Cursed In Love (The Adams' Witch Book 2) (5 page)

“I know as much as you do, Andrew. She was here during the middle of it, and then she was gone. I was a little preoccupied trying to save us from the evil witch to babysit your cousin’s stupid ass.”

Courtney’s cousin? Was he a Natural, too? How many of them were there?

He put a toothpick in his mouth and chewed on the end. “Your family doesn’t have the best reputation.”

“And yours does?”

His smile widened. “Better than yours.”

She shrugged. “Listen, I have no clue what happened to Courtney. I wish I did because I’m really getting sick of people asking about it. Plus, we’d love to hear what she has to say about partnering up with an evil force.”

Red circles bloomed on his cheeks.

“Wait.” Courtney grinned. “What were you saying about your family having a better reputation than mine?”

His eyebrows lowered, and he placed his hand against Jennie’s forehead. She struggled to get him off her.

“Hey!” I yelled. I ran over and pushed Andrew away.

He snarled. “You’re hiding something. Why won’t you let me in?”

Jennie wiped her forehead. “You’re supposed to ask nicely before you do that spell, asshole. Why would I show you anything?”

“If you have nothing to hide…”

“Screw you.”

His eyes narrowed. “I hear that didn’t work out for you the last time. Too bad, too.” He looked her up and down. “You’re cute.”

White and breathless, Jennie leaned against the car. We both watched as Andrew walked away with a swagger I didn’t understand. It sounded as if he believed he’d delivered the wittiest of all comebacks, yet I didn’t have a clue what he’d just said.

“What was that all about? Are you okay?”

I rested my hand on her shoulder, but she pulled away. “I’m fine.”

“Please don’t do that. We’re supposed to be working together. How am I supposed to figure this out with you when I have no idea what’s going on?”

“All you need to know is under no circumstances should you tell my brother what Andrew just did.”

She pulled her bookbag out and walked toward the front entrance of the school.

When things like this happened, she reminded me more of the palm reading witch I’d first met…secretive and borderline wacko.

Walking into school was like heading inside a Courtney shrine. She was a senior, like Jennie and I, but she was also captain of the volleyball team, head cheerleader, and a member of the student council. High Priestess or not, she’d set herself up to be at the top of the food chain for life with all of those accolades.

School had been quite an adjustment for me. Adams High class sizes were half of Miami’s. This town was small in every sense of the word. I would’ve been an outsider under normal circumstances, but my name had shot to fame due to Aunt Rose’s death.

Today was worse than that. Like every morning, groups of people hovered under the “Find Courtney” banner just inside the school. I was behind Jennie when she walked in and all eyes froze on her. Her body stiffened slightly and then she hurried off to English. Since I was right behind her, I knew what to expect. I walked in with my head high and even though I could feel their gazes on me, I didn’t stop. I kept going and walked right into Travis.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said.

I tripped back a few steps, and he caught me. “What are you doing here?” I hissed.

“Keeping an eye out for my sister. As I explained to you yesterday.”

His eyes raked me over and I hiked my bookbag higher on my shoulder. “But I don’t see her here. I see me. And you.”

“I figured she’d be with you.”

“She was until…”

His eyebrows raised. “Until…”

“Until she wasn’t. Now, unlike you, I have to get to class.”

I walked three steps and froze. Meghan Simms, Courtney’s volleyball team co-captain, stepped in front of me. “Hi, Sarah.”

Her gaze moved behind me and she smiled.

“Um, hi,” I said a little awkwardly. Meghan had never talked to me before.

“So, you’ve probably seen everyone looking at you. They called you and Jennie into the police station. What do they know about Courtney’s disappearance?”

Meghan’s eyes bore into mine. Even though she wasn’t being anything but nice, my body temperature spiked and my hands grew clammy. I felt as if I stood under a bright spotlight in the middle of a huge stage. “I’m not sure. They wanted to know what we knew. We told them, but it’s not like it changed since they asked us the last time.”

She stepped closer, and a warmth spread across my back, too, as if Travis had also taken a step toward me. I shuddered.

Meghan whispered conspiratorially. “We heard about the other girl.”

Travis fidgeted behind me and I tried to make myself relax. “I know. It’s terrible, isn’t it?”

“All of us girls are worried. We’re hoping there’s not this sicko going around kidnapping young girls.”

A deep, warm voice caressed my ear. “I doubt you have anything to worry about.”

Meghan’s cheeks flushed. “I hope you’re right.”

“I’m positive I’m right. I kind of have this disease where I’m always right about everything. Sometimes it can be a challenge.”

I wanted to roll my eyes but Meghan was eating it up. She giggled and then after giving Travis a slight wave, turned on her heel and walked away.

“That girl has some dirty thoughts.”

“And you would…” I spun. “Wait. You don’t know for sure, do you?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “You’ll never know, I guess.”

I peeked over my shoulder. Meghan whispered with a group of other girls. They looked over and giggled. Travis was right. They were most likely having a dirty conversation about him. He
was
something else.

“I wouldn’t trust her, though.”

I gazed up at him. “What do you mean?”

“This town is so whacked on crack. People say Salem is fucked, but this place is in another dimension. I don’t trust anyone here. Except for my sister, of course.”

I felt the same way and thinking about the conversation Jennie and I had in the car, I put our plan to work. “What do you plan on doing to keep Jennie safe?”

He spread his arms wide. “You’re looking at it.”

“But you think someone’s kidnapping Naturals, right? You can’t be around her all the time.”

He leaned back against a row of lockers. “I suppose you have a grand plan in mind?”

“We should find Courtney. That’s how we’ll figure out who’s doing this. We’ll go right to the source. If we find Courtney, we’ll find out who’s taking the witches.”

