Stepping into the entryway, her eyes fell on Amber, who stood in front of the couch, clothed from head to toe in body-hugging black. Cara stood, paralyzed, for several moments before she forced her feet to move and carry her over to face the witch.
From where he sat on the couch, David spoke to Amber. “Take it easy on her.”
Amber cocked her head to the side. Her hands clutched her hips and her lips twisted into a familiar, mocking grin as she looked Cara over.
Cara’s pulse raced so fast she worried she’d pass out. “What are you doing here?”
Amber might as well have slapped Cara across the face when she looked to David to answer Cara’s question.
“I need to commit to a more appropriate relationship,” he said, his eyes never leaving Amber. “I never gave Amber a fair chance.”
Cara couldn’t imagine how Amber could’ve stolen David away so easily, spell or not, particularly in the short time between yesterday and this morning. She reminded herself again how Garren said breakup spells only worked on weak relationships. The bond between her and David had seemed so strong.
She wished she had enough control over her emotions and her voice to yell at Amber. Instead, sadness, anger, and fear worked together to choke her and her words came out in a whisper. “What did you do to him?”
“So sorry if your feelings are hurt,” Amber said, slinking onto the sofa beside David. She placed a hand on his thigh. “I told you to leave David alone. You should have listened. Now go home and get some rest. You don’t look so good.”
David’s dazed eyes remained on Amber. He knew the witch had cast breakup spells to attempt to destroy their relationship—like the sachet spell—even if he didn’t believe those spells could be effective. If Cara could only remind him, convince him of what Amber must be doing, he might snap out of it.
“David, look at me,” she said. The tears she sniffed back amplified her pleading tone.
His cloudy eyes looked past her. She reached out to touch his hand. Before she could make contact with him, Amber grabbed her wrist, shot up from the couch, and dragged her by the arm to the front door.
Amber jerked the door open and twisted Cara’s arm behind her back, nearly lifting her off her feet. With a flick of her wrist, Amber flung her onto the porch.
As Amber slammed the door, she cautioned, “I told you I would only warn you once.”
THIRTY-NINE
For the second time that day, Cara felt a strong inner urge to go to school. A public meltdown still felt inevitable, though. So she drove down to the same spot at Boulder Beach she’d visited the day before. No whales today, which was a relief. Another episode of a transient taunting her might send her over the edge. She spread out her blanket, lay down, and let the ebb and flow of the surf numb her.
A loud smack sounded in her ears at the same time that a heavy blow landed on top of her skull. White spots bloomed against black behind her eyes and a piercing pain erupted at the top of her head. A warm trickle spread down her scalp. She reached up to feel the spot. Her fingers tangled in a mass of wet, sticky hair.
Someone strong flipped her onto her stomach and she screamed for help as a cloth wrapped around her eyes and was tied behind her pounding head. Still screaming, she jerked over onto her back. Her attacker sat on top of her. She blindly kicked at the air.
Rough cloth gagged her, cutting off her screams. Then gloved hands grabbed her arms and pulled them together in front of her. Fabric crossed back and forth between her wrists. Her legs were bound at the ankles.
A pair of slender arms lifted her effortlessly and carried her like a baby across the sand and up a set of stairs. She strained to wrestle free, but the tiny arms held her solidly. Her tongue pushed and pulled at the gag in her mouth until she loosened it enough to breathe more easily.
Her sense of smell improved. Amber’s fragrance wafted all around her. The strong combination of vanilla, oranges, and cloves mixed with sulfur and something like moss.
They ascended the stairs and Cara’s weight transferred from one of Amber’s petite arms to the other. On level ground, Cara was slung over Amber’s shoulder. A key twisted in metal and a pop sounded as a trunk opened. Cara tumbled onto a prickly carpet that grazed her cheek. A final rush of salty air blew in before the trunk door banged shut. The odors of dirt and what smelled like spoiled meat closed in on her.
She couldn’t figure how it was possible for Amber to have carried her so far and to have shifted her around with such little effort. Then she recalled Amber’s unnatural strength when she flung her out of David’s house.
The driver’s door opened and closed, the car’s engine started, and they began moving. Cara tried to gather her scattered thoughts. A reenactment show came to mind. She remembered an episode she’d seen about a woman who was captured and thrown into a trunk. The woman had kicked out a taillight and waved her hand out the opening to attract attention. She was saved by an onlooker’s tipoff to police.
Cara was not only bound, but also blindfolded. The odds of her finding the taillight, kicking it out, and getting both of her feet or hands through the small space were slim. But she had to try something. Because whatever torture Amber planned for her, it surely wouldn’t be pleasant.
It was difficult to shift to another position in such a cramped space. She hadn’t even accomplished that when the car came to a stop. The trunk flew open and cool air blew in, clearing away the stifling scents of decay she’d been boxed in with. Amber lifted her out of the trunk and once again cradled and carried her as if she were weightless.
A door creaked open and swung shut behind them. Inside, Cara was overcome by more foul odors. The scents of lit matches and burnt wax assaulted her. She also thought she recognized sage by the smell of dried leaves.
The scents muddled together. This had to be the sorcery house. Her stomach pitched and she heaved against the cloth that gagged her.
