“Can we drive? That moving me around thing with the air made me sick when Kya did it.”
“But not when Zee did it,” she says, still studying me.
I don’t respond. Maybe it has something to do with me “resonating” or whatever. Doesn’t matter. None of it does. If I’m leaving this world, no explanations are necessary.
“I have a car at my hotel. Unless they’ve towed it.”
She nods, and I follow her out. We both walk in silence down the stairs. Zee is nowhere to be found, which isn’t too surprising. The others only give me awkward glances before looking away. It’s not like I know them, so no sad goodbyes are warranted.
“I’ll be back,” Ella tells them, forcing envy to rise within me. No one is telling her what to do.
“I’m coming with,” Kimber says before excusing herself from their group.
Gage grabs her and kisses her, telling her to be careful.
“I’ll be with Ella. No worries,” she promises, kissing him again before finally joining us.
“I’ll drive,” Ella states.
Without protest, I get in the back seat of a SUV with solid black tinted windows.
When we reach my hotel, I groan. My rental car has been towed or Marilyn got rid of it.
“It’s not a big deal. We’ll give you a lift to Shiloh. It’s a few towns over, which will hopefully be far enough away to keep Zee from coming after you,” Kimber says with an encouraging smile.
I slink back in the seat, once again not arguing, as they drive us away from the town that shattered my world and made it seem so unimportant by comparison. Kimber and Ella try to start conversations with me, but I just continue staring out the window, watching the trees pass us by. There’s not much else outside the city limit.
“Will you erase my memories?” I ask hopefully, finally breaking my silence, even though I still keep staring outside.
The quietness that ensues answers even before Kimber says a word.
“We can’t. Magic won’t work on you, and even if it did… It wouldn’t be smart to leave you unaware of your surroundings now that you’ve resonated. You could accidentally hurt someone. Or Zee could come for you and…”
Kimber lets the words trail off, and my eyes finally dart to meet hers.
“You think I’d kill him?”
Her lips press together for a moment, like she’s searching for the right words. “I think you’d panic if you didn’t remember him. We’re leaving you with anointed weapons for your own safety. I think… I think we love Zee enough to be cautious. And I think you care enough about him to feel guilty if you accidentally hurt him.”
My eyes shift back to the window where the woods seem far less complicated than the inside of this vehicle. The air is full of awkward tension, unwanted answers, and unasked questions, and it’s giving me a headache.
Something flickers in the distance, and my eyes narrow. A red flash is all I see seconds before the car is spinning out of control. My stomach hits my throat, and my seatbelt latches onto me, painfully holding me in place with an iron grip, when the car flips and begins to roll.
My head flops around, and I grab the door, trying to stabilize myself more. My screams are the only ones to fill the air, and I taste blood in my mouth when something heavy from the floor pounds me in the face.
We finally skid across the road on our hood, and sparks fly out from the screaming metal. I dangle and try to see something other than a harsh blur of motion, but it’s pointless.
The metal groans and the vehicle rocks when it slams into something that forces us to stop abruptly, jarring me even more. To twist to see Ella and Kimber, I have to pull my hair back like a curtain, since I’m still hanging upside down.
They both look… asleep? Their seatbelts are on, holding them in place, and they’re not bleeding like me. Neither of them was wearing a seatbelt when we left. Neither was I. At least I don’t think so.
I thought they were immortal? Why the hell are they passed out?!
I can’t get my voice to work, possibly because it’s too scared and stunned to cooperate, so I can’t yell at the sleeping beauties up front.
But voices do fill the silence around us, and a queasy sensation slams into me.
“You could have killed her,” a voice hisses. “We need her alive.”