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Too Far
Siennasprintedfromthefoyer as soon as Fenn’s magic faded away. “Piper! Maya!” She needed to hear her sisters’ voices, needed the lecture that she would once surely have received for racing around corners without any regard for where she was.Please let them be all right.She would personally break the face of that nameless jackass who’d threatened Piper in order to bail Florence out minutes earlier, but that was preferable. “Piper!”
Fenn settled a hand on her shoulder as her feet skidded into the eerily empty sitting room, the touch somehow just as jarring as the sight of the unlit Christmas tree and scattered decorations. The stockings, perfectly spaced on the mantle. The miniature village sets carefully placed on shelves. The draping garland. All of it looked somehow quieter and duller than it should have and Sienna didn’t need to hear his words to know what he would say.
“No one’s here but us.”
She dragged in a shaky breath and tried to remind herself that it wasn’t like she’d called anyone. It wasn’t like she’d arranged to meet anyone back at the house ahead of schedule. But what was she supposed to do? If nothing else, that nameless man had Piper’s phone somehow, so it stood to reason the threat was real. She needed to speak to her sisters, toseeher sisters, to reassure herself of their well-being.
Fenn pulled her bodily around to face him. “Look at me. Everything will be fine. We can still go find them.”
She stared into his face, studying the way the corners of his lips were dipped into a frown and his brow was furrowed in the middle. The way his hauntingly beautiful eyes were narrowed, not in anger, but in something closer to frustration. The way his jaw was tight with tension, adding a visual strength to his facial structure. And she noticed a flicker of what she could only describe as concern dance through those eyes she could scarcely look away from—concern for her? Or the situation?
Sienna pulled herself together and nodded slowly. “I’m sorry,” she said, calmer. “It’s just … I can’t let anything happen to them. I can’t be thereasonsomething happens to them. My whole life, they’ve protected me. It was annoying when I was a teenager but secretly I’ve always appreciated it and I—” She cut herself off and reached up, curling her fingers into his shirt. “How do we find them? If you could just magically know where Piper is, couldn’t we also know who the guy that called me is?”
Fenn’s expression softened, subtly, and he lifted her hands into his. “It’s not as simple as closing my eyes and becoming aware,” he said. “But if Piper’s life is, in fact, being threatened—that falls under my purview. That I could find.”
Sienna took a moment to reflect on the conversation they’d been having before Florence had interrupted them again and everything had spiraled out of control. It had been along these same lines, she recalled. And whether Fenn’s statement meant he couldn’t otherwise specifically locate her sisters, or only that it would be harder, either way that would actually be a good thing … right?
She didn’t have time to contemplate that answer, because in the moment of silence that followed the distinct sound of a vehicle pulling into the drive penetrated her focus. The sound of the engine was vaguely familiar and she turned to look toward the doorway as Fenn released her hands. She was pretty sure, in fact, that that was Maya’s car.
“Shit,” Fenn said with an irritated growl.
Sienna blinked up at him, letting her confusion show.
“It’s Maya,” he said. He met her gaze. “But she’s hurt.”
Immediately her heart jumped to her throat again and Sienna didn’t hesitate to rush back to the foyer. He hadn’t said how badly, and he hadn’t said she was dying, but Maya was hurt badly enough that he’d reacted. That seemed like cause for concern on its own. Sienna barely had the door hauled open again before Maya reached it, and the strain on Maya’s face almost distracted Sienna’s focus from the sight of the crimson staining her clothes and trailing in splotches behind her.
Maya clutched her left arm and offered Sienna a grimace. “H-help me … inside…”
Sienna held back the vomit that bubbled up in her throat and forced herself forward, for the first time in her life unsure of where or how to handle her sibling. But she got Maya inside and they met Fenn in the kitchen, where he was already filling a bowl with water and extracting ice from the freezer.
Maya seemed to recognize what he was doing as her head moved, slowly, between them. “Where’s P-Piper?”
Sienna’s jaw tensed and she pushed them both forward, to the nearest island stool. Probably not an ideal seat for her condition, but the table seemed so far away, and nearest bathroom was a ways down the hall. “Let’s focus on you right now, Maya. How bad is it? What happened? Give me one good reason not to call for an ambulance.” She was pretty sure she had one already, but hell, if that asshole was going to leave her sister bleeding, she’d sic whoever she could on him. She’d even make a video about it and put her followers on alert—the internet could be a real bitch sometimes.
Maya winced as she settled and more blood dripped to the floor. It wasn’t just coming from her arm, but also from her leg. It looked like her clothes had been slashed, or torn, but the arm wounds were definitely worse than whatever had happened to her leg. Or at least continued to bleed worse. Maya drew an unsteady breath and said, “I … ran into that … woman, from this morning.” She swallowed visibly as Fenn set the filled bowl and a stack of towels on the island. “She was with s-some guy, kinda looked like you described earlier….”
Sienna held her breath as she helped her sister out of the ruined sweater, giving her better access to treat the wounds. Her heart ached when Maya’s breathing hitched and her eyes squeezed shut in pain. The blood had soaked through, of course, and even Maya’s bra was stained on the left side. But Sienna had no trouble spotting the slashes as they pooled up again.
It looked like Maya had just been slashed away at, like her attacker had targeted the left arm for whatever reason and reveled in slicing into it.
Sienna plunged the first towel into the bowl, letting it soak the heated water up and wringing it out enough to prevent unnecessary waste. “Florence did this to you?” She saw Maya’s jaw tense and hurried to press the towel over her sister’s arm. This was surely not the best way to treat the wound, but she could only think about stopping the bleeding.
Maya grunted, her breathing becoming increasingly labored. “Th-they both did,” she said. “But it was … mostly her.”
Tears burned behind Sienna’s eyes and she looked across the island to meet Fenn’s gaze. This confirmed it for her. Piper was surely in grave danger, and she couldn’t even focus on that.
“I hear you’ve got an interesting situation going on, Fenn,” Rajan said when the line connected. “Sulien says you’ve found a clairvoyant and we might have a problem with Cassian.”
Fenn grunted, the image of Sienna’s tear-stained face twisting something up inside him. “If it is Cassian, I’m going to kill him.” He didn’t even feel bad for saying it. “Him and Florence. But I think this might be something else.”
“I think I might be missing some information,” Rajan said. His tone was patient, but the calmness was calculated. Fenn knew Rajan best of all the Four, because Rajan had been the one to take him in and teach him what he needed to know about the life he’d been dragged into. Which also meant Rajan knew him best.
Fenn took a moment to verify that Sienna was still down the hall with her sister, tediously working to clean and bandage the ghastly but not life-threatening slashes that had been left on her arm and thigh. Her attackers had toyed with her, inflicting enough damage to be scarring but not endanger her life prematurely, all the while assuring their victim theycouldhave if they’d chosen to. Even if he had no bond to the victim, it would have infuriated him. They weren’t just picking on Sienna, they were challenginghim.
They were fools.
