Crush

by Tracy Wolff

  “I might die.” Three little words, but they shut him right up, his mouth slamming closed fast and tight, even as his eyes implore me to stop talking. To not say what we both know I’m going to say.

  But I can’t give him that, not now when there’s so very much on the line.

  “Jokes about shoving the ball down Cole’s snout notwithstanding,” I continue, “we both know things could go really wrong in there today. Which means there might not be another time to do this. Ever. I know what I’m supposed to do—the Bloodletter told me—but can you help me? Make sure I don’t mess it up?”

  “This isn’t what you need to be worrying about right now, Grace. You need to focus. Plus, if I’m still in your head, maybe I can help you. Maybe I can—”

  “Die with me,” I finish the sentence with a firm shake of my head. “I know you like to do things your way, but you don’t get a vote on this. One way or the other, I’m getting you out of my head, so you can either help me or you can risk ending up haunting the hallways as Katmere Academy’s very first ghost.”

  I throw my hands up in the air in a “what you going to do?” kind of shrug. “It’s your choice.”

  “One, I wouldn’t be the first ghost at Katmere Academy. And second, the ghost thing doesn’t really work like that anyway.”

  “And you know this because?” I ask, brows arched.

  “I was dead…?” He pauses. “Well, sort of.”

  “Sort of?” That’s news to me. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’ll tell you once you go in there and kick Cole’s whiny little ass,” he answers with his trademark smirk. “So don’t screw it up.”

  “Not planning on it,” I say, “but you know. Shit happens.”

  “It does,” he agrees, face pensive and eyes sad.

  I’m pretty sure this is Hudson’s version of a sad puppy dog face—or as close as he gets to it—and I am not going to fall victim to it. There’s too much on the line.

  So instead of looking at him, I crouch down and place the four items the way the Bloodletter told me to: bloodstone in the north position, dragon bone in the south, werewolf eyetooth in the west, and witch athame in the east, all arranged in a circle large enough for two people to stand in.

  Once he realizes I’m not going to change my mind, I can feel Hudson watching me with a somber face. But every time I glance up at him, the expression in his eyes is completely unreadable.

  After I’m done laying the items out, I light the special candle Macy gave me for just this occasion and put it on the other side of the square, as instructed.

  I’m not a witch. I don’t have any of Macy’s magic in me. But supposedly, that’s what these four items are for. Their magic is so strong that I don’t need any of my own to make this work.

  I’m not sure I believe that, but I guess we’ll find out one way or the other soon enough.

  I close my eyes, take a deep breath, then step inside the circle—and right away, I know exactly what the Bloodletter was talking about. I can feel something start to happen. I have no idea what it is, but it’s definitely something big.

  There’s a charge in the air, an electric shock that rides the air currents as they glide past me. As they do, every hair on my body stands straight up and my skin starts to tingle. My chest gets tight, my breathing labored, and it feels like I’m going to pass out.

  “Get out!” Hudson yells at me, panic evident in his voice. “Get out of the circle!”

  But it’s too late. I’m not going anywhere—I can’t go anywhere. The electric current that surrounds me is burning hotter, getting stronger, and the ground beneath my feet starts to vibrate.

  There are loud gasps from the crowd, a few screams, and that’s when I realize it’s not just me who feels it. The ground beneath the whole arena is starting to shake.

  I stumble back a little at the knowledge, nearly step outside the circle like Hudson begged me to, but the electric current catches me and refuses to let me escape. Instead, it zaps me and pushes me right back in.

  Not going to lie—it scares me a little. I’ve never felt anything like this in my life, not even down in the tunnels with Lia when she called up that horrible black nastiness that nearly killed Jaxon and me.

  But I don’t have time to worry about that right now, not when it feels like the entire universe is about to lose its shit all over this place. My knees are turning liquid as the ground goes from trembling to full-on shaking, and I throw my arms out to help get my balance.

  “Jaxon?” I call, but there’s no answer. Still, I turn to look behind me, convinced he somehow managed to make it in here after all, because I don’t know anyone else who can make the earth shake like this.

  But the walkway behind me is empty.

  There’s no one here but me.

  The five-minute-warning bell sounds, and I know that I don’t have any more time to waste. It’s now or never. I turn back around and look down at the circle—only to gasp, because the items are no longer on the ground. Instead, they’re hovering about three feet in the air now. Not only that, but they’re also glowing and vibrating so violently that I can feel it in the air all around me.

  The ground shakes more violently, and I wait for something to happen, wait for Hudson to suddenly be standing in front of me. But I can still feel him in my mind, can hear him bitching at me even now, telling me to stop this madness before it’s too late.

  Obviously he hasn’t gotten with the program, because I knew two minutes ago that it was already too late.

  The Bloodletter told me I’d know what to do when the time was right, but I’m still waiting for the knowledge to hit me. All I know right now is that I better get some mystical, magical inspiration soon or this whole stadium is going to shake apart—and take Hudson and me with it.

