hadn’t said one word. Talk about infuriating. When she wanted him to butt out he always had tons to say, but now when she actually needed him to speak up and help her, he sat there silent, only shooting her the odd glare masked with disappointment.
Amelia was close to snapping at him when Megan said, exasperated, “I already told you. We grew up together. Cole taught me about my magic. We’ve been friends since sixth grade, and I didn’t know he was a vampire hunter. His dad taught me about witches.”
“You’ll have to do better than that, honey,” Lola said snidely. “Fiona is dead, another one of our kind, and you know the people who killed her.”
Lola’s words hung in the air, silencing everyone. The atmosphere quickly turned somber. For the second time since Fiona’s death, Amelia felt sick, and by the expressions on her friends’ faces, she wasn’t the only one.
At first, Amelia had been shaken that no one had seemed upset when she had told them that Fiona wasn’t coming back. Fiona may not have been everyone’s favorite, but she had been a part of their lives for over one hundred years. Amelia had thought that maybe all of the recent deaths were just making them immune to the horror. But now, she couldn’t ignore the flickers of pain and glazy eyes of her friends. It was then that she realized that mostly likely no one wanted to talk about it, because talking about it just made it all the more real.
Amelia focused on Mitchell. If the rest were hurting, she was sure he was crumbling inside. His stoic look gave off an air of unfeeling, and if it wasn’t for the bond, Amelia would have thought he truly didn’t care. As it was though, he was suffering more than any of them. He couldn’t mask the pain. At least not from her. To Amelia, it felt like a hot needle was jabbing into his heart over and over. And even worse than that, was the burning guilt he was feeling. Guilt for surviving the flames when Fiona did not.
“You led them right to us,” Eric whispered, breaking the silence. He had his back turned and forehead pressed against the wall. “My friends are dead. Mabel is dead because of you.” He hadn’t made eye contact with any of them since he had found out that Megan knew the hunters.
Megan flushed and pulled her knees to her chest, rocking herself weakly back and forth, the leather couch cushions squeaking with the movement. “I didn’t know!” she cried.
Mitchell had gone back to staring blankly at the ceiling, looking as if he wasn’t even listening. Amelia couldn’t take it anymore. She needed to know what was going on in his brain. She launched into his mind without a second thought, and what she found made her temper go from warm to white-hot.
You’re reciting the alphabet! Amelia shouted through the bond, wrathfully. He shot her another look that clearly said to stay out of his thoughts and went back to his ABC’s.
Amelia clenched her fists and was about to shout again, when Lola said, “We can’t trust her.” There was a steely look in her eyes as she glared at Megan. “She obviously told her little friends where Amelia would be tonight. It’s the only explanation as to how they were able to pull off that kind of attack.”
“Hold up,” Erin said. She darted up from the loveseat, her spiky blonde pigtails bouncing as she moved. She placed herself in the center of the room and shoved her hands into the pockets of her corduroy overalls. “She was used. You can’t blame her.”
“Yes, I can,” Eric said coldly. He turned around in slow motion, and what Amelia saw on his face made her suck in an involuntary gasp of air. He looked as if he had aged ten years in the last hour, and his usually playful demeanor had frosted over.
“Does that mean you still blame me?” Erin asked, plopping back down, the air from the loveseat cushions making a soft whoosh when she sat.
“No one blames you, Erin,” Amelia whispered, suddenly feeling like a hypocrite.
“My point exactly,” Erin said in frustration, and she tossed her arms up. “I tried to kill you. I actually helped plan your death, but you guys trust me.”
“That’s different,” Luke interjected. He shifted in his chair and crossed his legs. He smoothed out his jeans before continuing. “You’re the reason Amelia’s not dead, Erin. It was you that helped us find her in time.”
“And Megan can help us now,” Mitchell said, finally speaking up, although it was definitely not what Amelia had been expecting him to say. He gave an encouraging half smile to Megan. She stopped rocking, let her legs go, and sat up a bit straighter under his gaze.
