Page 6 of Livewire Witch

I mean, it wasn’t like the pavements were suddenly running with lava or jello, or there were dragons flying into buildings. Nothing that anyone else would notice, even.

Just me.

Well, me and Zeph.

It’s been a kind of slow and steady thing, the change coming over our lives. The clusterfuck of a situation in our district seems to have reached a new level of fuckedness over the past month.

First, we got betrayed and blown up by the assholes trying to take over our patch. Then we found my uncle Felix battered and unconscious in the med bay of our building, with no clue what had happened to him. And to top it off, that same night Fabian, Seb, and Silver all fell off the face of the planet, with no warning.

Not a text. Not a voice note. Nothing.

None of them are answering their phones and I’m getting real antsy about it.

It’s been three days since the ritual was supposed to go down. Three days after what was meant to be Fabian’s last chance.Ourlast chance for things to go back to normal.

Instead, three of my people abracadabra-d into thin air.

We don’t know who we can trust right now either. Which means Z and I haven’t even been able to set any of our usual guys on the job to track them down. Fabian—the future leader of the Nexus District—going missing is a pretty big deal.

And we can’t show weakness right now. No one can know that we don’t know where he is, or what’s happened to him, since it would be like waving a still-bleeding severed limb in front of a shark. Add to that the fact we can’t whip Silver out as our secret weapon to scare people into submission either, since she’s disappeared too.

Mix in the injuries Zeph and I got recently, and it’s made my uncle go real weird and protective. He doesn’t trust anyone right now, and he doesn’t want either of us leaving The Spire unless we have to.

Not that we’re exactly adhering to that. We’re not kids anymore. But with Zeph’s broken leg and my concussion messing with my head, we haven’t exactly made a crack shot investigative team.

I think whatever happened that night that left Felix in the medical bay has shaken something loose in him. He was weirdly... intense when I spoke to him last.

“We’re so close, my boy. Too damn close for them to take it all away now.”

The words were a kind of a hushed murmur as I stared at his pale face a couple of days ago. This was when he was still in bed, battered and bruised and making life hell for the nurses in the medical bay. I kind of wished Z was around so we could share a what-the-fuck look and he could confirm my suspicions that Felix’s latest bout of unconsciousness had clearly messed with his brain.

“Family. It’s everything, my boy.” He squeezed my wrist and I’m pretty sure it was the first and only physical contact he’d initiated... ever. Not a touchy-feely guy, my uncle. Not much ofa family guy, either. He’s never been much of a fan of mine, not after Fabian’s magic revealed itself and showed him to be the most powerful of the three of us.

“I know we were hoping to avoid this,” he continued, shaking his head while I scrabbled to work out what the hell he was talking about. “But there’s a breach in power now. You know as much as anyone how large the gap left by Fabian is, but you and the Stormrider boy are going to need to step in to fill it. We can’t seem to be unbalanced right now, boy. You understand that, don’t you?”

My stomach flipped and my veins went cold with a sense of foreboding. Most of our lives, Fabian’s been slated to take over in leading the district. Z and I have always been supporting characters, the idiots in the background that flank the leader but don’t contribute. Sothis, him talking like he’d made the decision that wherever Fabian had gone, he wouldn’t be coming back, was wrong on so many levels.

I shrugged Felix’s clammy hand off my shoulder with a casual stretch behind my back.

“Our next meeting with the Archarcans is the day after tomorrow.” His genial expression dropped, and he shot me a sneer that was far more familiar. “Make sure you and the lug aren’t late. We can’t afford to make a poor impression right now.”

I just nodded and shot him my usual carefree grin, which, for some reason, made him frown even harder at me.

“It’s important we make a good impression, boy. So keep your mouth shut and your tricks to yourself.”

I just about curbed the urge to salute him as I stood and got the fuck out of there.

IT’S NOW THE DAY OFmine and Z’s meeting with the Archarcans that Felix had been so insistent about.

Aaand there’s a strong chance I’m going to be late for it, after all.

But I woke up with a clearer head than I’ve had in days. The fuzz from the lasting effects of my brain being pinged around inside my skull like a pinball finally fading. With that newfound clarity, I had an idea of where we might get some answers.

We can’t go about advertising the fact Fabian’s gone missing. But he’s not the only one that’s not around. And there are people who might know where Silver is. Or at least I hope they know where she is.

“About time,” Silver’s redheaded brother slash friend says when I arrive at the cafe of ours they’ve been working at over the past six weeks.

I can’t say we’ve spent much time together and I can’t for the life of me remember this one’s name. But it seems like he remembers exactly who I am.

---