  The items are spinning around me now, circling me like some supernatural Hula-Hoop that needs no interference from me to stay aloft. Again, I rack my brain, trying to figure out what to do and again, I come up with nothing.

  At least not until the spinning finally stops and the bloodstone ends up right in front of me, glowing more and more brightly with each second that passes. Ruby red light explodes off it in all directions, razor-sharp shards that slice the world around me into scarlet ribbons that are as beautiful as they are terrifying.

  The stone is so close now that I can reach out and touch it, just wrap my hand around it and hold it tight. Keep it safe.

  And just that easily, I realize the Bloodletter was right. I know exactly what it is I need to do.

  Reaching out, I grab on to the stone, wrapping my hand completely around it. But it’s so much sharper than it looks, and the second my fingers touch it, it slices a giant gash right down the center of my palm.

  I cry out, pain and fear mingling inside me as I look at the blood dripping from my palm. I must have been wrong. I didn’t have a clue what to do and now I’ve messed up everything. Too bad I have no idea how to fix it.

  Figuring the best thing to do right now is to give the bloodstone back to its circle, I start to open my hand. But before I can drop it, the other three items begin to spin around me, whizzing by faster and faster until they blur together.

  “Grace!” Hudson cries out, and he’s reaching for me even though he’s still inside my mind. “Hold on, Grace! Don’t let go.”

  I try, I really do. but I have no idea what I’m supposed to hold on to in a world that’s spun wildly out of control. The ground rolls beneath my feet, wind rips through my hair and tangles in my clothes while lightning sizzles along my every nerve ending.

  I’m caught in a maelstrom of my own making, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to make it stop.

  And through it all, I hold the bloodstone in my hand, its strangely sharp edges digging into my palm. Drops of my own blood are streaming into the tumult now, and that might be the fre
akiest thing about this whole experience.

  I want to let the stone go, need to let it go, but the voice deep inside me—the Unkillable Beast or something even older, I don’t know—keeps telling me to hold on to the stone just a little bit longer. So I do, even as it feels like the world is going mad around me.

  And then, just as suddenly as it started, the bloodstone cracks in half and everything stops. The wind, the quake, the electricity, and the spinning magical items, all gone in the blink of an eye.

  I feel it then, another wrenching deep inside me. This one is different from what I felt with Jaxon, though. This one feels less like my entire soul is being ripped to shreds and more like something is finally sliding back into place.

  I stand frozen for several seconds, unable to move or breathe or even think. But then I realize that it’s over, that it’s really over, and I close my eyes. Let the bloodstone fall to the ground at my feet. And breathe, just breathe.

  Until it hits me that what I’m feeling is emptiness…because Hudson is gone.

  111

  Talk About a

  Power Trip

  There’s no more sarcastic voice in my head, no watchful presence, nothing but my own thoughts and memories rattling around up there.

  He’s really gone.

  I whirl around, shout, “Hudson—” Then freeze, because there he is, standing right in front of me.

  Same Armani trousers and burgundy silk dress shirt.

  Same Brit boy hair.

  Same brilliant blue eyes.

  Only the smile is different—his usual sardonic smirk replaced by a tiny, uncertain twist of his lips.

  Oh, and his smell. His smell is new, too. But can I just say, holy hell? How could this guy have lived in my head for all those months and I not have a clue that he smells like this?

  Like ginger and sandalwood and warm, inviting amber…and confidence. He smells like confidence.

  “Hi, Grace.” He gives me the little two-fingered wave he used to do all the time in my head that always exasperated me. Somehow, in person, it’s just as bad.

  “Hudson. You’re…” I trail off, not sure what to say to him now that he’s right in front of me.

  Now that he’s real.

  “Listen to me, Grace. There’s no more time.” He glances behind him, toward the stadium, where the screams have finally died down. We can hear the king over the loudspeaker, trying to get everyone calm and settled. Telling them the Trial will start in two minutes…if Grace Foster bothers to show up.

  “I have to go,” I tell him, the urgency he’d had all along suddenly beating in my blood.

  “I know,” he answers. “That’s why you need to listen to me. I left my powers inside you so that—”

  “You left your powers inside me? Why? How do I get them out?”

  “I’ll accept them back from you eventually. I’m just loaning them to you for a while. You’re a conduit, remember? You channel magic, and I’ve given you mine to channel for now.”

  “Loaning them to me?” I look at him like he’s got two heads. “What does that even mean?”

  The smirk is back, but it’s coupled with a tenderness in his eyes that I can’t begin to understand. “It means I’m mortal right now.”

  “What?” Horror explodes through me. “You said we couldn’t do that to you. You said it would ruin everything. We decided—”

  “Don’t worry about what we decided. I know my parents. No way did they make this Trial something you can pass on your own. Remember, they were planning on you and Jaxon, so the Trial would have been close to impossible for the two of you. For you alone…” He shakes his head. “That’s why you don’t have a choice. You need to take my powers.”

  “Yeah, but that leaves you vulnerable, right? I mean, if you’re mortal, doesn’t that mean they can hurt you, too?”

