Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“Macie.” Miles said her name with the heavy weight of disappointment. No fear, no anger. Just… disappointed. “Macie. We know everything. Why? What’s going on?”
She shook her head with wide, saucer-like green eyes. She wore an oversized Rocky Mountains shirt that I’m sure… fuck. That was Miles’ shirt. He’d mentioned it had appeared to be missing a couple of weeks ago.
My stomach turned. It felt like a hawk dove down, sank its claws into my gut, and tried to yank it up out of my throat.
“I don’t even know what to say right now. I had ideas—I always imagined this being different, though. With more control. You know I’m a control freak, Miles. You know me.” She cupped two hands and pressed them against her chest. “I always kind of had a thing for you. But you were always so off-limits. Older, brother’s best friend… You were mysterious and smart and so attractive. And… my relationship, it didn’t end because he was cheating. It was because he found the letters I’d been writing to you. Just never sending them.” She was on the verge of tears. Her focus was pinned on Miles. I wasn’t entirely sure if she remembered I was even here. “He left me. And I was okay with it. I just wanted you.”
She stopped walking backward. She had her arms around her chest like she was trying to keep herself warm even though it wasn’t at all cold.
“And the black magic?” Miles asked bluntly.
She blinked, shocked, almost as if he had slapped her. “How do you know about that?” She glanced to Miles’ wrist for the first time and her jaw went slack.
“It doesn’t matter how I found out, all that matters is that I did. Macie—”
“Once I started, I couldn’t stop. It gives me everything. A high whenever I work a spell that cocaine, ecstasy, LSD can’t even touch. Nothing can match it. It gave me everything I wanted, except for you, and that just made me more desperate.”
The more she spoke, the more I realized the Macie that Miles had known was no longer around. This Macie had her brain poisoned by death magic.
I was on high alert. I had no idea what she was truly capable of, and that scared the fuck out of me.
“Then you came in the picture.” She turned her attention in my direction. Her stare became icy. The frightened and surprised girl we’d just been interacting with shifted, turning into someone much more venomous. “I knew that you two were fated, even before I confirmed it. I wish I could have welded that bracelet onto your wrist.” She clicked her tongue.
“You need to stop this, Macie,” Miles said. “You need to stop using black magic. You need to leave us alone. That dove stunt, it went way too far. It can’t ever happen again, or we will have to tell The Drudic Council about what’s going on.”
Her eyes went wide at that threat. I could see calculations being made inside her head in real time. Something appeared to settle behind her eyes. The fear shifted. Her eyes narrowed and her head cocked to the side. “No, no. I’ve been thinking about that a lot. And I apologize. I don’t think the dove needs to die anymore.” Macie shook her head, hands down at her sides. She had the body language of someone giving up. Someone exhausted from having to fight for so long. “No, I don’t. Because if I can’t have you, then—”
It happened so fast. So, so fast.
She reached under the large shirt. A flash of silver in her hands. She shouted something. Took aim. Finger pushing down on the trigger. No time to second-guess, no time to fear. Only time to act.
I shoved Miles out of the way. The barrel had been aimed directly at him. The muzzle lit with flame. The bullet whizzed through the air, missing me by mere inches. Miles and I slammed into the floor as I shielded his body from another shot.
But she didn’t shoot again. She shrieked. A wailing, chilling, horrifying shriek.
Shock mixed with confusion coursed through me. I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. Of the fact that Emmy was standing at the door, his eyes wide as he looked down at his bleeding chest, red soaking through the Burlington Bobcats jersey he still wore from tonight’s game.
He clutched at his chest and dropped to his knees.
Chapter Thirty
Silver & Crimson
MILES
Time stood still for a brief moment. Emmy on his knees with his hand over his chest in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding.
He blinked. Fell forward with a smack against the floor.
Time resumed.
Dylan rolled off of me as I crawled to my best friend. Macie had dropped the gun. She, too, had fallen to her knees. She gripped her throat as if she were trying to strangle the cries that were escaping her.