67 Joey
Joey
Joey jumps off the bike and lets it clatter to the ground.
The spell circle welcomes her with a tingling inside her blood, a buzzing of hornets in her veins.
She’s grateful for the feeling and desperate for the magic to fill her as quickly as possible.
She thumps onto the ground in her usual spot.
Doubt seizes her. This won’t work. No one has done magic without the book for centuries.
It’s not possible. She has a flash of inspiration.
She might have a way out. But then she realizes why she’s wrong and curses—she needs the book to do any kind of magic, including a summoning spell that would bring the book to her.
She wants to scream, to cry out in frustration, but instead, she decides she has to try something.
What choice does she have? The police have Sophie now.
There is no doubt about that in Joey’s mind.
They’ll take her in, and there’s ample evidence to put her away.
Joey thinks of Elena. Her snark and style and her magnificent fuck-you attitude that Joey always secretly envied.
She thinks of Gael. Elena’s son. Joey’s chest tightens, and her resolve hardens.
She closes her eyes and starts to feel the magic fill her up.
The feeling is pure power, like she is being alchemized.
She focuses, but then she shifts as an idea comes to her.
It’s a ridiculous idea that absolutely should not work—it’s not how she’s ever known the magic to work—but for some reason she is compelled to try.
So, she turns her thoughts to the trees.
Out loud, alone in the woods, she speaks.
She asks the trees for exactly what she needs.
A moment passes when nothing happens, and Joey repeats herself.
She can feel the magic thickening her blood, and she knows not to give up yet.
To her astonishment, the whispers begin.
The trees speak an incantation. Joey could cry.
It’s working. She doesn’t hesitate. She listens and repeats the incantation as loud as she can.
She stumbles over the words the first time, but the trees speak it again and again, and she thinks she can hear Quinn’s voice and other women’s voices mingled in the whispers, and so she listens and tries again, hoping that something will happen.
She can feel the magic within her coursing with power, but nothing is happening.
Desperate, she recites the incantation she hears from the trees one last time.
Then the trees go quiet.
Joey goes quiet.
Out of that silence grows the hum of an engine.
Joey hardly has time to gasp before the bike appears from behind the shroud of rain.
He’s less than seven yards from her with a direct path.
Six yards. Five. He’s going to mow her over.
Moving out of the way is impossible. There’s no time.
Four yards. Three. She makes eye contact with him for a fraction of a second, and that’s when she knows it’s over.
Two yards. One. She closes her eyes and prepares for the end.