Page 93 of Witch Undecided
His eyes blaze with a rare flash of anger. “I’ll let you tag along, but you’ll do as you’re told. Do you understand me?”
I push him from time to time, it’s what I do, but I know when to stop. Elijah is chill most of the time, but there’s an inferno beneath the surface waiting to be ignited. I might be chilly, but I’m not eager to get burned.
I temper my tone. “I don’t like you going in alone.”
He sighs and nods. “I’ll be fine, but you need to stay here.”
The panic in my gut twists into a knot. I recognize this play. “You want me to stay behind in case something goes wrong.”
His mouth tightens. “Yes.”
I sit up straighter. “That’s the only reason you let me tag along, isn’t it?”
He makes a sound of exasperation. “It’s more than that, Bramble, and you know it. When have I ever asked you to hang back?”
He has a point. But I don’t like this. I don’t like him going off alone. Not now. Not here. Not for this. But I get why he needs me to hang back.
“If you’re not back in forty-eight hours, I’m coming after you.”
He leans forward in his seat, his expression stern and forbidding. “If I’m not back in forty-eight hours, you need to get out of here.”
Charlotte betrayed me, but Elijah’s always there for me. A surrogate father. A mentor. A friend.
So I nod and agree with the words coming out of his mouth, because that’s what he wants to see, but it’s a lie.
There is no way I’m leaving him behind.
