The Bewitching Hour

by Mallory Crowe

  Realization felt like a cold knife cutting into her. “He might not make it to sundown.” But he couldn’t be dead already. She’d know. Not that she really knew anything about Derek at all, but she had to think that she would have some sort of feeling or inkling or something.

  “Stay here,” said Sam. “When we get out, we’re going to need to run.”

  “Wait!” yelled Claire, but it was too late. She was already out of the car and crossing the street. One of the guys was going out for something, so this might be her best chance. She gripped the gun in the pocket of the jacket as she cautiously approached. The old brick structure was about three stories tall and had seen better days. It might’ve been a factory at some point because there was a bay door for a truck to get in and out of. The easiest way in was probably through the door the sentry came out of, but she couldn’t just go running in. She needed some sort of distraction....

  She reached the building and glanced up at where the fire escape was ten feet up. There was no way she could jump that high, but she managed to get a trash can tipped over and was just able to reach the bottom rung. She couldn’t do a pull-up to save her life, but she managed to walk her legs up the side of the building and use the leverage to pull herself onto the rusty metal landing.

  The rusty metal landing that happened to shake with every step she took. Great. She was going to die before she ever even faced a sentry. But the thing managed to hold as she went up to what was probably the second level. She peeked through the window so just the side of her face was visible. A man was in the middle of the room, his hands tied to the beam above him.

  Derek. But he wasn’t moving. Did that mean— Didn’t matter what it meant. She was still going to work the plan. Two guys were in the room with him.

  Except there were no rooms to hide in. The entire building was one big wide open space. Which meant that if she wanted to get the sentries out of the way, they’d have to get out of the building.

  She knew one surefire way to get people to leave a building. It was risky, but this entire thing was risky anyway.

  Damn it. She hated fire. But this was Derek. She could handle a little fire for Derek.

  All she needed was enough smoke and flame to scare the sentries into protecting themselves. She’d remembered to bring guns and knives. Lighter, not so much.

  But she did have something. Sam looked down at her hands. She needed something... a spark, a flame. She stared at her hands, willing the fire to start. “Come on.” She balled her hands into fists and shot her fingers open, trying to start some chain reaction. Was she really going to have to get Claire out of the car to do this too? “Just. Start.” She punctuated every word by flicking her hands. “The. Fucking. Fire.” WOOSH. Sam jumped back as the brick wall in front of her and all the way to the ceiling went up in flames. “Shit.”

  She scrambled backward until she felt the edge of the landing and went down the fire escape, a combination of climbing and falling. The bulk of the flames were above her head, but she could feel the metal heating up. Once she reached the bottom, she leapt down and landed hard on her feet. She groaned even as she pushed herself up. This was a great plan to get the sentries out of the room, but now Derek was trapped. She looked around the corner to see the two sentries running out of the front door.

  Now or never. There was a door in the alley, but the knob wouldn’t turn. Locked. If she went around the front, the sentries would see her and she’d never make it inside. She held her hand to the door and closed her eyes. Unlock. Unlock. Unlock. Un-fucking-lock. Un— The sound of metal ripping came to her and she opened her eyes to see that the door had flown off its hinges and skidded across the floor. “Well, it’s unlocked,” she muttered. She pulled out her knife and ran over to Derek.

  Except when she got to him, her heart sank. His face was half covered in blood and his eyes were closed; all of his weight rested on his tied wrists. No.... “Derek,” she whispered, but there was no reaction. The fire above them crackled and she heard some form of wood start to bend. Sam glanced around. She couldn’t reach above Derek’s head, so she found a crate that looked as though it wouldn’t even hold a cat’s weight, but it would have to do. She dragged it over and precariously stood on it as the heat of the flames pressed down on them. Now that she was taller than Derek, she worked on the rope with the knife, which took forever. If she made it out of this, she was going to have to get a better fucking knife.

  The rope finally snapped and Derek fell to the ground, letting out a grunt of pain as he fell.

  “Derek? Are you awake?” She jumped off the crate and knelt at his side. “Derek—”

  He lifted his head and she could just see how much effort it took. “You need to leave,” he croaked out.

  “We both need to leave. Come on. We’ll do it together.”

  He shook his head. “Just go. I don’t think I can walk.”

  “You can walk. All you need to do is—” A loud metal squeaking cut through the sounds of the flames. Sam looked over her shoulder to see the three sentries walking into the building. They must’ve decided to chance the flames to pull out Derek. “I think we’re in trouble.”

  Derek pushed weakly at her and she didn’t budge, a sign of how much pain he was truly in. “Run.”

  It was up to her to fight off the sentries. She’d never be able to use magic on them. Even if she was able to keep herself from blowing the whole place up, they were trained and actually knew what the hell they were doing.

  “I have my mom’s charm,” she said. “As long as we keep them away from us, we can’t get hurt by their magic.” That was one silver lining. At least, until the burning building collapsed in on them.

  “No magic,” breathed Derek. “The woman said it wouldn’t work.”

