I keep my expression blank, but on the inside I’m way past the freak out point. Sneak off with a guy who’s no good for her. He can only be talking about Sebastian. It really was him at the park. The blue rose wasn’t a coincidence. Neither was the one he gave me or the ones he left in my locker. He lied when he said he wasn’t there. He’s been toying with me.
I swallow slowly, hoping my voice won’t crack. “I haven’t been sneaking off—”
“Now, Indi, don’t lie. We both know sneaking off is exactly what you’ve been doing since we broke up. I saw you two together, you know. More than once. But it’s okay. I forgive you. Want to know why I forgive you?” He backs me into a stack of boxes, catching me around the lower back when I trip and begin to fall. He pulls me against him, locking me in place as he twirls strands of my hair around the finger of his free hand. “I forgive you because he’ll break your heart. And when he does, I’ll be there to put it back together. And when I do, you’ll be mine. It’ll be like it used to be between us. We’ll be the perfect couple, and your heart will belong only to me.” He leans in, brushing his lips against my ear. “Along with the rest of you.” His lips press against the skin just below my ear. A cold shiver tiptoes down my spine. “But until then, friends it is.”
I push him back a few steps, keeping my hands pressed against his chest. “I think you should go.”
“Only if you give me a kiss goodbye.” He rubs his thumb over my bottom lip, pulling it down then letting it go. “I know you miss the taste of me just as much as I miss the taste of you. I promise I’ll keep my lips sealed like friends do.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“If you don’t kiss me,” he grabs both my wrists, locking them behind his back so I’m pressed against his chest once again, “I won’t leave.” His baby blue eyes darken with want as his gaze lowers to my mouth.
“Evan, please let me go.”
“Kiss me.” His voice takes on a hard edge even though the words are whispered.
“No.” I twist my wrists, trying to free myself from his grip, but he only holds on tighter. “Evan, let go. This isn’t you. Your emotions are all twisted and wrong, and it’s my fault. But I can fix it if you let me.”
“I already know how to fix it. You. All I want is to be happy, Indi. It’s all I can think about. It’s like this nagging voice in the back of my head stuck on repeat. Find happiness, Evan. Find happiness and everything will be good. It only ever quiets when I’m around you, or when I’m thinking about you. Don’t you see? You are what makes me happy.” He jerks me even closer so our noses are practically touching. “My happiness is what you want, isn’t it? It’s what you told me at school when you instructed me to find it. Now that I have,” his gaze drops to my mouth once again, “are you taking it back?”
“I do want you to be happy, Evan, I really do, but this—”
“Then kiss me.”
“No. Now let me go. Holding me against my will isn’t going to make either one of us happy. On some level, you know I’m right. You are not this person, Evan. You’re caring, and sweet, and above all else, considerate of other people’s feelings. Remember who you are.” I twist my wrists again, pulling until pain slices through both hands. “Please, Evan. You’re hurting me.”
A shadow of his former self passes over the cold look held in his eyes, and for a moment, I have hope. If I can get through to him long enough to reach my bag, I can fix this. He can be himself again. He’ll hate me, but that’s okay. At least it’ll be his true emotions and not the twisted ones I forced on him.
His lids close in one slow blink and open back up to an icy cool stare fueled with a desire bordering on desperate obsession. For the first time, I think he might actually hurt me.
“Evan, please.”
His thumbs dig into the backs of my wrists until I cry out. “One kiss, and I’ll let go.”
“I said no.” Something in me snaps and magic erupts from within my chest like a bomb, the force of it pushing him back. His grip tears free of my wrists, leaving them both throbbing in the absence of his hands. Words to an immobilization spell from the Book of Shadows spills from my mouth so fast there’s no time to stop myself. He freezes in place. Eyes held wide open, he can’t even blink.
