Page 140 of Bound By Fury

Still, as I assess the scene, something about it just doesn’t make sense. Why would they take Maureen? Why would they kill her? Without her magic, there’s nothing for them to steal. Why wouldn’t they take me instead?

Numb, I turn around and head back inside. I take care to smudge my footprints and wipe every doorknob and place I have touched. I check the rooms for a body, but they’re empty. There’s not much I can do to erase my presence here, but I almost don’t care.

Because I’m empty inside, too.

I turn off the light and attempt to close the door behind me.

It won’t shut all the way, and now as I look closer, I see that the lock is broken. The frame is cracked like someone kicked it in.

Climbing on top of my bike, I rotate the pedals. I pump my legs. I look both ways before I pull onto the street. I keep to the side of the road. I listen as the forest resumes its song.

I don’t think about the way Maureen’s blood is drying against my skin.

At some point my tears had stopped. Which is fine by me. I have nothing left to give, anyway.

Maybe I should call the police. Maybe I should tell someone what I found. But Maureen’s warnings echo in my mind. She said that I’m not safe. That I need to protect myself. I think back to the women hanging from the southern trees.

Now that I know Malachi is a hunter and that he’s marked me, I know that if I’m killed, it will be by him alone. But thanks to him, I also know he’s not the only one out there.

Alastair’s voice plays in my mind, inviting me to the Night of Remembrance.

They have a plan for me.

Perhaps they’ve had a plan this whole time. Malachi, Alastair… maybe even Lucas.

And I’ve been exactly dumb enough to play into it.

Maureen was right. I can’t go to the police. I’m not willing to risk everything by involving the only group of people I never trusted in the first place. Besides, in my panic I cleaned up. For all I know, I erased evidence of the hunters as well. If I try to go to the police now, who else are they going to blame but me?

When I get back to campus, I trudge through the silent quad. Perched on the edge of the fountain are four blood-red birds with eyes that mock me as I pass. I am so sick of seeing these goddamn birds! What do they want from me? Cardinals warning me of what? Some prophecy I have no control over? If I’m some stupid Cardinal Witch that’s supposed to save everyone, then where the hell are the other three?

I make it only a few steps past them before I can’t take it anymore. Growling, I turn, running headfirst toward them, waving my arms as I approach. They spook, scattering into the air as I crash into the fountain’s edge. Good. I think. Fuck those birds.

My footsteps echo softly in the hallway leading to my room. I can barely lift my feet from the ground. Every part of me feels weighed down by what’s happened.

Stepping over the mess of clothes and shoes scattered over the floor, I grab my shower caddy. I avoid my reflection as I pass the mirrors on my way to the stall. I peel off my blood-soaked costume, grateful that of any night, Halloween is the only one where looking like you’re fresh out of a crime scene is normal. When the warm water hits me, I sag, my tears mixing with the rusty stream that’s circling the drain.

Afterward I crawl into bed and pull my sheets up to my chin, gazing at the sky through the large windows, cursing the stars that guide my magic. What good is it to hold this power if there’s no one to teach me how to wield it? If the only people who connect me to these strange abilities keep dying or disappearing… or worse?

As I drift into a fitful sleep, Maureen’s face appears in my mind, warnings like poison on her lips.

Behind her, blinking red eyes glow from between the trees.

FORTY-SEVEN

BY THE TIME THE SUN struggles to peek through roiling clouds the next morning, the rain has begun anew. Slanting toward the ground in angled sheets, it weaves down my window, obscuring my view of campus and the greens and blues of the mountains that stretch out for miles.

Groggy, I wipe the sleep from my eyes and sit up, a leaden resolve hardening in my belly as I take in my disheveled room with fresh, mournful eyes.

I can’t stay here, at this school, in this forest that mocks me with its whispers and ghosts that refuse to save me when I need them most. I was never supposed to come here, and a seed of anger and regret has been planted within me, fed by the downpour beating against the roof.

Malachi was right. I don’t belong here. Maybe I never did.

Somehow in my sleep, I’ve decided. I’m leaving Black Mountain Academy, just as he demanded, and I’ll work to control my magic, to suppress it in order to resume my normal, danger-free life. I don’t know why he’s giving me this out. Why it seems like no matter how far I run, the mark that binds us will find me.

I am living on borrowed time, and I have been all along.

I’m swinging my legs over the side of the bed when a loud knock startles me. My head swims as I stomp across the rug and over the chilly tile floor. I grab the knob and yank the door open so hard, it slams against the wall.