She’d anticipated being shut up in a closet, or worse. Instead, she was settled on top of a soft mattress. Cord wrapped over her waist and chest, thighs, and ankles, and cinched her against the bed. With that restraint in place, she started to give up any hope of escape.
The cloth in her mouth was yanked out and her sense of smell went into overdrive. The room she lay in reeked of dirty feet. Amber’s gloved hands squeezed her mouth open and a few objects fell on her tongue. Two poked like thick little twigs, one felt smooth. The taste was sickeningly sweet.
Knowing anything Amber gave her must be harmful, she held the items between her teeth so they wouldn’t dissolve on her tongue. Something rustled on the other side of the room. She turned her head and spit the objects out. They slid down her cheek and behind her neck. She turned her face upward again as the rustling stopped.
Amber shoved the cloth gag back in Cara’s mouth. Cara thrashed against her restraints, but couldn’t break free. A buzz of panic built up inside her and she centered her attention on it, hoping to use her fear and a sense of self-preservation to help her remain strong.
A fresh, sharp pain shot across her scalp as fabric swiped across the spot on her head where she’d been hit. Amber left the room, shut the door, and began chanting something Cara couldn’t decipher. Or maybe she was talking to someone else—a man, by the sound of it. Just like she had at David’s house, Cara was sure she heard two distinct voices.
The door opened again and the mattress beneath Cara lifted and flopped back into place. Again, the door closed. The last sounds she heard were the squeal of the front door as it opened and a banging as it slammed shut.
As Cara jerked her legs against her bindings, one of her sneakers slipped off. She used her sock-covered foot to pry off her other shoe and peeled her socks off with her toes. The ties around her ankles felt looser. She moved her feet up and down in a sawing motion. The rough denim of her jeans chafed at her calves and the skin on her ankles burned with every movement of her legs.
She thrust her weight upward and to the left, hoping to slide the mattress
onto the floor. It flung up and wobbled, threatening to flip over. If it did, it could smother her. She made a shorter thrust with her legs instead. The mattress made a sideways jump.
As she continued to maneuver sideways with smaller movements, sweat broke out on her forehead and upper lip and she panted for breath. She figured she’d managed to shift the bottom of the mattress at least halfway off the boxspring. But her escape was taking too long. Amber might come back and catch her.
Sawing with her legs again, faster this time, she ignored the pain that felt like razor blades slicing against her skin. Her heels dug into the mattress, trying to make room between her ankles and the cord cutting into them. She yanked her feet apart once, twice, three times, and finally was able to pull half of her left foot out of the cord. Her toes crushed together, but she continued to pull up with her foot until she thought the bones there would break.
Her foot burst free. She lifted it and threw her free leg sideways, then drove it downward. The mattress bent at the bottom and slid off the boxspring at an angle, so the corner came to rest on the floor. She continued to press down with her leg, until her toes brushed the spongy carpet. One more stretch and both her feet set down firmly. The bindings across her legs, waist and chest slackened enough with the mattress’s new angle that she was able to squirm out of them.
She used her bound hands to pull the gag from her mouth, but she couldn’t reach the knot behind her head to remove her blindfold. Like she had with her legs, she sawed with her forearms, but the fabric around her wrists was stubborn. She used her teeth to loosen the knot.
Once her hands were separated, she removed her blindfold. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the room’s dim gray light. She was fully free.
Leaning down to grab her shoes, she spotted something that looked like a dead bird on the box spring. Her stomach constricted just looking at it. She held her breath to stave off the dirty sock smell in the room and moved toward the window.
Through a part in the drapes, she saw a dishwater sky dumping rivers of rain. No one was in sight, but her view of the street was blocked so she didn’t know whether the Jetta might be parked there. For all she knew, Amber could have returned.
Cara needed to be quiet. But after she unlocked the window, she found that it was stuck and she had to wrench up on it. The wood groaned loudly and the frame only budged a couple of inches. She had no choice but to bang up on it with her palms. There was a loud cracking sound, and finally the window slid open.
Amber hadn’t burst through the bedroom door, thank God, so she must still be gone—probably at David’s. Shaking the thought from her mind, Cara jumped out into the side yard and sucked in deep breaths of fresh air as she ran from the house. Her feet were bare, her shoes clasped in her hands.
A safe distance away, she realized her feet were freezing. She sat on a curb and slipped on her soaked sneakers. Several drivers twisted around to peer at her, but no one stopped.
She remembered her car was still at the beach. And Amber had her backpack, which held her keys. She sprinted home.
FORTY
Parked in a row in front of Cara’s house were Garren’s Silverado, Rachel’s Corolla, and Ethan’s Malibu. The front door was locked, so Cara rang the bell.
Rachel flung the door open, grasped Cara by the shoulders, and turned her from side to side, inspecting her. “What happened to you? And where’s your car?”
Cara couldn’t respond as she adjusted to the added shock that her house wasn’t empty. Rachel pulled her into a hard hug and shut and locked the front door behind them.
