by Holly Ice
She poofed out of sight from one moment to the next. And she’d never needed a bracelet to get into my room when I was having a nightmare. She’d make a deadly enemy.
‘Anyway, Perry is on his way, and he’s bringing the boss.’
I choked. ‘Did I get you in trouble?’
It was already nine, and Peregrine’s shift usually started at seven. Plus he’d been totally against this road trip. Did he report her out of spite?
She snorted. ‘I got a lead. Boss wants to follow it.’
‘You mean he wants to ask Shane’s dad about this farm?’
‘He wants to know exactly where it is, the layout, how to get there without arousing suspicion. Everything.’
‘He’s going to raid it?’
I couldn’t believe the WMCF was moving so quickly with all the connections the McKees had. Inzi’s boss must really be clean.
‘Did the coven give permission for a search?’
‘They did after my report. The property was already on our shortlist, but the second farm name wasn’t on the maps we had. So, if Shane’s dad confirms the name of the neighbouring farm, we’re all in.’
That meant they’d talk to him. I rubbed my neck. ‘When does everyone get here?’
‘Within the hour.’
‘Wow. Okay.’ I sucked in a breath. ‘I’ll let them know.’
I headed inside on heavy legs. How did I break this to Shane’s dad? He’d be more involved in this mess than ever. And it was my fault.
The moment I walked into the kitchen, Shane’s eyes snapped to mine. Then his dad’s glower.
‘Where did you go?’ Shane’s dad asked.
My feet rooted to the spot.
Shane stood, searching my face. ‘Want to get out of here?’
I shook my head, not taking my eyes off his dad’s coiled anger. ‘My guard… She’s a djinn. She heard about the farm, and her boss is on his way.’
His lip twisted.
A roaring noise rushed through my ears.
‘Your guard eavesdropped on me in my house?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
He stood, his chair squeaking over the kitchen tiles. Then he left the room, the front door slamming behind him.
I winced and turned to see him march down the road, towards Inzi’s car.
When he was out of sight, I blew out my breath, glad the rest of his ire wasn’t focused on me.
Then I looked for Shane. He was already by my side. He rubbed my shoulder. I squeezed his hand, glad for the reassurance.
* * *
We’d planned for a midday raid, and the hours of prep went far too quickly, even with Shane’s dad taking a good half hour to berate Keller and Inzi for invading his privacy and demanding his help.
He’d eventually calmed to snappy responses but had insisted Shane and Callum stay behind to avoid direct implication in the raid.
Shane wanted to argue – he was bristling like a cat dipped in water – so I told him to stay put.
He’d only just repaired the relationship with his dad. If I had any hope of getting that man to like me, I had to keep his son out of this.
Shane’s glare then followed Keller through his last-minute checks of the map, the road route, the people in each car, and a number of phone calls.
He was making me twitchy.
‘Staring a hole through him won’t get him to change his mind,’ I said.
Keller ‘needed’ me on the raid for confirmation of the raid location. Or, more cynically, I was someone to blame if they picked the wrong place. But my gut wasn’t trembling, so I’d suck it up.
Shane nodded to Keller’s hushed phone conversation. ‘Why can’t you call Julian? He’d get you out of this.’
‘He thinks helping the WMCF improves my image.’ He also thought if I proved my visions to them, half the battle of a potential retrial was won.
Shane grunted and made a gimme motion. ‘Let me talk to him.’
‘I got his voicemail. I left a message. He’ll meet me out there if he gets it.’
‘Not good enough.’
I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath.
Shane was trying to keep me safe, but the constant questioning and hovering was like a wire brush on my raw nerves.
I had to go on the raid. They had no one else who could do what I did.
‘Time to go, people!’
Keller shooed us into the correct cars in the convoy. Trackers at the front, then the rest of the officers, followed by Grim and me, and the boss’s car at the back.
I twisted to look out the car’s rear window. Shane’s arms were crossed, his face tight with worry. I blew him a kiss. And his kiss back sent shivers through my heart.
His familiar loped after us for a while, until we were too far from Shane. She fell back then, a lonely figure, tail wrapped around her muscular form in the middle of an empty road.
I waved goodbye, then watched the woods and towns stream past, each shadow seeming like a bony hand, clawing the air. I shook off the chill.
But the landscape grew more and more isolated over the next two hours. Fields and forests were littered with old outbuildings, the roofs caved in, like a long-lost civilisation.
We had to be approaching the farm by now. The last town or village was a fifteen-minute drive back.
Peregrine’s jaw was so tight, a tic jumped in his cheek.
Another fifteen minutes of forest later, I jerked upright, lightning slamming into my spine. My hair raised, my senses on high alert, like I’d walked over my own grave.
‘Stop the car,’ I said, staring at a particular patch of road. My gut was on the road with it, taut between me and that spot. ‘Stop the car!’
Peregrine spoke on the car radio. ‘We’re stopping for a minute. Bianca’s freaking out.’
He was still undoing his seatbelt when I jumped out the door and raced to the spot.
I put my hand over my mouth, my stomach lurching with nausea.
