Chapter Four
People scream and start running. Riggs tackles me to the ground as Shepard does the same to Jackie. Henry yanks Sarah down and covers her body with his. I look around to see where the shooting is coming from and spot Dawn on the ground, gasping for breath as blood pools around her.
“No!” I scream, trying to yank myself free.
Riggs refuses to let me go. I use my powers to shock him before rolling away.
I lift my arm toward where the shooter is firing from and send a gust of wind so ferocious it knocks them flying.
I scramble over to Dawn as Shepard jumps to his feet and yanks out his gun.
“Shots fired. I repeat, shots fired on Main Street. I need backup and EMS ASAP,” he shouts into his radio before turning to Riggs.
“Go!” Riggs yells at him. “I’ll keep her safe.”
Shephard hesitates for a second before he takes off in the direction of the shooter. I barely pay him any mind. I look down at the woman who has come to mean so much to me, a bullet wound on the left side of her chest bleeding so profusely that for a moment I don’t know what to do.
“Calliope!” Riggs roars, snapping me out of it.
“She’s been shot,” I scream at him as I press my hands to her wound. “Get everyone else back in the town hall.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Please. I need you to get them to safety.”
I look over at him and see the war in his expression. He wants nothing more than to throw me over his shoulder, but I’d never forgive him, and he knows it.
“God dammit, Opie,” he snarls, kissing me hard before he scoops Jackie up and runs with her in his arms to the town hall, ignoring her protests.
Henry grabs Sarah and yanks her in the same direction. She fights him, but I hear him promise to help once she’s safe, which makes the fight leave her.
I lean down over Dawn, holding back my sob at her terrified expression. “Paramedics are on their way. You just hold on for me, okay?”
The terror seeps from her eyes only to be replaced by acceptance. Ice slides through my veins.
“It’s okay,” she whispers as a scream builds in my throat.
“They’re almost here. I promise.”
Pain creases her forehead as she sucks in a wet breath and grips my wrist. “He’ll come for her. Don’t let him get my baby.”
“I’ll kill him before I’ll let him anywhere near her,” I vow, feeling my own tears run down my face. My powers rush to the surface, urging me to do something. But I can’t heal bullet wounds or pour vast amounts of blood back into her body.
“Don’t let her forget about me.”
“Never,” I choke out, blood gushing between my fingers as she coughs, splattering us both with it.
Riggs drops down beside me, his expression bleak. He knows he’s staring death in the face, just like I do. My body feels supercharged. As my emotions batter against my cage of control, I worry I’ll level this place if I can’t pull it back.
“Tell Hannah…Mommy loves her. She…was my happy ever after,” she gasps, her eyes going wide for a moment before her gaze becomes vacant.
“No. Please don’t do this. Hannah needs you. I need you, goddam you,” I yell as Riggs tries to pull me into his arms. My bloody fists beat at his chest as power ripples over me. I hear him hiss, but I can’t pull it back.
“Baby,” he groans as my hair lifts and floats around me.
“Let me go,” I choke out.
“Never.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I can handle it.”
“No.” I tear myself away from him and scramble to my feet. I move before he can reach me. Unconsciously, a swirl of wind whirls around me, keeping him at bay as Shepard jogs back over.
Shepard takes in Dawn on the ground, dead, before his gaze lifts to mine. “He got away. Fuck. I’m sorry.”
My eyes zero in on a baseball cap in his hand as the ice in my blood turns to fire. The cap has Corvis Wing Ranch stitched into the front of it. Though a dozen old ranch hands might have one, the last time I saw one was on top of my father’s head, the day at the library.
Sparks of lightning erupt from my hands into the ground in front of me as my hold on my power snaps loose. “Get back,” I yell. This is going to be bad.
“Baby, you’ve gotta calm down. We’ll get through this,” Shepard urges.
“No. We won’t. I can’t. You don’t understand.”
“Opie…I know. Baby, I know,” Riggs emphasizes because he does know. He knows Hannah is my sister and that it’s my fault Dawn is dead. If I had just killed my dad to begin with, Dawn would be safe, and Hannah wouldn’t be all alone.
