Page 22 of Filthy Little Witch
“Fine,” I snarled. “Where to?”
“The motel first,” she said. “If this isn’t our own personal hell, maybe my sisters went back there. If it is, we’ll head to Asheville.”
I didn’t like it, not one fucking bit. But if Wes was on board and Marta thought she could fix him, I’d hesitantly go along with it. Like she said, the hospitals in Asheville were better than the ones out here in the sticks, so I figured I could always hit it up if it came to that.
But the closer we got to the motel, the more that ominous pit in my stomach grew. The roads were abandoned, and cars literally stopped in the middle of the highway like their drivers had disintegrated behind the wheel. When we finally got there, I grimaced at the desolate building straight out of every one of my favorite horror movies. The lights flickered on the sign, and the rooms were dark inside, no doubt containing flesh-eating monsters ready to peel our skins from our bones.
“Well, this is cheery,” I said, grabbing my pistol to check that it was loaded. I’d emptied my clip during the ritual, but I had another in the bed.
Marta didn’t respond, just opened the passenger door and rushed out.
“Wait!” I shouted, but she didn’t listen to me. “Fucking hell.”
I glanced in the back seat and checked that Wes was still breathing. He leaned back with his head on the rest, his inhales labored and his exhales pained. But at least he hadn’t faded yet.
“I’m gonna go in there after her,” I said. “You stay alive, understand?”
Wes gave me a half-hearted thumbs-up and grimaced.
I got out and went to the back of the truck to retrieve my extra clip before loading it up. Then I followed Marta into the room she’d been sharing with Bridge. Holding my gun out in front of me, I cautiously pushed the door open, preparing for a zombie or a demon or I didn’t know what, something gruesome. Instead, I lowered my weapon when I found the witch coming out of the bathroom.
“They’re not here,” she whispered.
“Don’t fucking run off like that again,” I said.
“They’re not here,” she repeated, louder this time, curling her hands into fists at her side.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” I said. “Did you check the other room?”
She shook her head as I headed outside and down the corridor leading to Isobel’s room. But it looked the same as it had when we left. That sneaking suspicion became a full-blown conspiracy theory when I went to the room after that, and the room after that, and found no one.
The motel office was empty. The rooms were empty.
This entire world…empty.
When I got back to Bridge’s room, Marta stood next to Bridge’s bed, gathering books into a suitcase.
“Witch,” I said, “there’s no one here.”
She glanced over her shoulder before returning to her task.
“I need you to take me back to my bike,” she said. “And then we’ll head to the clubhouse.”
“Are you sure we should leave the area?” I walked closer to her, watching as she packed her things. “What if the other Harlots can fix this? Maybe we should stay close to the woods.”
Marta took a deep breath and sighed. “I think we’re in the liminal.”
There it was, the thing I’d been dreading to say out loud, and she’d just flopped it into the atmosphere between us like a dead fish. Even if I suspected it, all the air rushed out of my lungs, and my stomach lurched.
“Have you ever heard of anything coming back from a liminal?” She raised an eyebrow and looked at me.
“Well…no,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way.”
The witch clenched her eyes shut, a blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks, almost like she was holding back tears.
“We’re fucked, Atlas,” she said. “This is so much worse than I thought.”
I didn’t know what enraged me more: that she’d so easily sunk into this useless despair or that it was her stupid coven that had gotten us into the mess in the first place. Blinding white fury snaked up my spine, pooling in my mouth, and I couldn’t stop what came out next.
