“I’m the queen of illusions, and I have a weapon I know how to use.” I gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “And as shocking as this may be, Garvin really is an excellent shot.”
“Mmmhmm, but you are with Portia, who will side with her father, if it came down to blood. Don’t underestimate her loyalty,” he told me, before tugging me close for a deeper kiss. The firm press of his lips sent blood rushing through my body, my fingers curling around his arms, as I stretched up on my toes to meet him more fully. Our kiss deepened, as he pulled me more firmly against him, our tongues meeting and sliding against each other. A throat being cleared loudly next to us interrupted our mini make out session.
“As happy as I am to see you finally getting some, I’d rather not see it in my Momma’s foyer,” Garvin scolded, putting two arms between us and pushing us apart. I laughed, as I stumbled back from Luke, but he didn’t seem nearly as okay with the separation.
“Luke, my dear, you weren’t leaving without saying goodbye now were you?” Momma Garvin cooed, as she came up to us. It didn’t escape Garvin’s or my attention, the only one she was worried about was Luke. I bit back my smile at the thunderous expression on Garvin’s face. He had always been his Momma’s favorite boy, but apparently, Luke had replaced him, and he was not happy about the fact.
“Of course not, Sheila. How could I leave the home of such a gracious host without saying my farewells?” I arched an eyebrow at how thick he was laying the Southern charm on. I was about to choke on it. He raised her hand and placed a kiss on the back of it, as she simpered. Simpered, not a word I ever thought I would use in conjunction with Momma Garvin. I reached out and grabbed Garvin’s arm, before he did something foolish like punch Luke in front of his momma. Portia took the opportunity to walk in then, averting the high probability of a schoolyard brawl in Momma Garvin’s foyer.
“Thank you for having me, Mrs. Mouton,” she said, conventionally, her weariness obvious. We had discussed multiple options during the evening before eventually getting some sleep, but I suspected her exhaustion was more mental than physical. She would stay with Garvin in the plantation house, on the off chance she could draw her father out, or connect with him in some way. I recognized the look of abandonment that crossed her face occasionally. It was a special type of hell to be left by the people you loved. Perhaps her father and brother had good reason to leave her, but it didn’t change the emotion.
Momma Garvin gave her a sharp eyed look before engulfing her in a hug. Portia’s arms hung in surprise before coming around to hug her back. After a minute, Momma Garvin set her back to study her. “Take care of yourself and don’t worry. The Lord will be with you and so will I.” I smiled, thinking to myself, I would not want to get on the bad side of either one. “Now, go on. Do what you have to do. I’ll be here when you need me.” We all nodded solemnly, no one doubting the power of Momma. She had turned to walk away before pausing to look straight at me, “And you better make sure that minion of Satan you introduced into my house goes with you.”
My eyes widened as I nodded quickly, praying Serafin had made herself scarce. We all heard her muttering to herself as she walked away, “Gonna have to call the priest in, and how am I gonna explain to him I let Satan in my home?”
Garvin jerked his head frantically toward the door, and I took the hint. We all slid out the door, grateful it hadn’t been any worse.
Garvin grumbled a bit, as I leaned over to give Luke a last kiss before we parted ways, but I swatted at him, and he settled down. We were taking the SUV, and Garvin had parked Luke’s car in the underground parking garage at his Momma’s condo.
“I’ll be an hour at most,” he said, in an attempt to reassure me, or more likely himself.
“After I finish at my house, we’ll go to Garvin’s and wait for you. I’ll be quick,” I assured him, feeling the pinch of anxiety myself.
“Be safe. Please.” He held my face in his hands, as he placed a lingering kiss on my forehead. The connection between us only seemed to grow stronger the more we were together, a deep emotional intimacy developing far more rapidly than anything I had ever experienced. If I stopped to think about it too long, the sheer enormity of my own feelings would overwhelm me. I allowed myself to run my hand along his freshly shaven cheek, the skin smoother than silk, my fingers tracing his strong jawline.