Garren appeared at Cara’s side. She leaned against him and he supported her weight and steered her into the family room. Rachel wrapped a throw blanket around her shoulders and sat her down on the couch. Garren sat on one side of her, Rachel sat on the other. Ethan was seated in her mom’s spot on the love seat.
“The school got a hold of your mom when you missed classes, so she called looking for you. I told her I didn’t know where you were,” Rachel said. Her expression grew pained when she continued. “She said she talked to David and he told her he broke up with you.”
Cara closed her eyes to brace herself against the misery those words brought on and nodded, not sure if she could explain the ordeal she’d been through.
“Your mom’s on her way home from Seattle. My mom’s working, but she excused me from school so I could try to find you.”
Cara opened her eyes and sorted through her scrambled mind. “Amber found me at the beach and tried to knock me out. Then she took me to her house and tied me up.” She touched the top of her head and winced. The resulting, searing pain reminded her of her capture. “I escaped. I should call the police. But last time I reported Amber they thought I was making things up.”
“I wouldn’t doubt that Amber spread some of her magick over at Liberty PD,” Ethan said.
Rachel stood in front of Ethan and blocked his view of Cara.
“Amber filed complaints against me,” Cara said.
“Does she know you got away?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t think so. She left.” Cara blinked back the tears that pooled in her eyes. “She’s probably at David’s. He said he was going to give a relationship with her a chance.”
“She must have cast a spell on him,” Rachel said.
“That’s what I was hoping,” Cara said and looked to Garren. “But you said breakup spells only work on weak relationships.”
“The spell on David wouldn’t have been a divisive or breakup spell,” Garren said.
“It would have been an infatuation or binding spell,” Rachel added.
Like the spell Amber cast on Chris. Before he killed himself. The spell Amber said she couldn’t reverse.
Both hope and horror surged through Cara. She brushed tears from her eyes and imagined the cold, heavy tether lightening and warming as she struggled to remain optimistic that David might return to his normal self, that he could be saved.
“What do we need to do to break the spell?” Cara asked.
Ethan looked like he wanted to speak up, but Rachel silenced him with a threatening look.
Cara looked to Garren.
“We need to put an end to all the spells, including the ones Amber cast on you,” Garren said. “The first thing we need to do is find the objects she placed spells on, so we can destroy them during a deliverance ritual.”
“What if she cast spells we don’t know about?” Cara asked. “And what if she put away the items from the breakup spell I saw at her house?”
“You don’t need to worry about the breakup spells,” Garren said. “Those spells weren’t effective. It’s the other spells Amber cast on you that we need to worry about.”
“What other spells?” Cara asked.
Garren’s eyes flashed a fierce blue. “Destruction spells.”
Cara’s stomach felt like it dropped to her feet when realization hit. “Amber’s trying to kill me?”
“The spells can be broken,” Garren said, his eyes softening as hers grew wider.
“She’d have to leave objects for death curses somewhere near you. We’re thinking she left something here at your house,” Rachel said. “In your pillow or under your mattress, and that’s why you were sick the other night.”
Cara thought back to how she’d felt feverish and nauseated. She’d been using her pillow. After she’d vomited on it, she’d left it in her hamper. “I think you’re right about the pillow. I stopped using mine the night I was sick and then I felt better. I’ll go get it.”
She jumped up and wobbled on her feet as her head spun. Holding her elbow, Garren helped her up the stairs. He waited in the hallway while she went to her room and grabbed her pillow from the hamper in her closet.
As she turned to leave, she spotted an envelope on her desk, in the same spot Amber had left the sachet. Creases covered the outside and lumps formed where hard objects poked from within. Cara picked it up and something lightweight slid around inside. Her fingers
made out a connection of hard, thin, curved objects.
She remembered Garren’s warning not to open any envelopes. But the urge was strong. Lifting it to the light, she couldn’t see through it to make out any distinct shapes.
“I’ll take those, if you want, before they make you sick.” Garren stood at the door.
Dizziness caused Cara to sway as she walked over to him to give him the pillow and envelope. He stepped forward to meet her, took the items, and held her arm to help her down the hall and stairs.
In the family room, Ethan remained on the love seat while Rachel paced in front of the couch. Garren sat down with Cara.
She stared at her normal-looking though stained pillow. “Can you show me what Amber did?” she asked Garren.
He nodded and pulled off Cara’s pillow case. There was a jagged tear in the pillow’s lining that was crudely sewn back up with thick, white thread. When Garren ripped the pillow open, Cara’s stomach rolled.
The object closely resembled the thing that looked like a dead bird under the mattress at Amber’s house. Dark hair and feathers wound around a white swatch of fabric that appeared to be smeared with dried blood. Small pieces of wood, beads, and black thread surrounded the fabric.
“Spells are placed on objects that include personal belongings, so a certain person will fall victim to the spell’s purpose,” Garren said. “Usually, the person gets sick first. Then the spell takes a stronger hold.”
He touched the hair first. “This is yours.”
Next, he fingered the white fabric. “This is probably from a piece of your underwear.”
Finally, he pointed to the dried smear. “And this is most likely your blood.”
Cara grimaced at him. “How would Amber get my blood?”
“There are ways. Having a victim’s blood to work with makes a spell much more effective.”
Save Me Page 22