Page 41 of The Blood Witch
He hasn’t said a word to me since Jamie left the last time. NoI told youfighting would get you nowhere, not even ashould have kept your crackers to yourself.Nope, he’s just sat there and watched me as I’ve wrecked myself trying to find a way out. I mean, what the hell else do I have to do while being held captive? It’s eithertry to figure out how to escapeorI spy, and I get the feeling Elon will pretend he’s too good for that game. I suppose it’s good that he’s kept his mouth shut. If he had tried to offer me adon’t bother, I would have told him to shove it up his ass. Who’s going to listen to shit advice like that? Certainly not me.
I shoot him a glare.
“You can choke on thatthere’s no getting out of herecrap, Elon Kendrick. I don’t take that shit from Rogan, and I sure as hell am not going to take it from you. It wouldn’t be a waste of your time to stop judging me and instead help me come up with a plan. Even if it doesn’t work, at least we tried,” I snap at him, annoyed while simultaneously feeling bad at being bitchy with everything that’s happened to him.
He’s just far too resigned and apathetic for my liking. I’ve been so focused on venting my futile anger and trying to do what I could to help myself, but it’s time to really talk to Elon, to light a fire under his ass and figure out how the hell we’re going to flip things on little miss demon-stained and her crew. I know I’m not the first witch to try and escape. I’m certain he’s watched far too many try—and die anyway—but I’m not them. I’m Lennox Osseous, and I will figure shit out with or without his help.
The arrogant gleam in Elon’s gaze falters, and I register shock sparking to life in his green eyes. He pushes up from where he’s sitting against the wall and stops at the barrier of demon symbols trapping him in.
Yes! There it is, there’s the fight we need. I should have stopped trying to figure out escape contingencies and name-dropped earlier.
“What do you know about my brother?” he challenges, the dispassionate and lethargic countenance he’s draped around him like an invisible coat of armor gone. Now there’s worry and hopeful longing in his arduous stare.
“Oh, you know,” I offer casually, my body aching from everything I just put it through. “He’s a dick, definitely anask for forgiveness instead of permissionkind of guy. Lovesyoumore than anything, and is currently raising hell and doing everything he can to find you.”
He eyes me as though he’s unconvinced.
I clear my throat and adopt the thickest Texas accent I can manage. “Ready up now, partner,” I tell him as I mime riding a bucking bronco while sitting. “Y’all better, R...U...N,” I add for good measure, and Elon’s face pinches with pain, and his eyes well with tears. “We got your message. You have a beautiful house by the way. I’m mighty jealous, I don’t mind admittin’.” I side-eye the lingering accent permeating what’s now supposed to be my normal speech.
Elon tilts his head back and breathes deeply through what I can only imagine is a rush of anguish. I know he and Rogan have been through it together, and I sense that Elon had given up hope on ever seeing his brother again, let alone hearing an update about what’s been happening while he’s been gone.
I rub at my arms, massively underdressed for the chill that’s crept into this place. I don’t know how long I’ve been going at it, but the light coming through the windows feels like evening instead of morning now. This will teach me to wear light clothes to bed. It’s going to be chastity belts and sweats from here on out if I make it out of here. I should also look into sleeping with a sword at all times. Maybe I can get a special holster designed that will keep it from getting stabby as I toss and turn.
“Your brother tracked me down first thing,” I tell Elon, who’s now wiping at his eyes. “Let’s just say he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and we’ve been looking for you ever since. What happened? How did you end up here?” I ask softly, hoping that Elon won’t shut down like he looks like he wants to do and will fill me in.
He doesn’t answer me right away, and I look from him to the now quiet witch who’s still lying on the cold floor. The slow rise and fall of her chest tells me she’s asleep, and I hope she finds some semblance of peace in her dreams as she escapes this waking nightmare for a little while.
“Nikki Smelser is what happened,” Elon declares, and there’s an angry bite to his tone, but I can’t tell if the anger is directed at himself or her or maybe both.
“Are they doing this together, Nikki and Jamie?” I press, gesturing around at the church.
“Not anymore,” Elon tells me cryptically, rubbing at his face and smudging the dirt and tear tracks on his cheeks. He sits down crisscross applesauce on the ground just shy of the barrier, and I mirror his movement, sensing a detailed explanation coming.
“I met Nikki at a shop. I was there stocking up on some herbs and other things I needed that week. She was nice and pretty. She hit on me, and it had been so long since someone hadn’t looked at me like I was a…”
“Murderer?” I supply quietly when he trails off.
Elon snorts indignantly and then nods. “Yeah, like the evil spawn they all think I am. She didn’t see me that way, and I got a little more lost in that than I should have,” he confesses, and I can’t help but see a hint of the little boy that was never loved the way he should have been, peeking out in his eyes. It makes me so incredibly sad for him, and in that moment, it’s easy for me to understand why Rogan would do everything in his power to make sure Elon didn’t live his whole life feeling that way.
Elon sighs and straightens his back like he’s pulling from some inner reserve of strength. “She said her cousin was after her. That she’d been trying to hurt her since Nikki came into her powers a couple years before.” He looks over at me imploringly. “I know that probably sounds dumb and that I’m stupid for trusting her, but with everything that Rogan and I had been through with our families and being renounced, it wasn’t a farfetched, impossible thing for me to believe.”
I nod, understanding where he’s coming from, because I know the truth about what happened to them. But I don’t say anything or attempt to clue him in. This doesn’t feel like a safe place to expose such a vulnerable secret, not with other witch ears listening—even though it appears Brianne is passed out. I’m also unsure of how he’ll feel, knowing that I’m aware of the horrors he survived.
“It doesn’t sound dumb,” I assure him. “It sounds like you’re a kind person.”
Elon pauses for a moment, surveying me like I just spewed venom at him instead of paying him a compliment. I can see that he doesn’t trust my words and he’s looking for my angle. I hate that this is what he’s been forced to do to survive, but I don’t take it personally.
“I wanted to help Nikki with her cousin,” he starts somewhat hesitantly, and I make a note to zip my lips before I freak him out and he stops talking. “I thought if I showed her cousin that Nikki wasn’t alone and an easy target, she’d back off. Jamie was a Lesser, and I assumed she’d be easy to scare away.
“We came up with this plan to kind of disappear for a bit, cover our tracks so that Jamie couldn’t find Nikki, and then do what we could to make her back off. If it didn’t work, I’d help Nikki to actually disappear, using my reputation, and then I’d set her up somewhere safe. I was going to call Rogan and explain what was happening from the road, but everything went to shit before that could happen.”
The image of Elon walking away from his home with a pack and his familiar in tow pops up in my mind. I don’t see any sign of his familiar, but I’m hesitant to ask him about her and have him shut down. “But why the weird stuff you had in your house? The rowanberries and the ashes from the grill?” I ask instead.
“It was part of the backup plan if Nikki needed to disappear. Most witches think I’m some crazed killer. Some power-hungry psycho that’s unhinged and could lose it any minute. The ashes and stuff were for Jamie in case she broke in looking for Nikki. We set up the impression that I lost my shit and killed Nikki, her familiar, and my familiar. Nikki told me to do the rowanberry thing, she said it would mean something to Jamie if she ever saw it. I figured, what would people do if they thought I killed again? It would be out of the Lessers’ hands, and the High Council wouldn’t care. If they didn’t end me for what happened with my uncle, why would they care about a random Soul Witch?” he asks, theI’m a murdererlie rolling right off his tongue.
He shrugs, his eyes far away, his head shaking like he’s looking back on it all now and seeing how stupid the plan was.
“So what went wrong?” I press, needing him to keep going and not to fall back into the impassive state he was in before.
