Risen

by Lauren Barnholdt

  RISEN

  (The Witches of Santa Anna, Book Eighteen)

  by Lauren Barnholdt & Aaron Gorvine

  Copyright 2012, Lauren Barnholdt and Aaron Gorvine, all rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  Chapter One

  Campbell

  I look at my wrist. There are four streaks of blood smeared on my skin.

  Becca’s blood.

  Even as I think the words, I tell myself they’re not true. Maybe Aidan imagined the whole thing. But those streaks on my wrist and the blood on his hands don’t look like a hallucination, unless I’m going crazy right along with him.

  Aidan sighs. “It needed to be done.”

  “Don’t say that,” I tell him, standing up and grabbing a towel off the banister. I wipe down my arm. The blood isn’t coming off very easily.

  “They were going after you next,” he tells me. “They said it right in front of me.”

  I peer around the corner of the hallway. Kaci seems to have gone back into the living room. I’m not sure how much she heard but I want to make sure she doesn’t hear anything else. “Come on, let’s go outside and talk.”

  I walk out the front door with Aidan trailing a few steps behind me.

  Outside, I look around, half expecting to see a dozen cop cars pulling up to the house. But the neighborhood is quiet.

  “I shouldn’t have been there,” Aidan says, staring down at his hands, closing them into fists and then relaxing them again.

  “Where did it happen?”

  “The woods. Not far from Lancaster’s house.”

  I pause and consider this detail. Lancaster’s house is close to Brody’s, which is the same general area I was in when The Triad ambushed me the other night. Maybe it’s a coincidence, I don’t know.

  “What were you doing at Lancaster’s?” I ask him. “I drove you home after the hospital.”

  He just stares at me.

  “You went back over there? Why would you do that, Aidan?”

  “After you dropped me off, I felt restless,” he says. “I knew I should just go to bed, get some sleep, whatever the doctor said. But I couldn’t.” He glances at me. “You think I’m crazy?”

  “I don’t know what I think right now.”

  He shakes his head. “Anyway, I was sitting at home last night after you left and my mind was racing a million miles an hour. Adrianna hadn’t texted me or anything, so I got worried. I thought something might have happened to her. I thought maybe Lancaster tried to hurt her.”

  “You’re obsessed with Lancaster. Why would he try to hurt Adrianna? It doesn’t even make sense.”

  Aidan half shrugs as if his bizarre rivalry with Lancaster is beside the point.

  “After a while I just couldn’t sit around my house anymore. I had to do something. So I walked back to the party, but it was all broken up. The house was dark and empty, so I went around to the backyard and called for Adrianna.”

  “That’s just nuts, dude.”

  “Maybe it was nuts.” He shrugs. “But just as I was about to leave, I heard her.”

  “You must have imagined it.”

  He shakes his head. His voice has gotten very soft, and his eyes are distant. “It was weird, because a part of me knew there was no way it was really Adrianna. But I heard her, calling my name. It was faint, but I still heard it. It was coming from the woods. She sounded so scared and hurt, Cam. When I stopped to listen, it would be totally silent and I’d start thinking it was just in my head. But then I’d hear Adrianna again, calling me.”

  My arms break out in gooseflesh as he describes the scene. “So you went into the woods to look for her?”

  “Yeah.” His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. “I went into the woods and started running toward the sound of her voice. As I ran, it started getting louder and louder. I knew I was close. And that’s when it happened.”

  “The Triad showed up.”

  “Not the Triad. Just Becca and Teri,” he says. “I don’t know why, but Raine wasn’t with them.”

  I think about how Natalia had scuffled with Raine to the point where Raine probably wasn’t up for any late night shenanigans. It almost—almost—makes me smile.

  I wonder what Nat would think if she were here listening to Aidan right now.

  Probably that you need to go to the cops.

  From the corner of my eye, I see movement from inside the house. It might be Kaci, trying to eavesdrop on our conversation.

  “Hold on a second,” I say to Aidan, putting a finger to my lips.

  It is Kaci. She opens the screen door and comes outside, looking concerned. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Everything’s fine.”

  She glances at Aidan’s hands. “It doesn’t look fine.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I fold my arms over my chest, letting her know the conversation is over. “He’s not hurt, it’s nothing.”

  “I just heard someone say something about Becca and then there’s all this blood…” She trails off. Her eyebrows raise and I realize she knows. She heard Aidan say he killed Becca.

  Aidan’s watching us, like a kid waiting for his parents to decide if he can go to an R-rated movie.

  “Aidan’s having a rough time,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “He banged his head really bad last night and had to go to the hospital. So not everything he says is totally accurate.”

  “I just want you to know I’m here to help,” Kaci replies, completely ignoring what I just said. “And I’m really good at keeping secrets. Especially for people I like.”

  I look into Kaci’s eyes. She might be a little crazy too, I decide. I definitely don’t want her involved with any of this.

  “I think we need to go to the police,” I say.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Cam,” Kaci says. Her eyes narrow.

  “There’s a lot of weird stuff going on around Santa Anna right now, and the police aren’t going to understand any of it. You try to explain this to the police and both of you will end up in jail.”

