Page 31 of This Coven Won't Break
“Wait,” she says, her voice pitched low. “I’ll stay in Salem. I’ll help. Whatever you need, tell me and it’s done.”
“Really?” Surprise and gratitude lace through my tone in equal measure.
Alice’s expression is unamused. “If we’re all doomed anyway, I’d rather go down fighting.”
I find Morgan in the kitchen, her face buried in her hands.
“It’s going to be okay.” The promise passes my lips eventhough I hate these kinds of platitudes. Even though absolutely nothing feels okay right now. “Riley can’t hurt you anymore.”
She turns and lets me swallow her up in an embrace. “I hate him so much.” Her fierce whisper grazes the skin at my neck, and I squeeze her tight.
“Let’s get out of here.” I pull away and brush the tears from her cheeks. Her skin is warm and flushed under my fingers, the blue of her eyes glittering with unshed pain. “I’ll take you home.”
I find the keys on the table and borrow Alice’s rental van. We leave a note on Archer’s table, promising to bring it back in the morning. On the road, traffic is basically nonexistent as the clock inches toward four. Exhaustion settles into my bones, and I can barely keep my eyes open by the time we make it to Morgan’s house.
“Come in with me?”
She looks so worried, the ghosts of tear tracks on her cheeks and sleep in her eyes, that I can’t possibly say no. I follow her into the house, creeping quietly into her bedroom, where she shuts the door firmly behind us.
“Your parents won’t mind that I’m here?” I peel out of my jacket and set it on the back of her desk chair. The collage of pictures on her wall has grown since the first time I was here, the photos with her dance class back in Duluth interspersed with shots of the two of us together, sometimes with Gemma, too. She even kept the apology card I painted for her after I bailed on our first date to rescue Veronica. That was the first time Benton broke into V’s house, though we didn’t know it was him at the time.
“They’ll understand, especially once they know whathappened with Riley.” Morgan’s entire body goes stiff when she says his name, fresh tears pooling in her eyes. “I can’t believe he found me. That he’s here, in Salem.”
“Hey,” I soothe, crossing to her and pulling her close. I rub circles on her back, like she did for me so many times this summer. “You’re safe. He can’t get you anymore. Archer has him locked up.”
Morgan’s muscles go rigid, and she pulls away. “I don’t feel safe. Not yet.” Her gaze drops to her hands, where she spins the ring on her middle finger round and round and round. “But I will be.”
She pulls off the ring and removes the pin from the inside groove. Moving too fast to stop her, she pricks two of her fingers and lets blood well up on her skin. And then in a blink she’s at her door, pressing her bleeding fingers into the frame.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping him out. Keeping them all out.” Shimmering, bloody runes take shape along the edge of the door. Her movements are frantic and desperate, the blood on her fingers flowing faster than she can trace the runic lines, leaving a path of blood dripping down her wrist.
“Morgan...”
“You don’t know what he’s like,” she insists. “You don’t know what he did.”
“So talk to me. Tell me what happened.” I try to reach for her, try to stop her frantic writing, but she pulls away, adding runes to the other side of the door.
“You want to know what happened? You want to know what he did when he saw the small cut on my thumb heal itself?” Tears pool in her eyes, and she hits the wall, leaving an imprint of herhand behind. “He grabbed my wrist and carved a blade across my palm.”
“Fuck, Morgan.”
She shakes her head and goes back to drawing runes. “That’s not even the worst of it. I’m stronger than him, IknewI was, but I was so scared I couldn’t move. He cut so deep and it hurt so much, I couldn’t stop my magic. The skin stitched back together right in front of him. He called me a Blood Witch and he...” She swallows hard, and the tears slip down her cheeks. “He tried to slit my throat. I barely got out of there alive. We fled the state as fast as we could, and now he’s back, and I—”
“Andyouare going to be okay.” I grab a hand towel from the laundry basket and reach for her hand. This time, she doesn’t stop me. Gently, I run the towel from the crook of her elbow to the tips of her fingers, wiping away the trail of blood. “I won’t let him hurt you. I promise.”
She laughs, but there isn’t any humor in her voice. “I’m aBlood Witch, Hannah. I’m a monster, just like Alice. The same power that hurt you today runs through my veins, too. You aren’t supposed to love me. You’re supposed to be afraid.”
The last of her blood shimmers and absorbs back through her skin. I want to tell her that I do love her, but those words are still too scary to say out loud. Instead, I bend and press a kiss to the inside of her wrist. Even though I don’t feel her magic humming through my bones, my own magic stirs inside me. The air swirls around us, tossing our hair and nudging us closer together.
I let the air push me forward until there’s only a breath between us. “I’m not afraid of you.”
Morgan watches me with those impossibly blue eyes.Looking at her is like trying to see to the bottom of the ocean, fathomless and unknowable.
And then she’s kissing me, moving so fast I don’t register her touch until my back is pressed against the door and her lips are tight against mine. The runes shimmer around us like a bloody halo, but when my mind catches up to what’s happening, I pull her close and feel along the wall for the light, casting us in darkness.
Morgan reaches for my shirt, slipping her hand beneath the hem. Her fingers roam over my skin, unsure where to rest or unable to choose her favorite place. There’s a touch at my waist, pulling me closer. A brush of her fingers along my spine. Then her hands in my hair and her teeth grazing my bottom lip. The sensation draws a desperate, wanting sound from my throat, but before I have a second to feel embarrassed, Morgan tugs me away from the wall and guides me across her room.
