We were both laughing as we pulled into my driveway. “To answer your question, though,” Rachel said, turning serious. “I don’t know. The idea of magic makes me feel… unclean. Maybe it’s my church upbringing. Maybe I’m just in denial. I know the Alexanders are all good, moral people. I don’t think the magic in them is bad, but for some reason, I feel like the magic in me is evil.” She let out a shaky breath. “Wow. I haven’t even admitted that to Jace.”
“Can’t he read your mind?” I asked.
“No. He only reads what I allow. It’s like texting with our brains. He can only read what I send him. I hold part of myself back and I’m sure he does too,” she explained.
“Well, thanks again for the ride. Be careful driving home.” I jumped out of the car and sprinted through the pouring rain. I was soaked by the time I reached my front door.
Lying in bed later, I replayed the events of that evening. For the first time in a long time, my heart was lighter. Some of the pain was gone. I could look at Rachel without the animosity, the rage. I realized much of the anger I felt had nothing to do with Jace. When I battled Bryce, I realized I’d been angry at the world, at circumstances.
Sure, I was still hurt. I still loved Jace, but in fairness to him, he never led me to believe there was more between us. I just wished and hoped. It was time to find a new wish. Searching through my vast catalogue of fantasies, I discarded most. Most of my fantasies involved Jace and I knew I wasn’t allowed to love him anymore.
I thought about Mikael. He was cute… and with that accent? Okay, yes. I closed my eyes and tried to think of Mikael, but Bryce’s face kept taking front and center in my mind. Yet another reason to be angry with him. It occurred to me I should try to get along with Bryce for the sake of my close relationship with his family, but I couldn’t imagine ever liking him. And he would never be able to accept me as an equal. Not in a million years.
Chapter Twelve
Rachel
When I told Alisa I felt my magic was evil, it was the truth. It was one of the reasons I resisted magical training, but not the only one. The real reason I refused to train was because I didn’t want anyone to find out how much I’d achieved on my own. Jace had some idea. He had almost as much to hide as I did.
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander suspected Jace and I had a strong connection. They knew we could speak to each other with our minds while in close proximity, and that worried them. What they had not yet realized was that Jace and I had established a strong link and were able to continue an ongoing conversation even when we were apart.
Although this ability would no doubt concern them, it was nothing compared to what we’d tapped into recently: Persuasion. We agreed this skill was playing with fire, but we practiced it nonetheless.
Jace had a few less scruples than I did. At least, that’s what I liked to tell myself. We started using Persuasion before Christmas break, and it made for some lively discussions between us.
“Don’t you dare tell me you didn’t use Persuasion on Mrs. Hanks,” I scolded as we sailed through yet another quiz-free day in Pre-Cal the week before Christmas. “You know, it might be a little less obvious if you didn’t move your lips while you were working the spell.”
“Okay, little Miss I got out of two speeding tickets in the last week. Are you really gonna give me a lecture on improper uses of magic?” He pulled me into a sideways hug as we walked to our next class. “You could save me the trouble of using Persuasion by sending me the answers across our link. Or leave your mind wide open and I’ll pluck the answers from your brain.” Jace would do anything to get out of doing schoolwork.
Jace still hadn’t discovered my biggest secret—I could break into anyone’s mind. The first mind I deliberately invaded was Alisa’s. I wanted to see if she was really as okay with me and Jace as she seemed. I regretted breaking into her mind immediately. Even though she was miserable, she would never do anything to hurt Jace, even if it cost her a lifetime of happiness. My feelings of guilt over being the cause of such torment nearly forced me to break off my relationship with Jace. I couldn’t bear the thought of being the source of such anguish.
I vowed not to intrude on someone’s private thoughts unless it was a matter of life or death, but my lack of control sometimes gave me glimpses into people’s minds by accident. At school, flashes of other people’s thoughts sometimes popped into my mind. Once Jace explained the concept of magical security, I learned how to block some of my unintentional invasions of privacy.
The first time I broke through Jerica’s magical fortress was an experiment gone awry. I was testing my own magical security and unintentionally picked up on one of her surface thoughts. And she happened to be thinking about me. Praying for forgiveness for what I was about to do, I deliberately sent a delicate fiber of thought into her mind. She didn’t seem to know I was in her head, so I continued to probe until I found a hair-width crack in her security.
Apparently, Jerica suspected my power was stronger than anyone she’d ever trained. She was worried both for me and for those around me. She’d contacted Central and they were keeping close tabs on me. I didn’t want to push my luck any further, so I quickly pulled back, dissipating the tendril of connection.
The experience left a bad taste in my mouth, first because I resorted to such blatant misuse of my power, and second because I realized the Alexanders went behind my back to assign Protectors and Watchers to the area without telling me. Through Jace, I was able to discover Jerica was a high-ranking member of a hierarchy of Spellbringers. Jace had explained a lot to me, but not enough.
