“Where are you going?” Aamir said, rushing outside behind me.
“Is your car here?” I asked quickly, turning to him.
“Yes, but I’m not sure driving in this weather is the best idea…”
“Lola’s life depends on it.”
He hesitated.
“I know you don’t know who she is. But she’s a person. A human being and she doesn’t deserve to die.” I spoke over the howls of the wind, holding my hair out of my face with cupped hands.
“Okay,” he said, nodding with a grim expression. “I understand. Where to?”
“South,” I said, not sure of much more than that.
“That’s a start,” he said, taking my hand and pulling me out towards the parking lot. I felt the familiar wash of warmth and calm, and I pulled my hand away quickly.
“I need to feel!” I yelled out, the wind threatening to take away my voice. I needed the anxiety. The exhilaration. I needed to make sure that Lola survived.
But before he could respond, I feel to the ground, like some invisible force had sent me flying against the pavement. I groaned, my leg throbbing with pain as it was the limb that broke my fall. I looked up to see Austin across the parking lot, looking straight at me.
Aamir stepped forward, ready to fight, when a dark blur tackled Austin to the ground. Gita came outside and yelled something unintelligible. The beast turned to her—and that’s when I realized, it was Trent. Trent as a snarling wolf.
I stood up quickly and turned to see another slinking wolf come towards me. I couldn’t be sure who it was, and the intuition that I usually had with any pack member (with the exception of Lola, who was in my mind somehow) was completely clouded thanks to the storm.
“I’m going with Aamir to save Lola! Don’t let Trent come after us, just keep these crazy people away from us!” I shouted over the howling storm. The large wolf looked at me as if it understood. I had no way of knowing if it did, but it ran off and pinned Gita to the wall, growling maliciously as it did.
“Come on.” I turned to Aamir and he led the way to a small sedan.
We rushed into his car and slammed the doors shut. Just as he revved up the engine, a loud “smack!” sounded from the roof of the car. I looked up in shock, scared it might be Trent.
“What the—”
But without saying a word he backed up in reverse and zoomed out of the parking lot onto the empty streets.
“We’re in a tropical storm, remember?”
“Yeah,” I winced, reassuring myself that it was probably a tree branch and not the love of my life. “Just get on the highway and go south. I’ll figure it out. Besides, can’t you protect us with magic or something?”
“I’ll do my best,” he said, keeping his eyes trained forward. “But don’t expect me to be good conversation. This isn’t exactly easy.”
“Okay.” Nerves shot through my body as I shut my eyes, trying to concentrate on where in the world she could be.
South. I knew she was south.
A flash of where the two wolves were fighting in my dream.
“The Huntington Conservation,” I gasped. “She’s in the marshlands.”
“Get ready to break some laws tonight,” Aamir murmured. But I didn’t care if we broke a hundred laws. Human laws and the laws of my reality had already been broken a thousand times over in the last two weeks.
Whatever if I was trespassing swampland in the middle of the night.
If Lola was alive, that was all that mattered.
And she was alive. I could feel her, dimly. She was calling to me without words.
‘Hold on,’ I thought, clenching my fingers into my palms until they were white. I was shaking and scared, but I hoped that she didn’t know that. ‘I’m coming for you.’ I thought it over and over again, like a broken record.
It wasn’t a short ride either. From Deston Beach to Huntington was a forty minute trip, but I stayed wide awake and wired the whole time, my knees bouncing up against the dashboard. There was no one on the highway—just us and the horrific storm, the winds screaming like ghouls just outside of the car.
Just as we got off the highway onto the exit that led to the winding, narrow road just before the conservation’s entrance, Aamir broke the silence.
“You’re really brave, you know that?”
I laughed hollowly. Of all the things I felt right then, brave was not one of them. I was teeming with fear, anxiety, and guilt. So much guilt.
“I’m not brave. I’m just not going to let my mistakes kill someone.”