“She’s not alone, baby, she has you. She has us,” Riggs murmurs.
I didn’t realize I said all that out loud. I look at Shepard, who stares at me in shock. I sense people heading our way now that the shooting has stopped. People cry out and point, but I try to shut them out.
“You need to get everyone out of here. Please. I can’t stop.”
I feel my nose start to bleed, but ignore it as lightning flashes again and again, making people shout in shock and fear. There’s no hiding what I am anymore.
I bow my head in shame only to hear Riggs curse. “What the fuck are you doing here? Get away from her.”
I whip my head up and see Austin right in front of me, his eyes locked on mine.
“You’re going to hurt a lot of people and yourself unless you let me help you.”
More tears slip down my cheeks. At Shepard’s cry of alarm, I reach up and realize I’m crying blood.
“Let me help you. Please.”
“You’re a monster.”
“I know. But I’m your monster.”
“I hate you,” I scream at him.
He takes another step closer, immune to my powers. “You can hate me all you want. It will never stop me from loving you.”
Before I can protest, he wraps his arms around me as my power detonates.
Idon’t wake quietly. There is no confusion, in which time is suspended between consciousness and slumber. The second I open my eyes, I remember everything, and all the pain and all the anger rush back to me.
My back bows under the pressure to scream before strong arms wrap around me, and my body collapses in on itself.
“I’ve got you, Cece. Let it all out.”
I want to fight him, to turn all my pain and anguish into fire so I can burn the bastard right out of him.
But I’m not sure I’d be able to stop before I burned the whole town to ash.
Instead, I do what I swore I’d never do when this damn man was around.
I break. I shatter into a million tiny pieces, screaming into his shoulder as he rocks me.
I failed Dawn. She was supposed to be safe.
I promised her she would be, and now she’s gone because my need for vengeance outweighed my need to keep her from harm.
“God baby, you’re killing me.”
I cry for what feels like days. I cry until I have no tears left inside me. It takes even longer for me to get my breathing under control. And through it all, Austin holds me like I’m precious cargo.
I lie there, weak and lethargic, as rain falls heavily outside, finally finding my voice. “It’s my fault. She’s dead because of me.”
“Bullshit. None of this is your fault.”
A loud, smashing noise stops me from replying. I jump, afraid my fingertips will spark, but Austin doesn’t react beyond tightening his grip. His fingers soothe over my hair as the door slams open, revealing a pissed-off Shepard pointing a gun our way.
“You fire that gun anywhere near Calliope, and I’ll peel the skin from your bones,” Austin snarls a second before Shepard is shoved aside and Riggs comes barreling into the room.
Riggs takes in the scene without a word before he climbs up on the bed beside me and buries his face in my hair, halting Austin’s movements. I lean into him, soaking in his warmth as I listen to the thundering of his heart.
“You’re okay,” he murmurs, his hand sliding to my hip. I don’t respond because I’m not okay. I don’t know what I am right now.
“Poppy?”
I turn my head at the sound of Shepard’s voice, a voice that sounds unsure in a way I’ve never heard before.
I reach for him, even though there isn’t space with Austin and Riggs on either side of me.
Shepard surprises me by crawling up the center of the bed.
He pushes my legs open and crawls between them, resting his head on my stomach as one of his large hands wraps around my thigh.
I take a deep, shuddering breath, feeling tears slip free.
“You didn’t run away,” I whisper into the quiet room.
Shepard knows I’m talking about him. “I promised I wouldn’t leave you again.”
I reach down and run my fingers through his hair. Lifting my head, I turn a little to look at Austin and frown.
“Please don’t ask me to leave. Aside from the fact that this is my house, I’m the one keeping your powers in check. I won’t go. I tried so fucking hard to stay away, Cece, but I can’t survive without you. It’s like living without my heart in my chest.”
“Gag me now,” Riggs grumbles.
