AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She stares at me for a second before swallowing. “He calls himself Penn Travis, but I don’t know if that’s his real name or not,” she admits.
I shake myself free from Zig’s grip and step closer. “You know Penn?”
“Not well. He…uh, helped me out of some trouble.”
Slade snorts. “Shocking. You have trouble written all over you.”
“Kiss my ass, dickhead,” she snaps at him, making me laugh. I can’t help it. I like this girl.
“Astrid?” She turns back to me, the sneer falling from her face as she swallows hard, fiddling with the edge of her tank top. “Why did Penn send you here, and how did he know where I was?”
“He didn’t know where you were. That’s why it took me so long to find you. He heard tales of a woman they called Bruja in Mexico. He wrote it off at first until the rumors said she could heal with her hands. By the time he got there, she was gone.”
“He tried to find me?”
She looks at me, searching. “It’s true? You can heal with your hands?” I don’t answer her, so she sighs. “He told me something happened, and months later, he tracked you to a clinic. He thought he had cleaned the problem up, whatever that means, until he bumped into me.”
“I’m confused. Cleaned what up?” Oz asks. “And who the fuck is this Penn person? How does he know you?”
“Penn was a man I met when I was a kid. He showed me how to use my gift. Taught me about the duality it had to offer.”
Zig steps up beside me and stares down into my eyes, knowing exactly what I’m talking about. I haven’t told the others about what else I can do, not wanting them to look at me differently. But Oz and Zig were there that day.
“Think he was the one to blow the place up?”
I shrug, beyond confused. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the man in twenty years. Why would he do that?”
“Why indeed?” Zig asks calmly, in true Zig fashion. But Oz seems more pissed. “There were innocent people in that place. So if it was this Penn person, he’s not exactly a good guy here, Salem, which means we can’t assume his protégé is either.”
“Hey, I’m not his protégé. I’ve met the man a total of two times. Once when he saved me, and once when he asked me to find you.”
“Son of a bitch. This screams set-up to me,” Jagger curses. “Let me guess. You’re supposed to let him know when you’ve found her and where? Are you wearing a wire or tracking device?”
“What? No!” she shouts, looking even more terrified and overwhelmed. If that’s possible. She looks at me beseechingly. “I didn’t come here to cause you harm. I didn’t even know you existed until Penn saved me.”
“You keep saying that. But what exactly did he save you from?”
She wraps her arms around herself and whispers, “Does it matter?”
She looks at me once more. “You’re gifted. Just like he is. Just like me,” she says so softly that I think I misunderstand what she said. But when Slade sucks in a sharp breath, I know I didn’t.
The atmosphere in the room turns electric, and I take a step closer to her.
“When I touched Penn, I had a vision of you,” she says, looking at me, ignoring everyone else in the room.
“What did you see?”
“You were fighting someone. I don’t know who they were. They were wearing a mask that covered their face and hair, and there was smoke all around you.”
“The clinic?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t see the past, only the future. I don’t know when it happens exactly, but I remember the fairy lights that you see at Christmas twinkling on your face when you fall.”
I rub my hands up and down my arms as every hair on them stands on end. “What else did you see, Astrid?”
She closes her eyes, a tear slipping free and rolling down her cheek before she opens them once more. “I see you die. That’s why I’m here, to try and stop the vision from happening.”
The room goes deathly silent.
“How often do your visions come true?”
She doesn’t look away from me. She doesn’t speak, but she doesn’t have to. Her eyes say everything, no matter how much she might not want them to.
And just like that, the other shoe drops.
The story will continuein The Harsh Bite, with Astrid, Slade, and Jagger taking over the lead roles.