Aamir shook his head. “You’re incredible,” he murmured. I didn’t know if he meant it sarcastically or not, but knowing Aamir, he was probably being earnest.
And that just added to my feelings of guilt.
“Turn here,” I said, glad to change the topic. A giant sign welcomed us to the conservation, but the gate was pulled down and there was no one in the little wooden gate house.
“Should I…” I started, but Aamir raised his hand and the white and red pole snapped in half, falling to the ground.
“This won’t be great for my tires,” he joked wanly.
But the wind was so strong it swept the pieces away, and they flew into the thicket of swamp trees.
“Which way now?” he asked as we drove forward—there was a fork in the road.
“I…she’s near the swamp.” I strained my eyes to read the signs, but none of them really told me anything. Just the direction of a few trails and the campgrounds. “Um, right.” I trusted the strange pulling sensation inside of me. I crossed my fingers, hoping that I was leading him in the right direction.
‘Just hold on,’ I told her. We drove past the entrance to several trails, but they didn’t feel right. It was hard to read my gut instinct over the pounding of my heart, but I went with it, knowing that dulling my senses would only make things worse.
The dark night continued to howl around us, the howls of the storm growing more intense—leaves, sticks, and unidentified objects flew by. I knew there was only so much Aamir could anticipate—magic or no magic. I had my hands balled up in nervous fists as I squinted my eyes at the signs, suddenly yelling out, “There!” at an entrance to a trail with an unreadable sign.
“Okay,” Aamir said, pulling his car into the dirt parking lot just before the trail. I could tell he trusted me—it was bizarre, but the energy reading must have done the trick. He didn’t know I was right, but he did know that I believed it.
At least, I mostly believed it. I had nothing else to go on but the feeling.
“Is she…telling you anything else?” Aamir asked, hesitant to turn off his engine. “Is she able to come to us?”
“She’s not really telling me things,” I said, opening the car door despite myself. “I’ll just go find her, thanks for your—”
“As if I’m just going to let you go in yourself.” Aamir turned off the engine and exiting his sedan. We ran out together in the rain, not even bothering with an umbrella.
With winds like this, it would have been too dangerous.
“Lola!” I yelled, trying to compete with the storm. “Lola!”
I took a deep breath before passing the trailhead and jogging down the wooden pier, the canopy of trees above shielding us from nothing—the rain was coming in from all directions. And it hurt. Damn, did it hurt.
“Crap,” I muttered, trying not to let on how terrified I was as foliage flew in my face. Because the reality was, things could be much more dangerous than this.
We ran down the wooden pathway for what felt like half a mile, until it opened out into a wooden dock that overlooked the swamp. The whole time I was ducked down low, afraid of snakes hanging from trees.
Then, I saw her. Crumpled up on a fallen log was a human being, and I felt the pull inside of me, the warmth that spread from her being.
She was a part of me.
Without thinking, without feeling fear or anything but absolute obligation, I did what was probably the stupid
est and most “UnBailey” thing of my life.
I clambered over the wooden fence that surrounded the deck, and jumped into the cold, black swamp.
“Bailey!” Aamir yelled, his voice clear and strong over the whipping winds.
But I was dead set on Lola. I broke to the surface, gasping for breath as rain and swamp muck entered my open mouth. I started swimming towards her, splashing like crazy as my flailing arms hit the water. But I could hardly see with all the rain and darkness.
It was just a shadow several yards away. But I knew it was her. I kept swimming furiously until I reached the log, and I clung to it for a moment, catching my breath before sneaking my hands beneath her unanimated body, readying myself to pull her back. Somehow.
And that’s when I heard Aamir yell the one word no Floridian wants to hear.
“Alligator! There’s an alligator behind you!”
I turned my head around and my heart stopped as I saw the lurking, serpentine movement cut through the dark water.
For the second freakin’ time that night I should have seen my life flash before my eyes. Instead I just froze like giant idiot, gapping in terror as the alligator moved towards me…
And froze. Like, completely stopped moving.