  “What?” Claudia took away the charm’s power? Sam didn’t know whether she was imagining the walls closing in on her or whether the place was actually starting to fall down. The sentries started to run toward them and Sam stared at them, letting her anger and fear mix together. All the sudden, the three men flew backward as the building seemed to shake. A burning brick fell to her left, and her lungs burned as the smoke increased.

  “Derek, I need to try something.” He didn’t respond so she turned him to look at her. His blue eyes seemed dampened... duller. “Look at me,” she ordered. It was as though even his eyes were in pain. “I need you to focus. There are three of them. How do we fight off three guys?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t—”

  “Just think about it. How are you going to fight off three guys?” Before he could say no again, Sam bent down and kissed him for all she was worth. She put all of her anxiety and stress and fear into the kiss as she brought her hand to his forehead, resting all five of her fingers in the blood on the side of his face.

  In a rush, her mind was flooded with images. She saw herself standing outside the apartment building, smoking, herself in the garden, seeing what Tommy had done to the first victim. A quick image of Derek landing a punch and then she saw herself at her mother’s house, stopping Derek from hitting Jackson. From there, everything seemed to come at her too fast for her to make any of the images out.

  But they all came to an abrupt halt when a hand closed on her shoulder, pulled her off Derek, and slammed her into the wall across the room. Sam caught her breath and blinked to clear her head as the sentries grabbed Derek under the arms and started to haul him up.

  “Wait!” she screamed.

  The sentries all paused and looked over at her. Sam pushed herself up and stared them down. Was she going to do this? Yes. She was going to do this. She took one more calming breath before she strode across the room. Of course, a sentry was walking over to meet her and Sam didn’t hesitate. With Derek’s memories fresh in her mind, she reached back and slammed her fist into the sentry’s face, and his neck snapped back as he fell to the ground in a dazed heap. He’d be up in a second, but she had to use this to her advantage while he was down.

 
; Another sentry held his hand up, palm out toward her, but his magic had no effect thanks to her mother’s charm tucked safely away in her jacket. Once again, her body seemed to know exactly how to move as she slammed her leg into the sentry’s knee, sending him down so she could elbow him hard in the face.

  By now, the one she’d punched came from behind to grab her, but she somehow knew the perfect place to kick him and how to twist. As he let go, she reached for her gun, but the sentry in front of her grabbed her wrist. She was able to keep her grip tightly on the butt as she slammed her head forward and right into the nose of the guy in front of her. He grunted in pain and released her, letting her bend her gun arm back and down, shooting the one behind her point-blank in the gut. He started to fall back, but before she could check, the third guy, the one who’d been hanging back, raised his palm toward Derek.

  Sam’s heart leapt into her chest; she raised the gun toward him and fired off a series of bullets, but the sentry turned his attention to her and the bullets never made it to him. Apparently the charm didn’t extend to her gun. Before she could figure out another tactic to keep both her and Derek safe, a crash vibrated the entire building and bits of burning brick showered around her.

  Sam hunched her shoulders and covered her head with her arms as she twisted around to see her car pushing what remained of the loading door out of the way as Claire drove farther into the burning building. For a moment, Sam just stood there, dumbstruck, as she looked at her car in a place where it so obviously didn’t belong.

  Then she snapped into action. She ran to Derek, tucking the gun away as she ran, and set an arm around his back in the best place to give him good leverage and pushed up using her legs and not her back—obviously something she’d picked up accidentally by rooting through Derek’s head. She glanced around at the three sentries. The one she shot was lying motionless on the ground; the one who she just shot at was crouching down on the ground. He must’ve been hit by something when Claire burst in.

  The third guy was.... She had no idea where he went, but there was no time to worry about it now. “Come on.”

  This time Derek didn’t fight her help as she pulled him up and they stumbled to the car. As much as she’d gotten from Derek’s mind, she wasn’t any stronger than normal. If Derek hadn’t been helping her, she didn’t know whether she could’ve gotten him to the car and into the backseat. As soon as they were in, Sam shouted, “Go, go, go!”

  Claire didn’t disagree as she slammed the car into reverse as more bricks fell, hitting the roof of the car. The tires screeched as Claire raced into the street, and for once they got lucky as they went straight into the road and by some miracle there was no traffic on the Brooklyn street.

  Claire turned the car and sped off as the burning building finally caved in. Sam fell against the backseat and held Derek tightly to her. She might never let him go at this point. She was holding onto him so tightly she was wondering why he wasn’t moaning in pain until she realized he was out cold. “Claire. We need to get to a hospital now.”

  She wordlessly nodded and hit the gas harder.

  Sam tried to calm her heartbeat as she shuffled in her seat so she could hold Derek in a more comfortable position. If he did wake up, she wanted him to be in as little pain as possible.

  Then she laid her head back and ran her fingers through his thick hair. She’d gotten him out alive, which was an undeniable win.

  But once Claudia found out, there would be hell to pay.

  Sam’s eyes drifted shut once more and she shook herself, trying to regain her focus. Derek would be awake any minute. That’s what she had been telling herself for the last five hours at least.

