Page 69 of This Coven Won't Break
“Is there anyone you trust?” Archer asks, walking over to thewall to lean against the rough stone for support. “Anyone who would let you out?”
“After this?” Benton raises his shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. “I honestly don’t know.”
Trust is a funny thing. Benton doesn’t trust the Hunters who raised him. He doesn’t trust us. I don’t trust himorthe Hunters, and if a witch has betrayed us...
I leave Benton to wallow in his identity crisis and approach Archer, keeping my voice low. “Even if we get out, I don’t know if we’ll be safe. The Hunters shouldn’t have been able to get past Keating’s barrier. Not unless someone helped them.”
Archer looks up from his injured hands and fixes me with a suspicious stare. “Who exactly are you accusing?”
Even with everything at stake, a thread of nervousness stitches through me. Accusing a witch of treason isn’t something to do lightly. It carries a weight I’m not sure I want to bear, but I tell him my suspects anyway. I tell him everything.
Lexie and Coral working with Tori to bind Alice’s magic this spring. How they could have worked with the Hunters to develop the drug, how the Hunters never used their cure until after that fateful encounter. And being Caster Witches themselves, they could have let the Hunters past the barrier.
And then there’s Alice, who’s attacked me more than once and was furious when I backed out of the raid. How she got away and made it to Cal’s van before the rest of us even got to the main floor. I tell him what Morgan told me about Blood Witches being masters of barrier spells.
He listens through it all, alarm widening his eyes every time I mention another violation of Council laws. When I’m done, he tips his head back against the wall and stares at the ceiling. “Fuck,Hannah.” His profanity startles me, and it’s like his entire persona as a detective, as an agent for the Council, crumbles away. He looks at me like I’m a kid sister he wants desperately to protect. “Why didn’t you say something?”
The emotion in his voice tightens my throat. “I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“The Council,” I admit, trembling too much to keep my voice low. “Lady Ariana always warned us that if we stepped out of line, if we broke the laws, the Council would come and take away our magic.”
“I have an idea,” Benton says, interrupting before Archer can respond. But not before I notice the deepening sadness in his eyes. “I know someone who might let me out.”
“Good for you,” I snap. “That doesn’t exactly keep us alive.”
But Benton shakes his head. “I’ll take you with me.”
The absurdity of his promise makes me roll my eyes. “In what world do you expect me to believe that? You hate us.”Even if he did stand up for us twice...
“I swore an oath to protect humans from harm, and I paid for that when Gemma got hurt.” With his free hand, Benton gingerly touches his abdomen where Riley hit him. “I don’t know what happened to the Order while I was away, but former witch or not, the detective is human now. I won’t let anyone hurt him.” He leans heavily against the door, the phone clutched in his hand. “Not even my parents.”
Despite what Benton thinks, Archer is still a Caster. He’llalwaysbe a Caster, but I don’t bother arguing the point. “What about me? I’m still an Elemental.” I gently reach for the air, but my intentional magic is weak and out of practice.
Benton falters. He may honestly believe that it’s his duty toprotect Archer, but it’s pretty clear what he’s supposed to do with someone like me.
“Well?” I prompt when he still hasn’t come up with anything.
“You won’t like it,” he warns, rubbing the back of his neck. I cross my arms and glare at him until he continues. “I don’t want you to die,” he admits slowly, watching my reaction. “You deserve to be cured, but if I leave you here, they’ll just kill you.”
His obsession with curing something that isn’t broken or bad or wrong makes my skin crawl. Even after everything I’ve been through, even with the months of friendship in our past, he still can’t see my humanity, and that breaks my heart more than I thought it could.
“And you’re willing to risk yourself to help us?” I ask, unable to keep the emotion out of my voice.
Benton shrugs. “They already think I’m a witch sympathizer. At least, Riley does. Breaking the detective out is bad enough. They can’t exactly kill me twice if I break you out, too.”
If I don’t kill you, the Order will.
They’ll kill me for being too weak to do my job.
A strange feeling tugs at my heart. Kill or be killed. What kind of family raises their kids like that?
Before I can say anything, Benton’s thumbs are flying across his screen as he taps out a text. He hits send and slips the phone back into his pocket. He looks up and meets my eye. “Now we wait.”
24
IT FEELS LIKE FOREVERbefore Benton gets a response. His brows knit as he reads the text, which isn’t the encouraging sign I was hoping for.
