Girl
Daggett had a different mother.”
Adele Roman
Moonset Historian Official Witness Statement, From the raiding of the Moonset compound
I don’t know how any of us made it out of there in one piece. A magical SWAT team had descended upon the farmhouse property. Adults were everywhere, searching the grounds, talking in hushed circles. Spotlights blazed on the remains of the farmhouse.
I was awake for a long time before I was actually conscious. For the longest time, I watched
Witchers hustling to and fro, and others farther away, combating the weather magic.
“Someone really huffed and puffed all over that house, didn’t they?” a familiar voice drawled from next to me.
Jenna was leaning against a tire. I craned my neck around, realizing that we’d both been propped up against the side of an SUV. “Are you okay?”
Her hair was a mess, and both of us were covered in dirt and grime, but she nodded slowly.
“Think so. Last thing I remember is leaving the house with Malcolm.”
“They’ve got Witchers all over the place trying to maintain control,” Jenna said. “I heard them talking earlier. They’re spread thin, trying to cover up what was happening in town, and contain all the shit Luca stirred up.”
“You idiot.” There was suddenly a voice and a presence in front of us, blocking out the light.
My stomach tightened, thinking for a moment that the … demons, or whatever they were, had come back.
It was Quinn. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you tonight? What did you think you were doing?”
“We ran out of Thin Mints?” Jenna asked, assuring me that she really was okay. If she could crack jokes so quickly after a house caved in on her, she was going to be all right. “You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to track down a Girl Scout at this hour.”
“Do you know what’s going on out there? How could you be so stupid?” he demanded, his voice oddly whispered. Like he was afraid someone was going to overhear him. Come to think of it, he was facing us at a strange angle, more like he was looking towards the back of the house than talking to us.
“It was Luca,” I said. “I thought … I thought it was someone else. But he released more of the darkness. I know. It talked to me.”
Quinn’s self-possession got the best of him, and he spent the next several moments like a gaping fish in front of us. Mouth opened. Mouth closed. Opened. Closed. “Now you listen to me you little asshole,” he managed to get out, though his voice was strangled. “You don’t remember anything. Anything. Any of you.”
I went to argue, to say something, but Jenna caught my eye and shook her head. It became an elaborately silent conversation, with complex thoughts expressed only through our looks.
I have to tell them what happened. They need to know.
She tugged at her hair, trying to create some order out of the chaos. No they don’t. But you’ll tell me later.
Of course I will. Don’t be stupid. I scratched at my forehead, my fingernails coming back dark with dried blood. My second attempt was much softer, more uncertain. There wasn’t any wound I could feel, no sensitivity, but nevertheless there was a whole section of my hair that was plastered against my scalp, congealed with that same brownish red.
Is everyone okay? Jenna’s head didn’t move, but her eyes moved around quickly and anxiously. She didn’t have to say anything. I read the question on her face.
I shrugged. That in itself said everything I knew.
“Ahh, it’s about time they began to awake,” Illana Bryer was suddenly above us. Her outfit was some sort of strange mesh of skintight slacks with a black shawl hanging nearly down to her ankles wrapped around her.
“So helpful of you to keep an eye on the two of them, Quinn,” she continued, staring down at us. I met her eyes only for a moment, enough time to see the calculating coldness in them, before I turned and scooted closer towards Jenna. “But someone will be around shortly to take care of them.”
“Take care of us?” Jenna’s voice was acid. “Considering something attacked us, and my brother looks like someone beat the shit out of him, you’d think a little medical care wouldn’t be out of the question.”
Illana’s lips thinned. “Yes, well that was before the five of you were found cavorting with a known warlock.”
“Who?”
She didn’t seem to like my question. Or maybe she didn’t like the challenge in my voice. “Luca
Denton, obviously.”
Jenna, God bless her, started to laugh. The kind of Mean Girl laugh that said she enjoyed other people’s misery just a little too much. “Luca?” She glanced at me, amused deception in her eyes. “This is some kind of joke, right? Or some sort of test?”
“I assure you this is a matter of the utmost gravity,” Illana said.
“I’m sure,” Jenna laughed, throwing her head back a little. “Luca invoked the black arts without screwing it up? He’s Maddy’s little lapdog. If he’d even had an original thought in his life —and I seriously doubt that’s the case—then I can’t even picture him doing it right in the first place! He’s a loser.”
“That’s enough, Jenna,” Quinn said.
“You’re awfully silent,” Illana murmured, and I looked up to find her homing in on me with her laser eyes. “No reaction? No protests of innocence?”
“I remember something,” I said, fully ignoring the advice of Quinn, whose posture tensed immediately. Even Jenna was sitting straighter now.
“I thought you might,” she said, her emphasis on the “you” sounding much like I was the only one she expected would. Her tone was hungry for it, her expression wolfish. “Tell me.”
“We know about Kore,” I said, my tongue stumbling over the name. “Who really killed her.”
Illana stared at me, her expression cool, her eyes searching mine. I don’t know what she saw there, but after a few moments, her lips parted and her eyes widened.
I watched as the effect of the name took its hold over her. At first, there was shock. Then uncertainty. For the first time, perhaps ever, Illana Bryer dropped her gaze and turned away.
“Where did you … ” she whispered, her voice trailing off. And then, as if she realized that she’d forgotten herself, all of the arrogance and prestige of being Illana Bryer came flowing back into her. “Quinn, with me,” she suddenly snapped. “Evanson and … you with the hair, come here.” Two adults, a man and a woman, were suddenly in front of us as well. “No one is to speak to them,” Illana announced, glancing over her shoulder down on us, and then over to
Quinn. “No one at all, until I send for them. The others are gathering as we speak.”
Once she was gone, Jenna leaned into me. “What was that?” she whispered. “What did you do?”
I shook my head and shrugged. I really didn’t know.
Despite what Illana had dictated, they didn’t keep us in the field for much longer. Jenna and I were bundled up, blankets thrown around us, and taken away by Evanson and … the one with the hair a short while later.
But they didn’t take us home.
The storm had finished passing over us, and already the temperature was starting to rise slightly. The driver seemed to have no trouble on the roads.
Entering the high school in the middle of the night wasn’t my idea of a good time. By this point, I’d long since been picturing my bed, and planning a long, long recovery from everything that had been going on.