Chapter Forty
I don’t know how long I sit in Elliott’s closet.
The last thing I heard from his room was footsteps trudging across the floor, sounding defeated.
Listening for movement from the other side of the door, I count to five hundred before scooping the spell book up and unlocking the closet.
When I open the door and peer through the crack, Elliott is sitting on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands.
He doesn’t stir as I emerge from the closet, spell book clutched to my chest. Only when I’m halfway to the door that leads to the hallway does he look up.
He nods his chin at the spell book. ‘You know I can’t let you take that,’ he says quietly.
I hug it tighter. ‘I’m not leaving it so you can do something like this again,’ I say. ‘Just let me walk out of here quietly and we can all move on.’
Elliott rises to his feet, sighing. ‘Indie, I thought I made this really clear.’ He takes slow, heavy steps towards me. ‘You don’t get to decide when we move on. I do.’
He lunges for the book, quick as a striking snake, but I turn my shoulder, blocking him. Elliott reaches his arms around me, locking them across my chest and squeezing so tightly, my feet actually lift from the floor.
‘No!’ I scream helplessly, cursing myself for telling Sam not to come in. For thinking I could do this alone.
‘You’re wasting your energy,’ he rasps in my ear. I’ve never heard this voice come out of him before, so livid and cruel. His mouth is so close to the side of my face, I can feel his lips in my hair. ‘Nobody can hear you. It’s just you, and me.’
I throw all my weight down so Elliott has no choice but to drop me.
When my feet land, my knees buckle under me, sending my body crashing to the floor.
Elliott is instantly on me again, spinning me around so my back presses into the floorboards, spell book still held againt my chest. He sits down hard on my hips, straddling me.
I arch my back, try scooting backwards like a reverse inchworm, but his weight is too firm.
‘I lied when I said I was sorry for not making out with you,’ I spit up at him. My legs are going numb. ‘I’m not sorry, you fucking creep.’
I know I shouldn’t poke him, not when he literally has me pinned to the floor, but I can’t help twisting the knife while I still have the chance. He doesn’t deserve my apologies, not when my only crime is having feelings that don’t match his.
‘Yeah?’ Elliott’s face is purple with fury as he tries to peel my fingers away from the book. This is not the boy I grew up with. This is someone else. Someone broken. ‘Well, I lied too. I’m nothing like that lame-ass simp, Laurie.’
The growl that comes out of me is the loudest yet. ‘You piece of—’ I start to scream as I thrust the book up towards Elliott’s face.
There’s a loud crunch as the hard leather cover connects with his nose, followed by his shriek of pain.
His hands fly up to his face, distracting him long enough so I can wiggle out from under him, but my legs are still tingling, unable to bear my full weight as I try to stumble to my knees.
I roll on to my stomach, push myself to my elbows, but Elliott plants a knee in my back that sends me crashing to the floor again.
He flips me back around so I’m looking up at his face, a thin line of blood trickling from his nose.
It’s distracting enough that I momentarily loosen my grip, giving him just enough of a chance to tug the book away from me with a grunt.
He tosses it behind him through his bedroom doorway. Too far out of my reach.
I try squirming out from under him again but my legs and arms feel like butter.
‘Give it up, Indie,’ Elliott says, his chest heaving. ‘It’s over.’
‘No,’ I say weakly. Tears sting my eyes.
If Elliott still has the book, what will stop him from casting more curses, ones that are even more vicious? On me, and Max – everyone I love. I can’t go through all this again. I can’t.
Elliott’s lips peel back in a smile.
‘You think you know what’s good for you?’ he says breathlessly. ‘Who’s good for you? You have no idea—’
But he’s cut off mid-sentence as a hollow thwump echoes through the room. Elliott’s eyes flutter closed and he slumps off of me, his body landing on the floor in a crumpled heap.
Behind him is Sam, the spell book hoisted over her shoulder and her eyes wild.
‘Eat shit, jerk!’ she shouts down at Elliott’s unconscious body.
She scrabbles to my side and flaps her hands above me.
‘Oh my God, are you hurt?’ she shrieks. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t come sooner.
I was at your house and I heard you scream and then …
’ She glances over her shoulder at Elliott. ‘Shit, did I kill him?’
Almost as if in answer, Elliott’s chest rises with a steady breath.
‘I’m okay,’ I say on an exhale. ‘And he’s just unconscious.’
With the spell book cradled in one arm, Sam wraps her other hand around my wrist and tugs me to my feet. She immediately pulls me into a hug, where the tears from moments before spill down my cheeks. But not out of fear or defeat this time. They’re tears of relief.
Sam leans back and wipes my face with the sleeve of her sweater. ‘Did you do it?’
My dress is torn at the knees, the fabric frayed and rumpled. I sweep my hands down the front and stretch my neck, touching each ear to each shoulder, and grimace with the strain.
‘It’s done,’ I say. I poke the spell book with my finger. ‘We need to get rid of this.’
There’s nothing to say Elliott won’t just get another one someday, but I can’t think about that now.
Sam throws a glance at Elliott, who’s already starting to wake up. He attempts to roll on to his back, but at the pressure on the side of his head, he stops, groaning.
‘Are we just gonna leave him here?’ she asks.
‘I’ll call Laura,’ I say. ‘Let her deal with him.’
At my feet, Elliott blinks up at me, the outline of a purple bruise already forming around his nose. I’d called him a monster, but looking down at him now, all I can see is the smears of wet on his cheeks, identical to mine. He’s crying too.
‘You’re not a monster,’ I say to him, or myself. I can’t tell which. ‘You’re just a sad, lonely boy.’
Sam slings an arm over my shoulder and gently guides me back to the hallway and down the stairs. When we reach the porch, we both suck in deep lungfuls of air.
‘Now what?’ she says, handing me the spell book.
Laura’s spell book is much newer-looking than Austin’s, the cover paper instead of leather.
It’s lighter too. I trace my fingers over the symbols on the spine, my breathing low with awe.
The power that must be in this book. This book that, with the help of one broken boy, could wreak so much havoc these last few months.
‘First, we burn this sucker,’ I say, giving it a shake. ‘And then,’ my thoughts turn to another boy, one whose goofy smile and untameable curls have a different sort of power over me, one I choose to give, ‘there’s someone I need to see.’