As I move to step forward, a hand snaps out and holds me back. I feel Gunnar’s heavy breaths against the side of my head as he speaks softly into my ear. “Wait.”
I want to throw his arm off me, but I know he must have a reason, so I look around and take in the entire situation instead of rushing forward.
“What now?” one of the girls asks.
As if the question prompts action, another girl bends down and gets close to the little girl’s face. Her eyes widen a bit, but she does a good job pretending not to be frightened. “I want to ask you some questions, but I can’t do that if you don’t shut up!”
The little girl’s nostrils flare as she tries to catch her breath, but she does stop mumbling. “Good. If you scream, I will put this right back on,” the older girl warns, while grabbing the end of the tape, preparing to rip it off.
The brunette nods eagerly. “Ouch!” She winces as the older girl moves back toward her, as if she may replace the tape, so she chants, “No, no, no,” in a much lower voice.
“Then keep quiet,” the cloaked figure hisses. The girl proves her bravery even more when she narrows her eyes on the older girl above her. The heavy feeling of wrath fills the clearing. If I had to guess, I would say the little girl is plotting some form of retaliation. The purity of the emotion sends a shiver down my spine. Yum.
A couple of the girls forming the circle start to shift nervously. “Come on, Carly,” one insists, looking around briefly. Humans always ignore their baser instincts, telling themselves the feeling in their gut is just anxiety instead of acknowledging it’s the primal part of their being trying to warn them.
“Are you ready to tell me what she said to you?” the one kneeling asks. She must be Carly.
“I told you what she said, you dummy,” the little girl snarls. Oh stars, I like her. Carly reaches out and pinches the girl hard enough to make her yelp. I move to step forward again.
“We won’t let them hurt her,” Gunnar breathes.
“They already are,” I hiss.
“Shut her up. Did you hear that?” All the girls start to look around. Damn it, I was too loud. Calix gives me a warning glare.
“Tell me everything she said.” Carly ignores the other girls’ worry and questions the kid.
“She said she went to school here, and she wanted to see if it was the same.” The little girl shrugs.
“And?” Carly prompts. “What about all the guys with her?”
“She said they were her boyfriends.” The girl continues to struggle, making it clear by her tone she thinks Carly is stupid for even asking these questions.
“Listen, you little bitch, I need to give him answers, so there better be more, or I’ll leave you out here for the animals and bugs to eat,” Carly threatens.
The likelihood of an animal eating this little girl is low, but the look on her face tells me she either doesn’t know that or is just afraid of being left out here. Not that I blame her.
“Carly,” another girl whines, “hurry up.”
“Shut up, Allyssa.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. I told you the truth.” The small girl chokes up a little. My black heart cracks with the sound. I feel completely responsible for what’s happening to her right now.
“I need you to tell me the truth, Lily. That’s all. Then I will let you go, and we can pretend this never happened,” Carly cajoles.
“I don’t know… she said her boyfriends were special… and took good care of her.” Lily starts to sob softly. She’s telling the truth. I didn’t tell her anything important.
Carly slams her hand down next to the girl’s head. “I need more. He won’t tell me the next step if I don’t have more!”
I glance around at the guys. We’re all wondering, what next step? “Just tell me what to say,” Lily cries.
“Carly,” a girl hisses, “this has gone too far, I’m not going to let you hurt her, she’s just a kid.”
Carly stands up and turns to face the girl who spoke up. Her hands are balled into fists, and I can see the smudge of dirty magic tangling around her feet, swirling as if she’s getting ready to strike. “You gonna stop me, Bridgett?” she singsongs in a mean girl fashion.
Bridgett takes a step back and looks around at the other girls. Most of them have their gazes averted, pretending to find the ground very interesting. Seeing she doesn’t have any backup, she swallows. “You said we were just going to question her. She told you what she knows. Let her go so we can get back to the dorm before someone realizes we’re gone,” she reasons.
“I have to tell him something or he won’t come back.” Carly looks down at Lily, who’s still struggling, but most of the fight has left her now.
Grim glides into the clearing, cloak and scythe on full display, and the moonlight glints off his blade.
Several girls scream, a few run. Self-preservation at its finest. Gunnar releases his hold on me, and I step out too. The few remaining girls other than Carly—who seems to be too frightened to even move—flee. Lily looks up at me when I kneel at her side. “Hey, kiddo.” I keep my voice light.
She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Her eyes are huge as she stares at me. I’m not sure if the lingering fear she’s experiencing is from what just happened or if it’s me that scares her.
“Let’s get you up.” Gunnar quickly cuts the ropes, and I slide my hand under Lily’s back to ease her into a sitting position.
“How are you here?” she finally says, never having taken her eyes off me.
I ignore her question. “Are you okay? They didn’t hurt you too badly, did they?” I glare over my shoulder at the ringleader. Grim and Calix have her positioned between them so she can’t get away.
When I look back, Lily is shaking her head. “You want me to walk you back to your room? Those girls won’t bother you anymore, I promise.”
“What are you going to do to her?” She narrows her eyes on her tormentor. That little bubble of vengeance pops up again, so I stroke my hand over Lily’s matted hair, tasting the sin.