A zap of electricity heats the skin beneath the pendant at my neck, the words to a hallucination spell sitting on the tip of my tongue. It would be so easy to make him see his worst nightmare come to life, or to make him think giant centipedes are crawling all over his body. I could make him feel as afraid as he made me feel just now. He would never hurt another person in his life after I was done with him.
Tears collect along his bottom lashes—a likely side effect from not being able to blink—until they spill over in twin streams down his cheeks as I start my incantation. He’s not really crying—I don’t think—but he will be once the hallucination spell is complete. Words continue to stream from my mouth, the air in the room becoming charged. Only a few more lines, and he will know fear and pain like never before. He will suffer in torment until he’s a withering mess on the floor, and then, and only then, will I let him go.
I take a step closer and catch my reflection in an old, dingy full-length mirror propped against the wall. I jerk my hand from the pendant, my words coming to an abrupt halt. This isn’t me. Evan doesn’t deserve this. Nothing he’s done is his fault. I did this to him. I need to help him, not punish him.
He can’t move his eyes, but I somehow feel his gaze following me to my backpack, anyway. I pull out the small box of powder, and dump it into my hand as I make my way back toward him. “I’m so sorry I did this to you. I never meant for things to turn out like this. I just wanted you to be happy and safe, but all I did was mess everything up, and I’m so, so sorry. I’m going to fix it now, and I hope one day you’ll be able to forgive me.” I blow the powder in his face and take a step back mumbling the incantation Ivy taught me under my breath. “I give you back what I took. You are free to feel what you are truly meant to feel. I release you.”
He stumbles back a step, blinking rapidly as he wipes the tears from his face. Once he has his wits about him, he stares at me in confusion. “What am I doing here? I don’t remember… I-I need to go.” He shakes his head, then bolts for the side door. He pauses to look back at me, then shakes his head again. Without another word, he slips out the side door, and I fall to the ground in tears.
“Did I just see Evan come out of here?” Jack asks as he enters the garage, dusting grass and dried leaves off his pants. “Hey, are you okay? Evan didn’t hurt you, did he? He’s been acting really weird at school.”
I wipe my eyes with the palms of my hands. “No. He didn’t hurt me. I’m okay.”
“Why are your wrists so red?” The muscles of his jaw twitch with clenched teeth. “I thought you said he didn’t hurt you.” His hands curl into fists at his sides. “Evan and I are about to have some words.”
I grab his forearm, keeping him from storming out the door. “Jack, stop. It wasn’t his fault.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t defend a guy who hurts you.”
“It’s not like that. I—” I pinch my lips between my teeth and drop my gaze. We said no more secrets, and this is another one I kept. What if this is the one that does me in and convinces him to go to Aunt Claudia and Uncle Caleb?
His fists tighten even more. “I don’t know why you’re covering for him, Indi, but this stops now. I’m not going to stand around and let Evan hurt you.”
“I did something to him. But I fixed it,” I blurt.
“What do you mean you did something to him but you fixed it?” His eyes narrow, but at least he’s uncurled his fists. That has to count for something, right? At least until he curls them back up for me once I come clean.
“After we broke up, I cast a spell on him to find happiness. He was so angry and mean, Jack, and I just wanted to ease his pain. And mine.”
“But it backfired.” Eyes closed, he licks his botto
m lip before pinching it between his teeth as he subtly shakes his head. “That’s the real reason you were asking me about The Craft the other day, isn’t it?” As predicted, the clenched fists come next.
“You’re mad, aren’t you?” It’s a dumb question. Of course he’s mad. I can practically see the smoke rolling out of his ears.
“What do you think? There’s not supposed to be any more secrets, Indi. Liv and I can’t help you learn to control your magic if you insist on keeping things from us. Messing with someone’s emotions and free will isn’t something to take lightly.”
“I kn—”
“Show me the spells you used on him so I can at least make sure you performed them properly. The last thing we need is more problems to deal with. You know we’ll have to do a cleansing spell on him and you both to negate any lingering negative energy.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen, Jack. I swear. I just wanted him to be happy again.”