Maybe he didn’t realize Warriors were lurking around southwestern Georgia in an attempt to keep the Hunters away. In a way, I felt reassured and grateful the Alexanders had gone to such extreme measures to ensure my safety, but a larger part of me lived in fear my mother would somehow discover one of these Protectors and find out my secret.
When Jace’s older brother came home for the holidays, I accidentally picked up on one of his random thoughts. Jace had told me how Bryce resented Alisa’s inclusion into his family’s life, so when his thoughts about her inadvertently drifted into my mind, curiosity got the better of me and I tried take a quick peek into his brain. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t penetrate Bryce’s mind beyond a few surface thoughts. A swirling black fog of anger served as an impenetrable fortress.
Alisa seemed to be possessed of a rage that matched Bryce’s. Her easy defeat of Jace surprised me not at all. Her near defeat of Bryce at the beginning of the battle shocked me to the core. I wanted to learn to fight like her and to have the confidence she displayed when facing her attacker.
I made up my mind to begin training at the next available opportunity. I didn’t want to turn into the pampered princess, the girlfriend who sat on the sidelines and watched as the boys (and Alisa) kicked butt. If the Alexanders were willing to hire dozens of people to protect me, the least I could do was make an effort to learn to protect myself. As my mother liked to say, what’s fair is fair.
***
It was a couple of days after Christmas and my mother and I were on our way to Atlanta to visit my brother. My goodbyes to Jace the night before had been painful. It was disturbing that my life had become so wrapped up in my love for him that I could hardly breathe from the pain of knowing I wouldn’t see him for a week.
Even though we suspected our link would work across the long distance between Oaktree and Atlanta, I still hated being so far away from him. We agreed to only one or two phone calls a day regardless of whether or not our link worked. My mother would kill me if I didn’t give her and Jeffrey undivided attention during the majority of our trip, and Jace really needed to spend some quality time with his family and with Alisa. She’d been feeling left out and insecure, and Jace needed to prioritize their friendship better than he had been doing.
Jace and I had been up all night long talking across our link, and it was the early hours of the morning before I finally fell asleep. I slept through my
eight o’clock alarm, and when Mama woke me up at almost nine, she was disappointed in my lapse in personal responsibility. I rushed to get ready, desperate not to make her wait a moment longer than necessary.
On the way out of town, we had to stop by the big superstore to grab a last minute gift Mama decided to get for Jeffrey. When a red-eyed man crept out from behind a beat-up pickup truck in the crowded parking lot, my heart stopped. This was my first sighting of one of the Hunters the Alexanders had warned me about, and until now, I’d never fully appreciated the danger I was in.
Unconsciously, I reached up to grasp my necklace, seeking the comfort it usually offered, but it was gone. I’d left behind my only protection, and as a consequence, I’d put myself in harm’s way. The Hunter who was peeking at me from behind the parked cars was proof of that.
“Mama.” My words escaped in panicked gasps. “I forgot something. Can we go back home? Please?”
“Rachel, I’m not turning this car around just because you forgot something. What could possibly be so important?” Her clipped, irritable tone would normally make me back down instantly, but I couldn’t afford to lose this particular argument.
“I need to…” I trailed off as the figure drew closer to our car. His gaze was fixed on me and I could feel the pull at my magic as it came closer. My heart beat wildly and sweat began to gather on my upper lip.
“If you need something, you’ll buy it here, or you won’t have it. Understood?” She opened the car door and grabbed her purse. Would a Hunter attack me in the crowded superstore parking lot? Did Hunters care about witnesses? Prickles of fear shot up my spine and I decided I didn’t want to find out how persistent a Hunter could be.
“Wait.” I grabbed the strap of her purse, nearly causing it to break. The Hunter was so close, I could make out the ragged outline of his tattered clothing.
My request to drive twenty miles back home probably seemed absurd to my mother, but I couldn’t afford to travel all the way to Atlanta without it. If the Hunters could find me here, they could find me anywhere.
Mama’s furious gaze settled on me, and in times past, I would have stammered an apology. Opening and closing my mouth in helpless desperation, I glanced behind me. The Hunter was even closer than before. If I escaped unscathed, I vowed never to doubt Jerica’s warnings again.
Panic emboldened me and I met my mother’s angry stare. I delved into her mind, felt our connection click into place, and overrode her will with minimal effort. “We must return home. You left the iron on.”
Her eyes widened as the implanted notion took root. “Oh, my goodness. Rachel, I think I left the iron on. We’ll have to go back home. Call your brother and tell him we’ll be a little later than we expected,” she urged as she slammed the car door shut. Another mental nudge from my mind to hers had her peeling out of the parking spot, nearly hitting the Hunter as we passed him.
I trembled from head to toe during our drive back home. Scanning my surroundings, I flew into the house, grabbed my necklace, and fumbled with the clasp as I placed it around my neck. In an instant, panic subsided and I took a deep breath.
“Was I right? Did I leave the iron on?” she asked as I climbed into the passenger seat.
