AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I remembered,” I whisper, then drop the pendant to the bed as I open the picture on my phone and hold it in front of him. “Helena Kirkwood is the leader of the coven I saw in my vision. The same coven that wants to kill me over the prophecy.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, taking the phone from my trembling hand to study the picture.
“A hundred percent. It’s her, Jesse.”
Looking up from the phone’s screen, he meets my eyes. “So, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, yet,” I say with a shake of my head. “We can’t ask Steph to call another council meeting right away, and we can’t just go to Arizona to confront her. But one thing is clear. She has to be the reason my parents came out of hiding to stop me from asking about the prophecy. They must’ve known the Desertwillow coven is planning to kill me. And we have no idea if it’s the only one or if they’re working with one or more of the other covens.”
He nods, agreeing with me, then stretches out on his back before pulling me down against his chest. Then he just holds me, offering me comfort while I go over everything in my head again, looking for any details I may have missed. Any clues that will point me in the right direction.
Something is poking into my belly beneath me, and I slide a hand between us to pull the necklace free. Holding it in the air above us, I watch the pendant sway for several beats before inspiration strikes.
Sitting up in a rush, I look down at Jesse. “Maybe I can conjure a vision of my parents. If I can find them in the present the same way I did the Desertwillow coven, I might be able to figure out where they are. We can go to them and demand real answers.”
“It’s worth a shot,” he says as he sits up, but I can tell he’s hesitant to agree with that plan.
Because the visions give me headaches, and he never wants me to be in any kind of pain. And he’s also scared that, one of these times, I might not come out of it.
But despite all that, he supports me, always.
Keeping my gaze locked with his, I slowly slide the necklace over my head and settle the pendant against my chest.
It’s now or never, and I plan to get the answers I seek.
47
TODAY IS THE DAY
My eyes fall closed. My muscles untense one by one until I’m in a completely relaxed state. I focus on my parents, on the magical façade they wore when we met at the pier. I call on my own power, on the pendant, on the magic that resides in the very air around me, but nothing happens. I open one eye and focus it on Jesse.
“It’s not working.”
“Give it some time,” he says softly.
I nod and close the eye again and even take long, deep breaths like filling my dead lungs might somehow help. I do everything I can think of save for crossing my legs in a meditation pose and chanting “om.”
I open my eyes with a sigh and meet Jesse’s gaze. “Nothing.”
“We can try again later,” he offers, and I shake my head.
“What if it never works?”
“What do you mean?” he asks, tilting his head to study me.
“I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure my parents left the necklace for me. What if they spelled it to block themselves? Like if, in the event I figured out they’re alive, I couldn’t find them with it?”
He shakes his head. “You saw visions of them before. If they did cast such a spell, wouldn’t it have covered everything involving them? Plus, you had that vision or dream or whatever it was. They pulled you into it without the pendant, so they obviously want to talk. They wouldn’t have blocked themselves.”
“You’re probably right,” I say on a sigh. “Maybe I’m just trying too––”
My words cut off with a groan as pain explodes in my head. I fall back against the mattress, and Jesse follows me down, wrapping his arms around me to offer comfort as I moan and writhe in the pain. My thoughts grow dim as I thread my fingers through his, holding his hands like some kind of anchor. A couple of seconds later, everything goes black.
When consciousness returns, Jesse’s gone. I’m alone in a bed in a room I don’t recognize, but it only takes a moment for me to realize it’s a hotel room. Climbing off the bed, I move to the desk against the opposite wall. There’s stationary in a rack that reads, “Motel Seven” with an address in West Hollywood. A keycard envelope rests on the desk’s surface with the number one-twenty-three written in black marker.
Motel Seven. West Hollywood. Room one-twenty-three. Got it.
