I knew how he felt. It was the same way with me and Nana. I didn’t know what I would do if I didn’t have her. “She made the curse of immortality bearable.”
“There has to be something else,” I told him. “I mean, what if we never find Ella or it’s too late when we get to her. What then? You have to have something to live for.”
We stopped at a red light and he looked me in the eye. “There’s nothing. I will just go on and on and on through this life lost, wondering what happened to her. Or at least until these damn witches decide enough is enough and they just want to end all of us.”
I shuddered at the thought of that. “What about, Keelie?”
He shook his head. “I will never go back to her. I can’t even stand the thought of her. She’s just as vile as the witches who cursed her, in my book. She’s not the Princess Victoria I fell in love with. She’s morphed into something else. Something wicked. If she’s done anything to harm Ella, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
After that, I said nothing else, lost in my own thoughts. Before I knew it, we were pulling into the parking garage of the Willow Creek Mall. Brayden drove through each level looking for Keelie’s cherry red Mercedes. Finally, we found it on the second to last level. Brayden found a spot not too far away and put the car in park. About an hour later, Keelie came waltzing toward her car loaded down with a variety of colorful shopping bags.
We got out and moved toward her briskly as she struggled to open the trunk of her car while holding her bags and balancing in her high heels.
Brayden stopped a few feet away from her. I stood beside him. “Hey, Keels.”
She jumped and turned on her heels. For a second shock spread across her face then her mouth stretched into a warm smile. “Brayden, what are you doing here?” She set her bags in her trunk and held her arms out for a hug, but Brayden didn’t budge.
“Where’s Ella?” Brayden asked, not wasting any time.
Keelie frowned and shook her head. “Ella? How would I know? We’re not even friends anymore.”
Brayden’s jaw clenched. “Don’t play that game with me, Keelie. I mean it. Where is she?”
Keelie looked wide-eyed and innocent. “Really, Brayden, I haven’t the slightest idea where your little girlfriend is. We kind of had a little falling out after our road trip and she hasn’t spoken to us since. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Where’s your friend Jade?” I asked.
She looked at me as if she were seeing me for the first time. “Jade . . . is on a cruise with her family. Now, if we’re done with the third degree here, there’s a lunch date I have to get to.”
Keelie headed for the driver’s side door, but Brayden grabbed her arm before she could make it there. “Get in the car,” he said through clenched teeth.
Keelie paled. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Brayden shook his head. “No, get in my car. You’re either going to go on your own or Scarlett and I are going to carry you there and she’s a lot stronger than she looks.”
I wasn’t planning on man-handling anyone but I would do what I had to do.
Keelie’s eyes wandered up. “There are surveillance cameras everywhere. When I turn up missing don’t you think they’re going to check the cameras to see what happened and see you two nuts kidnapping me?”
Brayden pulled her toward him. “At this point, Keelie, I really don’t care.”
Keelie seemed to think about that for a moment then she moved toward Brayden’s car. “Fine, just don’t hurt me okay. Seriously, I hardly think that trailer park twit is worth all this trouble. She was a bum, Brayden.”
“Shut up and just get in the car!”
Keelie said nothing else until she was in the car and we were peeling out of the garage. Then she started blubbering like a baby. “Brayden, why are you doing this? You were my prince. We were supposed to be in this together. That’s how our fairy tale goes. We’ve spent lifetimes together and then you wanted to leave me for her. What did you expect me to do? She stole you from me.”
Brayden pressed heavier on the gas pedal and I had no idea where we were going.
Keelie kept on her guilt trip. “Our goal has always been to find an elixir and free ourselves. I found one and we can find one for you, then we can share our lives together like we were meant to.” Her tone changed from pleading to accusatory. “You were all for this when we first started. You knew you were supposed to play Ella and she was going to be collateral damage so we could free ourselves from our curses. So, don’t be mad at me because I kept my word. No one told you to go and fall in love with her.”
