The easiest solution would be to get Jenna into one of the Mystic Springs jail cells, which would mute her powers. The problem was, she hadn’t shown her face around town. Only Silas and the Milhouses had met with her, as far as anyone knew. In order to lock her up, they had to get their hands on her.
They were in the process of making a plan which would use Silas as bait, which was no less than he deserved, when Luke’s head popped up. He looked directly at Silas, looked hard and long before saying, “Gabi needs you. Now.”
She couldn’t see Blake anymore, but he was out there. He hadn’t shown his face just to scare her and run away.
Gabi wished for a phone. Why hadn’t she bought one of those disposables at the grocery store and stuck it in a drawer, just in case? She’d call…
Who would she call? She didn’t even know Silas’s phone number, so what good would a cell do her now? She’d called Cindy at home from the shop a few times, to check on Mia, and she was pretty sure she could remember the number. If only her heart would stop beating so hard. Duh, if she had a phone she’d call 911. A county operator would forward her call to the Mystic Springs police station. Travis could get here in a matter of minutes.
Which was a worthless waste of a thought, since she didn’t have a phone.
She slunk over to the side window. The house next to hers was vacant, but she could see Cindy and Mike’s driveway from here. Some of it, anyway. Normally Mike’s pickup was parked at the back, close to the street, but it wasn’t there now. Was he working late? Was Cindy with him? Where could they be? It was Friday night. Maybe it was a date night for the couple. Dinner at that restaurant in Eufaula, the one Cindy raved about. A movie, maybe.
Again, it didn’t matter. Even if she was brave enough to make a run for it, she wouldn’t lead Blake straight to Cindy’s door.
All she could do was hope her doors and windows would hold until Silas got back. If Blake did manage to break in he wouldn’t find her empty handed. She’d never truly defended herself from him, but she would. She had more than herself to protect, now.
Judge stayed at her heel as she walked into the kitchen to fetch the biggest knife she owned from the butcher block.
The back door rattled. Once. Twice. It sounded as if someone kicked that door, but it held tight. She’d invested in the best deadbolts she could find when she’d moved into this house. It had been odd, she remembered. Luke Benedict had had exactly what she needed sitting on the front counter of his hardware store, when she’d gone in not sure exactly what she wanted. He’d even offered to install them for her, and he’d done a good job. No one was breaking past those locks.
Gabi flipped off the light in the kitchen as she left the room so that maybe if Blake looked inside the back window, the way he had through the front, he wouldn’t see her. He knew she was here, but she didn’t want him to know where in the house she’d settled to wait for Silas to return.
As she walked through the house she turned off one light and then another, until all was dark. There was a dim nightlight in Mia’s room, and a small green light on the thermostat in the living room. That was it.
Gabi sunk down in a back corner of the living room, where she could watch the front door. Maybe she should stand, but her knees were shaking, weak. She needed to gather her strength and if it sounded as if Blake might make his way in then she’d stand. If she could will Silas to return, if she could hope hard enough…
Judge placed himself not beside Gabi but in front of her, taking a pose that screamed of protection. As she reached out and rubbed a shaking hand along his side, she felt emboldened. Strengthened. The bloodhound looked as if he were ready to protect her, but she was just as ready to protect him. And to think, a few days ago she’d been insistent that she didn’t want a dog. At this moment it seemed Judge was her only friend. Her only hope.
The doorknob she was watching so closely moved. It rattled, gently at first and then harder. The entire door shook when it was kicked.
“You can’t keep me out all night, Gabi,” Blake called out in a voice barely loud enough for her to hear. “If a door doesn’t give a window will. None of your neighbors have been alarmed so far, so I think I’m good. No one will stop me this time. I can take all night to find a way in, if I want to. And I think I do.”
Gabi held her breath. She wanted to close her eyes and cover her ears, wanted to deny what she was seeing and hearing, but she didn’t dare. She rolled up on her knees, knife held steady before her. Blake kicked the door again. Judge barked, low and threatening. After that for a second, maybe two, all was silent.
“I never took you for an animal person.”
She tried to think of a sharp retort. I never took you for a psycho! Lame. So she said, in a soft voice Blake probably couldn’t hear, “Don’t you dare touch my dog.”
He whispered back, “I don’t want to touch your damned dog. You know what I want, don’t you?”
He wanted her dead. He wanted his daughter.
“You can’t have us,” Gabi whispered, and then she yelled, “You can’t have us!”
The door rattled. It shook again, and this time she heard something splinter.
Abruptly it stopped.
Gabi shot up and ran, heading for her daughter’s bedroom. Was that why the noise at the front door had stopped? Was Blake going to try the windows next? It would be easier to break a window and crawl in than to break down a door, and Mia’s bedroom window was low enough to the ground for that to be possible. She ran into the room, but didn’t turn on the light. If she did, Blake would know where she was.
The baby slept, peaceful, oblivious to the chaos around her. Still clutching the knife in one hand, Gabi used the other to straighten the little blanket over Mia’s legs. It was a favorite, pink and purple and adorned with dancing unicorns.
