Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
“How long has it been impersonating you?” Daylan’s hard voice demanded an answer.
“I don’t know!” I paced in front of the locked stable doors. There wasn’t any sound coming from inside.
“And the wards, how long—”
My heart pounded too loudly for me to hear him finish the question. Nico took over, grabbing the phone from my hands and walking away to relay information that’d been stuck in my throat.
December stepped in front of me, her dark eyes matching the worry in my own. But at least she could speak.
“Rae…” she started before the words became muffled once more. I blinked, trying to do away with the blurry image she’d become. Her mouth kept moving, words melting into nothingness.
I placed my hands on my head and took deep breaths.
A good hunter didn’t let emotion win.
A good hunter could separate self from panic. A good hunter…fuck.
Fuck it all. None of it worked. No matter how hard I tried, it didn’t work.
It didn’t protect people. We didn’t protect people.
Because these jobs always came back. Maybe this was their world.
We delayed the inevitable. And I could write all the books and make all the kits, and it’d all still end up with us losing the people we loved. I’d end up losing her. Maybe—
“Rae.” It was Jonah’s voice that reached me. He took December’s place in front of me. “It needs something from her, that’s why it’s taken her. If it’s a Crossroads demon, and she didn’t make the deal but is still tied to it, then the demon needs her alive to fix whatever’s broken.”
“Right.” The rushing water sound in my head quieted for a moment. I braced my hands on my knees.
“One, two, three,” Jonah whispered so the others wouldn’t hear. “Hold.”
He counted for me until I stood back upright. Dread would do nothing for Octavia. And she was still alive on the other side of this wall. I’d be damned if the last thing I did for her was to lose hope.
“The practice trap.” I turned to my team, arms dropped to my sides, and a voice devoid of emotion. “We still have enough supplies to do a new run?”
Nico’s jaw ticked, but he nodded. “Should be.”
“I’ll start taking inventory now,” Jonah said. Before any of us moved, he sprinted across the yard toward the barn.
“Do we need to rehearse again?” Daylan’s question was more of a suggestion.
“The last one blew up in our faces,” December said. “So, my vote’s a yes.”
I could almost smell the soot of yesterday’s failure on my skin.
“We don’t have enough time for practice.” The words set the roof of my mouth burning as if I'd swallowed a spoonful of ice. “I just have to be better.”
The more time we wasted standing out here wondering what the best option was, the more time that thing had alone with Octavia. There were a million and one things that could happen behind those quiet doors.
I had to be better.
“Rae,” Wilson’s hard voice pierced my ears.
“Go help Jonah,” I told December and Nico, running back to the house.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“I’m going to get her back.” I ran past him without making eye contact. The matches were in Octavia’s room next to her candles. I grabbed one of the Magic cards she’d left out, the glittery commander. I stuffed it into my back pocket before rushing back downstairs.
“Tell me something,” Wilson begged before I could leave the porch. “She’s still in there, isn’t she? Have you heard her?”
Meeting the gaze of a family member on these kinds of jobs could be one of the most painful endeavors. Locking eyes with Wilson was a particular hell, considering he mirrored my own fears. And he had the same challenging brown as his sister’s round eyes.
“I haven’t heard her,” I said. “But I know this: she wants to run this ranch with you more than anything. That fight will be what saves her.”
Wilson’s expression hardened, but he nodded. “Be sure she gets the chance to fight. Please, Rae.”
He dismissed me with a nudge of his chin toward the barn.
My lungs burned and boots caught in the mud as I sprinted to the barn. December and Nico dumped our mix of graveyard dirt, rosemary, and calendula. Jonah shoved the last wooden stake into the dirt, its wood engraved with celestial carvings.
The air in the barn had always been stale; the supplies too precious to risk the outside weather messing with the balance. I coughed as I pulled out the matchbox. Torches wrapped in cotton waited for me on the edge of the pentagram made of woven sticks on the ground.
I dragged the match across the box and lit the edge of the makeshift torch. The lavender from the cloth burned my nostrils. December offloaded her mix first and came over to claim her torch. The guys followed suit and moved to their designated spot on the pentagram.
“We still have Daylan?” I asked, and December held up the phone.
“Are you in position?” he asked.
“We all are,” I confirmed, my team standing with their torches like lighthouses in the dead of a rainy night.
Daylan sighed and whispered something to himself, ending with a soft amen. A prayer at a time like this should be a comfort, but when a man like Daylan bowed his head, it was more of a Hail Mary.
“I don’t need any of that,” I said sternly to all of them. “We’re here for one thing: to get this right. Leave the disbelief outside. We’re tools now.”