“You too.” My eyes were fierce as they held his. I wouldn’t tolerate anything happening to him either. He gave me a sharp nod and stepped back. I started the car and forced myself to drive the car away.
“You know something bad is gonna happen right?” Garvin commented, drawing my attention and Portia’s. “Something bad always happens when the group splits up. Every movie, ever, has proven that.” He sighed gustily, crossing his arms as he leaned back in his seat.
“It was your idea,” I said, glancing at him, as I merged on to the highway.
“It was only an observation,” Garvin replied, holding his hands up, like I had accused him of plotting our deaths. “Felt it should be mentioned. Don’t be mad at the messenger.”
I shook my head, bemused, and met Portia’s eyes in the rearview. She rolled her eyes, and we both laughed, causing Garvin to look over at us suspiciously. “I know you’re not laughing at me.”
“No, never,” I said, soothingly, patting his arm, as he pouted.
A few minutes later, Garvin looked at me wonderingly before bouncing in his seat and squealing.
“Holy shit, have you lost your marbles?” I demanded to know, looking at him and his crazy ass doing gyrations in the passenger seat. I had no idea what he was so excited about, and when I looked back at Portia, she only shrugged, baffled like me.
“Look how fast you’re going!” he said, with a giggle. I glanced at the odometer and saw a sedate seventy miles per hour registered on it.
“Huh,” I grunted, surprised now. Traffic was steady around us. In fact, there were cars passing us on my left, something I had never before experienced, since I was always the one passing.
“You’re driving like a normal person,” Garvin cheered, his excitement oddly contagious. I laughed reluctantly, not feeling any desire to speed up or pass anyone, even knowing I could.
“I guess I am,” I agreed and caught Portia’s puzzled look. She had never experienced any of my normal stunt car driving and wasn’t aware of how unusual this truly was.
“I like to go fast,” I told her, before being interrupted by a loud, “HA!”
“That is an understatement. She was a speed demon. Anything under a hundred miles an hour was too slow for her.” Garvin explained, twisting around in his seat. “That’s how she met Officer Cutie, speeding.” My lips twitched at hearing Garvin refer to Luke as Officer Cutie again. I guess his jealousy over his Momma’s attention had faded.
“Oh,” Portia said, understandingly.
“He’s exaggerating—” I attempted to tell her, but Garvin interrupted again.
“Oh no, no, no, no. I am understating if anything. She’s normally a psycho driver.”
“I might need to see it to believe it,” Portia told him with a small smile, as our eyes met in the rearview mirror.
“Oh, I see how this is gonna go now. You’re ganging up on me. Vaginas unite. Well, I may not have a vagina, but I still make a better female than either of you two.” He turned to face the window with his arms crossed, and we burst into laughter.
“Come on, Garvin, Luke needs a guy. You can’t leave him hanging here,” I said, cajolingly.
“So many nasty jokes I could make right now, if I wasn’t a gentleman,” he replied, cutting his eyes at me, so I gave him my best smile. He huffed, but finally said, “Fine. I’ll be the guy friend.”
I shook my head at how put-out he sounded by the mere thought.
A few minutes later, I turned onto a bumpy access road running behind Garvin’s property. We had decided to come up to my carriage house from behind, instead of the main entrance. Not many knew about this road, and technica
lly, there was no actual access to my house from the back anymore. We would be going off road and cutting across the back half of the lawn to reach it.
“Hang on,” I shouted as I threw the SUV into four-wheel drive, before bumping over a ditch, in between a couple of trees.
“Oh great, now the crazy driver comes back out,” Garvin cried out, as I laughed, spinning the tires.
“Please, this is nothing!” I jerked the wheel slightly, to throw him to the side.
“Aack! Why?” Garvin wailed at me.
“The look on your face,” I laughed back, watching his expression change.
“Look at the road!” he cried at me.
“What road?” I teased him, not taking my eyes off him. Portia was laughing in the back.
“The ... yard … driveway ... grass … TREES!” He stammered and gasped, as I swerved around a tree at the last second.