She stood beside her daughter’s crib for several long minutes, listening, wondering where Blake had gone. He wasn’t at the window; she didn’t hear him at a door, or whispering threatening words, or laughing. Maybe he was gone, for now. Maybe something had scared him off.
It had been foolish of her to think even for a minute that she could have something meaningful with Silas, or anyone else. Her situation had not changed, and the feelings she had for him were only going to make it harder for her to leave. And she was going to have to leave, that much was clear.
The trick was to find a way to get out of town without Blake realizing she was gone. She had to have the chance to get down the road without him knowing it, had to be far away before…
The doorbell rang, and Gabi almost came out of her skin. The ring was followed by a pounding on the door, and then a voice calling her name. Silas’s voice.
Gabi looked at Judge, who’d planted himself beside the crib. “Stay,” she said, but the instruction was unnecessary. The bloodhound was on guard, and didn’t look as if he’d be going anywhere any time soon.
Without turning on a single light, Gabi made her way to the door. With her hand on the deadbolt she asked, “Silas?”
“Yes. Are you ok?”
Gabi glanced toward the window and saw headlights on the road outside her house, she heard the gentle roar of engines as more vehicles approached. Silas had not come alone. How had he known?
She unlocked the door, opened it. Silas rushed in and straight into her arms.
“You’re shaking,” he said, holding on tight.
“Blake was here,” she whispered. “He looked in the window, he banged on the door. I thought… I thought…”
Silas backed up a little, saw the knife in her hand, and gently took it from her. “It’s ok. He’s gone now.”
Gabi instinctively looked toward the window. “Are you sure?”
Through the still-open door she saw the men in her yard. Luke Benedict headed to the right side of the house; Travis to the left. They both had flashlights they swept this way and that. On the street others had gathered. Eve and Ivy, Marnie and Clint. Jordan and a man who stepped off his motorcycle
and joined the others. They stood in a small group, talking in low tones, watching her and Silas. She was pretty sure she heard a curse word from Ivy.
Gabi looked into Silas’s face. “How did you know?” He’d come to her rescue, bringing the cavalry with him. “Did a neighbor call you?” She tried to think of who might’ve had a good enough view to see Blake skulking around in the dark.
Silas looked down at her, his mouth hard, his eyes unreadable. After a moment he said, “We need to talk.”
Gabi sat in her favorite chair, legs tucked beneath her, eyes wide. The others had left, after making sure no one was skulking around the yard or any of the neighboring yards. They’d all gone home to make plans for the coming days, to mull over their options while they tried to sleep.
None of them were going to get much sleep until this was done.
“I don’t understand.” It wasn’t the first time Gabi had said those words, in the past hour. Seemed like much longer than a single hour but the clock didn’t lie.
Explaining to a Non-Springer what they’d stumbled onto wasn’t a simple thing, and he’d had very little practice. He’d made the mistake of trying to explain what he was to Samantha, but obviously he hadn’t done a good job. It had not gone well.
None of the Springers were experts at this. They’d spent their entire lifetimes hiding who and what they were. It was a rare occurrence for someone from outside to get any kind of explanation.
Not everyone was on-board with him telling Gabi anything at all. Several of them thought the best idea was to get her out of town by any method possible, just as Jenna wanted. They said he could lie, if necessary. He could use force, if there was no other way. Amnesia punch was always an option. He’d bet his last dollar Ivy was at her place now, cooking up a batch.
But Jordan and Marnie both liked Gabi, and they wanted her to stay. If that meant coming clean they were more than willing, and they convinced their men, the way women often did. Luke and Clint were such suckers. The others were swayed by the possibility that Mia had Springer blood. The future of Mystic Springs depended on the young people, and there were precious few. More were coming, thank goodness, but at the moment the population swung heavily to Boomer. There shouldn’t be more Springers in The Egg than there were in the school, a small K-12 schoolhouse with a psychic at the head of the operation. Those kids got away with nothing.
Silas didn’t want Gabi to stay because she knew how to cut Marnie’s hair, or because the town needed Mia and would need her more as the years went by. He wanted her to stay because in the past week, in a handful of days, he’d come to need her. Gabi said she didn’t want love.
It might not matter what she wanted.
Chapter 15
Magic didn’t exist. She might not know much, but that was a given. Everything Silas was telling her could be explained away logically. Why did he look so damned serious! This was a joke. Had to be.
Luke hadn’t known she’d needed those particular deadbolts, it had just been coincidence.
Her reaction to Eve’s cooking in those early days? That didn’t mean anything. She’d been a mess at the time, given to crying or freaking out for no reason at all.
Snow on Christmas Eve and great weather for all the town’s events and weddings? Luck, nothing more. That’s all it could be.
The fact that everyone who walked into her shop for the first time laughed at the “I’m a beautician not a magician” sign Eileen, the previous hairdresser, had given her early on? Well, it was funny. Maybe not that funny, but still…
“Mystic Springs is an odd town,” she conceded, trying to be reasonable, “I’ll give you that much, but…”
“It’ll be better if I show you.” Silas stood, took her hand and led her toward the kitchen.
On the way Gabi looked into Mia’s room, where both toddler and dog slept. “It’s late,” she protested. “And dark.”