  “Yeah, well, you just let me worry about that,” I tell her.

  “You’re making a mistake,” she says warningly.

  Aidan looks at me. “The cops? You sure?”

  I nod. “We need to get out in front of this thing. If you try to hide anything or lie, it’s only going to be worse when they tie it back to you. Come on.” I gesture toward my car.

  Aidan and I start walking down the driveway.

  “Cam, please!” Kaci calls after us. “Don’t do this! Let me help.”

  I shake my head, but I don’t turn around. I can’t be totally sure that going to the police is the best idea – but the problem is, I don’t trust Kaci at all.

  I wonder briefly if she’ll tell Brody about all of this, and then if he’ll be the one to tell Nat.

  I picture him telling Nat the news on the couch in his basement. “Aidan and Campbell are caught up in a murder plot,” he says, his face like a sad clown. “Don’t blame yourself. Cam’s been going down the wrong path for a long time now.”

  After which he’ll give her a big comforting hug and pretend to be a good guy, when he’s really a big phony.

  Whatever.

  We get to my car and I open the passenger door. “Get inside and don’t touch a fucking thing. Keep your hands on your lap.”

  “Yes, sir.” Aidan gives me a mock salute.

  “I’m serious, dude. Don’t touch anything. You’ve got a dead girl’s blood on you.”

  He gets inside and I walk around to the other side of the car. Once I’m in, the engine revving, I dare to look at Kaci. She’s still on the front steps, watching u
s with a solemn expression on her face.

  “She’s cute,” Aidan says conversationally. “Much cuter than Natalia.”

  “Shut up.”

  “It’s just my opinion, Cam. Everyone has their own tastes. You obviously have a thing for brunettes.”

  I speed out of the driveway without responding to what he’s saying.

  “Finish the story,” I say. “I still don’t know what happened when the Triad ambushed you.”

  “I told you, it wasn’t The Triad. Raine wasn’t there.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He lays his head back on the seat and closes his eyes. “Becca and Teri just suddenly…I don’t know, appeared,” he says. “One minute they weren’t there, and the next—poof—they were five feet from me. Laughing. Giggling.”

  I have a vivid memory of the laughter in the woods I heard the night my car stalled. I do my best to shake it off as Aidan continues.

  “I started demanding they tell me where Adrianna was. Teri just laughed harder, but Becca got serious and said, “Oh, you mean her?” and then she did a perfect imitation of Adrianna’s voice and called my name. That was the voice I was hearing. They lured me out to the woods pretending to be her.”

  “Jesus.” I shake my head. If I hadn’t seen such crazy stuff myself lately, I’d never believe it. But I know Aidan’s telling the truth.

  “Once I realized the whole thing was a big fake,” Aidan says, “I started walking away. And that’s when they jumped on me. They were strong, too. Not normal girls at all. I’d rather fight Lancaster than Becca and Teri. They got me on the ground and pinned me on my back. I struggled a little bit, but it was like the energy was being sapped out of me. I got really faint and lightheaded and then…then it got even weirder.

  Because, after a few seconds of them holding me down—it started to almost feel good.”

  I nod in recognition of what he’s describing.

  He opens his eyes and looks at me. “Like what Raine did to you, huh? Sucking your energy or whatever?”

  “Exactly like that,” I agree wearily. We hit a red light and I slow down.

  “Anyway,” Aidan says, “Teri and Becca started kissing me, like taking turns kissing me. And each time they did, I got a little weaker. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like I was drowning. A few times I had enough sense left to try to struggle. That made them laugh.” He lays his head back and closes his eyes again. His lips tighten. “I was sure they were going to kill me. It was just a matter of time. They were getting really excited too, saying now they knew what Raine meant when she said Cam was like an energizer battery. It was like they were high or something.”

  “They were,” I tell him. “They were high off your…I guess it’s your life force or something.”

  “At one point, Becca said she felt so strong. She walked over to this huge tree and touched it and the tree literally cracked in half. It almost fell on me.” He swallows hard. “After that they started arguing. Becca said now that she and Teri were so powerful, it was time to put an end to Raine and Nat being the strongest. Becca said if they could kill you, then they would become the most powerful witches and everyone would bow down to them. Teri was getting nervous. She told Becca that if Raine ever heard the two of them talking like that they would end up dead.”

  “So Becca and Teri aren’t happy playing second fiddle to Raine.” I shift on my seat. “Interesting.”

  “Yeah, well, Becca’s not really feeling much of anything right about now,” Aidan says.

  I look at him, hoping he’s going to smile and say the whole thing has been a big joke. But Aidan’s not smiling. I sigh. We’re getting closer and closer to the police station. My palms are sweating on the wheel. “Keep going with the story,” I say.

  He nods and continues. “When I heard them plotting to kill you—especially what Becca was saying—something inside me snapped. It’s like I had some kind of reserve tank of energy. They’d drained my main fuel source but they didn’t know I had a secret backup generator inside of me. And it kicked into gear and started running. I felt this huge power surge, and the girls were so busy talking about how they could kill you and become all-powerful over Raine and Natalia and everyone else—they didn’t notice me getting my strength back. I remember Becca was talking about how once they killed you, Natalia would fall apart. And they said Raine was weak now – so it would be easy to kill both of them once you were out of the picture.”

