Chapter Fourteen
Katherine’s hands shook as she fumbled for her keys.
It was a miracle that she’d made it back to Sunspot, that she’d managed to remember the motions of her feet on the pedals and her eyes on the road.
A miracle that took everything out of her, because now she couldn’t even make her hands work enough to unlock the door, and she wanted to be furious at herself for it, but she didn’t have the energy for that either.
What had she done?
What you needed to do, said the coldest part of her brain.
Ensured that Lily’s family will never know peace, said the rest.
But then, what peace was there to know?
When the bathroom door had opened …
Katherine’s anxiety never cared that Sylvia had changed her appearance.
Never cared that her snap had been years ago, when she was a different girl in a different city.
Those were thoughts for the rational part of her brain, and that part was chased away the second the possibility of being caught entered the building.
To be found, dragged back home, forced to face the family that had once loved her more than anything, to look them in the eyes knowing that she was a murderer …
those thoughts? Those Katherine’s anxiety fed off like cake.
She hadn’t even needed to pull out her caster.
The pain from the slam of her knees onto the tile was still so fresh, blood welling in the cuts the broken floor had left on her skin.
All it had taken was a thought, her hand pressed to Lily’s body, and her fear of being caught in a room with a dead body had willed the spell into existence.
And willed Lily out of it.
Lily’s body turned to ash in a millisecond. Washed down the drain in even less. By the time the door opened, she was gone.
By the time the door opened, Katherine realized it didn’t matter. It wasn’t the police, coming to arrest her—it was two women, crying as they searched for a missing friend.
Back here, in front of this door, Katherine’s hands trembled around her keys.
They fell to the pavement, the clatter startling her enough that she jumped back—just in time for the door to swing open.
Katherine squinted into the shadows of the dark interior, barely making out the halo of blond hair waiting for her within.
“Come in.”
Sylvia’s voice was raspy. Like she’d been screaming too.
She stepped back, the hint of color disappearing into the darkness.
Katherine followed her inside. The door slammed shut behind her.
Sylvia whirled on her.
She looked awful. Her eyes were puffy, her skin wan, her hair mussed from the fingers she was still running through it. Her formerly white cardigan was covered in streaks of brown and red, a story told in stains.
Katherine clenched her fists. “What happened?”
Sylvia paced the room, dust falling off her onto the wood floor.
“Sylvia,” Katherine said, her mind running with scenarios. Sylvia had been at Hollywood and Highland. Had she been with Lily when she snapped? Why hadn’t Sylvia been able to protect her?
“Please just tell me what happened to her.”
Finally, Sylvia stopped pacing and looked at Katherine, her lips quivering, her distress so strong that for a second Katherine wondered if she was exaggerating. She pushed the thought away—it was ugly and unfair, driven by the despair and anxiety that suffused every part of Katherine’s body.
“We were driving to Oak Grove,” Sylvia said. Katherine struggled to hear her over the ringing that had started in her ears. “But then Lily said she didn’t want to go. That she didn’t want to have magic anymore. I pulled over so I could try to talk her down, but she got out of the car and ran.”
Katherine tried to calm her racing breaths, but she couldn’t, because even though she knew where this was going, even though she’d seen it with her own eyes, it was getting more and more real with every word Sylvia said.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Wasn’t supposed to, wasn’t supposed to, wasn’t supposed to—
“She ran into that big shopping center on the Walk of Fame.”
Breathe, in and out. “No. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t…” Breathe, Katherine. You can’t talk if you don’t breathe. “Why would she do that?”
“She said she needed to get away. But there were so many people there, and she couldn’t handle it.
” Sylvia’s eyes were brimming with tears.
“I’m so sorry, Katherine. She got lost in the crowd, and I was trying to find her when it happened.
It was so big, and there was so much damage.
All I could do was try to protect as many people around me as I could. ”
“But not her.” The words dropped out of her, her filter burned away by the emotions of the night. Right after she said them, Katherine knew they weren’t fair. Snaps were fast and violent—designed for maximum destruction.
“I tried.” Sylvia dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her sleeve. “I wasn’t fast enough.”
Breathe.
“I … I found her body,” Katherine whispered. “I burned it.”
In and out.
Sylvia stepped over, pulling Katherine into a tight hug.
“Oh, Katherine.”
Katherine dug her face into Sylvia’s neck, her mantra forgotten as her breath hitched.
Dead. Lily was dead. And Katherine had burned her body. Her family would never know. Her parents would never get their daughter back.
They’d be just as broken as hers were.
The panic attack hit in full then, her chest contorting, squeezing to half its size, then half of that, until there was no room left for air to enter her body at all.
Her lungs fizzled out of existence, letting pure terror take their place.
It seeped from her chest, inhabiting her veins, her very bones, until her body was a foreign thing made of fear and pain.
Sylvia recognized the signs. She’d coached Katherine through the panic attacks she’d had almost weekly as a teen struggling with her unsettled power and the trauma it had caused, the panic attacks that still hit her occasionally now, despite years of medication.
She put an arm around Katherine and walked her to a chair, forcing her to sit before kneeling in front of her, taking her hands in her own and rubbing a thumb lightly over her skin.
“Breathe,” she said. Katherine tried, but her anxiety decided that was the moment to trot out a thought about how long it would take her body to shrivel from the lack of oxygen, and that only made the whole thing worse.
“It’s not your fault,” Sylvia said. “It’s a tragedy, but it happened, and we can’t undo it.”
Katherine pulled her hands out of Sylvia’s. They were sweating. Sylvia shouldn’t have to touch her sweaty hands.
“I’m sorry.” Sylvia moved her hands to Katherine’s shoulders now, rubbing circles up and down her arms. “I know now is not the time to talk about coven politics, but I need you to remember, Silas can’t find out about this.
No one can—there’s too much of a risk of it getting back to him.
If Noctis finds out an unsettled witch snapped on our watch, hurt people on our watch …
we’ll lose everything. And then we’ll never be able to help anyone like Lily ever again. Do you understand?”
Katherine tried to respond, but she was suffocating, her throat filling with sand that she knew wasn’t really there, but wasn’t it? Wasn’t she sinking, falling, drowning—
“Katherine,” Sylvia said, and this time Katherine managed to look up at her, shrinking at the clear anger and disappointment in her eyes.
“I need you to clean this up,” Sylvia said.
“Make sure there are no signs of Lily or I being there. We need to make sure that Noctis doesn’t get wind of this. Do you understand?”
Katherine felt scraped out. All she wanted was to go home and lie down in her bed until she found a way to deny the undeniable.
“Do you understand?” Sylvia repeated. Katherine could sense the tension in her voice. Could feel that she was on the edge of her breaking point, the cliff she’d dive off when Katherine’s anxiety finally became too much for her to deal with.
“Yes,” she said, her voice dead.
Sylvia’s hands moved from Katherine’s shoulders to grasp her palms again. There were half-moons of blood left behind on Katherine’s shirt, marks from Sylvia’s nails.
“Thank you.”
Katherine nodded, not trusting herself to manage speech, and then she walked out, leaving the heat of the room behind her.