“All the more reason to let me tag along and clean up after you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Is this your way of telling me you like to watch?”
His gaze flicked down and up as he gave her the once-over. She hadn’t dressed up today, which wasn’t like her. Just jeans and a tank top. The most casual thing she’d worn in public in years. Yet with him staring like that, she felt like she’d just stepped out in a skintight bodycon dress. “Only when it’s someone worth watching.”
She forced a series of inappropriate thoughts from her brain. Stupid adrenaline. It mixed up signals. Clouded judgment. “Look, just . . . be careful. If you see anything weird happen, the best thing you can do is get out of the way. Protecting you will only make my job harder.”
He saluted, forcing a cocky grin for her sake. She looked at him a long beat. She’d misjudged him. He’d taken all of it in—learning that magic existed, bursting into an evil witch’s lair—and he was still smiling, even if that smile was purely bravado for her benefit.
He straightened up and opened the car door, effectively ending the discussion. Scarlett felt a desire to reach for him, but she stopped herself. They got out of the car, crossed the empty street, and walked to Gwen’s front door.
His gaze flicked past her, and his lips tightened. Her eyes followed his.
Scarlett watched tendrils of smoke creep out of Gwen’s front door. Thick, vibrant red smoke, an impossibly bright color. Her eyes widened. As she watched, the smoke shaped itself into an enormous X across the door, like a giant magical DO NOT ENTER sign.
They traded sideways glances. “Last chance to turn around,” Scarlett murmured.
To her surprise, Jackson caught her hand and twined his fingers through hers. “I’m not letting you face this alone, Scarlett.”
For a second, their eyes locked. His hand was warm, and her heart beat against her rib cage, the adrenaline spiking. Her head buzzed from the explosion of unexpected electricity between them. But there was no time to think about it.
She shook her hand free of his and reached out toward the crimson smoke. It was some kind of wicked magic. She could tell from the way it made her fingers itch, made the back of her throat scratchy.
She pressed her palms flat against the door. Shut her eyes and drew on the well of power in her chest, the power her sisters shared with one another during their monthly rituals. She pictured it flowing from her, a golden light to drive back the evil.
Jackson exclaimed softly behind her. When she opened her eyes, the door had swung inward.
Scarlett stepped over the threshold carefully and walked up the stairs. The hall was dark, and she saw no light coming from beneath Gwen’s apartment door. Still, Scarlett paused to press an ear against it, listening for any signs of movement within.
Nothing.
She tried the door. It was unlocked. She glanced over her shoulder at Jackson. His worried look mirrored her own.
She held her breath and gently inched the door open.
More smoke billowed out, gray and red tendrils all tangled together. It didn’t smell like a wood fire. It stank like rot, like death and decay and nightmares, like waking up unable to breathe in the middle of the night. She began to choke the second it struck her. Jackson started coughing uncontrollably.
“What is this?” he rasped, voice hoarse from the smoke.
She couldn’t feel any heat. If this came from a fire, it wasn’t a normal one. “No idea,” Scarlett choked out.
Was this some kind of defense mechanism? Or a poison? Scarlett took a step forward and slipped. She caught herself just before she hit the floor, her palm landing in a pool of something sticky. Bile rose in her throat as she stared down at the puddle.
Blood. A spreading pool of it. Much like the one in Tiffany’s bedroom, but larger, uglier.
Scarlett choked back a scream and lifted her gaze to follow the trail. A body lay face-down on the floor just an arm’s length from her. Motionless. Scarlett’s breath came out in a weak moan. Not Tiffany, oh God, not Tiffany.
Beside her, Jackson was cursing. He moved faster than she did. Reached around her to grip the girl’s shoulder—it was a girl, Scarlett could tell that much from her yoga pants and tank top. But it was hard to see her face through the pouring smoke . . .
Smoke that, she now realized, looked like it was pouring out of the girl. Or at least, out of the area where her face lay pressed against the floorboards.
Jackson rolled the girl onto her back. Scarlett braced herself, fear flooding her entire body as she prepared to see her best friend’s face.
But it was Gwen’s empty eyes that stared up at them. Billows of smoky gray clouds poured out of her nose, her open mouth, even her ears.
“Gwen?” Jackson whispered, his voice filled with emotion.
Scarlett couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. She watched Jackson feel for a pulse, then heard him swear again, longer and louder this time. He reached for his phone. Only then did Scarlett catch his wrist.
“We can’t be here,” she whispered. “When they find her, the cops . . .”
Jackson nodded sharply. He took Scarlett’s hand and hauled her to her feet. “Come on.” He led her from the apartment. She couldn’t stop shaking as she stared at her palm, painted red in Gwen’s blood.
And all the while, only one thought circled in her brain, over and over.
If Gwen’s dead . . . who has Tiffany?
Chapter Thirty-One
Vivi
As Vivi gripped the wheel of the car she’d borrowed from Dahlia, she wondered if there was a calming spell strong enough to temper the anxiety currently pulsing through her chest. At the moment, she didn’t know if there was anyone she could ask. By now, word of her treacherous behavior with Mason would’ve spread from sister to sister, by conversation, text, and the soundless communication that came so easily to a number of Ravens.
Vivi groaned and hit the steering wheel. She’d spent her entire life wishing for friends, desperate for a way to belong, and then she’d thrown it all away in an instant. Just because a cute history major with an adorable accent had made her feel special. She was better than that, wasn’t she?
If Vivi had been in the passenger seat, she might’ve been able to take some calming breaths of the fragrant sea air as she sped along the coastline. But she was driving—alone in a car for the third time in her life. Because she’d moved so often, it’d been impossible to build up enough driver’s ed credits, and she’d gotten her license only a few months ago.
“You’re okay . . . you’re okay,” Vivi muttered as a truck barreled past her on the left, as if she were soothing a frightened animal instead of talking to herself.
But surviving the drive was only half the battle. Once she arrived, she’d have to figure out a way to search her mother’s house for the talisman. If it was even there. Daphne had had a few hours to hide it somewhere else.
Vivi had thought that Dahlia would come with her, but she ended up staying behind to prepare the complicated replicator spell they’d need to produce the fake talisman. Vivi wasn’t sure what sounded more dangerous—handing the powerful magical item over to Tiffany’s kidnapper or potentially risking the kidnapper’s fury.
Vivi exhaled as the GPS voice told her to take the next exit for Jekyll Island, a spit of land about an hour south of Savannah. For all Daphne’s talk about how much Vivi would hate Savannah and her fury over Vivi attending Westerly, it appeared she had settled nearby. It was just like her mother to forbid Vivi to do something that she thought was fine for herself.