Page 88 of Heart of a Witch
Cas cupped my cheek, shaking me with his other arm. “Sister.” The word cracked somewhere in the middle, and I couldn’t breathe. He sat me up, and I managed to pull in a breath. “Sister?”
“Cas.” I barely exhaled, and my body froze up again. “Alex.”
“Alive,” he said, assurance thick in his tone. “Richard’s dead.”
“How?”
He didn’t answer at first, and his silence told me something was very, very wrong. “Cas?”
“I came back to dress for my church meeting when I heard screaming.” His tears came thick and fast, trailing down his bronzed cheeks. “He cut her throat, and she was bleeding. I grabbed the poker from the fire and stabbed it through his back and stomach.” The color drained from his face. “I saved Alex, but she can’t talk. He cut her vocal cords. She’s bandaged. Corbin was awake—he might have heard everything—and Elijah is probably on his way here.” He pressed his fingers to his temples. “Everything’s gone wrong. What did he knock you unconscious with?”
Oh gods, he thought I had been knocked out. I had failed to help yet another sister in her time of need. I was useless and didn’t deserve the family I had. “I fainted,” I admitted and quickly changed the subject. “Give Corbin something to make him go to sleep.” A plan was somehow formulating in my muddled mind. I couldn’t fail them again. “Look after Alex. I’ll deal with Elijah.”
He gestured toward Richard’s corpse and the crimson-soaked carpet. “What about this?”
“I won’t let him up to my room.”
“We should run,” he said, stilling me into silence. “We will flee to Istinia. Grab Mother along the way like we should have done to begin with.”
“W-we can’t just go. Your shop…”
“Is nothing without my family,” he stated.
My chest ached. “I know.”
“Fuck the hunter and all of this.”
“If we leave, this will all have been for nothing.”
He rubbed his forehead, shaking his head. “I can’t argue with you about this. I’m leaving with Alex. I can’t force you to come with us.”
“I’ve already lost myself, Cas,” I said. “I don’t know who I am anymore, or who I am without this to hold onto. I agree you need to go and so does Alex, but if Corbin tells anyone, then the hunter will come after you. I won’t let that happen. I’m staying. I’m seeing this through to the end.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“Let him.” My heart skipped a beat. “It’s how I expected it to end anyway.”
His jaw tightened, a muscle feathering under his eye. “You want to die? After everything we’ve lost, you’re going to let yourself get killed. What about me? Mother? Alex? Don’t you think we’ve lost enough?”
“Don’t,” I pleaded. “I can’t go on.”
“None of us want to, but we do okay. Please, Victoria, I beg you, as your brother, come with us.” He held my hands in his, but I felt nothing. My mind warped and bent, and I realized it was too late for me. Dark magic had already infiltrated my brain and diseased my thoughts. It wouldn’t be long until I was gone, and if the last thing I could do was help rid the world of the hunter, then I would. “Don’t worry, Cas. I’m going to kill him.”
A knock sounded at the door. I ran cold. “Elijah?”
“Make sure he doesn’t come up here.”
I nodded and hurried downstairs, brushing down my hair on the way so I didn’t appear so disheveled. I reached the door, and Elijah’s hardened stare met mine. “We need to talk. You’re in danger.”
My stomach knotted. He walked inside, and I had him follow me into the kitchen, praying Alex wasn’t in there. She wasn’t. “Why?” I asked… barely.
“My father believes you’re all witches, some escapee family of someone he killed. I tried to talk him down, but I’m worried about what he’s going to do. When he gets something in his head, it’s difficult to have him see sense.
“Thank you for letting me know.” I looked to his left. The winter land of white swirled near the black iron gates and small houses, spinning around me. I grabbed the sides of my head, willing for it to stop.
His fingers were on my cheek, his eyes frantic as he searched mine, but I couldn’t see straight. What was happening to me?
His voice echoed into my mind as if he were talking underwater. “Let me take you to your room.”
