Page 62 of Dark Sold Mate

“But you could have simply left me to do it myself. I did not need you to spend your time and money to buy me those books.”

Silas laid aside the knife he had been using to peel the fruit. “I bought them because I want to help you. Owing to the fact that I know how frustrated you are with your magic, and I can feel how disappointed and guilty you feel through the bond every time that you have a vision that does not give us useful information.”

Elle looked down at her hands. “The bond.”

“Yeah. It goes both ways, Elle. I feel what you feel. Your sufferings, your desperation, your fear. All of it.” Silas stepped closer. “And I want to make it better. I want to help you manifest your power.”

“You believe in my power?”

“I have an ungodly amount of faith in you.” Silas pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “What you have been through would break anyone. If anybody can get a hang of this power, it's you.”

Elle sniffed, her eyes bright. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For believing in me. Even when I do not believe in myself sometimes.”

Silas wanted to kiss her, pull her into his arms, and show her the extent of how much he believed in her and how much he admired her strength and resilience.

Instead, however, he settled for pushing her hair behind her ears. “Always, Elle. I'll always believe in you.”

They finished their sandwiches and moved into the office again, plunging back into the research with renewed zeal. Later that afternoon, they found a rhythm. Elle would read the passages aloud, and Silas would make notes or reference facts elsewhere. If one of them was stuck, the other would provide a new point of view.

“Here,” Silas pointed to a passage in the book which he was reading. Vision witches nearly always have problems with their powers when they are fighting against their nature.”

“What does that mean?”

“It implies that their powers are also related to the emotional state of the witch and the way they accept who they are. When you're resisting your power, it will not act the way it should.”

Elle frowned. “But I'm not resisting it. I want it to work.”

“Wanting it to work isn't the same as accepting it.” Silas set down the book. “You want your visions to show you the future, to give you actionable intelligence. But your power is showing you the past. Maybe instead of fighting that, you need to accept it and figure out why.”

“But why would my powers only show the past?”

“I don't know. But maybe there's a reason. Could it be that the past has something that we've been missing?”

Elle took some time to answer the question with a thoughtful look on her face. “You might be right.”

“I'm always right.”

Elle hit him with another pillow. “Don't push it.”

Even when the sun went down, they continued to work without disrupting the serene bubble that they had created. Silas got dinner delivered by a local restaurant, and they debated on the theories of how Elle's power might work.

“But what about the visions? They are not random.” Elle mused after swallowing a bite of Chinese rice. “What if there is a pattern I am not seeing?”

“What kind of pattern?”

“I don't know. But all my visions have presented me with a victim being harmed. Particularly, women being abused by their buyers after the auction.” Elle set down her fork. “Am I supposed to find something there? Like the location or choice of victims?”

Silas leaned forward. “That's brilliant.”

“It's just a theory.”

“It's a good theory. We have been so focused on finding the next auction, but have not considered following the buyers instead.” Silas brought out his laptop and opened the case file. “We may be able to track them to the traffickers, if the visions you have can provide us with the names of particular buyers and the whereabouts of their victims.”

Elle's eyes lit up. “You really think that could work?”