Page 46 of Illusory

If I had any chance of learning how to teleport, I was going to need someone to guide me through it. And by someone I meant a Reaper, and since Trace was fully off the table and out of commission, I needed to think outside the box. Sadly, I knew of no other Reapers in Hollow Hills besides the Macarthur family and most of them were either dead or indisposed. Then again, that didn’t mean there weren’t any others. Just that I hadn’t found one yet.

On a hunch, I cracked open the grimoires again and started scouring the pages—this time for any mentionsof relatives or acquaintances from the same faction as the MacArthur bloodline. After a little digging around, I discovered that Trace’s father Peter had a sister that he no longer spoke to as well as a niece about the same age as Trace. Unable to find any current information on Lena Macarthur or her daughter Layla in the grimoires or online, I did the next best thing. I called up Ben to see if he knew anything about them, seeing as he grew up with Trace.

According to Ben, Layla used to visit Trace and Linley every summer when they were all kids but stopped after some sort of falling out between their parents. Trace had never told Ben exactly what had caused his father and aunt to stop talking, but Ben suspected it may have had something to do with Trace’s mother.

Last he’d heard, they lived a couple of towns away in Hanover, though he wasn’t exactly sure where.

“Have you ever met them personally?” I asked Ben through the phone, cradling it between my ear and my shoulder as I continued flipping through the grimoire.

“Yeah. We all used to hang out during their summer vacation back in the day,” he answered, his words sounding garbled around whatever it was he was chewing on. “Why? What’s this about?”

“Is it true what they say about Shifters?” I asked him instead of answering his question. “That once you catch someone’s scent, you recognize it for life?”

“More or less.”

“So, you’d be able to track them if you were ever in their general vicinity? Like say you happened to be in Hanover?”

“I mean, I’ve never put it to the test, but yeah, that’s basically how it works,” he said in between chews and then swallowed his mouthful. “What’s this about again?”

“How do you feel about road trips?”

A long pause wafted through the line. My stomach clenched as I was sure he was about to tell me he wanted no part of whatever demented thing I had planned.

And then he finally answered. “Fine, but I’m picking the music.”

15. TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET

The setting sun dipped below the horizon, painting the late November sky with deep hues of amber and plum as I pulled out of my driveway and sped off toward Ben’s house. I’d been anxious to get this road trip started the second I’d hung up with Ben, hoping against all odds that we’d be able to track down Trace’s aunt or cousin and somehow convince one of them to help us.

And I’d truly had every intention of doing exactly that, evidenced by the plethora of road trip snacks in the backseat of my Audi—courtesy of my increasingly convenient chef. But then it happened again.

The sickness.

The irritating, unrelenting urge to go see Nikki assaulted me all over as my car grounded to a screeching halt in the middle of the road. It took me a few seconds to realize that there wasn’t anything wrong with my car other than the fact that I was pressing down on the brake pedal like my life depended on it.

And pressing.

And pressing.

And pressing still.

I groaned and then dropped my head forward, knocking my forehead against the steering wheel a few times, as though it might help knock some sense back into my head.

Why was this happening to me?

Apparently, it didn’t matter that I despised Nikki Parker with every fiber of my being or that I actively looked forward to dancing on the bitch’s grave someday. It didn’t matter that I didn’twantto see her, or talk to her, or even know her for thatmatter. Something deeper than my hatred of her was keeping my foot pressed down on the brake pedal. Because this wasn’t about her at all.

It was about the baby.

For weeks, all I’d heard fromeveryonewas that this baby was evil personified, that he was prophesized to be the harbinger of the end of days, and that it was my duty to make sure he never saw the light of day. And yet, I couldn’t seem to accept that script no matter how hard I had tried to make it fit. Because itdidn’tfit.

In fact, it went against everything I stood for as a person.

Stabbing first and asking questions later? That had never been me. It just wasn’t part of my makeup. I’d always believed that we were all born with a blank slate. That none of us were inherently good or evil. That the monsters among us were created over time, through circumstance and environment, and most of all, through choices.

Because believing anything other than that meant that I’d have to believe that people were irredeemable. That we weren’t autonomous and empowered and free to carve out our own path in life. That we were merely puppets on a string that could never be severed. And that was something I would never accept.

Because it was a boldfaced lie, and I was living proof of that.

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