“She’s not worth it, little hellion. I’ll make sure she learns her lesson.” Lily lets out a heavy breath, and most of the anger she was feeling goes with it. Gunnar helps Lily off the ground. When she’s on her feet, she dusts off the back of her sleep pants and squares her little shoulders. Stars, I like this little girl, she’s tough as nails.
I take her little fingers in my hand and walk us right past Carly, stopping once we’re in the wannabe witch’s line of sight. “I’m just a phone call away. If you ever bother my little hellion again, I will stake you, strip the flesh from your bones, and let the ants devour you. Slowly.” I smile down at Lily. Her eyes are wide, but a genuine smile lifts her lips at my proclamation.
We walk away then, hand in hand. Once we reach the sidewalk that leads to the dorms, Lily tugs on my fingers. “Thanks for saying that to scare her. I don’t think she’ll bother me again.”
“I didn’t say it to scare her, silly, I wanted to warn her what I would do.” Gunnar clears his throat and gives me a barely there shake of his head.
“Really?” She looks up at me with her big brown eyes.
“Yeah, I don’t like bullies.”
“Me either. My dad’s a bully. That’s why my momma sent me here.”
“Who’s your dad?” Gunnar no longer seems concerned that I might scare the kid with my talk of murder.
“Bronson Cartwright,” she sneers. “When I get bigger, I’m gonna take everything from him.” Her words ring with truth. This brave girl believes to the very bottom of her soul that she will follow through with her promise.
“Good for you, little hellion.” I swing our still joined hands as we walk. I should probably be concerned I’m corrupting her, but I’m not. Some people deserve what they have coming. Her dad seems like just the sort.
I give her my number, telling her I expect her to check in weekly so I know the girls are behaving. Lily cradles the scrap of paper Gunn
ar managed to find to her chest. “You never told me your name.” She blinks up at me.
I snort. “It’s Dami.”
“Like the bad word?”
“Pretty close,” I reply. “Go get some sleep. Call if you need anything.”
“Okay, thanks, Dami.” Her face flushes prettily when she says my name.
“I’m going to take care of her dad so she can go home,” Gunnar growls, as soon as the kid disappears through the door.
“You’re so sweet,” I coo. “Let’s go see if we can figure out what Carly’s been up to.”
Chapter 24
“Someone will come looking for me,” Carly says, but it’s a lie and she knows it.
“Oh yeah, you think one of those chicken shits is going to run to a teacher and tell them you guys were out in the woods assaulting a little girl and got caught by the Grim Reaper?” I give her a dubious stare.
“Wh-What?” she stutters, her eyes were already wide, but now they’re comically so.
“Oh dear,” I murmur. “You want to sit at the big kids’ table, but you don’t know what’s on the menu?” I pretend to be sympathetic. Really, I just want to beat some answers out of her for screwing with a kid half her age, especially when she had four other girls with her for backup.
Carly looks around again, expecting help from somewhere, but there’s none to be found, not from our group. Reaching up, she tries to fist a small pendant around her neck on a leather string.
Before her hand can fully close, I jerk the cord, intending to break it, but the rope is deceptively strong, so Carly ends up half falling, half tripping as I drag her closer. Her arms reach out to steady herself, so I get a better look at the little trinket she was grabbing for. “What do we have here?”
“That’s mine.” She reaches to pull the cord from my grip, but I swat her hand away, tugging her closer to examine the pendant. It looks like a bunch of geometric shapes layered over each other.
“You know what this is?” I jerk her around by the string to show it to Gunnar, and she stumbles.
“Some kind of rune, but I don’t know what for,” he answers.
“She seems awfully concerned with it.” I wrench her around a bit more by the cord, testing to see if it will break.
“Jesus!” Carly hisses.
“Don’t you wish. Time to start talking, Carly.” I shove her away from me and warn, “Don’t fuck with that thing around your neck.”
“What do you want?” She swipes her hand under her nose. Messy.
“What every girl wants. To stand on the bones of my enemies, and to look fabulous while doing so.” I shrug. “I already have everything else.”
With his cloak still covering his head and face, Grim steps forward and demands, “Tell us about the witch. Where can we find him?”
Carly starts shaking her head before he can even finish asking. “I don’t know how to get a hold of him. He promised he would be back, but it’s been months.”
“I don’t know. You were acting like there was some urgency when you were torturing the hellion.”
Carly wets her lips, her eyes darting around a bit. “I knew he would be back soon because you’re here.”
“How would he know I was here if you didn’t tell him?”
“He just knows things. I don’t know.” She goes to lift her hand as if she may reach for the necklace, but one look from me has her lowering her fingers.
“I’m gonna need more than that, Carly.” I use her name because I want her to understand that I know who she is, and I could find out everything I need to know about her. “What does he want with me?”
“He said you took something from him and he wanted it back.” When I open my mouth to ask her what, she speaks first. “I don’t know what it is, he never told me. I swear.”
I look over at Gunnar. “Could he mean Aeson?” I’m at a complete loss for what else it could be.
My question goes unanswered, but Calix asks, “When did you see him last?”
“Two months ago. Maybe.” Carly shrugs while wringing her hands together.
