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“What the fuck?” she shouts, and I have to pull the phone away from my ear. “She used my social media accounts to learn about you?”
“About both of us,” I say. “And she took my phone without my knowledge, changed your contact information to her number, and blocked you everywhere so you couldn’t contact me and ruin her plan.”
“This is…unbelievable,” she whispers.
“Hold on,” I say, swiping a finger across my phone screen to pull up my photo album. I tap the picture I took with the imposter this morning at the beach and send it to Steph before pressing the phone back to my ear. “I just texted you a photo. Look at it, Steph.”
I hear her nails tapping against the screen before she gasps. “Holy shit.”
Her voice cracks on the words, and I can tell I’ve blown her mind. Not-Steph is an exact replica of her, and I needed to show her to make her understand how I could possibly be fooled.
“Eden,” she says, her voice sounding stronger now, “what did she want?”
“I don’t know, for sure, but we can only assume she was trying to gain access to this house.”
“But…why?”
“Okay, I’m going to tell you some more stuff that’s going to sound unbelievable. Just remember, I’m your best friend, and I would never lie to you.”
“Of course,” she says. “I trust you.”
“Jesse is Franklin Belloy’s son––in the vampire sense of the word––and heir to his throne.”
“Holy shit. Is that why you couldn’t tell me who he really was?”
“Yes,” I say. “He asked me to keep it a secret because he was trying to lie low and live his own life for a while. But then he got called back here because…and you can never repeat this to anyone, okay?”
“I promise, my lips are sealed,” she says solemnly.
“Franklin is ill. He––”
“Wait. Vampires can get sick?” she cuts in.
“Not naturally,” I say, taking a deep breath. “His illness is severe and…magically induced.”
“Magically induced? What does that mean?”
“Witches,” I say, my voice dropping in pitch and volume. “They’re real, Steph. Just like vampires, only they haven’t come out like the vamps did. Someone cast a spell on Franklin, and he’s dying. Jesse came here to find the witches responsible in an attempt to save his father, and I followed him out here to help.”
She’s quiet for a long time, digesting what I’ve said. My heart picks up its pace as I wait for her to respond, but I force myself to stay quiet and let her work it out in her head. It’s a lot to process.
“And that woman who looks like me…she’s a witch? She used magic to make herself my twin?” she asks finally, not even questioning my proclamation that witches exist.
“She is a witch,” I say. “When I ended the call with you earlier, she realized the gig was up and disappeared. Literally. Like one second, she was standing in front of me, and the next, poof. She was gone.”
“That’s…terrifying.”
“It was,” I say, breathing a sigh of relief that Steph is trusting me so completely. “As for her using magic to make herself look like you, I’m not so sure. I told you I saw her the day before. She looked exactly like you then, and she ran. I have no doubt she used that disappearing magic so I couldn’t corner her inside the souvenir shop. She never meant for me to see her that day.”
“But if that’s true, then how does she look so much like me?” Steph asks.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “They say everyone has a twin out there somewhere…”
“And my twin is a witch? Fuck. I got the short end of the doppelganger stick.”
She’s trying to bring some levity to the conversation, and I bite my tongue against the words that want to flow out. That Steph is a witch, too, and just doesn’t know it. I hate keeping it from her, but if Jesse’s right, that knowledge could put her in real danger.
“Are you okay?” she asks when I stay quiet for several beats. “This has to be playing hell with your mind.”