The area was kicked over with gravel and sand, but flies were landing on the buried blood. This was where Avery had died.
‘Grim, we have a crime scene.’
‘Grim?’ He frowned but radioed it in.
Keller pulled over behind us and marked out the edges of the scene, then called in a tech crew to make sure it was human blood and not roadkill.
‘Should we hold the raid until we get the results?’ Grim asked.
‘No.’ His boss hooked his thumb towards me. ‘She’s sure it’s the right place, and we have the blood to prove it. We need to carry this through now, or our presence will tip them off. I’ll stay here until the techs arrive. You go ahead with Bianca. We need her eyes.’ He nodded to me and turned his back, dismissing us.
I strapped myself into the car with numb hands, my worries exploding like popping candy.
Keller was an arse, but he didn’t want me dead. The rest of his raid team… I glanced at Grim’s pinched lips. I maybe trusted one of them. Maybe.
Two miles down the road, I spotted the farm signs. My ears rang, the letters merging together.
‘There.’ I pointed them out to Grim, my voice shaky.
He told the convoy I’d confirmed the location.
We then slowed to a crawl. The trackers took over directions to pinpoint where we needed to go, their words buzzing noise.
My heart sped to a sprint. Thump, thump, thump. I took deep, slow breaths to counteract my sudden panic.
But pants echoed in my mind, my chest too tight.
I bent over my knees, breathing hard until I matched the panting.
Why was my body reacting like this? I gasped in air, raking it past my dry throat.
‘Everything okay?’ Peregrine asked.
‘No.’ I barely got the words out or I’d have made it clear how stupid that question was.
Lyall, what’s happening?
He peered at me from the dash. I’ve heard of this. Avery’s memories merged with yours. Keep breathing through it. Over the next few
weeks, she should either fade away or…
Or what, Lyall?
You’ll get used to it.
Used to these crazy panic attacks and vivid physical and emotional memories? Bullshit.
I finally managed to regulate my breathing five minutes later and sat back, rubbing my chest.
‘You got any water?’ I croaked.
Grim rummaged in the cubby of the driver’s door and threw a bottle into my lap.
I unscrewed the cap and downed half the contents in one go.
He eyed me. ‘You done?’
I put the lid back on, staring at the ripples from bumps in the road. ‘Lyall says I’m getting Avery’s memories. Physically.’ An echo.
‘Reliving her death?’
‘In reverse, I think.’ As we drove the same path she ran. Was this what PTSD was like?
Grim whistled. ‘I’d prefer torture.’
He turned onto smaller and smaller tracks, following the lead car which housed an accomplished air tracker in the open-bed truck, directing the convoy through a headset.
At least moving at a crawl, we didn’t push through my – Avery’s – memories too fast.
I was sure I’d stop breathing or have an aneurism if we blasted through here at forty or fifty miles per hour.
I knew getting a vision from a dead body was a terrible idea.
A voice crackled through the radio. ‘Tracker says we’re almost there. It’s around the next corner. Officers already have the property surrounded. Boss, are we a go?’
‘Move in.’
The lead truck sped around the corner. The rest of the convoy followed.
Except us. We parked close enough to see the compound but not be in the middle of the magic-flinging.
It was strange, looking at it from the outside, into the tiny window I’d Seen the forest road from. Like I wasn’t seeing it through my eyes.
The complex was a series of warehouses, the largest far bigger than I’d thought, and all far removed from the farm buildings that must have been here originally. Probably as long ago as it took the trees to grow to full height.
Officers moved over the concrete I remembered from the window and smashed open the doors.
I held my breath against the dread that curled into my core. It wasn’t my gut. It was Avery, letting me see this place with her fear.
I closed my eyes. Avery?
No one replied, so I couldn’t talk to her like Lyall, but I still felt her presence, watching this raid with me.
I opened my eyes.
Branches blew in the gusty wind, the sky Mediterranean blue. Birds chirped overhead. This wasn’t the kind of place I’d imagine seeing the horrors Avery lived through.
The raid leader from the first car got out, the same guy I’d dealt with when they’d found Avery’s body.
Still talking on his headset, he rapped on Peregrine’s window.
Grim opened it. ‘Yes?’
‘We need the Wildes girl.’
‘It’s Nash,’ I muttered.
He rolled his eyes. ‘Without the attitude if you can manage it, Perry. We’ve got some really scared people inside.’
‘How many?’
‘Half a dozen?’ He eyed me. ‘You ready to make yourself useful?’
My lip twisted. ‘Like I haven’t already.’
Still, I got out of the car. I shivered, once again feeling like I was walking over my own grave.
‘Is it safe?’ I asked, hating the high pitch of nerves in my voice.
‘Completely cleared,’ he said.
‘And Russell and Eugene, their workers?’
‘No sign of whoever was running the operation. But we did find a few surprises.’
Relief flowed through me. ‘The babies?’
‘No.’ He frowned and opened the door.
I squinted. They’d switched all the lights on. The warehouse felt wrong like that, too bright and airy. Too ordinary.
A set of rooms with much lower ceilings were on the other side of the space but, huddled near the entrance with WMCF officers were seven people. Three of them I recognised. Cameron’s family.
