Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Asher moves like lightning.
One second he’s catching me from stumbling, the next he’s barreling across the diner toward Wylder with the focused intensity of a heat-seeking missile. His fist connects with Wylder’s jaw before the witch even realizes what’s happening.
“You son of a bitch!”
Wylder staggers back, blood blooming from his split lip, but recovers fast. Too fast. He lunges forward, grabbing Asher by the shoulders and slamming him against the nearest table. The impact sends salt and pepper shakers scattering across the checkerboard floor.
But Asher’s been fighting since he was twelve years old, surviving foster homes and street corners where you learn to hit first or get hit harder. He drives his knee up into Wylder’s ribs, then follows with a brutal uppercut that snaps the witch’s head back.
“That’s for hurting Poppy!”
Wylder stumbles, his green eyes flashing with something dangerous, but I realize he can’t retaliate the way he wants to. Not here. Not in front of the humans scattered throughout the diner, all of them gaping at the sudden violence.
Instead, he throws a wild punch that catches Asher in the shoulder, spinning him around. Asher uses the momentum, whirling back with a hook that narrowly misses connecting with Wylder’s temple.
“Enough!” Tanner’s voice booms across the diner as he vaults over the counter with surprising agility.
He grabs both fighters, one hand on each of their shirts, and physically separates them like they’re unruly children and not full-grown men in the heat of rage.
“Not in my diner, boys. That’s not the way we do things here. ”
Mayor Declan appears at my elbow, his hand gentle but firm on my arm. “Come on, Poppy. Let’s get you away from the show. Tanner, how about the back room?”
“Lead the way.”
Mayor Declan guides me toward a door marked ‘Private’ at the back of the diner while Tanner frog-marches both Asher and Wylder in the same direction. My heart hammers against my ribs as we’re all shoved into what appears to be a small party room with a long table and sixteen chairs.
The mayor closes the door behind us with a soft click. He turns to face our little group, his brown eyes hard as flint. “Now then. What the hell is going on here?”
Asher plants himself between me and Wylder like a human shield, his knuckles bloody, chest heaving. “This piece of shit kidnapped Poppy and took her to his fucked-up friends so they could terrorize her.”
Asher’s voice cracks with rage. “She woke up tied to a chair in some warehouse while these psychos took her blood and tissue samples. They almost killed her when they fucked with her powers.”
My mind spins. We’re not supposed to talk about magic in front of regular people, are we? But Declan doesn’t look surprised or confused.
He looks angry.
“It’s fine, Poppy.” His voice gentles as he reads the panic on my face. “Everyone in this room knows about magic and the supernatural. The Oakleys and the Carmichaels are both founding families. It’s one of the reasons I was voted in as mayor.”
Relief floods through me, followed immediately by a fresh wave of fury as I watch Wylder probe his split lip with one finger. Light flickers around the wound, knitting the torn flesh back together like it never happened.
Show off. It doesn’t seem fair that he can erase the pain so easily when I wasn’t given the same opportunity.
Declan looks to me. “Start at the beginning, and tell me what happened.”
So, I do. I tell him about being left alone at sixteen with no memory of who I was or where I came from.
Of being brought here by a witch named Sebastian.
Of being grabbed by vines, waking up restrained, the needles and the testing and Laurel’s cold questions.
I tell him about the binding breaking and the warehouse exploding with undead, and of Sebastian rescuing me from my own out-of-control power.
By the time I finish, Declan’s jaw could cut glass.
He rounds on Wylder. “What were you people thinking? Given how powerful the Hallowinds are and everything their family has done to protect this town, do you not understand how badly this could still go?”
Wylder touches his now-healed lip, green eyes defiant. “Well, if we didn’t before, after the other night we sure do. That’s why I’m here. I need to take Poppy to the Arcana Academy until she can control herself.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. “Excuse me?”
“You need training. Real training, not whatever undead, demon-tainted tricks Sebastian’s been feeding you.”
Sebastian said virtually the same thing, but with much less destain and derision. “I’m not going anywhere with you.” The temperature in the room drops several degrees. “I wouldn’t have lost control if you and your sadistic cauldron club hadn’t tortured me.”
Wylder’s face hardens. “That wasn’t torture. That was testing. It only felt like torture because your powers are so out of control.”
“Out of control?” My voice climbs an octave. “You tied me up and stuck me with needles like some kind of lab rat!”
