Chapter Thirty-One #2
I moved closer, my hands trembling as I cupped his face, brushing my thumbs along the sharp lines of his jaw.
I pressed my lips to his. They were dry, warm, and uncertain.
And then, he kissed me back, but his touch was delicate, as if he feared he might break me.
I didn’t mind his tenderness, as long as it came from this place of care. But all too soon, he pulled back.
"I’m sorry," he whispered, his breath warm against my skin. "I don’t want to hurt you. And I still haven’t figured this out."
"What if you don’t?" The words escaped before I could stop them, lingering in the air between us.
"I will."
I nodded, my throat tight.
"Eat something," I said, nudging the paper bag closer to him.
"Nellie, it’s there. I promise I’ll find it."
I managed a weak smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes.
Nick’s obsession with the grimoire grew stronger by the hour, filling me with mounting concern.
I spent the night beside him, catching a few hours of restless sleep, but he hadn’t budged.
His eyes took on a wild, anxious gleam. He kept showing me passages, thinking out loud—something he had never done before.
His usual calm, distant demeanor had given way to someone consumed by fixation.
He didn’t seem like his usual self, and it scared me.
At first, I had been hopeful. I believed Nick would figure it out, that he’d find a way to reverse the sigil’s power and keep me safe from the thing in the woods and the coven.
But as the hours passed and Nick’s behavior grew more erratic, the last drops of hope began to dwindle.
Desperation, depression, and helplessness weighed me down. I didn’t know what to do.
With only a few hours left before midnight, I watched the sun set inexorably, struggling to digest the thought: This is my last day on earth.
Mitch knocked and entered our room without waiting for a response. June slipped in after him.
"We need to do something," he said.
"I am doing something," Nick muttered, not looking up from the book.
"Let’s find Robert. We’ll waterboard him if necessary."
They were all scrambling to fix things, but they didn’t understand the enemy or the situation.
"No," Nick finally said, lifting his gaze but not his hands from the book.
"What do you mean, ‘no’? What do you propose?"
"We’ll go to the clearing," Nick said, getting up from the floor.
"Why?" Mitchell asked.
"Robert and the others will be there. They know it’s our only chance to change the deal."
"What deal?"
"The deal!" Nick’s voice cracked with tired frustration, his words tumbling out in a rush, as if he couldn’t believe no one else could understand him. June looked at him like he’d grown a second head. "The deal they made with whatever’s in the woods! The one they’re sacrificing Nellie to!"
Silence followed. I thought about it, sure, but hearing Nick speak it out loud, so plainly, made the reality colder.
"How can you be sure?" Mitch asked.
"I’m not. But that’s all I’ve got."
"How will you change the terms?" Mitch pressed.
"I’ll try something."
"Try something?" Mitchell tilted his head, skeptical.
Nick rubbed his eyes, too tired to argue with him, and turned to face all of us. If there was one thing I’d learned about Nick, it was that he hated explaining his thoughts before he had a plan. And clearly, that was the case now. He was gambling with my life.
"What about the book?" June asked timidly, "Did you find something there?"
The grimoire was now filled with bookmarks. Nick opened it to one of the pages and pointed to a symbol.
"See this? It’s part of Nellie’s sigil. And this…" He flipped a few more pages, stopping at another symbol. "Is another piece."
"So?" June asked, her brow furrowing.
"Her sigil is a compound one. It’s made up of different parts scattered throughout the book, plus some things that aren’t even here.
And we don’t know what else." He looked up, meeting Mitchell’s eyes.
"Basically, it’s like defusing a bomb. You’ve got a bunch of wires, and you have to figure out which one to cut without setting it off.
Our best chance is to go back to the clearing where the sigil was created and try to destroy it there. "
June folded her arms. "How do you know Robert will be there?"
Nick hesitated for a moment before answering. "I don’t. But if he shows up, it’ll confirm my theory that there’s a way to cancel this. And he’ll try to stop us."
I closed my eyes. What angered me the most was my own inability to do anything.
I relied on Nick, Mitchell, and even June to fix things for me.
I was a helpless spectator, always waiting to be saved by someone.
But what could I do? I was too tired to even feel anger.
All my emotions had drained away, leaving me an empty shell.
The electronic clock on the nightstand flickered, and its red digits changed, counting down the hours I had left.
The monster might as well come and take me now.
"Are you sure about this?" Mitchell asked for what felt like the hundredth time. "Because if we go, and Robert and his men are there, we’d be putting ourselves in even more danger. Shouldn’t we just wait?"
"Wait for what?" Nick snapped, his patience at breaking point. "You want to risk it? It’s Nellie’s life we’re talking about."
Once again, I understood Mitchell’s doubts, his struggle to believe in something he couldn’t see, his desperate need to protect his sister, to keep her safe from harm. Still, it stung, especially since he’d been the one to insist I come with them in the first place.
Nick let out a weary sigh, closed the book, and said, "You know what? If you want to wait, then wait somewhere else. Nell and I will go there alone."