  He shrugs. “Don’t worry about me. They’ve already done everything they can to me—especially my father.”

  He doesn’t elaborate and I don’t ask—there isn’t time—but my heart dies a little bit with the acknowledgment of just how awful his life, and Jaxon’s, have been.

  “Take them back,” I say, reaching for him. “If they find out you’re here, and you don’t have any powers—”

  “They won’t find out,” he tells me, his British accept crisp with a combination of impatience and urgency. “Besides, you’re in much worse peril. Without a mate in there fighting with you, you’re going to need all the help you can get. Which is why I hid my powers deep inside you, so that the Council won’t know they’re there unless they search through all of your memories.”

  Maybe it’s the whirlwind I just went through, but nothing he’s saying is making any sense to me right now. “But how? You can’t just drop things off in people’s memories.”

  The look he gives me says that maybe I can’t, but he certainly can. But all he says is, “When all that magic you just did put me back together, I chose to leave them behind for you, in my favorite memory of yours. It’s the one when you were little and your parents were teaching you how to ride a bike. Remember? You fell off and skinned your knee, and your dad told you that it was okay. That you would try again tomorrow.”

  I nod, because I do remember that memory. It’s one of my favorites, too, and I think about it every time I have something hard to do…and every time I miss my parents.

  “My mom told him I could do it. She told us both I could do it.”

  “Yeah, she did. And then she smiled at you and it was so full of love and so full of confidence—”

  “That I picked up my bike, dusted the gravel off my knees, and rode all the way home by myself.”

  “Yes, you did. And she ran along beside you the whole way, just in case.” His eyes are soft as he continues. “But you only needed her once.”

  “Yeah, when I hit a rut in the sidewalk and started to wobble. She grabbed on to the back of my seat and held me steady for a few seconds until I could get control again.”

  “That’s why I hid my powers in her smile. So you’d know that I believe in you, too. That I know you can do this. And while I can’t be on that field to catch you if you fall, that doesn’t mean I don’t have your back.”

  I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that, what I’m supposed to say to him. This is the most selfless thing anyone has ever done for me, and I don’t know how to feel about it. “Hudson—”

  “Not now,” he tells me. “You have to go. But remember, they’re there if you need them. Just be careful, because you don’t heal like I do, and you don’t have the same kind of physical strength to withstand the pressure of them. So you can only use them once or they’ll drain you completely. You’ll know when you need them. Only once, though.” He gives me a searching look. “Got it?”

  Not even a little bit. I’m so mixed up inside right now that my brain feels like a box of confetti—lots of individual pieces in a confined space but nothing actually working together. I can’t say that, though, so instead I just nod. “Yeah. Got it.”

  “Good. Now, get out there and show my father exactly what one gargoyle can do.”

  112

  It’s High Noon and

  Justice Doesn’t

  Serve Itself

  I reach deep inside myself and start to separate the colored strings as I walk the final steps to the field with my heart in my throat. When the others were in the arena with me, it was no big deal to shift out in the open. But now that I’m alone and everyone is staring at me, it feels uncomfortable.

  Still, there’s nothing to do but suck it up. So I do, and I shift right out in the open—in front of anyone who wants to look.

  Which, it turns out, is everyone. I mean, who doesn’t want to gawk at the new magical creature?

  It’s just one more indignity in a long line of indignities I’ve suffered at the hands of p
aranormals over the last five months, and I refuse to let it faze me. Especially since people watching me become a gargoyle like they have a right to see it is the least of my problems right now. The biggest? Figuring out how to do this without Jaxon next to me or Hudson in my head.

  As I walk up to the gate that leads to the field, I can feel everyone staring at me. Discomfort crawls through me, and I realize how much I’ve come to depend on Jaxon—and Hudson—in the time I’ve been at Katmere.

  Jaxon acted like he owned the place, so it was easy to just accept people’s stares as par for the course. Hudson, on the other hand, basically had a kiss-my-ass attitude that made it a lot harder to care if other people were watching me, just like it made it nearly impossible for me to care what they thought.

  But now I’m on my own. No Jaxon to hold my hand, no Hudson to say irreverent things that make me laugh and gasp at the same time. It’s just me and a field full of people who all want to see me fail.

  Too bad I’m not about to give them that satisfaction.

  Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and pretend for a moment—just a moment—that everything is going to be okay. That somehow I’ll step off this field safe and in one piece. It’s a good picture, so I put it out into the universe.

  Then I square my shoulders and walk straight out to the center of the field, where the king is standing and Cole’s team is lined up on one of the now-bloodred lines. Trust the king to change a detail like that…along with a few other ones that have my heart pounding and the dome closing in on me.

  The other day, it was bright and cheerful in here, with pennants waving and people cheering and delicious snacks being sold. This morning, it’s pretty much the exact opposite. The weather outside has turned everything dark and ominous…or maybe that’s just the king’s malicious presence. Whatever it is, it’s absolutely terrifying to see dark shadows encroaching from every side. Which, I’m pretty sure, is exactly what Cyrus wants.