Brayden slammed on the steering wheel. “I told you a long time ago that the plan changed. I couldn’t go through with killing anyone. And for the record, you pushed me away. You became a totally different person with no heart or conscience so what did you expect me to do?”
The two of them screamed at each other for five more minutes before I decided to put an end to it. “That’s enough! Both of you. Keelie, we need to find out where Ella is.”
Brayden had pulled onto the highway and was driving erratically, weaving in and out of traffic. All around us, people honked their horns or gave us the finger.
Keelie sobbed again. “I don’t know. I gave Jade what she wanted in exchange for an elixir and then I never heard from her again. It’s not like she was a real friend anyways. She’s a witch. Good luck tracking her down.”
“You guys must have spent a lot of time together,” I told her. “You must have some small clue of where we could find her.”
“No, I don’t,” Keelie said.
Brayden pulled off an exit and we headed for a wooded area. There were fewer cars and buildings along the way.
“W-where are we going?” Keelie asked, her voice trembling. She was finally realizing that we weren’t playing around.
Brayden pulled onto a wooden trail and his car rumbled on into the woods. After a few minutes, he parked the car and dragged a wailing Keelie out, holding her by the waist while she kicked and thrashed. Despite her screaming and the trail of tears running down her face, Brayden didn’t soften.
“Why are you so mad at me, Bray? I did what I had to do to save myself. Trust me when I tell you your precious Ella would have done the same.”
Brayden pinned Keelie’s hands behind her back and I stood almost nose to nose with her. “No, she wouldn’t have. To earn her elixir, she had to kill me but she didn’t. We were looking for a way to break the curse so all of us can live. It doesn’t have to be kill or be killed just because the witches say so.”
Keelie’s lip quivered. “Brayden, please. I swear, I am so sorry.”
“I don’t care about your sorries. I want to know where Ella is.”
Keelie’s expression changed to a nasty sneer. “I know where your precious Ella is, but I’ll never tell.”
I felt the bad wolf welling up inside of me. It was so simple. All she had to do was tell us where Ella was. She’d already broken her curse. She didn’t have anything to lose by helping Ella. Her refusing to help was just plain evil and I didn’t understand it.
“Why wouldn’t you help her? What has she ever done to you?”
Keelie looked sharply at Brayden. Of course. Because Brayden had fallen in love with Ella, in Keelie’s eyes she deserved to die.
Maybe I could get her to change her mind. “But she was your friend. She had never done anything wrong to you. She didn’t even know who Brayden really was or the history between you two. Are you really going to hold that against her?”
For just a second, I saw a flash of compassion in her eyes. “You’re thinking about this the wrong way Red. This curse isn’t about working together or helping each other out, it’s about looking out for yourself. That’s what I’ve been doing and that’s why I’m free and you’re not.”
Brayden scowled at her. “Give it up, Scarlett. There’s no good in her anymore. She won’t help Ella unless she doesn’t have any choice but to.” Bray
den pulled something long and silver from his pocket. It took me a moment to realize it was a knife.
“W-what are you going to do with that?” I stammered.
He stepped toward a paled Ella. “See, one thing about losing your immortality is that pesky way you can die so easily. All I have to do is slit your throat and you’re done, Keelie.”
Keelie put her hands up and took a step back. “No, Brayden you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t kill me.”
He moved toward her still. “I wouldn’t? Let’s not pretend we’re the same people we used to be.”
A warmth was traveling through my body. Something was taking over me that I wouldn’t be able to control.
Keelie turned to run. I waited for Brayden to go after her, to follow through on what he said he would do, but he just stood there. I had to do something before she got away. Though it was not time for the moon to come out, my wolf like qualities were at their peak. I charged after her. Brayden followed me yelling for me to stop, to let her go. That wasn’t going to happen. Keelie, who had foolishly decided not to take off her heels, raced in a clumsy zig-zagged line ahead of me. I didn’t even have to run at my full speed to catch her. Once she was an arm’s length ahead of me, I reached out and grabbed a handful of her short locks and yanked her back. She hit the ground with a thud. I crouched over her. She stared at me with fearful wide eyes struggling beneath my weight.
