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“You have a rough road ahead, Pocus.” Mama’s voice seems to echo, bouncing off the walls of my head like a thousand otherworldly voices of the spirits. “Your past will bear down on you, and you will crumble under its weight. But there’s peace beyond…if you dare to survive the storm.”
Peace.
It’s the one thing I’ve never had. But even now, it seems I have to fight for it. Of what use is peace when the soul is damaged and weary? When will I ever stop fighting? I try to pull my hand away from Mama’s, but her hold becomes as tight as a vice. She leans forward until I can feel her breath brushing across my face.
“Your destiny is closer than you think, Pocus,” Mama says, looking intensely into my eyes. “A gem covered in blood – the rarest and the shiniest of them all. You either possess it or lose it forever.”
She isn’t making any sense…but then again, when have the Gods ever made anything easy for us mere mortals?
* * *
Iplace my palms on the porch railings and mutter a harsh string of curse words. It seems like the trip to Mama’s has only served to confuse me even more. And her vision…? That made even less sense. A gem covered in blood…? What the hell does that mean? I let out a breathy sigh. Mama’s ambiguous prophecy is the least of my concerns. Abigail could die in three days if we don’t find a solution to the curse of the clouding spell.
Anderson, that bastard. A powerful shaman must be working for him. Maybe I should look into that? But shamans are not one to mess with…it’d only complicate the whole issue. I run a hand through my hair, hating the tight knot of frustration in my chest.
The unmistakable sound of a motorcycle engine distracts me from my downward spiraling thoughts. I look up to see Seer’s Aprilia RSV4 rolling down the driveway to the clubhouse’s main building. After we finished at Mama’s place, he excused himself and drove off in the opposite direction. I guess he had some personal business to take care of – I have no cause to wonder about that. Seer tells me the things that I need to know. I trust him with whatever information he’s willing to share and withhold. That’s because I know the MC means as much to him as it does to me. Seer parks in his spot and jogs the rest of the way to the clubhouse building. He takes the staircase to the porch two at a time, his eyes fixed on me the whole time. I can feel the worry and concern rolling off him in waves – and a slight whiff of the same confusion that’s churning in my stomach even now. I guess I should be grateful to have men like Seer who respect and follow my decisions as their leader and genuinely worry for me as a friend. But it only makes me angry…the fact that I make the people around me worry for me. I’m supposed to be their leader…I’m supposed to protect my men. How do I do that when I can’t even dig dirt on a scumbag like Anderson?
My hands tighten impossibly on the railings at the thought of Anderson Grey. He bothers me. Something tells me that he knows more than he’s letting on. The bastard is playing with us, and he seems to think I’m some plaything on his game board that he can roll around as he pleases. More than Anderson Grey’s vile schemes, I’m enraged at that teeny bit of helplessness pushing against my defenses. I’ve tried to ignore the feeling, but as the day progresses, the tiny feeling of inadequacy continues to grow, its claws reaching for the strings of my heart. I’m usually good at keeping my emotions in check and presenting the world with a composed front that reveals nothing of the mess I really am on the inside. But these days, I feel like my emotions are too close to the surface, a ticking time bomb that will explode at any moment and ruin the illusion that I built for myself in the present. I thought I had escaped the hold the past had on me, but who was I kidding?
Your past will bear down on you, and you’ll crumble under its weight.
“Does it bother you?” Seer asks quietly. “Mama’s prophecy, I mean.”
He’s been standing beside me for a while now. He had remained silent while I stared stoically at the sun setting on the horizon.
I snicker quietly and throw a quick look at him. “No,” I say with a small shrug. “I’m more concerned about Abigail. She’s currently our only lead to Anderson.”
“Do you not think she’ll come with you to Mama’s,” Seer asks with a slight frown.
“She doesn’t seem to believe in magic and voodoo,” I reply. “I’ll have a hard time convincing her that her soul is rotting in her body because her boss put a hex on her.”
Seer nods quietly in understanding. “How will you get her to come with you?”
I throw a quick humorless smile at Seer. “I’ll have to do whatever it takes,” I reply. It doesn’t matter if she calls me a jerk again. I’ll get Abigail to Mama and find a way to lift Anderson’s fucking hex.
“I see,” Seer mumbles. If he had an idea of what I meant by whatever, he didn’t give any inclination. “And what about the club? I think they need an update on the recent developments.”
“There isn’t much to update them on, is there?” I ask with a scoff.
“They’re on edge with her around here, Pocus,” Seer says seriously. “Especially Bones. They need to know that she wasn’t herself when she did those things.”
Seer is right. The club still has the wrong impression of Abigail and might be hostile toward her because of that.
“I’ll call a meeting when I’m sure she’s not going to die on me,” I say. “I’d hoped Mama would be able to lift the hex, and we’d get Abigail to open up on Anderson’s dirty business, but it seems we’ll have to explore another option.”
“What are you thinking?” Seer asks, quietly studying my profile.
“I think….” I’m cut short by the sound of the main door being opened from the inside. I turn around to see Snake walking toward Seer and me with a laptop in his hands.
“Prez? I need to show you something,” Snake says eagerly.
I huff a tired sigh. “Not now, Snake. I need to….”
“It’s…kinda important,” Snake says quickly. “It’s about Abigail Miller.”
That sure got my attention. “What about Abigail?”
Snake moves closer to where Seer and I are standing and positions himself so that we can see the computer screen. “So, I was surfing through the dark web to see if I’d find anything on Anderson, but guess who I stumbled on? Agent X.”