“This won’t take long,” Silas said as he guided her through the kitchen to the back door, out onto her small patio.
Her heart hammered. “Blake is out there, somewhere.” She remembered his voice at her door, his face in the window. Her heart seemed to skip a beat; her mouth went dry.
Silas released her hand, leaving her on the patio while he stepped into the grass then turned to face her. “He won’t touch you, I promise.”
How could he make a promise like that? He couldn’t. No one could.
“No more lies,” he said in a low voice. “You’ve had enough of that in your life, and I won’t add to it. I won’t be a part of the problem.” He looked her in the eye. “You might not want to have anything to do with me, after I…”
“Just get it over with,” Gabi said, a bit too sharply. She wanted to be back inside, behind locked doors.
“Okay.” Silas moved to the middle of her back yard. The moon was bright tonight and he’d turned on the patio light, so he was well lit as he turned to face her. He lifted one hand, then the other. “I hear and understand animals, and they listen to me when I call.”
Great. He was crazy. “Don’t be ridic…” Before she could finish her sentence, birds swooped in and swirled around Silas. They seemed to come out of the darkness, but in reality they must’ve come from the trees in the back section of her yard, or from trees in the neighboring yards. He was not alarmed by the appearance of the birds; he seemed not to care at all that they flew close to his face, around his body in a kind of pattern. He didn’t even blink. An owl perched on one outstretched arm; a raven on the other. And still, the other birds swarmed around him.
A carnival trick, that’s all it was, an illusion, somehow. She tried to convince herself that was true, but the birds were real. She saw that much. This was no illusion.
With another wave of Silas’s hand the birds flew away, their unison beautiful, captivating, and impossible.
“Is that enough, or do you need more?” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He gestured with one hand, waving his fingers. Within seconds, small animals came scurrying toward him. Squirrels that scurried, one fat, waddling groundhog, a pair of skunks. And was that a snake? It was hard to tell at first, but then it moved through a shaft of light from the kitchen window and, yes, that was definitely a snake.
“Okay, okay,” she said quickly. “You can stop now.”
He did, sending all the animals, snake included, back into the shelter of the bushes and trees that surrounded the property.
She would never look at her backyard the same way again. There was so much life all around her and she’d missed it. What was she thinking? She wouldn’t be here tomorrow. There would be no opportunity to look at her surroundings differently.
Unless she took Silas up on his offer. Unless she could accept what she’d just seen. Unless…
“And you’re trying to tell me there are others in town like you.”
“Not exactly like me, but in a way, yes.”
“Magic,” she whispered.
Silas nodded.
Gabi closed her eyes. She wanted to deny everything he said, wanted to insist that the world was just as she’d always believed it to be. How could she?
“If you can take me as I am, I will fight for you,” Silas said as he walked toward her. “If you can accept the magic that’s a part of me, we can have…”
“I can’t love you,” Gabi interrupted. “I told you that from the beginning.” She was afraid to love, afraid of what might happen. She’d let herself love Blake. Her ex-husband had never been honest with her, the way Silas had just been. He’d never opened his soul to her. Blake had told her again and again that he loved her, and maybe in his own sick way he had.
It was easiest to believe that love was a lie, a fiction, more trouble than it was worth…
Silas wrapped his arms around her. “Let me change your mind.”
She opened her mouth to tell him that wasn’t possible, but the words caught in her throat.
Gabi was again careful to lock the deadbolt. She was relieved to be back insi
de, behind doors and walls she thought would keep her safe.
She hadn’t run from him when he’d shown her what he could do, and she hadn’t asked him to leave. He’d seen wonder on her face as she’d watched, not fear. When he’d kissed her, she’d kissed him back. She said she couldn’t love him, and he understood why. He was also pretty sure he could change her mind, once her ex was taken care of.
Silas called Damian and made arrangements for the animals at his place. Damian’s brother Marcus was good with dogs and had helped out on occasion, when Silas had to be out of town on a job for a couple of days. That didn’t happen often, but the brothers were more than competent.
If he had a chance he’d check in with them again later, but until a few things were taken care of Gabi was his top priority. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight.
They had more than Blake Pierce to worry about. Jenna would be pissed when Silas insisted Gabi be allowed to stay. He could argue that one more Non-Springer in the mix wouldn’t weaken her isolation spell, but she was unlikely to accept that argument. She’d obviously already turned to someone else to get Gabi out of town. The mouse infestation in her shop was all the proof he needed. That had to stop, now.
Would the others be able to stop her? Maybe. Maybe not.
He still liked the idea of isolating, of closing off the outside world and allowing all Springers to be open, to be themselves at all times. No more hiding. No more pretending. He just wanted Gabi with him when the spell went down. Maybe it wouldn’t happen this year, maybe it would never happen, but if it did…
All he had to do was convince her that they were meant to be together, that love was still possible for her.
As he was learning it was for him.
He stepped onto the front porch to call Jenna’s cell. She didn’t answer, but called right back. She was breathless, as if she’d been running.
Beauty and the Beastmaster (Mystic Springs Book 3) Page 14