The order was a promise to myself. A command that I didn’t lose myself like I did at the cemetery. The outside shouldn’t touch us here because despite all the noise, this was what we did. What I did. To hell with being the best. I just had to get this done right.
“Ready?” I met Nico’s gaze.
He stood opposite me and nodded as he kneeled on one knee, lighting the sticks. The fire crawled down the line. December went next, her hand shaky but gaze steady. Jonah was last, his flames moving quicker down the line.
“This is a summons for the one who claims Elmwood as home.” I touched my torch to the sticks, the last flame needed to trigger the trap’s door.
The flames burst, climbing higher and increasing in heat. Its color swirled between blue and yellow. December stepped back when a flame nearly licked her.
“Don’t move.” Nico reached his hand in her direction. “It’ll disrupt it even more.”
“Kneel if you need,” I said, knowing her center of gravity would be difficult to reclaim if she let panic in.
Nico kneeled first, not taking his eyes off my cousin, almost as if giving her permission to do the same. She followed his lead.
“To the one who makes deals at the crossroads,” I continued, my voice rising in volume over the roar of the flames. We neared the moment where I’d have to switch to speaking Sumerian while maintaining a natural cadence.
“It’s like a song,” Daylan’s voice carried over the flame. “Don’t think about the lyrics, just mimic what the singer’s saying.”
My tongue caught on the first word, but I tugged it loose, stumbling to the next.
“Green,” Jonah announced and crouched down now like the others, but only because he wanted a closer look. “I see green.”
“Exactly what we want!" Daylan let out a shocked laugh. “Keep going, Rae.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out their movements and encouraging words.
It would only work for as long as I didn’t second-guess a single syllable.
As long as I powered forward. I reached for the memory of Octavia at the convention.
Her standing over me with those judging eyes, unconvinced yet somehow inspired by who I claimed to be and the surety I projected.
“Don’t you…” a distorted voice warned.
“Rae,” December said. “It’s working.”
My eyes stayed closed. I spoke faster. Octavia and I were in the living room. She was nodding off to my voice. I read her my book, and the words became powerful enough to build a fortress around her. She was safe.
“Fucking dare,” the distorted voice continued. “Interrupt me.”
A gust of icy wind shoved against my chest, a thunderous clap. I fell, opening my eyes in time to ensure I didn’t land on anything.
The barn door hung off its hinges; splinters of wood landed in the soil outside the pentagram. Our fire was dying, but across the yard another sparked, bigger and brighter than ours.
The horses neighed in panic. I was the first to sprint toward the stable. Its doors were no longer sealed shut. I flung them open with ease, gaze scanning for Octavia, but she was no where in sight.
“Get Kat!” I ordered Jonah, who’d been the first one inside behind me.
Flames stretched across the ceiling, lapping like waves. I went for Frog, unlocking his pen. He whined, backing up into the farthest side of his stall. His eyes were wide enough for me to see their whites.
“I need you to get out of here,” I said.
He refused, huffing out heavy breaths.
“If you don’t, I can’t save her because once I find her, she won’t leave unless I guarantee you’re safe.”
Frog whined, still not budging.
“We both need her,” I tried to level. “And I can and will get her back. It’s why I’m here. I can’t leave; I’d never leave.”
Frog moved closer to me after my voice cracked at the mention of leaving. I backed up too, giving him enough space to step out of the stall. He huffed once more, a warning to keep my promise before he galloped outside, following the familiar presence of Kat in the yard.
The flames continued to burn the ceiling. I craned my neck up at the loft after the spaces between the boards darkened with shadows.
“She’s up there,” Nico said right before I bolted for the ladder. Just as my hand gripped the steel bar, the loft above us cracked. Nico grabbed December’s hand before part of the roof and loft came barreling down. I covered my head, bracing for some impact.
The boxes and old farm equipment spilled out onto the stable floor.
I held my elbow over my nose, coughing from the rising smoke and dust. The fire died, leaving behind thick clouds.
Something moved in the pile, caught underneath a gray tarp.
I scrambled over the debris, feeling the pull towards her.
Octavia yanked the tarp off her face, coughing and clawing at her throat. I dug through the charred wood, cutting my thigh on something sharp. My body registered nothing but the need to get to her.
Her skin burned against mine when I pulled her into me. Octavia rested her forehead on my collarbone. Hot tears traced lines across the caked-up dirt on her face. She continued to claw at her throat, wordless as she took ragged breaths.
“What’s wrong?” I pulled back to meet her gaze. “What is it?”
“I’m…” She sounded like herself for only a moment before another voice took over. “Here, too.”