“Yeah, well, now he’s going to be suspicious of us. He won’t know exactly what it is he’s suspicious of, but he’ll know something isn’t right. You should have come to Liv and me from the very beginning, and you wouldn’t be in this mess right now.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing, and let’s go fix this.”
“What about the garage? Aunt Claudia will blow a gasket if we don’t finish it.”
He takes a look around, his gaze bouncing from the messy shelves to the row of boxes lined up in the middle of the floor. “You’re right. We can’t leave it like this. I’ll take the right half of the room, you take the left, but as soon as we’re done here—”
“We clean up my mess. I know.”
20
Pale blue liquid sloshes around the jar as I hold it up to the light. “How am I supposed to get Evan to drink this? He’s probably going to hate me again tomorrow, if he doesn’t already, and won’t want anything to do with me.”
Jack flops himself down onto his bed. A deep yawn has him covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “I don’t know. You’ll have to figure it out since the traditional cleansing ritual isn’t an option. Evan doesn’t know what you are—he’ll suspect there’s something different about you, but he won’t know what exactly. The reversal spell you cast should keep his memories fuzzy on the details, and we need to keep it that way. The supernatural world is a secret for a reason. If people knew about us, it would be the Salem Witch Trials all over again. People are afraid of what they don’t understand.”
“But it will work, though, right? Even though it’s not the traditional way?”
“It should, but I can’t say it will for sure since you don’t know what was in the original spell. Tell me again. Where is this Books and Brew place, you got the spell from?”
“In the alley behind Hammond’s Bakery,” I say with an exaggerated eye roll for the umpteenth time within the past hour and a half.
He props himself up on his elbows so he’s half sitting. “You keep saying that, but there’s never been anything back there other than a dead end and dumpsters.” He stares me down so intensely, the only thing he’s missing is a bright light to shine in my face. “Why are you hiding where you got the spell? Who is this witch that gave it to you? And why on Earth did you tell her who you were? Mom and Dad didn’t go through all the trouble of suppressing your magic to keep you safe all these years for you to get your powers back and undo everything they did by blabbing who you are to some stranger. How do you know you can trust this person?”
Here we go again. As if arguing about this a million times already wasn’t enough.
“I just know.” My hand automatically goes to the pendant around my neck, the solidity of it pressing against the tips of my fingers from beneath my shirt. “I can trust her.” I drop my hand back into my lap and narrow my eyes. “And I didn’t blab who I was. I told you. She just knew, okay? She has an intuitive gift and gets impressions or something like that. She offered to help me when she saw I was upset. She said the spell would ease the pain of heart in the one I split from. All I had to do was concentrate on my desire for him to be happy, and that’s what I did. Whatever mess-ups happened with the spell came from me, not her.”
“Regardless, you should have come to us, not some random witch you found in a shop in a back alley—if the shop is actually where you say it is. Do you even get how bad things could have turned out, messing with Evan’s emotions like that? Especially when those emotions were fixated on you? He could have really hurt you, Indi.”
“I know.” I rub at my wrists, the crazy look in Evan’s eye still fresh in my mind.
“How many more secrets are you not telling? I keep giving you the benefit of the doubt, but you can only bite the hand helping you so many times. So if you have anything else to share, now is the time to do it because I won’t give you another chance. Next time I’m bringing Mom and Dad in. On all of it.” The stern look darkening his hazel eyes tells me he means it.
“Evan was the last secret I had, I swear,” I lie. “Please don’t bring in Aunt Claudia and Uncle Caleb, Jack. You know what they’ll do to me if you say anything.”
“I know.” He flops the rest of the way down on the bed and begins rubbing his temples as though he’s got a bad migraine coming on and I’m the cause of it. “You just need to be more careful. If something were to happen to you, and Mom and Dad found out we’d been keeping things from them…”
“Nothing is going to happen to me. From this moment forward, there will be no more secrets. I will tell you both everything.” The taste of deceit lies thick on my tongue because I have yet to tell either one of them about Seth, and I don’t plan to until I know exactly what’s going on. Why worry them if Seth hasn’t said anything yet?