  Now I know he’s being truthful about everything. How else would he know about Raine being weak? Aidan wasn’t there when Natalia made her run off with her tail between her legs. “Did they say how they were going to kill me?”

  “Becca said you would fall for a glamour spell because you were such an idiot.

  She was reminding Teri how Raine had done something similar to you in the past. And Becca was bragging about how she’d call your name and make it sound like Natalia, and you’d let her in and then she’d suck you dry, take all your energy and maybe smother you with a pillow at the end.”

  A chill runs up my spine. “She said that?”

  Aidan nods. He raises his hands up as if reenacting the scene. His eyes are wide and bright, like he’s in a fever dream. “When she talked about killing you, I jumped up and was on her in a flash. Like a maniac. Like a wolf. I knew that I had to stop her and anyone else who would hurt you. Teri was screaming. She was freaking out but she was afraid of me, too. I looked up at her once and bared my teeth and she just ran away.

  Didn’t look back.”

  “Are you sure…I mean, are you sure that Becca’s dead?”

  “I ripped her throat out, Cam.” He holds his hands out to me for proof. They’re shaking. “I can’t explain it. It was like instinct. To protect you.”

  We pull up to the police station and sit for a long moment.

  “You ready?” I ask finally.

  He looks at me. “You’ll come with me, right, Cam? You won’t let me do this alone. Right?”

  “Of course not. We’ll go together.”

  We get out of the car and start for the entrance. I wonder what the police will think of Aidan’s story. And then it occurs to me that they might wonder what I have to do with all of this.

  Aidan might not be the only one who ends up in jail for what happened last night.

  Chapter Two

  Natalia

  Adrianna’s car moves slowly toward Brody’s house, the iPad tucked safely away in my bag. Now that this whole thing is so close to being done with, I’m starting to get paranoid that maybe something is going to go wrong. No, I tell myself. It’s going to be fine. Just relax.

  “So are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” Adrianna asks. Her hands are tight on the wheel, her posture stiff as she looks out the front windshield.

  Almost like she’s so freaked out she’s having to force herself to pay attention to her driving.

  “Yes,” I say. “Of course I am.” It’s a lie. There’s obviously no way I’m going to tell Adrianna what’s been going on. It’s not that I don’t trust her. (Although, if I’m being completely honest, I’m not sure I do trust her, either. She’s never given me a reason not to, but I haven’t known her for that long.) It’s that I don’t want to get her involved in any of this. It wouldn’t be fair. She’s just an innocent bystander.

  “When?” she presses.

  “After you take me to Brody’s,” I say. What if I drop the iPad? Or it gets smashed? Or something spills on it? It’s making me tense.

  “Why do you have to go to Brody’s?” she asks suspiciously.

  “I just need to talk to him.”

  “Whatever.” She bites her lip, and I can’t tell if she’s mad or just worried. She settles that debate a second later. “Natalia,” she says. “You guys aren’t… I mean, there’s nothing illegal going on here, is there?”

  “No!” I say. “Why would you think I’m involved in something illegal?”

  Although, when I think about it, I’ve
been involved in a lot of illegal things. Breaking and entering. Assault. Hadley’s murder. I start to feel dizzy.

  “Gee, I don’t know,” Adrianna says. “Maybe because you call me up first thing on a Saturday morning and ask me to take you to Raine’s house, which makes no sense whatsoever, but you tell me it’s because you need to pick up some notebook, which I believe, and then I see you guys come out of the house and sit down on a bench and you pull out an iPad and Raine looks like maybe she’s going to have a meltdown.” She looks at me. “And now you’re clutching your bag like you’re afraid it’s going to disappear or something.”

  I loosen my grip, then rub my fingers against my temples. I’m starting to get a headache. I wonder if it’s leftover from when Raine erased my memory, or if it’s just stress induced.

  “So what the hell is going on?” Adrianna asks.

  I take a deep breath, then put my bag in the backseat, as if to prove it’s not important. As soon as it’s out of my hands, my stomach clenches.

  “Nothing,” I say. “When I said ‘notebook’, I meant iPad. And there’s nothing illegal on it. See? I put it in the backseat and everything.”

  “Whatever,” she mumbles again. She taps her fingers on the steering wheel, seemingly annoyed. Not that I can blame her.

  I struggle to think of something to say, but I can’t come up with anything that will make things better.

  A few moments later, she starts to pull into a gas station.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  She glances at me. “Stopping for gas,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Is that okay?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  She stops the car in front of one of the pumps and starts to rifle through her wallet, pulling out a twenty-dollar bill and handing it to me. “Do you mind going in to pay while I pump?”

  “Of course not,” I tell her. I take the money. “I’ll pay you back when you bring me home, okay?” I was in such a rush to get out the door after my mom left this morning that I didn’t bring any money with me.

  She shrugs and doesn’t say anything, just starts to unbuckle her seatbelt.