“We both blew this, didn’t we?” Wade asked Garrett. “Our friendship, I mean.”
“I guess. Never thought I’d say it out loud,” Garrett replied.
“Yeah, me neither,” Wade mumbled.
They kept talking, somewhere in the background of my consciousness, probably addressing the Shapeshifter thing, but I was busy texting Jacob.
He didn’t text back, so I tried calling instead. Five rings later, it went to voicemail. I called again. Five rings. Voicemail. It didn’t feel right.
My instinct was now telling me to go check on him, and I never ignored it. I was incredibly uneasy about him and the Smiths in general, with the Ryders prowling.
What if they’re already there, watching somewhere? Waiting to snatch him? They kill human parents. The Smiths are sitting ducks.
My stomach churned, and I rose to my feet, surprising both Wade and Garrett.
“Sorry, I have to go,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” Wade asked, visibly concerned.
“Nothing. I think. There’s something I need to check,” I replied, then put my hands on his and Garrett’s shoulders. “You two need to get over this animosity between you. Sure, Garrett withheld something important from you and chose the wrong way to tell you about it, then went and did it again and again, like the idiot that he clearly is,” I added, scowling at him, then shifted my focus back to Wade. “But you clearly didn’t give him a chance to properly explain his poor choice of prank, either. You said unforgivable things, and you never apologized. Instead, you indulged his grudge and made it worse, until your friendship was clinically dead. You were both dumb and proud kids. But you’re grownups now. So start acting like it. The past is the past, and you can’t change it. Let it go, already.”
I left them there, gawking at me, and hurried out of the restaurant. That was all the time and energy I was going to put into a broken friendship.
I had work to do.
My Empath ability allowed me to detect Shapeshifters. That was incredibly important, because it could help me identify the Ryders, too, going forward.
First and foremost, however, I needed to make sure Jacob was okay. I couldn’t let anything happen to my Smiths, and I certainly couldn’t let those Shapeshifting bastards take Jacob away from us.
As I rushed out the door, I barely even heard Wade’s rushed reminder that I wasn’t advised to go anywhere on my own, thanks to my brush with the Ryder twins. I couldn’t let him or anyone else from the coven find out about Jacob.
And I didn’t need a babysitter. Not when I knew that Isadora Merlin had an eye on me.
Thirty
Harley
Dicky was a godsend for me, and I owed Isadora a bottle of something good for bringing him into my life. I had his card, and ten minutes after making the call, Dicky showed up outside Fleet Science Center.
“Hey, Dicky,” I said, as I climbed into the backseat.
He watched me in the rearview mirror and gave me a friendly nod. “Where to, Miss Merlin?”
“Forty-ninth and Heller, please.”
“Ah, Jake’s new place,” Dicky replied.
Of course he knew Jacob, since they were both tied to Isadora somehow. There was still a lot I didn’t know about her and her connections, but I had to admit, I was a little more at ease knowing there were eyes on Jacob at all times—or, so I hoped.
Dicky was an excellent driver, too. I wished I had his reflexes behind the wheel as we darted through the city and made our way to the Smiths’ place.
I tried calling Jacob again, but still no damn answer, just that automatic voicemail.
The lights were out when we got there. Everybody was probably asleep already, since it was past ten p.m. and they all had an early start in the morning. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised they didn’t pick up the phone.
The neighborhood was equally quiet and dark, which was one of my favorite aspects of living in the area. I was a bit of an old soul, and my eyes got droopy by eleven p.m. I’d certainly enjoyed the tranquility during my last two years as a ward of the state.
I was still wound up tight, though, worried that something might’ve happened to Jacob and the Smiths—or that something was about to happen. The Ryders were out here, on the loose and pretending to be other people. The potential danger was all too close to home.
Dicky pulled up outside the Smiths’ house and turned the engine off.
“You know, I checked on him this morning. Everything was okay,” he said calmly, just as I opened the car door. It didn’t mean Jacob was okay now.
I waited for a second before replying, genuinely befuddled by the man. “Out of curiosity, how are you so cool and totally not freaked out about us?” I asked.
Dicky chuckled. “I get where you’re coming from, but you should know… Not everybody would flip out if they found out about the existence of magicals. Sure, there would be an adjustment period. Some extremists here and there. But the people, Miss Merlin, the people are inherently good and understanding. It’s the government you want to be afraid of.”