“Oh ye of little faith,” I told him, slowing down, as we approached my little house. There were no vehicles I could see, but it didn’t mean someone hadn’t walked in and was lying in wait for me. We were all silent, as I killed the engine. I had parked as close as possible to the door, limiting the length of time we would be exposed in the open.
I sighed and popped the door, “You want to wait here?” I asked, looking at them.
Garvin shook his head. “No, we stay together, no matter what happens.” He looked at us both, and we nodded.
We got out and dashed up the steps to my door. Garvin and Portia crowded behind me, protecting my back. There was nothing quite like the feeling of having a target painted on your back, and it made my hands slippery. I dropped my keys, and as I bent to pick them up, wood exploded on the door where my head had been.
“FUCK THIS,” Garvin shouted, grabbing both of us by the arm. I threw an illusion that we were running around the side of the house, adding a veil over us, so hopefully the shooter wouldn’t see us escaping back to the SUV.
We managed to get back into the SUV, and I pressed the door locks. The comforting click made me feel better, even as I frantically asked Garvin, “This thing really is bullet proof, right?”
“I think so,” he replied, as we stared at him in disbelief. “I’ve never actually tested it!” he wailed, before shouting, “DRIVE! Drive like the lunatic I know you are.”
I slammed the SUV into gear at his words and raced away from the house, slamming them back into their seats.
“Seatbelts,” Garvin gasped, grabbing his like a lifeline. I hit sixty going down the drive, my goal to hit the highway and get to Luke. Before I could make the turn to head to the highway though, I saw a black cat flash past us headed toward Garvin’s house. I wrenched the wheel to the left instead, following Serafin.
“What are you doing?” Garvin screeched at me. “Luke, go to Luke. The man with the gun. Away from the bad guys with the guns.” I gave him a quick look and shook my head.
“Serafin. There’s a reason she’s leading me back to your house.” I told him, looking back at Portia. She hadn’t uttered a word since the shooting started, but she’d covered me with her own body as we had darted back to the SUV. Her face was a frozen mask, horror warring with an angry sorrow. She thought her father was the one shooting, and her presence at my back hadn’t stopped him. I focused back on the road in front of me, gravel flying as we flew down it. I couldn’t figure out why Serafin would bring me to Garvin’s house, but she had never been wrong before, and I wouldn’t doubt her now.
“We’re going in the front. AS SOON as I stop, make a run for it. I’ll cast an illusion, just in case there’s a shooter trained on this house too.” I didn’t explicitly state we didn’t know where Portia’s brother was, or on whose side, but the quiet noise she made at my words let me know she caught my meaning. I spun into the circle drive, immediately casting an illusion that the SUV kept going around, even as I slammed on the brakes and we ran. The door opened easily under my hand. Unsurprising, as Garvin usually left it unlocked. The door slammed shut behind us, and I peeked out the window to see if anyone had followed us, or were chasing my illusion.
“No,” Portia gasped, the word desperate.
“Uh,” I felt a tug on my sleeve and turned slowly. Garvin pulled on me, even as his eyes remained locked on the sight in front of us. Before now, if someone had asked me what the worst possible thing could be, I would have said losing my mom and sisters. Today, my answer changed.
An older man had a gun trained on Luke, his arm a little shaky, as he recognized Portia standing with us.
“Portia?” he questioned, a feeling of betrayal clear in his voice. If I hadn’t figured it out from Portia’s early gasp, his one-word question completed the picture. In front of us stood Portia’s father, a man who thought my death would be the only way to prevent a millennia of darkness.
Chapter Twelve
“Daddy, stop. You can’t do this. It’s not right.” Portia pled, walking toward her father. His hand shook harder, making me nervous.
“No. Stop right there,” he demanded, and she paused, her face tight with emotion. “You are with them. Why? You know what her very existence means.”
“Yes! I do. It means there’s a chance goodness will prevail; a chance to change.” Portia looked at him with frustrated pity. “She is not why Mom died, or Grandmother. She is innocent. She lost more than us, but she still wants to do the right thing.”
