Jack wrapped his arm around Everly, and she leaned back against him as she watched her father’s face. She didn’t know what he was going to do—have a heart attack, fall down into the snow, burst into tears.
“Ch-Chelsea?” he asked, like he wasn’t sure it was his wife he was seeing walking toward him.
“Hi, Jimmy,” she said, stopping a bit short of him. She also seemed unsure of exactly what he might do. “How are you?”
“Is it really you?” he asked, his hand reaching for her, as if it did so of its own accord, but he didn’t trust his own eyes. “Are you really alive? And here?”
She nodded. “It’s really me. I’m alive. And I’m here. I have a lot to tell you. But, yeah, it’s me.”
“H-how… are you… here?” Everly’s dad had tears running down his face, and she didn’t know if she should leave and give
“So… how did it go?” Slate asked as Everly and Jack came back into Margot’s house.“It was… really weird,” Everly admitted, slumping down onto the couch. Jack sat down next to her and took her hand, but he didn’t say anything. Slate didn’t stir from his perch on the chair.She’d had some time to think about it. Everly had driven her dad’s truck behind Jack as he’d taken her mom’s friend’s truck back to him. After they’d dropped it off, she’d slid over to the passenger side and let Jack drive back to her mom’s cabin. The whole way, all she kept thinking about was how shocked her dad was and how he hadn’t reacted the way she’d expected him to when he’d seen her mom.But then… her mom hadn’t exactly come running with open arms either.None of it was what she had imagined it would be.“What do you mean by weird, E
By the look on Slate’s face, it seemed evident to Everly that he was about to disagree with what Jack was going to say. So it didn’t surprise her when he shook his head and said, “I really don’t think that the mages are going to be a problem, Jack.”“Why do you say that?” Jack asked. “They’re already working with the Council, clearly. Or at the very least, they’re on their side. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have tipped them off that we knew about them being there when Mrs. Harrison was injured.”Slate was shaking his head for most of the time that Jack was speaking, his dirty blond hair shaking around his shoulders. “But that was all petty stuff from a high school girl with a crush who was trying to get back at you for not going to a dance with her, right? So… there’s no reason to think that she has any way of organizing a clan of witches against us. They’d be stupid to organize ag
Everly felt a cold chill go down her spine at just the mention of Maura’s name. “What do you mean, Jack?” she asked, picking up a dishtowel off of the counter and drying her hands. The lunch dishes would have to wait until later because she needed to hear what he had to say.He took a deep breath and leaned back against the wall near the wall, folding his arms. “That was Alyson,” he began. “She said… about thirty minutes ago, Maura showed up at our house, looking for me. My mom told her that I wasn’t there, and she said that we had a school project we were supposed to be working on, and that the school sent her to come and check on me. Mom said that I was at a doctor’s appointment or something like that, but Maura spent a good five or ten minutes talking to my mom about where I was and what was going on. I don’t know, but as she was leaving, the alarm sounded from the prison that the Council members had somehow manage
“What does the book say?” Everly asked Margot, afraid to hear what the older woman might have to say.Margot turned and looked at her, pulling her eyes away from Slate. “I don’t know,” she said.“What do you mean you don’t know?” Slate asked, making Margot swivel back around to look at him.“I don’t know what it says, but I’m sure that if it says that you can fix her, it also says how to undo it. If the book was worth taking from you, I guarantee that there’s a reason they wanted it, and if it was Maura who led the charge to get it, you have to think about why she would want it. What does Maura want more than anything?”“That’s easy enough,” Everly said, folding her arms as she pursed her lips together. She dropped her eyes to Jack’s shoes and then slowly raised them to his head. He shrugged. “She wants Jack.”“So… there has to be so
Sitting in her father’s truck between her parents, it seemed surreal to Everly that she was even in a situation where it was possible to be sitting there.It also seemed surreal that she was headed right back to the situation she’d been fleeing the night before on the back of Slate’s motorcycle.Yet, here she was, riding right back there, despite the fact that most of the people she trusted in the world thought it was a bad idea.But then, she also thought it was a bad idea that her father, who was driving the truck, was going.Slate had taken his motorcycle back, but he was going by road this time, using Margot’s directions to reach the closest route that wouldn’t make it so he could only travel about five miles per hour, the way that he’d had to drive to get there.Jack was sitting in the back of the truck, stewing. She knew he was angry over the fact that Everly was going back, but he was also angry that they’d ag
Alyson knocked on Grandma Genevieve’s house and waited for the old woman to call for her and Everly to come in. It only took a few moments for her soft, shaky voice to call, “Come in, come in!” as if it didn’t matter who it was knocking.Alyson poked her head in first. “Hi, Grandma Genevieve,” she said. “Can Everly and I come in?”Everly thought it was strange that she was even asking when they’d just been told that they could, but it was no surprise when Grandma Genevieve said, “Of course, dear. I’ve been expecting Everly. It’s nice that you could come with her. Please, come in, and have a seat.”“Thank you,” Alyson said, holding the door for her as Everly came through. Alyson closed the door behind her, and Everly instantly felt very welcome.The home smelled like chocolate chip cookies and flowers. The living room was cozy, and everything about it made her feel like she w
“Did you find out anything helpful?” Jack asked as Everly approached him. He had been hanging out, speaking to his parents, trying to get caught up on everything he’d missed while they were gone while she was off speaking to Grandma Genevieve, but it was difficult for him to stay focused because he kept thinking about her.He was worried about her. This entire situation was dangerous, and she would be better off at Margot’s house where she was safe, and now that her father was out here, too, where he was more vulnerable, Everly was going to be in even more danger because she would put herself in harm’s way in order to try to make sure that Jim was safe.“Yes,” Everly said with a nod. “We did find out something that will probably be very helpful—well, maybe. I guess it depends on how good your acting skills are.”Jack’s forehead wrinkled as he tried to figure out exactly what it was Everly was getting at. “What’s that now?” He looked from his girlfriend to his sister, who wa
The European Council was made up of eight wolf shifters from eight different countries, and when they got out of the SUV and stepped up into Jack’s yard, Everly found herself feeling almost as nervous as she had been on the night when she turned into a wolf shifter herself.Almost.Some of them looked extremely serious, like they were quite angry they’d been summoned there to help with this situation. Others looked almost humorous, and other different circumstances, she might’ve been tempted to laugh at their outfits of their strange facial hair, or the way they stared at everyone like they’d never seen normal looking wolf shifters before.But she stayed next to Jack with her hand in his and hoped that none of them yelled at her for being the root cause of all of this drama. Not that she could blame them if they did. At the end of the day, it really was all her fault, wasn’t it?Actually… it was really sort of her mother’s fault since she was the one who had been the vic