“No,” Eric whispered. “I don’t want her here.” He fixed his hard gaze on Megan and said, “Just go.”
The tiny bit of confidence Mitchell had instilled in Megan crumbled away, and Amelia could swear she could actually see Megan’s heart shattering.
“You don’t mean that, Eric,” Angelle cooed. She patted the open space beside her in a gesture for Eric to sit.
“Yes, I do mean it,” Eric said to Angelle. “She betrayed me. She weaseled her way in here to help them kill us.” He took in a deep breath and let it puff out in three short bursts before focusing back on Megan. “I want you to leave.”
“Eric,” Mitchell interrupted with a firm undertone. “I’m not letting Megan leave. The hunters made it clear that they want the girls. What do you think they’ll do to her if they get her?”
A tense and heavy silence filled the room as everyone waited for Eric to say something, and Amelia was pretty sure that she wasn’t the only one holding her breath.
After an excruciatingly long minute, Eric finally broke the silence. “I really don’t care what they do to her.”
“I can help,” Megan pleaded, panic tainting her voice. She got up and rushed over to him. “I know him. I know all of them. I know their strengths and their weaknesses. We can beat them.” When he refused to look at her, she fell to her knees with a heart-wrenching wail at his feet and gripped onto the leg of his jeans. “Please, Eric. Please let me help you.” Eric sighed loudly, and regret etched onto his face. He bent down just enough to pry her hands from his pants, and then he left without even a backwards glance.
Everyone was too stunned to move. This wasn’t Eric. Eric cared. He laughed. He joked. What right did he have to be a jerk to Megan? Sure, she had yelled but… Amelia’s blood started to boil all over again, and she was the first to come to her senses. She got up from her chair and started towards the door after Eric.
She didn’t make it far before Mitchell said, “Amelia, let him go.”
Amelia swiveled to face him. “Mitch, I…”
“I’m not asking,” Mitchell said, cutting her off. “He’s my son and I’m not going to have you coddling him whenever he throws a tantrum.”
Amelia hesitated and thought about ignoring Mitchell. Someone had to talk some sense into Eric, and he obviously wasn’t going to do it. But then she looked at him. Really looked at him, and she suddenly realized what he was doing. Why he had hardly spoken over the last hour. It was all right there on his face. He was testing her. Letting her lead. Giving her the chance she had wanted.
Deep down she knew running after Eric wasn’t the most important thing. He’d come around. She knew that. Eric was probably surfing through Megan’s thoughts right this second and he’d see the truth. Mitchell held out his hand to her, and his face lit up with pride when she took it. You’re doing the right thing, he sent silently, and she took the chair beside him.
“Wow, he’s seriously been hanging out with Millie too much,” Angelle said under her breath, and then she blushed. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.” She gave a bashful look to Amelia and said, “No offence.”
There were a few chuckles and giggles, and Amelia rolled her eyes. “Sure,” she said with as much sarcasm as
she could put into it, which just led to more giggles. Even Megan was giggling through her sniffles.
“He’ll come around, Meg,” Tyler offered. He got off the couch and padded over to Megan with an outstretched hand. “Eric doesn’t know how to hold a grudge.”
Megan took Tyler’s hand, and once on her feet, she went straight to Angelle’s open arms. Again, Amelia had that annoying I’m such a hypocrite feeling. Since Mitchell had spoken up, the rest of her family dropped their suspicions, and she realized suddenly that their initial suspicions were most likely based on her reactions. They looked to Mitchell for answers and, by extension of him, they also looked to her. If she freaked out, they would follow her lead with the belief that she was on the same page as Mitchell.
Amelia took a long deep breath, trying to erase the embarrassment she felt, and said as calmly as she could, “Megan, I know this is hard, but I promise you, Eric will come around. The bond won’t let him stay away, and once he calms down you can bet that he’ll search your memories to see if what you are saying is true.” Amelia gave Megan her warmest smile, and the crevasses along Megan’s forehead smoothed to small wrinkles. “We need you to tell us everything you know.”