“What are you doing? Get off me!”
Brayden had made it to us. He stood beside us panting. “Scarlett . . .”
A sinister smile spread across Keelie’s face, replacing her look of fear. “I can’t believe you were dumb enough to kill a witch. To think, you got yourself cursed trying to save Ella and she’s going to die anyway, if she’s not already dead. Then you’re going to die, all for nothing.”
Brayden’s warm hands clasped my shoulders. “Scarlett, please . . .”
I didn’t give him a chance to complete his sentence. I threw my head back. My gums throbbed as my teeth became sharpened fangs. I was angry, but not too angry that I forgot Nana’s words. No overkill. Just do what was necessary to execute your prey. I sank my teeth into her neck and bit hard. Blood sprayed everywhere, looking like a ruby fountain but I didn’t let go, not even through Brayden’s screaming. The arrogance was gone and Keelie’s blue eyes were wide with fear. Her body jerked a few times and then fell limp. The deed was done so I let go.
Brayden stumbled back with his mouth wide open. “What the hell, Scarlett? What have you done?”
I stood, blood dripping from my mouth and onto my blouse, confused. “What? She was bad, right? She wouldn’t help us find Ella.”
Brayden shook his head. “Yes, but you weren’t supposed to kill her. What the hell?”
“You were the one who pulled a knife on her. I was only trying to help.”
“Help? She’s dead. How the hell are we supposed to find Jade and Ella now?”
I hadn’t thought about that. That was the problem with being an animal. I didn’t always rationalize or think things through. I did what I felt needed to be done in that moment. “I’m sorry.”
Brayden bounced from foot to foot. “Get in the car. I’m taking you home and I never want to see you again.”
“But, what are you going to do about Ella? About Keelie?”
“I will come back and bury Keelie. I at least owe her that much. As far as Ella, you’ve ruined my only chance of finding her.”
There was nothing more to say after that. The entire way home Brayden kept his gaze narrow and focused on the road. When we came to a stop sign or a traffic light, he would scroll through Keelie’s phone. I hadn’t even seen him take it.
The awkward ride home seemed to take forever but at last he stopped just down the road from the cabin. He stared at Keelie’s pink jewel-incrusted phone with a great intensity. “I just sent a text to Jade asking her where she was. She gave me the address to a hotel in the Palisades.”
I sat up in my seat, suddenly filled with hope. “Great! So . . . why aren’t we on the way there?”
Brayden slid the knife from his pocket. “You are going to go there. You’re going to get that witch to release Ella.”
He made it sound so simple. “How am I supposed to do that? Sure, I’m no stranger to killing witches but that’s not necessarily going to release Ella.”
“You’re going to give Ella an elixir. The witch has no choice but to release her if you do that. They have to keep up their end of the bargain they set themselves.”
The little bit of hope I had faded. “That sounds great but the only way to get an elixir is to bring a witch a heart of someone they’ve cursed.”
Brayden nodded. “Yeah, I know. That’s what you’re going to do.”
Before I could ask him what he meant by that, he took the knife, held it against his neck and slashed his own throat from ear to ear. A scream stuck in my throat as blood gushed everywhere. “No! Brayden, what did you do?”
I would never get an answer. He slumped back in his seat and all the light he had in his eyes left him. I stayed in the car for almost twenty minutes, working up the nerve to cut out his heart. It wasn’t the gore that bothered me. It was removing the heart of a person I knew—a good person who didn’t deserve to die.
After I removed the heart, I popped the trunk to see what was inside. I found an oil-stained towel and wrapped the heart in that. After making sure the area was deserted, I moved Brayden’s body to the trunk. If I could drive, I would have moved the car from the road, but that was something I was going to have to do with Nana’s help.