“Fair enough. How’d you get involved, then?” I asked. Dicky was chattier than the night before—perhaps he was warming up to me—and I wanted to take advantage of it.
“Isadora was in trouble. I helped her. I begged her not to wipe my memories. I proved myself useful. We’ve been working together ever since,” Dicky replied. “I love driving, I’ve got no kids to worry about, and I want to help her. It’s a no-brainer for me.”
“How long have you been helping her?”
“I lost track. Maybe twenty years.”
I nodded, then got out of the car. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Take your time. I’m here.”
I couldn’t help but smile as I snuck around the house. It was good to know that there were people like Dicky out there, who did the job and didn’t ask questions. Most importantly, it made me feel as though I wasn’t really alone in the world—granted, I had the coven, but I lacked the family connection to them. Isadora’s reemergence, along with Dicky, an impressively chill human, somehow made everything better. I had a hard time explaining why, even to myself. It just felt right.
During my two years at the Smiths’, I’d learned to expertly climb in and out of my first-floor bedroom. I used to go out a lot, at night, to try and better understand my abilities. I needed a more secluded green space to do that, where I didn’t have to explain why an oak tree had suddenly popped out of nowhere, for example. I didn’t have full control over my Earth Elemental ability then, and frankly, I was still getting the hang of it now.
I climbed the rugged masonry siding of the house, pulled myself up, and made my way across the slanted slate roof, careful not to make any sound. Jacob’s room (previously mine), was dark and seemingly quiet. I moved closer to the window and peered inside.
I could see him sleeping, sprawled across the double bed. His emotions were soft and fluid, like everyone’s while in a dream state. I got a sense of longing and fear, but also happiness and relief. The mixture was something I, too, had experienced at his age. It came with the territory as a foster kid. Heck, I still felt that way sometimes. The life spent hauling a black bag from one home to another tended to leave a mark on us. We never outran that kind of loneliness, no matter how good the foster family was. We’d always feel unwanted, mainly because our own parents couldn’t or didn’t want to raise us.
Pleased and incredibly relieved to see that he was okay, I sent him another text, reminding him of our six p.m. meeting the next day. We’d agreed to hang out and hash a few things out about where he came from and what he knew about Isadora. Or, at least, what he could tell me about her. I was dying to find out more about this aunt, since the other one had turned out to be a raging psychopath.
I saw the phone light up on his bedside table, but he didn’t react. He was going to wake up to it in the morning, along with the previous text, six missed calls, and two voicemails.
My fear subsided, at least temporarily, as I’d seen he was okay with my own eyes. The fact that I could feel his emotions was also downright soothing, given what I’d just learned back at the restaurant.
I climbed off the roof and checked the backyard. It didn’t take long for me to find the protective charms. Isadora had most likely left them. She’d hidden one in every potted plant, and she’d painted small symbols on the corners of the house, too. I went around the property and checked the decorative ferns by the front door. She’d left tiny leather pouches in there as well.
I slipped back in Dicky’s cab and asked him to take me back to the coven.
The ride back was quiet. Not because I didn’t have more questions for him. I totally did. But I was too busy racking my brains and trying to remember everyone whose emotions I’d been unable to sense. The conclusion was the same. They all had to be Shapeshifters. There was just no other reasonable explanation.
Jacob could sense magicals, but he wouldn’t have been able to tell me what kind of magicals they were. This was as close as I was going to get to a “natural” magical detection method—at least until Krieger finished his prototype, based on Adley’s research.
Dicky dropped me off in the parking lot outside Fleet Science Center and drove off into the night. I watched the red taillights shrink in the distance, lost in the late-night traffic leading back into the city—a river of twinkling crimson eyes.
As soon as I turned around to go in, I yelped and leapt back a couple of yards, startled by the tall, dark figure standing between two cars. It took me a second to realize it was Wade.
“Whoa! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?!” I snapped, catching my ragged breath.
My heart had nearly jumped out through my throat. Wade didn’t say anything, keeping his hands behind his back. Only then did I notice that one of the cars he was standing between was his Jeep, the other covered by a black tarp.
“I was waiting for you to come back,” Wade finally replied.