Page 47 of This Coven Won't Break
I can’t believe I said such awful things to her before I left.
“I don’t know.” Cal sounds as exhausted as I am, energy drained from too many feelings and too much horror and just Too Much. “The Hunters shouldn’t have known anything about him or our trip. Unless David said something, I have no idea.”
“What if he did?” Veronica straightens in her seat, forcing me to sit up, too. “Hannah said you were recruiting him because he’s working on the science behind magic. What if he helped the Hunters create the drug?”
“Why would he—”
“The funding,” I say, cutting Cal off. “David was upset with the Council for not funding his research. What if he turned to the Hunters for help?”
Cal has to slam on his brakes when the car in front of us makes a sudden stop. “If that’s true, why kill him now?”
“A loose end?” I guess. “Or maybe my phone call made David change his mind? He might regret creating the drug now that he knows what the Hunters are doing with it.”
My suggestion hangs in the air as cars on either side inch past our window.
“I really don’t want to believe a Caster did this to us...” Cal eases into the middle lane, which is moving a fraction faster than ours. “At least when we get back to Salem, we’ll be safe.”
A familiar chill ruins the calm he tried to provide. I run the countdown in my head. “For the next seven days anyway.”
“Seven days?” Veronica asks. “Why only a week?”
“That’s when jury selection starts.” Now that I’m sitting up, I buckle my seat belt and stare out the window. “Elder Keating needs to lower the barrier for the trial. We can’t risk someone seeing Hunters trapped outside the town’s border.”
My covenmate tenses, her knuckles turning white. “But if there’s no barrier...”
“We’ll be sitting ducks inside the courthouse. Yeah. I know.” I lean my head against the window. The last bit of fight drains away. It’s too much. Hunters and potential betrayals and all the Council’s hopes tied up in three journals of notes that neither Cal nor Archer can read.
I watch the world creep past, inch by careful inch, and I can’t conjure up the energy tocareanymore. So what if the Hunters take my magic? It’s not like it works anymore anyway.
None of it matters.
Veronica tips her head back against the headrest, and a tear spills down her cheek. “When will it stop? Will we ever be safe again?”
“We won’t stop trying,” Cal promises. “Alice is making progress with Eisha. We’re close to breaching the company. There’s still hope.”
“A man is dead, Cal.” I raise my head away from the cool glass, and the lack of emotion in my voice is unsettling, even to me. But I can’t inject any more life into my tone. I don’t have any left. “Hope isn’t going to bring him back. It’s not going to translate his spells, either. It’s over.”
“David isn’t the only Caster who uses that system,” Cal says.
“Are any of the others scientists?” I counter. “Being able to read his notes doesn’t guarantee they’ll understand what they mean.”
“Elder Keating will find someone.” But Cal doesn’t sound so sure anymore.
Traffic picks up, and no one speaks for a long time. Not until we leave New York behind. Veronica reaches for my hand. “Don’t be mad, Hannah.”
I tear my gaze away from the scenery and find her biting her lip, like she’s nervous. I raise an eyebrow in response.
She turns to Cal. “We might know someone who can help. Another Caster scientist. She’s a bio major at NYU.”
“Who?”
Veronica shoots me a worried look again, and I sigh, answering for her. “Lexie.” I picture the Caster Witch in her Manhattan apartment, swirling notes like the ones in O’Connell’s journals laid out before her. Hope tries to restart my heart. “Actually, Ithink she uses the same writing system as David, too. She might be able to translate his notes.”
Cal and Veronica make plans to call Lexie as soon as they get Archer’s approval. I listen to them work, but that empty feeling hollows me out again. I should warn Alice that the Casters who tried to hurt her might be coming to Salem, but I can’t make myself reach for my phone. Every plan we put together falls apart. Every time we think we’re making progress against the Hunters, they’re still one step ahead. Even if we get Lexie to Salem, there’s no guarantee she’ll actually be any help.
And what good am I against all of that? An Elemental who can’t even use her magic. A girl who can’t even recruit other witches without someone ending up drugged or dead.
I’m only making things worse.