  They had avoided surgery, but the injuries were bad. Really bad. The nurse had told Sam everything. Apparently she had used some sort of compulsion without even knowing it. One second, the nurse was informing Sam all about the specifics of HIPPA; the next, he was listing out every broken bone in Derek’s body. The ribs, wrist, fingers.... He was being pumped so full of painkillers that he could be out for weeks.

  But Sam knew him better than any nurse. He’d be up and back to causing trouble in no time. He had to.

  Once more her head lolled back and her eyelids started to drift. Maybe just a few minutes....

  “What are you doing here?”

  Sam jerked fully awake at the deep, familiar voice and jumped out of the chair next to his hospital bed. “You’re awake. How are you feeling? Can I get you anything?”

  He winced and she internally cursed herself. He probably had the headache from hell and here she was rattling off questions.

  “What are you doing here?” he repeated.

  Her brows drew together. “Umm... I’m here because you almost died. If you think I’m going anywhere, you’ve got another think coming.”

  “You can’t be here.”

  “Not you with the HIPPA too. I totally worked my mojo on the nurse so for this shift we’re covered. Hopefully the next nurse will just think I—”

  “No. I mean you can’t be with me. Back at Abigail’s, you said—”

  “I was an idiot.” She glanced away and tried to find the words she was reaching for. “You were right, Derek. You were right about everything. There’s something between us that I can’t—”

  “There can’t be anything between us.”

  Sam shook her head. “I know last night was horrible and what they did to you was terrible, but I’m getting stronger. I can protect you better now.”

  Derek pushed himself up and no amount of his bluffing ability could mask the pain. “I don’t need your protection.”

  Her jaw dropped. What? Last night was the perfect reason for why he needed around-the-clock protection. “I think—”

  “I’m not going to stop.”

  Sam shook her head, trying to make sense of his words. “Not stopping what?”

  “Doing my job. Arresting people who break the law.”

  “Okay....”

  “Your family breaks a lot of laws, Sam.”

  She tensed as she finally caught onto what he was saying. “They—”

  “They’ve been doing the same thing for years, no matter the consequences. No matter who gets hurt. No one has been there to stop them in centuries, but that thing, the charm, you put inside me makes me different, doesn’t it?”

  “It protects you from some magic, but not all. If you go against the families, there will be an army sent after you, Derek. No amount of charms will keep you safe.”

  “I’m going after the families, Sam. And nothing, not even you, can stop me.”

  No. He’d already come so close to dying once. She wasn’t going to let him do this. “Derek, I lo—”

  “Do you really think you’re going to feel the same way after the blows start landing? Because I’m betting your family isn’t going to let me start arresting them. And if they attack me, I will shoot back. So do you really think you want to stick around while the bodies start piling up?”

  “You’re going to be one of the bodies!”

  “And you’ll be in the way.” His voice was completely steady and Sam stared, searching desperately for some waver. Some sign that he was just high off pain meds. Instead, he continued. “What if your mother tries to stop me? Whose side will you be on then?”

  “Your side.” Except the words squeaked out and didn’t even sound convincing to herself. It was easy to pick Derek’s side when her mother had essentially roofied him. But if they were in an all-out fight to the death? If her powers didn’t work on him, he would stand more than a chance. All he had to do was catch her unprepared.... “Derek—”

  “Get out of here, Sam. I’m going to get better and I’m going to finish this.”

  “You’re going to die!” He might land a few blows, but there were too many of them for him to take on alone.

  “Someone has to.”

  “But not you! For once in your life, be afraid! Your bravery is starting to mix in with your stupidity and I swear
to God that if anything happens to you, I’ll—”

  “I. Don’t. Want. Your. Help.”

  The words felt like a knife through her heart and Sam stepped back. “Derek, I—”

  “Leave, Sam. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you.”

  She took another step back. Maybe she could come back later. Talk some reason. But when she looked up and into his ice-blue eyes, all she could see was his resolve. She shook her head as she turned and walked out of the room. The hospital seemed to blur around her and she focused on keeping one foot in front of the other. She managed to hold it together until she reached the elevator, but as soon as the doors closed, it hit her. The stress of the night before and Derek’s cold, hard face. The face that didn’t want her.

  She gasped, trying to get enough air as the tears burned behind her eyes. No. She wasn’t crying. She didn’t cry, damn it. Especially not over some stupid boy. A boy who had been different—

  The doors opened and Sam stared at the ground as she walked, trying to keep her now red eyes from everyone around her. If she had to cry over someone, the least she could do was keep other people from seeing.

  From memory, she made it out of the hospital without looking up, narrowly avoiding people when she saw their feet. Once she was finally outside, she took in deep breaths of the cool air, letting it cleanse her from the inside out. So what if Derek wanted to go off and be a moron?

  Good. Good for him and good riddance. She didn’t need him. She’d gone her entire life not knowing he existed, and if he had died a week ago, she barely would’ve batted an eyelash.

  Now she just needed to go back to the person she’d been a week ago. Before Derek and before Tommy and before Abigail had to go and get in the middle of everything.

  “You look distressed.”

  Sam stopped in her tracks at the sound. The familiar voice she’d grown up with that had been with her during her entire childhood. The voice of the woman who’d so recently tried to kill Derek. “What are you doing here, Claudia?”