“Hurry up!” Aamir yelled. “The charm will only work for so long! Get out!”
I pulled her body off the log as quickly as I could, and she plopped into the water with a splash. I swam forward and to the left, dodging the frozen creature.
And I have to admit, no movie had ever prepared me for how hard it was to drag a body through water. It’s really, really hard.
And it’s even harder when something is crawling around your ankle.
“OH MY GOD!” I screamed, water falling into my mouth as something pressed against my foot and slid.
Aamir jumped into the water and swam towards us, water falling in all directions as he grabbed my arm and yanked me, pulling me away from whatever creepy thing was touching my ankle.
He pulled me back towards the dock as I carried Lola on my back, and he reached a single hand up, pulling his body on top of it in one fluid motion, bringing me up with him.
It hurt a little, having my front scrap against the wood, and the wind and rain whipping my face, and Lola weighing down on my back, but I could hardly feel any of it. It was like I was charged with fear and nerves, impervious to the forces working against me.
“Hold on!” Aamir shouted, reaching for my other hand and pulling both of us onto the dock.
I immediately turned to Lola, whose eyes were shut tight. I pushed her, calling her name as loudly as I could. She didn’t respond, and for a moment my heart sunk.
“She’s okay!” Aamir said, and I looked at him and nodded, trusting his ability to sense it. We couldn’t spare another moment here, waiting for the storm to worsen.
I coughed for a few moments, brackish water coming up my lips, burning my tongue. Aamir picked up Lola and tossed her over his right shoulder, extending his free hand to me. I took it, feeling his panic overwhelm me like hot metal—and I kept it, knowing that the feeling was the one thing that could keep me alive as we ran over the worn path, keeping our heads low until we reached the parking lot.
Chapter Nine
Back at the house I saw Mac’s house in the driveway and the lights in the front room were on. I quickly ran up to the door as Aamir trailed behind me, Lola draped over his shoulder. She was wearing a hoodie he kept in his trunk—otherwise her clothes were mostly torn from her body.
The weather had calmed and the wind and rain was gone—of course, we were in the eye of the storm after I got kidnapped by Aamir’s psycho guitarist.
I swear sometimes it feels like the world actually wants me dead.
I pounded on the door, too frantic to think rationally and just ring the doorbell. My heart was pounding terribly, still filled with the adrenaline rush from the bizarre, near death experiences I had only forty minutes prior.
The door opened and there Mac stood, staring down at me with wide open eyes. “What’re you doing?”
I was panting and had to catch my breath before I could respond, but he looked passed me at Aamir and Lola and his expression changed from bewilderment to shock.
“You…you found her.”
“Yeah,” I finally managed. “I think you need to check her out.”
Nick, Trent and Brandon came to the foyer, crowding behind Mac. I could see Trent freeze up, but I gave him a pleading look. He pursed his lips, but as soon as he caught sight of Lola, his expression changed. She was is in trouble. He pushed passed Mac and went to help Aamir with her body.
“So, you came through on your promise,” Brandon said, sitting down on the couch. I could tell he was amazed—that’s when I realized he was the wolf I had seen in front of the Crab Shack, not Allison or Mac.
“Um…yeah, I have a lot to tell you,” I sighed, flouncing down next to him.
“Where’s Sierra?” I asked, looking around the room.
“I…I put her in my bed,” Nick said, avoiding my gaze. “I didn’t think it was right to have her sleep on the floor, that’s all,” he said quickly.
“I didn’t say anything, did I?” I raised an eyebrow. So maybe this was what Sierra was hiding from me, or “figuring out.”
“Do you mind telling us what’s going on?” Mac interrupted in a gruff voice. His patience was clearly running thin. I had never seen him in such an exacerbated state before.
“A lot,” I sighed, dropping my head in my hands.
“Well now that we have Lola safe, can we beat this guy to the ground?” Trent growled, his eyes narrowing on Aamir, who was hovering over Lola uncomfortably.