I shift my gaze over to Liv, who’s been oddly silent. I’m surprised she’s not yelling at me too. She’s certainly given me enough scathing looks to convey she’s not happy about my latest secret-keeping fiasco either.
She sighs, her ridged shoulders drooping as she tips her chin toward the bottle in my hand. “Don’t forget you’ll have to drink it too. Preferably at the same time as Evan.” She’s disappointed in me, which oddly enough is somehow worse than having her read me the riot act like Jack’s been doing, because it’s not just disappointment I’m getting from her. It’s hurt too. Liv and I have always shared our boy drama with each other. Until now.
I swallow the lump of guilt in my throat and drop my gaze. “Can I mix it in another drink? Evan takes a bottle of blue Gatorade with him to every football practice. I could put it in there before the end of the school day tomorrow.”
“Sure, but how would you know when to drink yours? Not to mention the incantation part?” Liv asks. She flops down onto the bed, shoving her brother to the side. “Move over.”
“Right, the incantation. Um. I don’t know. Maybe I can go to his practice and propose a toast to good luck, and make the incantation a part of my speech? Or maybe I can hide under the bleachers, wait ‘til he takes a drink, then drink mine and say the incantation?”
“I was here first, and it’s my bed. You move.” Jack shoves against his sister until she falls off the bed.
She pops back up with a scowl, then punches him in the arm. “Jerk face.” She flips a lock of red hair from her face before settling her gaze on me. “Hiding under the bleachers isn’t an option. You both have to take part in the ritual together.” She puts take part in air quotes since Evan won’t exactly know he’s taking part. He has to stay in the dark when it comes to knowing about magic. “Also, won’t he think it’s weird you’re there since you two broke up, and typically only girlfriends go to watch practices?” She hops back up onto the mattress and engages in a shoving match with Jack to stay on the bed.
“Not if you come with me?” It comes out as more of a pleading question than a statement. “I’m sure there’s someone on the football team you’re crushing on.” It’s not out of the realm of possibility. Liv
has a new crush every week.
Glancing at me, she loses her advantage over her brother and ends up on the floor again. “Damn it, Jack. You’re starting to make me mad. Why won’t you move over?”
“Because it’s my bed, and I’m tired. Go lay on your own bed.”
She kicks the mattress, then throws a dirty shirt from the floor onto his face. “I’m tired too. Mom had me scrub every single inch of her bathroom. And I mean that literally. She brought in a ladder so I could do the ceiling.”
“You guys are acting like two-year-olds. Can we please focus on what I’m going to do about Evan for a second? I know I got myself in this mess, but will you please help me, Liv, to make it right? Will you come with me tomorrow or not?”
She sighs like it’s a chore, but the dreamy look in her eyes tells me she already has someone in mind. “I suppose I could go to watch Liam Kennedy.” A flirty grin graces her mouth. “His butt looks so tight in his uniform. I just want to squeeze it.”
Dinner is awkward and silent with no one talking. Just like it was yesterday. The tension is so thick I’m practically choking on it. Aunt Claudia and Uncle Caleb look at us with judgy eyes now that they think we’re delinquents. Jack is a mix of anger and resentment wrapped in self-doubt because of all the secrets we’re keeping. And Liv just looks… bored and tired. She stirs around the peas on her plate for a full five minutes before dropping the spoon onto the table.
“Can I be excused? I’m not really hungry, and I have a paper due tomorrow.” Liv scoots her chair back, the scrape of the legs over the floor loud in a room way too quiet. Her butt remains planted in the seat, her eyes shifting back and forth between her parents until Uncle Caleb nods the okay. She shoots Jack a look, then heads toward the stairs.
Of Darkness & Light: Blood Descent Book 2 Page 20