Chapter Thirteen
Katherine arrived to Hollywood Boulevard in chaos.
She’d left her car a mile back, when the traffic had become unpassable, and had run the rest of the way, following the sirens and screams toward the epicenter of the destruction.
She was out of breath already, but the smoke filling the air as she ran into the massive Hollywood and Highland shopping center made it even worse.
She ground to a halt as she took in the scene inside.
A few of the massive pillars that dotted the lobby had fallen, breaking apart in pieces of rubble that littered the floor.
Police were starting to arrive, paramedics moving through the crowds of screaming people, firefighters working to lift fallen stones and catch the small blazes from broken lights and gas lines before they could turn into anything worse.
The cops were making attempts to control the scene, but it was impossible—the area was too crowded, dotted by dozens of entrances and exits that ordinaries crawled through like ants.
Streaming in, trying to help, to find friends or loved ones, or just to witness one of Los Angeles’ famous spectacles.
It was a nightmare.
Katherine knew a snap had caused it. And there was a sick feeling in her stomach saying that the snap had come from Lily.
She had to find her. Had to figure out where she was, what happened, how Katherine could get her out of it. If she just found Lily, she could fix all of this. She could—
She tripped over a pair of feet. She looked down—cleats, knee-high socks, legs stretched out on the tile like the man was taking a quick rest on a long walk. His blood had splattered in a halo where his head had hit the wall, his neck slumped at an angle it shouldn’t have been able to achieve.
The man couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, baby fat still clinging to his cheekbones. He was wearing a soccer coach’s uniform, a can of beer that had rolled out of his hand still dripping fizz onto his pants.
Katherine stared at him, and suddenly she was back in the hallway of her high school, the lines blurring between then and now, so the shattered building in front of her was the same shattered building she’d run from at sixteen, so the body on the floor was the body of Tommy, and Lorelei, and Finn, so the burning scent of spent magic was once again pouring out of her. She thought she might pass out.
Find Lily. She had to focus on finding Lily.
She turned away from the body as she reached for her caster, letting the pain of it digging into her palm ground her as she focused all of her thoughts on one person, on one desire: Not again.
The locator spell flashed blue on her palm, and then the path lit up in front of her, a sparkling line that she forced her vision to follow as it tried to stray, again and again, to the carnage around her.
The spell burned hotter against her palm as she made her way up the stairs and down the hall. She focused on her steps and nothing else. Careful of the broken floor. Walk slowly.
One foot in front of the other.
Until the sparks coalesced in front of the door to the single-occupancy bathroom, lighting the deep gray paint in shades of navy.
Katherine’s chest pinched, fear of what was behind that door causing her magic to spike, making the sparks shine even brighter.
Beckoning her to a future she wouldn’t be able to avoid.
She opened the door, the metal cold on her palm.
There was water, and it was shimmering.
No, not shimmering—that was the fluorescent lights reflecting off the glass and porcelain that were scattered throughout the liquid and the string of beads that were wrapped around the fingers of—
Of Lily.
Katherine’s knees caved.
She heard the crack as they hit the tile.
Lily was sprawled in the center of the room, soaking in the few inches of water that covered the ground, spewing from the broken pipes of the sink that had been blasted off the wall by the force of her snap.
Her closed eyes and the strands of her hair floating in the water made the scene look almost peaceful.
If it hadn’t been for the blood. There was so much blood. Too much to tell where it was coming from, because everything was colored in that deep tinge of red.
There was no way someone could lose that much blood and survive. But Katherine checked anyway. Reached her hand to Lily’s, choked back a sob as she pulled the body to her. Felt for a pulse in a wrist colored rust, and found none.
Katherine screamed. Screamed for the girl she’d been. Screamed for the woman Lily would never get to be.
And then the bathroom door started to open. Voices filtered through. People. People coming, people who would find her, people who would blame her for whatever happened here.
Katherine made a choice.