“I’d keep your mouth shut if I were you. The more you remind me you’re here, the more tempted I am to throw you in a fucking cell,” Shepard adds. I stay silent, staring at the man who keeps saving me when I have no idea why he bothers.
“Why?” I ask Austin. “Why did you do that to me? How could you do that to me?”
He swallows as he lifts his hand. It hovers near my face. I don’t react, too exhausted to care. He slides it down the slope of my nose to my lips. He follows the path with his eyes, sadness and regret filling them. “Not sure the sheriff should be a part of this conversation.”
“Not sure I’m even the sheriff anymore. But regardless of that, if you think I’m leaving the woman I love with you, even knowing Riggs could kill you with his bare hands given the chance, you’re insane.”
Austin sighs, his eyes moving to mine. “How much do they know about who you are and what you can do?”
“Riggs knows a little more than Shepard. Or he did until earlier.”
Shepard tenses but then relaxes. He left for months. Not knowing me as well as the man who stayed does not rest with me, but with him.
“Fuck it.” Austin runs his free hand through his hair before he starts. “The Hart witches have lived in this town since before it really was a town. My family, the Dyers, have been here just as long.”
“I’ve read some of the history of this place. I remember the name Dyer. I just didn’t make the connection.” Shepard’s voice is rough and unyielding.
“Not every town is as steeped in fucking tragedy as ours, Sheriff. And you’re not from around here, so why would you assume anything?
” Austin says before he continues. “Anyway, legend has it that during the persecutions where my ancestors worked on killing off Calliope’s ancestors, a curse was placed upon the land by a witch called Dorothy Hart.
A blood curse that is cast at a witch’s death is binding.
It tied the Hart line to this place. It was a penance, you see.
If the Dyers or anyone, for that matter, succeeded in wiping out the Harts, then this town would die too. ”
Riggs sighs. “A warning I’m guessing most didn’t listen to.”
“Men always think they know better, myself included at times.”
He goes on to tell them about Dorothy’s only surviving daughter, who fled, and the child that was born, who eventually returned after her mother’s death.
“Hatred has a long memory, and it seemed to infect this place. I know my parents and their little cult only fed into it, stoking the flames so the Harts had no allies left. Nobody expected Martin.”
I flinch at hearing my father’s real name. I can’t help it.
“He grew up around here, back when he was Martin Lewis. I remember him coming to my parents’ meetings sometimes, taking everything in, and you better believe that man missed nothing.”
“I didn’t know that,” I admit, but then why would I? I know nothing about what my parents’ lives were like before I came along.
“I only know what my mother told me. She said there was always something off about the man, and given that my mom was married to my dad, that said a lot. Even so, Mom was dumbfounded when your mother turned eighteen and Martin up and married her.”
That seems to be his pattern—marrying vulnerable eighteen-year-olds.
“Nobody knew they were even an item, let alone ready to marry. It was all swift and hush-hush. I doubt anyone would have known they married if he hadn’t changed his name, like all men marrying into the Hart family do.
“Nobody really saw her much after that. She stayed up at the ranch, and your father moved in a few weeks before your grandparents died in a car accident.”
“How convenient,” Shepard drawls.
“There were definitely some raised eyebrows. But people die in car accidents every day, so it was chalked up to a coincidence.” He looks at me again. “Nobody saw much of your mom after that. But six months or so later, the town learned she was pregnant with you.”
I try to think about what her life must have been like. She was young, just like Dawn had been, and then she lost her parents so tragically. Only to find herself having to care for this tiny human. She must have felt like the world was eating her alive.
“People would have thought she was dead if it wasn’t for the creams and elixirs she made for the townsfolk.”
I open my mouth and suck in a deep breath. I mean, I knew she made them. My father had said as much. But hearing it now, it’s hard not to feel a connection to a woman I have no memory of and yet somehow still miss.
He reaches over and cups my face, making me stiffen.
“You would have been around three when the potions stopped coming. Your father told everyone she left in the dead of night, running away to be with her secret lover, leaving her only child behind. But my mother never believed that for a second. They might have been natural born enemies, but they had one thing in common—evil fucking husbands.”