“You’ve been doing magic.” I point down at her feet, even though I know she will be oblivious to the taint left behind. “Dark magic.”
“He showed me some stuff.” She looks down, but I can see the flush of red creep up from her neck to her jaw and cheeks.
Ewww, I think, but I keep it to myself. “What did he show you?”
“Some wards and stuff.” Her face is bright red now.
“What was the next step you mentioned?” Calix presses.
Carly bites her lip and looks down at the ground. “I don’t know where to find him,” she hedges, but she’s telling the truth.
“Tell us what he taught you,” Gunnar pipes up.
Carly whimpers and turns away from him a bit, as if to hide. “He showed me what he could do.” She wraps her arms over her chest, still mostly looking at the ground.
“Come on, Carly, like what?” I urge.
“He messed up Sarah’s face,” she blurts. “Gave her something, and she got these boils or something all over her face that left scars.”
“Who is Sarah?” This isn’t getting us anywhere.
“She was the HBC.”
I widen my eyes. “Here at school, a student?” Carly nods. “He took out your competition. What did you give him?”
Carly’s arms tighten around her body. “Ugh, got it.” I look away. Foolish girl. He probably didn’t need anything from her to scar up the other girl. It just gave him something to hold over her.
“We still need to know what you meant about the next step,” Calix reminds her.
“Since I gave him that… he said he would show me how to stay young and beautiful forever.”
“This guy is a creep.” I almost feel sorry for Carly, but it’s a fleeting emotion. “What’s up with the necklace?” I prod.
“He gave it to me.” She reaches up, almost taking it in her hand again.
“Well, I want it, so either hand it over or I’m going to take it. And just for the sake of being honest, if I have to take your head off to get it, I will.”
Carly curses under her breath. “I’m going to untie it,” she cautions, while lifting her hands slowly.
Gunnar opens his hand, waiting for Carly to drop it. The moment the pendant hits his palm, he falls to his knees and hisses out, “Fuck me!” I rush over to his side, but he lifts his empty hand and warns me away. “No, just wait.”
“What is it?” Calix stalks a little closer. Grim grabs Carly’s arm when she turns as if she may run.
“Some kind of spell,” Gunnar rasps, while gritting his teeth.
“But she was wearing it and it didn’t do anything to her,” I reason.
“She’s not Charmed,” Calix states.
I spin around, expecting Antonio to show up any second now that his trap has been sprung. “Can you move? Is it a snare?”
“It’s not a snare,” he grinds out through gritted teeth.
“Drop it!”
“I can’t.” When he flips his palm over, the only thing remaining is the black leather cord, that is until I look a little closer and see the image that was on the pendant is now marring Gunnar’s palm like a tattoo. Calix steps closer to get a better look. “It’s some kind of fucking binding spell. I can’t…” Gunnar stretches his neck from left to right.
“Can’t what?” I prompt.
“I can’t access my Berserker, I’m as useless as a human!” he spits.
“Did you know about this?” I turn on the girl, ready to rip her soul from her body.
She’s inching backwards, and her eyes are as big as saucers as she shakes her head in denial. “He told me it would protect me. I didn’t know,” she sobs, crying in messy, snotty heaves.
I know she’s telling the truth, but it doesn’t abate my desire to rip her apart. “What would you like me to do with her?” Grim asks, his tone flat.
Gunnar speaks up. “She’s a stupid kid. Let her go.�
�� I spin on him and narrow my eyes. He’s the last person I would have expected to release her without punishment. Gunnar pushes himself up from his knees, and his eyes lock on mine. “Leave her,” he says again, this time with more emphasis.
I look over my shoulder. “You better hope I never see you again, little girl. If you even breathe wrong, I’ll be back, and nothing will stop me from hanging your guts in the commons like a fucking garland.”
Carly swallows and Grim releases his hold on her arm. Without any prompting, she takes off into the woods, running away like her ass is on fire—I wish it was.
“Good thing we brought the car,” Gunnar scoffs, trying to make light of the situation, but I see the way his jaw tics and the way his fists are all balled up as if he’s waiting to beat someone to death.
“This motherfucker is really getting on my nerves.” I’m so mad I can barely see straight. The only thing overriding it is my concern for my Kitten.
“How do we get rid of it?” We’re all in my bedroom at home. Gunnar has become more and more withdrawn since arriving home a few hours ago. Our conversation hasn’t evolved much since getting here either.
“The only way to get rid of a spell like this is for the caster to remove it, or to kill him,” Gunnar admits finally.
“I vote for the latter,” I chime in quickly.
“We haven’t had much luck finding him, let alone killing the bastard,” Gunnar mutters with his arms crossed over his chest.
I rise from the end of the bed and stand right in front of him. His eyes track my movements, but he doesn’t unfold his arms to invite me closer. “We’ll find him, Kitten, and I might have an idea how.” I hold up the leather strap he dropped on the ground after absorbing the rune.
“What do you plan on doing with that?” Calix asks from behind me.
“I think it’s time we call in a favor from Torin.”
“What can the wolf do?” Gunnar lowers his hands to his sides with a gleam of interest in his eyes.
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