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Slamming a curb that sent my body sideways into the door, Ria said, “We’re Witches, and she’s my sister. I’ll scry for her first—that usually does the trick. If not, I’ll try another location spell with my blood. I’m not as good at them as Brooke, but I have her books. I’ll find her. It’ll work.”
I wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince me or herself.
If that didn’t work though…
I had no idea.
* * *
Once we got back to Brooke’s, Ria stood over the kitchen counter with a bowl of herbs, whispered some nonsense I couldn’t begin to pronounce, and set a map on fire. She did it twice—once with a local map and again with a world map.
When both maps settled to ashes on the countertop, Ria’s fingers were shaking more than a palm tree in hurricane.
Before I could even ask what was wrong, she’d flipped open another leatherbound book and began gathering more ingredients from Brooke’s wardrobe.
Although the words leaving her lips already sounded like gibberish, stutters began to break into her chants.
And my heart fell through the floor below me.
This was our last hope, and it didn’t seem to be working.
After a few long moments of casting that amounted to nothing, Ria slammed her fist to the counter. “God fucking damn it.”
Chest tightening, stomach aching, I swallowed the thick lump that’d gathered in my throat. “Maybe we should call the c—”
“If we can’t find her, they won’t.”
“They have more resources. Maybe Eric owns a property somewhere, and there’s a paper trail that—”
“And it won’t matter if she’s dead by then!” Her wide eyes darted to mine. “If we get the cops involved, we’re going to have more obstacles to work around. We have a better chance at finding her than they do. It’s going to work. Just—just give me a minute. I’ll find her. I just need to focus.”
She was right that there’d be more obstacles to work around, but we weren’t working anyway. We were sitting around with our thumbs up our asses, and we needed to do something.
But saying that would get me in more trouble than giving her a few minutes to focus would. It wouldn’t do me any favors to get on Brooke’s sister’s bad side either.
“Alright,” I murmured. “I’ll go sit in the living room and let you work.”
She turned back to the counter, and I started to the sofa.
Lowering myself to it, that terrible sensation in my chest and stomach stayed.
I tried picking up a book from the table to distract from it, but the words looked like hieroglyphs on the page.
Tossing it back to the tabletop, I propped my elbows on my knees and massaged my temples.
Yeah, we’d just met. No, I wasn’t in love with her. We barely knew each other.
I was frustrated with myself over the argument last night, and I wished it would’ve gone differently. I hoped she was momentarily upset and she hadn’t meant it when she said she was done with whatever the two of us were forming. But if not, I’d accept that.
It’d be okay if she said she didn’t want to continue seeing each other. I wouldn’t be happy about it, but I’d understand, and I’d respectfully walk away.
What wouldn’t be okay was if we didn’t find her. It wouldn’t be okay if she died because I hadn’t been there. It wouldn’t be okay if she was gone forever when I could’ve helped her.
Just as the burn of bile burned up my esophagus, an ache throbbed through my wrist.
Then a scratch.
I looked down, but instead of my tattoo covered forearms, I saw rope.
