Page 140 of An Oath at Midnight

It flew open, and Chase screamed behind me. I quickly threw myself through and slammed the door behind me—and almost dropped to the floor when everything Chase had been feeling, physical and mental, slammed into me.

The images spun around my head, blood, so much blood. Chase trying to scream but unable to with his lips sewn closed and from the drug he’d been given. The pain was unimaginable, the kind that had you begging for death rather than endure a moment more.

I fell to the floor, shaking, and covered my head with my hands. It was too much. Oh, goddess, it was too awful.

“Magnolia?”

My name echoed around me, coming from a distance.

“Mags…baby?”

Bram.

His voice calling me back snapped me out of the despair, the horror. Time was running out. I needed to get the fuck up. Now.

“Maggie!” Bram’s voice was louder, more urgent.

I pushed off the floor and struggled to my feet, then forced myself to open my eyes, looking through Chase’s eyes, looking out at that room we’d found him in at Red.

I struggled to breathe through the agony and fear as the door opened across the room, forcing myself to keep watching as someone walked in and shut themselves in with Chase.

Ryan.

If it was only Ryan, if he was there on his own, this was all for nothing. I had nowhere else to go from here, there wasn’t enough time.

The door behind Ryan opened again.

I felt myself being pulled back through the one in Chase’s mind, the memory fading. I just needed another minute.

The second person closed the door and walked in. They were talking to Ryan. I could hear them, I could hear everything, but I couldn’t see them. My eyes wanted to close again when the newcomer stepped closer, but I forced them to stay open, to look into their eyes—

Then I was sucked back through the door and it slammed shut. A moment later I was yanked back to consciousness.

“Magnolia?” Bram said, shaking me.

I blinked, and the hospital room came back into focus.

“I didn’t think you were going to wake up,” he said hoarsely. “You scared the fuck out of me.”

I straightened, feeling sick to my stomach. “I know who it is. Who was working with Ryan.”

* * *

I held the phone tighter. “Where is she?”

Isaac hissed down the line. “I’m a bit busy right now, Magnolia. We’re outside your mother’s house. If you don’t want anyone to get hurt, you better come home.”

“Or better yet, you could break the enchantment spells you have over the other council members and your business partners and call them off.”

There was a beat of silence. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. Did you do it because you truly believed Willow was the killer, or are you in on it with Ryan and Maria?”

“In on what?” I could hear the hesitation in his voice.

“Ryan and Maria are the ones killing your friends. Did you agree to help them so you could get your hands on my sister’s store and the other properties, so your development could go through, or just because you hate my family, you sack of shit?”

“You’ve lost your fucking mind,” he snarled.