“We needed to understand what we were dealing with!”
“Bullshit! If you wanted to understand me, you could have asked!”
“And what would you have said?”
“We’ll never know, will we, because you skipped straight to kidnapping and torture!”
Wylder takes a step closer, and Asher immediately moves to block him. “Look, princess, I get that you’re upset—”
“Princess?” The word comes out like venom. “You think I’m being a princess?”
“If the Emberwood Elite shoe fits…”
“But I have no tie to that part of my life because you fucking people wiped my memories and stole my life!”
“Look. Your hurt feelings don’t change the facts. You’re dangerous. Untrained. And that summoning of the dead the other night? It took three of us working for hours to contain the magical fallout. What would’ve happened if that spread beyond the warehouse?”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have tortured me!”
“Enough.” Declan’s voice cuts through our bickering like a blade.
“As deplorable as the treatment of you has been—and I will be busting Laurel’s door down the moment I leave here to rip her to shreds about it—unfortunately, Wylder’s right.
If your powers are breaking free and you have no training, you have to go. We have no choice.”
The betrayal hits me like a slap. “What?”
“I’m sorry, but look at this objectively. Your power is growing. It’s unstable. And frankly, after what the coven has done to you, I don’t trust them to train you.” His gaze shifts to Wylder. “Your coven has royally fucked this situation up.”
He shrugs, looking as pissy as ever.
Declan returns his attention to me. “The Arcana Academy specializes in exactly this kind of situation. Powerful supernaturals who need intensive training in a magically charged atmosphere that can buffer the danger.”
“I won’t go.” My hands clench into fists. “I just got here. I want to learn about my family and find my sisters.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Wylder says with a smirk that makes me want to throat-punch him. “Legally, we can have you removed and sent. The Supernatural Accords give local covens the authority to remove dangerous practitioners from populated areas.”
“Dangerous?” I open my mouth to argue, but he talks right over me.
“Three days ago, you almost leveled a warehouse by summoning an army of vengeful spirits. What happens next time when you’re in the middle of downtown?”
“I don’t know. Are your people torturing me in this scenario?”
He frowns. “Get over it. Your indignation doesn’t change the fact of where we are.”
I want to argue, but the sheer proximity of him has the energy of my powers zinging around inside me and making me crazy. I can’t focus. He’s right and I hate him for it. “How long would I have to be gone?”
“However long it takes.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Wylder shrugs. “Because there isn’t one. Some students graduate in weeks. Others take months or years.”
“Years?” Asher explodes. “No way. Absolutely not.”
“It’s not up to you, blondie. This is witch business, and you’re not one of us.”
“Well, thank the goddess for small favors. I would never want to be one of you, asshole, but Poppy is my family, and her well-being is my business!”
“And our responsibility.”
The room erupts into another shouting match, but I tune it out, my mind racing. There has to be another way. There has to be.
Only, the longer I think about it, the fewer options I see.
My heart aches. Why can’t I ever decide my own fate?
The box elaborately wrapped in Mandalorian paper whimpers, and I glance to the foyer table. “Hush now, or you’ll ruin the surprise. He’ll unwrap you soon enough.”
Well, maybe not soon enough for them.
I close my eyes and send them reassuring vibes. You’re good, little ones. Not long now.
The soft shuffling stops, and they calm down.
At least I think they’re calmed down.
Yikes, maybe I should’ve made more air holes. No, they’re fine. I’m sure they’re fine.
I check his location using his Garmin fitness tracker and scan the front of the house through the open door. The more upset Asher is, the longer he runs.
This was a very long run.
My breath locks in my lungs at the thought of leaving him. In my head, I hear words like co-dependency and unhealthy attachment, but in my heart, I know we’re more than that.
Asher and I were two lost and broken souls who mended and became more than the sum of our parts. We are strong individuals after everything we’ve been through, but together we can take on the world.
Which is why it’s so unfair that he’s getting left behind.
“Hey, baby girl.” Asher’s breathy call draws my attention to him climbing the front steps onto the porch. “I’m glad you’re still here. I was half-afraid I took too long, and dickface stole you away before I got back.”
“I would never let that happen.” I hold out my hands, and when he takes them, I tug him into the foyer. “Dickface isn’t coming until I text him. I would’ve stood at that doorway all night if I had to.”