Megan shifted her gaze between the empty doorway and Amelia a few times before she finally said, “Okay,” with a small bob of her head. She glanced at the empty doorway again and let out a soft hissing sigh, and then she asked, “Where do you want me to start?”
“At the beginning, when you first met Cole,” Mitchell encouraged, bringing Megan’s focus away from the missing Eric and the empty door. “Any detail, no matter how small, could help.”
Megan chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, and Angelle tightened the arm that was draped around Megan’s shoulder. That was all the encouragement she needed to launch into her story.
Amelia hung onto every word, letting her senses loose, searching for anything that may hint at a lie in her words. Megan started from the beginning, when Cole had moved in next door to her in the sixth grade. They became fast friends from their first meeting. They started dating in high school and that was when she found out about witches. She hadn’t believed him, figuring he was just toying with her, until she had met his parents.
“They invited me over for dinner,” Megan said. “I was sitting at the table, and the food smelled so good. His Mom had made a turkey with all the fixings.” A slight smile touched her lips, and her eyes clouded over in memory. “I had offered to help her bring the food in, but she just smiled at me. Then suddenly we all had steaming food on our plates.”
“Okay, that’s kind of cool,” Tyler said. He grinned and tilted his head back to look up at her from his seat on the floor, snuggled against Angelle’s legs. He fixed his eyes back on the notebook on his lap and went back to jotting down notes from the story.
“Yeah, I guess,” Megan said with a shrug. “But at the time I was so freaked out that I ran from the house screaming.” She let out a soft laugh. “After that, I avoided Cole like the plague. Whenever I saw him, I’d hide. Behind a bush or I’d climb a tree, anything so he wouldn’t see me. It worked for a few months. He had stopped calling and dropping by, so I thought I’d gotten rid of him.”
The laughter washed from Megan’s brow, and her eyes took on a vacant look. “It was about two months later when my Mom took off, and the night she left, Cole climbed through my bedroom window while I was sleeping. He was with Dustin, one of the guys you killed tonight, and Stephanie, the girl that was there,” Megan said to Mitchell. “I was so broken up about my Mom that when I saw Cole, I didn’t care about anything else. I didn’t care what had happened before, and when he explained that I was a witch, I just believed him. He told me that the others were witches, too, but honestly, even after we turned eighteen and our powers became activated, Cole and I were the only ones that ever used magic.”
“Let me guess,” Eric said bitterly. “He climbed through your window and you fell for him all over again.”
Amelia let out a groan. She hadn’t noticed him come back in the room, and by the look on his face, he was still in a mood. She glanced back at Megan just as she shrugged away Angelle’s arm.
“Well, kind of, yeah,” Megan said to Eric in a tone that said it was a stupid question. “We’d been friends for years, and I missed him. He was just trying to help me. I didn’t know about you, Eric.”
Eric snorted and narrowed his eyes at Megan. But before he could make some comment that Amelia was sure would be uncalled for, she said, “Eric, you aren’t being fair.”
Angelle, Erin, and Lola were all glaring at Eric so fiercely that it was as if they were just waiting for him to say something nasty to Megan. It was at that moment that Amelia realized they had completely accepted Megan into the family. She recognized the look. Although she had never been on the receiving end, she had seen it given many times in her defense.
Megan defused the tension. “It’s okay, Millie,” she said, lightly shifting her gaze away from Eric. “He’s just trying to find something to be mad at because he knows he was wrong.”
Eric shuffled side to side and jammed his hands into his pockets. “I um, I’m…”
“Oh, shut up, Eric,” Megan huffed, cutting him off. “I’ve felt you searching and listening in since you left, so if you’re finished acting like a moron, you can sit down. Otherwise come back when you’re ready to actually help.”
Amelia’s jaw dropped, and from the corner of her eye, she saw that Mitchell was having the same blown over reaction. How could Megan speak so freely after only a few days of dealing with the bond? Eric clearly wasn’t happy, so why wasn’t she screaming in pain?