“This is for the greater good,” he ground out, adamant on the path he’d started on so long ago. “It’s not only her. I know what her father is, and there’s no telling about her sisters. Her intentions are not enough. This is our only chance to stop the trinity before it’s fully formed; our chance to stop their power from slipping into the wrong hands.”
“And what does that make us?” she cried, slamming her hand on the table next to her and causing her father to jump. His stunned surprise made me think Portia had never yelled at him before. “Killers! No better than her father. Responsible for an innocent person's death, because we were scared.”
“That’s not —”
“Yes. It is,” Portia said, passionately. “We are responsible for helping her, not destroying her family further. She has proven to me she’s good, and there is no reason to harm her. Don’t let your own ignorant fear cause you to do a thing that can never be undone.” Her eyes were lit with a fire to rival her father’s, and I kinda wanted to cheer after that speech, but I didn’t want to break the stare-down going on in front of me. Garvin apparently didn’t care.
“You tell him, girl,” Garvin said, fist pumping the air.
Two things happened simultaneously. Luke decided to use the momentary distraction to attempt to get the gun from Portia’s father, and Quinn came into her power.
The report of the gun was a distant sound, as the power rushed into me. A sense of oneness filled me, and I could see them, both of my sisters, suspended in the same moment, wherever they were. We looked at one another and I attempted to memorize their faces, especially Quinn, her heart shaped face full of startled terror. I wished desperately I could be with her now, knowing how frightening it could be. I mouthed, “It’ll be okay, I promise,” and her eyes told me she saw, so I turned to Kincaid.
“I’m coming,” I told her, before they were suddenly gone and I was on the floor, feeling as if I had been struck by lightning.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry, so, so sorry. I never meant to shoot you.” The words filtered through the buzzing in my head, and I wondered who was apologizing to who.
“Shit, that’s a lot of blood. Give me something to make a compress. Now, hurry,” Garvin’s voice snapped, and I blinked trying to get my bearings. I felt fine. If I’d been the one shot I would hurt somewhere, right? So it must have been someone else. My mind ran through the possibilities. The voice I heard apologizing was Portia’s father, and Garvin was talking, so only Portia and Luke were left. The thought pushed me to my knees, and as I swayed, I saw Luke lying on the floor, a dark stain covering his chest.
; “No,” I gasped, the word hammering in my head, a constant refrain keeping time with the racing of my heart. I crawled my way over to him, my legs unable to support me. “Garvin,” I said, and he knew what I wanted.
“It’s bad,” he muttered, his hands covering the wound, as he tried to create enough pressure to stop the bleeding.
“What have I done?” Portia’s father murmured, sitting off to the side. Portia came running in with towels in her hand and a phone.
“I didn’t want to stop and call 911 first. Here,” she said, thrusting the towels at Garvin. He grabbed one to cover the wound before applying pressure again.
I reached for Luke’s hand, and his fingers curled around mine. Distantly, I heard Portia drop the phone, cursing because her hands were shaking. I crawled closer to Luke, long dormant instincts taking over. Garvin moved out of my way, his hands falling from Luke, as I took his place.
“Look at me,” I demanded, my voice unrecognizable, power pulsating from me, as I covered the gunshot wound with my hands. His eyes blinked open and locked on mine. “Trust me,” I whispered to him and was rewarded with a slight smile. I thought back to the moment with my sisters, the image of them seared into my memory by my own will, but also the threads I had seen connecting us, threads connecting us to one another, but also to everything. Every living, breathing thing was connected by threads of magic, and all of them were at my disposal.
“Knit, blend, tie, and bind.” The words flowed from me, along with heat from my hands covering the wound, and if I looked in a mirror I knew my eyes would be glowing, brighter than ever before. “Torn apart, mend together.” As I spoke, I could see the magic threading through my fingers, twisting as it followed my commands, healing the violent wound in his chest. Finally, the threads slowed before disappearing completely. I pulled my hands away from his chest to reveal a bloody, but unmarred surface. He smiled at me, “You’re incredible, you know that?”
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