“No! Aamir saved me…”
“To be honest, I’d really like to know what happened too,” he said in a controlled voice, but looking at Trent as he said it.
“Okay, everyone calm down,” I said, hoping to keep the guys from ripping each other apart. I tried to calm my dizzy head, and Nick quickly fled to the kitchen silently, returning with a soothing cup of tea.
Once I finished recounting everything I could remember happening to me, there was a long silence that seemed to stretch on forever. I drank some of the tea, and burnt my tongue, the terrible swamp water still strong in my mouth.
“So, Gita was the reason for the storm,” Mac said in a low voice, holding the stethoscope he kept under the couch to Lola’s chest. He waved Nick over, who looked at her sullenly, taking her limp hand into his and closing his eyes. It was almost like they were orchestrating an elaborate healing process.
“Yes,” I said, meeting Trent’s gaze. His jaw was locked, and he was avoiding looking in Aamir’s direction completely. I knew he wanted nothing more than an excuse to punch him, but at least now he knew why I ran off with him—and how helped save our lives.
“And she used that girl, Lola, so that she could track you were,” Aamir said in a hushed voice, anger written in his tight lips. It was surprising to me that he hadn’t known about this, considering they were supposed to have such a tight relationship, but I guess there were a lot of things I assumed about them without really knowing.
“And you didn’t know?” Trent snapped suspiciously.
“It may be hard to believe, but no, I didn’t,” Aamir said, annoyance flitting across his face. “Gita disappeared soon after you left, Bailey. That’s why our tour was postponed…we were very worried about her. I mean, I knew she was upset with…us,” he said, choosing his words carefully when he referred to our hook-up, “but I really didn’t know she was capable of this. I clearly underestimated her.”
“What was she trying to do?” Brandon asked. “Her and that guy got away.”
“Not until after we gave them a good beating though,” Trent growled. This information seemed to pain Aamir.
“She was trying to become the next High Priestess of Cyrus. You see, currently I’m the next in line, since my father is the High Priest. But you can prove yourself worthy of the posi
tion, so she wanted to eliminate your pack, since you’ve been uncharacteristically public lately.”
I winced, thinking about how I was the cause for all of that.
“But the sacrificing? What was that about?” I asked.
“She was calling on an ancient curse that honestly is way beyond her or Austin’s capabilities. She was calling on the elements, so the storm, to cloud her enemies from communicating with one another, that’s you guys. When you make that deal with nature, you are supposed to offer up two enemy sacrifices—if you perform the curse successfully, a third enemy can be claimed as your own.”
“So, why did she leave Lola in the swamp?” I asked, realizing that I was the third sacrifice. She was going to use my energy to kill the entire pack.
“Of the two souls that are sacrificed to nature, one must be killed by your own hands, and the other must be left, weakened, out in the wilderness. That way there’s still a chance you could fail—all of our magic has an element of chance attached to it.”
“This is really bizarre,” Brandon muttered. But Trent, Nick, and Mac looked thoroughly engrossed.
“So she kept us from communicating with one another with the storm. But gave Lola access to Bailey’s thoughts? That might explain the voice you were hearing earlier, Bailey. You said it sounded like Lola,” Nick posited.
“Yeah. Well it’s not like Gita has access to any of your thoughts so it was a good strategy on her part.”
“But what about that night we heard her at the Crab Shack, Bailey?” Trent pointed out, looking awfully suspicious of Aamir. It was made painfully obvious by the way he was addressing me and not Aamir.
“We did hear her, but we couldn’t sense that it was her. Which is something we should be able to do.” I relayed the information to Aamir.
“Yeah, she probably had some hand in crafting a spell or something. That’s honestly a pretty easy thing to do, as long as the participants willing.”
We sat in silence for a moment. Then Lola stirred, mumbling something incoherent. Still, I couldn’t help but perk up—she was moving!
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