Bitterness shot through my veins.
This must have been why Cameron helped the prosecution. They had his family.
I knew whatever they did was bad, but how had we missed this?
‘Mr and Mrs Murphy?’ I asked.
His mother’s shoulders stiffened, and she huddled closer to her husband.
Right. I got them into this mess. They wouldn’t want to hear from me, even if I helped free them.
The raid leader steered me away, towards the rooms.
Each step across the empty space echoed, and ten metres away from the door I smelt through it.
Human waste, sweat, dirt, and stale air.
I stopped, shuddering and clammy. I couldn’t go in there. I’d be trapped. All over again. An animal in a cage. I hissed in air and shook my head, over and over.
The raid leader grabbed my shoulders and shook me. The room span faster.
Grim pulled him away. He crouched to look me in the eyes. ‘You’re okay. Those are not your memories. No one is there. We’ll even prop the doors open. Okay?’
Staring into his eyes, I slowly brought myself back to the fore, battling past Avery’s fears.
‘I’m okay.’
I wasn’t, but I’d glue my frayed emotions together long enough to be useful.
The women and workers who should be here were relying on us to find them, before they were considered more effort than they were worth. And my gift could help.
I edged closer to the door. Grim propped it open with a brick.
Whoa, worse than I remembered. Choking back my spit, I switched to breathing through my mouth, though that wasn’t much better. It felt like I was inhaling sewage.
I expected the floor to be wet like a grungy club bathroom, but it was grave dry.
The walkway was tight and dark.
I remembered the bit near the door from my vision, but it went on and curved around on itself. Cell door after cell door had been thrown open, bedcovers strewn across the bed or thrown to the floor. I spotted a dummy, a rag doll, and a comfort blanket. They’d left in a hurry.
Could they have been tipped off? The coven had to approve this raid. Anyone on it could easily have sent word ahead of us.
‘They knew you were coming,’ I said.
The raid leader huffed, but Grim grunted his agreement.
‘I need you to find out where they went, not why they left,’ the raid leader snapped.
‘And how the hell am I supposed to do that?’ I looked around and waved my arms at the empty cell. ‘Everyone’s gone.’
‘Not everyone.’ He waved towards the entrance. ‘They left the Murphys and some workers who were on the evening shift.’
I could ken missing the workers, who were probably on their way here when the urgent message went out to leave the area. But why leave the Murphys? They must’ve been under guard. Maybe as a message?
‘The Murphys are okay? Nothing is wrong with them? No one’s missing?’
‘They’re fine.’
‘Then how did they get away?’
‘They locked themselves in a room when everyone was leaving and refused to come out. Eventually the workers left without them.’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘A lock kept out all those witches?’
‘Mostly shifters and other demi-fae. But the kid and the mother are fantastic witches. Very skilled.’
Then I didn’t trust anything the Murphys might say about where everyone had gone. They’d been in this environment for weeks, and who knew what the company had threatened. A few days in those cells cured a lot of rebellion.
The workers might be a better choice, but they didn’t look like they saw the profits of this place from their tattered jeans and cheap tops, so I’d not bet on them knowing much. But I wasn’t seeing any better options for visions.
You might get a read off of objects close to the prison
ers.
Lyall was flying in and out of cells. I’d thought he was stretching his wings, but maybe it was more than that.
Seen anything that might work?
The comfort blanket, a broken necklace, and a hair tie.
Okay, I’ll try it.
I walked into the nearest cell.
‘What are you doing?’ the raid leader asked.
‘Trying to find out where they went, like you wanted.’
Why else did he want me in these cells? I’d thought there’d be a prisoner in here, but I was beginning to think it was a scare tactic. Well, screw him.
The comfort blanket had been kicked under the bed. It was miraculously clean compared to everything else. Perhaps the children got access to clean water more often than the mothers?
My throat tightened. The end of the blanket was a wee bunny rabbit face. I picked it up by one of the long floppy ears and clasped it between both hands, closing my eyes.
I caught a brief glimpse of a baby wailing as I tore it from its mother, then I was back in the room, eyes closed.
I sighed. ‘Nothing useful.’
Lyall, where are the other things you found?
He flitted back to my cell and led me to the broken necklace.
This time I dragged a woman from bed. She beat me with her fists, but I – he – was too strong for her. The necklace fell in the fight.
I said she had to get into the van, so that must be how they were transporting them.
I opened my eyes and licked my cracked lips. ‘They’re in vans. Or they were.’ They were bound to change transport frequently.
The raid leader yelled into his radio, ordering roadblocks on major routes to check the backs of vans, but I was already following Lyall away from the noise, deeper into the cells.
The innermost cell, the centre of the spiral, was where I found the hair tie, hooked around a bedpost, a few hairs still caught in the elastic.
The moment I touched it, the world went dark and lightened on a woman stretching the band over the post.
I crashed into the room and told her we were leaving. She asked where. I said I didn’t know. Perhaps this worker was one of the nicer ones, because the exit was far less dramatic than the previous two, almost civil.
I even bitched that we had to move so quickly, that workers and prisoners had to share vans.