To Amelia’s further surprise, Eric flushed red as a beet and grinned. “I’m sorry I’m such a dumbass.” He ran a hand through his messy leaf-green hair and gave Megan a heart melting puppy dog look, jutting out his bottom lip. “Forgive me?”
“Already over it,” Megan said with a bright smile.
Eric didn’t hesitate; he rushed over to the couch, dropped down beside Megan, and quickly pulled her close.
“What the hell just happened?” Tyler asked, wide-eyed and stunned. Then he looked at Mitchell, expectantly. “How did that not hurt her?”
“I knew she was right,” Eric said and kissed the top of Megan’s curly red head. “I was being an idiot. I never doubted she was right; I just didn’t want to accept it. The pain only comes into play when she doesn’t agree with what I think is right.” He grinned—his trademark, sexy half grin. “I’m not too proud to admit that I’m never right.” Eric’s vibrant green eyes sparkled as he said the last words.
“But Mitch and Millie,” Tyler protested.
“Never agree on anything,” Luke said with a rumbling chuckle.
Erin was the first to let a giggle slip, but it sounded more like a high-pitched squeal than a giggle as she tried to hold it in. That was all it took for everyone to erupt in laughter. Amelia tried to glare at them and give a so not funny kind of look, but she failed miserably. Her own laughter bubbled up and burst out. It wasn’t as if she could deny it. She rarely agreed with Mitchell on anything. Could their pigheadedness really be the cause for all their troubles in the past? She laughed even harder when a memory of her mother popped into her head. “Amelia, you wouldn’t be grounded right now if you weren’t so stubborn. It never hurts to admit when you are wrong,” she had said so many years ago.
“Amazing,” Lola said through her laughs, pulling Amelia from her memory. She was looking at Eric and Megan with obvious respect.
It took a few more moments, but when the laughter died down, Erin asked, “You’re mom took off?” She wiped tears from her eyes and rubbed at her aching sides. The question effectively stopped the remaining giggles, bringing everyone back on track. “Like, just left you?”
“Yup,” Megan said. “I haven’t heard from her since. Cole’s parents took me in when child services tried to put me into foster care, and shortly after that, the bank took our house.” Megan hesit
ated for a minute. She glanced at Eric as if she was trying to decide how much to tell with him there, and then she sighed loudly. “It was about a year later that I started seeing the images of Mitchell, and that’s when I broke up with Cole. We stayed close friends, and his parents taught me about being a witch. They trained us together, made us study spells and history so when we turned eighteen and our powers triggered, we’d know how to use them.”
“You said the others never used magic?” Mitchell questioned.
Megan shook her head in response. “They never came to the training either.”
“Did they ever talk about vampires or hunters?” Luke asked.
“Nope. I didn’t even know about the mark until I got here. I just thought it was a funky birthmark or something.”
The questions went on and on, and Megan answered them quickly and efficiently. She described each one of Cole’s gang, who they were, what they were like, and really any little detail she could think of, right down to their favorite colors. They found out that there had been three others that usually hung around Cole that hadn’t been at the fire.
The early morning sky was brightening to a muddy yellow as the sun inched its way over the horizon, fighting to pierce through the storm clouds that were moving in. Amelia rose from her perch. Her butt and legs were asleep. When she stood, pins and needles shot up her legs, and she rocked a little, feeling as if her feet were missing and had been replaced with small post-like stumps. She stumbled over to the glass terrace doors, trying to walk it off.
“And now I’m here,” Megan said.
“Did you tell them about me?” Mitchell asked. He scrubbed at his face.
“Hell no,” Megan answered. “They would have thought I was crazy. I just said I wanted to travel before going off to college.”
It was the small fire that flared at the back of Amelia’s throat that made her stomach rumble. She looked over at Mitchell, his eyes had taken on a pinkish hue and she quickly noticed that the others were looking drained. They were licking their lips frequently, as if to try and quench their thirst by working up the saliva. She fixed her focus on Mitchell. “Go eat,” she said abruptly, before any more questions could fly.