Standing at the end of the driveway I took a deep breath knowing I was about to feel Nana’s wrath. I forced one foot in front of the other. I let myself inside, clutching Brayden’s heart in the blood-soaked towel to my chest. Nana sat on the couch knitting. She took one look at my bloodied appearance and rose to her feet.
“It’s not my blood,” I said immediately.
“Scarlett . . . what? What’s happened?’
“I-I went with Brayden to find Ella.”
“What’s happened?” Nana demanded again.
I paused, searching for the right words. How could I tell her how I had killed Keelie and then had to cut out Brayden’s heart?
She stormed straight toward me. I braced myself for the sharp slap she dealt to my face. Stumbling backward, I caught myself before I fell. No one had ever hit me that hard before.
Nana stood over me. “Scarlett, you speak right now!”
“Nana, I’m sorry, but I had to do it. Brayden and I found Keelie. We only wanted to get her to tell us where Ella was but I sort of lost control and I killed her.” I couldn’t look Nana in the eye and I didn’t want to hear what she was going to say, so I kept talking. “Then Brayden killed himself. I had to cut out his heart so I can take it to the witch and free Ella.”
Nana turned several shades lighter and she lowered herself onto the arm of the couch. “What is going on? You killed someone? How could you?”
The words echoed in my mind the same as when Brayden had said them. “She didn’t leave me a choice.”
Nana narrowed her eyes at me. “There’s always a choice.”
“Not for me. Nana, you know I can’t control it when the bad wolf takes over. That girl, she made me so angry. She could have helped us find Ella but she wouldn’t. She shouldn’t have betrayed Ella in the first place.”
“So, you killed her.”
I hung my head in shame. I only wanted to save Ella and that was the only thing I was thinking about, not the ramifications of my actions. The witch was right. My hero complex would always be my downfall. “I’m sorry. I need you to help me move Brayden’s car before someone sees it with all that blood inside. He’s in the trunk.”
I shook my head. “Dammit, Scarlett.”
“But I’m going to find Ella. Brayden found where the witch is. I have to go there, Nana. I can’t let Brayden have died for nothing. I know you don’t want me to, but I have to.”
/>
I sank onto the couch, sobbing with my head in my hands but Nana was never one for tears and self-pity. She yanked me up by my shoulders. “You go bathe right now. You will forget about this day and you will never betray me like this again. Go.”
I hurried off toward my bathroom. I never planned on betraying Nana again, but the other part I couldn’t promise.
Nana came to the realization that there would be no stopping me, so the next day, with Brayden’s heart wrapped in plastic and placed in a wooden box, and called a taxi to take me to the hotel. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be to get around on my own.
I stood at the entrance of the ritzy hotel and took a deep breath. This was it. I couldn’t let Brayden die in vain. I had to get the elixir from the witch and save Ella, if she was still able to be saved.
The doorman opened the door for me and I hurried to the elevators pressing the button for the penthouse. Everything around me passed in a beige blur. I made no eye contact with anyone, fearing they would ask me questions I couldn’t answer. As the elevator doors slid open, I took a deep breath before stepping inside. It had been a while since I had taken an elevator and I had only done it once. It made me nervous. As the elevator made its way up, I tried not to imagine the floor disappearing from beneath my feet.
My heart climbed into my throat as the contraption took me higher and higher. I jumped at the jingle letting me know that the elevator had reached its destination. I took too long to work up the nerve to step out. The elevator doors closed on me and I had to press the buttons again.
In the hallway, I gave myself a pep talk. “Come on, Scarlett. Nana didn’t raise you to be a coward. Get it together.”
I knocked on the door of the penthouse and waited. Nothing happened for a long time so I knocked again. I hoped the witch was there. If she wasn’t, I would camp there all day until she came back.
I heard some stirring on the other side of the door and finally it swung open. An astonishing beauty with sand-colored skin stood on the other side. She tossed her waist-length black hair over her shoulder. “Can I help you? Did you not read the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the knob?”
Forever Scarlett: The Everly Girls Book 3 Page 5