“Yes. It’s a good thing you remembered.”
“It certainly was a blessing we decided to stop off at the shopping center, wasn’t it?” she asked.
It was a blessing. Had we made it to Atlanta without my necklace, I’d have been a Hunter magnet for a week. And had one caught up with me, I never would have made it back to Oaktree. At least not alive.
Chapter Thirteen
Alisa
Rachel left two days after Christmas, leaving me alone with Jace. Okay, not exactly alone. His family and Mikael were around as well. It was time to mend my fences with Jace, but having no previous experience with friendship drama, I wasn’t sure how to go about doing it. With a belly full of fear, I swallowed my pride and called Jace first thing the morning of Rachel’s departure. I almost hung up after the third ring, having convinced myself Jace was avoiding my call. It was absolutely ridiculous that my heart was beating irregularly and my cornflakes were turning into a soggy mass in the bottom of my stomach.
“I was just getting ready to call you,” Jace said when he answered the phone. My body sagged with relief. I didn’t realize how tense I was until that moment. “The rain finally stopped. I’ll be there in an hour to pick you up. I’m worried about all the practices we’ve missed. If we don’t get serious, this weekend will be a massacre.”
I struggled to figure out what he was talking about. Then I remembered. Tennis. I’d never met anyone so competitive or obsessive when it came to tennis. In a contest between work and laziness, laziness always won where Jace was concerned. Tennis with or against his family was the only exception.
“Um, okay,” I stammered, not knowing if it was a good time to bring up any unpleasantness. Things seemed like they were getting back to normal between us. I decided to take the plunge. “Are we still partners? I think your brother may have claimed me as a prize.” I felt stupid saying this, but with Bryce, I never knew when he was being serious.
“Um, yeah. We’re still partners. Just get ready and I’ll see you soon.” Jace sounded very evasive. Why did I feel as if something wasn’t quite right?
The second I hopped into his mom’s car, Jace grabbed my hand and pulled me into a sideways hug. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Me too,” I replied, trying not to get choked up.
“I’ve been a bad friend.” Jace sounded contrite.
“So have I. I’m sorry I’ve been so hateful lately. I just…”
“No, it’s my fault. I haven’t paid enough attention to you. I’m really sorry.” He hesitated for a few seconds before continuing. “I don’t want to let anyone or anything mess with our friendship ever again. So, I’m going to tell you something and I want you to promise not to get mad.”
“I’m not going to make any promises. Now, tell me,” I demanded.
“I made a deal with Bryce that may or may not affect you,” he admitted. “You and I are playing doubles against Bryce and my mom on Saturday. If we win, he’ll let me use his truck while he’s away.” Jace’s eyes glowed with greed. Only fear of death and/or dismemberment had kept him from messing around with the stereo and sound system inside Bryce’s truck while his brother had been away.
“Oh, great. No pressure. I don’t feel used or anything.” I sighed, exasperated. I noticed Jace was avoiding eye contact. “Wait a minute. What happens if Bryce wins? Does your mother know about all this wheeling and dealing?”
The answer to the last question was obvious. No. Jerica would never participate in the game if she knew the brothers were placing bets based on the result. Jace said the bet may or may not affect me. What was that supposed to mean?
Jace started the engine and backed out of my driveway. It was an avoidance tactic. He had to stop the car sometime and when he did, I would beat the information out of him with my tennis racket.
He was out of the car faster than a bolt of lightning when we pulled into the parking lot in front of the tennis courts. If Jace was the lightning, I was the thunder. I rolled toward him like a storm cloud, my racket clutched tightly in my fist. “What happens if Bryce wins, Jace?”
“It’s no big deal, actually. He just wants a rematch in the ring. He felt like you had an unfair advantage the first time.” Jace wisely kept the net in between us.
“What exactly is the nature of his complaint? He won. Is he upset he didn’t kill me the last time? Needs another chance so he can finish the job?” I was so confused, I forgot about killing Jace. I couldn’t understand Bryce’s motive for wanting a rematch. Clearly he was the better fighter. What did he have to prove?
“He claims he was forced to hold back because of Dad being there. Look, I don’t know. Mikael is still making fun of him, okay? You knocked him on his butt and made him look like an idiot,” he said, bouncing a tennis ball on
the web of his racket.
“So you sold me out for stereo equipment and a truck?” I advanced toward him with my tennis racket.
“Relax. The rematch will never happen because we’re going to win. So, let’s get started, okay?” Jace tossed the ball high into the air and served a straight shot toward me. I didn’t have time to think about Bryce after that because I was too busy sweating, running, and trying to catch my breath.
***
Saturday’s match was tennis Armageddon, at least to Jace. In his mind, losing the match was the end of the world. I couldn’t understand why he was so upset. He may have lost something that was never his to begin with, but I would have to try to avoid Bryce, or be forced to endure the pain and humiliation of being defeated in the ring.
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