“I thought you were only worried about your Drakie-poo.”

Drakie-poo? Ugh, god. Just no. I shook my head. “I’m worried about Jennie too. She’s the only friend I’ve got right now, and she’s saved my ass more than once. It’s the least I can do to repay her.”

He looked at me, his eyes clouded over as if he was deep in thought. He touched my elbow briefly.

For whatever reason, I felt compelled to tell him how it helped me, too. “Besides, you’ll be helping Drake, too. We need to find Courtney to figure out the specific spell Mother Shipton put on him. Once we find that, Jennie thinks we’ll know more about how to break the spell.”

Travis smiled. “Thanks. That’s all I needed to know.”

He walked away, and I stood there shaking my head. I hadn’t planned on telling him how my plan helped me out, too. It just kind of came out. It must’ve been the beautiful green eyes.

Stupid hormones.

By lunch time, I wondered if I had a “Talk to me” sign on my back. Adams’ residents were coming out of hiding to ask me about Courtney. Even the teachers. Though they seemed friendly, their questioning had a slight undertone of suspicion. I didn’t like it.

I sat down at the usual lunch table I shared with Courtney when again, another girl stopped by to talk. When Jennie came up and let her lunch tray drop to the table, the girl skittered away.

Before I could ask her to teach me how to do that, Jennie frowned. “Do you want to tell me why my brother wants to meet us after school?”

I shrugged. “How am I supposed to know the inner workings of your brother’s mind?”

She pushed around the corn on her tray with her fork. “He told me he saw you this morning.”

“Well, yeah. I talked to him about trying to find Courtney together. Maybe it’s about that?”

She looked past me and grimaced. “Has everyone tried to talk to you today? It’s been so awkward.”

“Yes, that’s happening.”

She pushed her tray away. “I’m not a mind reader, per se, but I do believe they don’t trust us.”

Good to know she shared my feelings, and I wasn’t crazy. Well, if I was crazy, we both were. “I also sensed that so you’re obviously not a mind reader. Now, can we talk about that Andrew guy from this morning?”

Her face paled. “You didn’t tell my brother, did you?”

“I didn’t say a word, but I want to know. What did he do to you?”

“Sometimes you can see what people are thinking if you make contact with their body, skin-on-skin. I didn’t think Andrew had the ability to do that. It takes practice.”

“Can you do it?” I asked.

“Used to.” She wiggled her hands at me. “But not since I lost it.”

I cringed. Stupid question. “Sorry.”

“Me too. If I had the ability I’d brush past these people to see what they’re thinking. Without that, I only have my gut feeling and it’s telling me they’re suspicious of us being called into the police station. I mean, wouldn’t you be? Your friend goes missing and they keep asking two other people about it? That’s where my thoughts would go first.”

“Especially since we’re new here. They don’t trust us.”

“Of course not. They’ve all known each other for ages. We’re the outsiders.”

“Right, now quit trying to change the subject. Did Andrew read your mind? He said you were hiding something.”

“He’s an asshole. When you touch a witch’s forehead like that, you’re taking the information by force because it’s an easier way to read someone. I doubt he could tell if I was blocking him or not, which I was trying to do. He might just not have enough power. You’re never supposed to find information out that way from another witch, though. It’s disrespectful.”

“That’s why you don’t want me to tell your brother?”

Jennie nodded. “Travis would hunt him down and hurt him. He’s just a young kid, though. I’m not worried about it.”

“Young kid?”

Jennie colored. “I mean, generally speaking. He’s not as powerful as I was. He’s not even as powerful as Courtney was. Anyway, Travis is picking us up from school to go hang out like one big happy family. Joy.”

Travis’s Jeep was waiting for us as soon as the last bell rang. Jennie reluctantly climbed into the front seat as I got in the back. This ride was sweet. I smoothed my hands over the rugged black leather and peered in the small back compartment.

“You like?” he asked. “You don’t strike me as a car person.”

Jennie chuckled. “You wouldn’t think it by looking at her, but yeah, you could say she’s a car person.”

“Where’s yours then?”

“Mom took it away. A beautiful black Escalade.”

He made a face in the rearview mirror. “I prefer a manlier vehicle.”

I shrugged. “To each their own. I’d give my left pinkie for my vehicle back. Not that Mom would go for it.”

“Did she really mean all that stuff about going back to Miami?”

His question took me by surprise. Jennie hadn’t even asked me. “I don’t think so, but my mom’s weird like that. She’s the kind of person who wants things their own way. Anyway, she’s dropped it for now.”

Travis pulled out of the school parking lot and let the engine roar. I leaned back into the seat and felt giddy. The ride was rough, like you’d expect from a Jeep, but it was rough in all the right ways. I loved the rumble against my back and the power of it all. It would be just as easy to go rock climbing in this thing as it would be to drive seventy down a highway.

Travis caught my eye in the mirror and he smiled. I probably looked pretty dopey. I missed my truck so much. “Where are we headed?” I asked.

“To the park. I want to see where this all happened.”

I swallowed the hesitation that rose to the surface. I’d avoided the park as much as I could. In my head, my aunt didn’t really die there, only her body. But in my heart, it was hard to separate the two.

“We won’t stay long,” he reassured.

I nodded and leaned back into the leather seat, determined to enjoy the ride as much as I could.

Travis and Jennie chitchatted up front. Mostly about witch-type things I knew nothing about. They talked about family, about Travis’s coven, about Travis’s school. It turned out Travis was the head witch in his coven or High Warlock. High Warlock sounded terrible so there was no way in hell I was going to refer to him by that name.

I followed the lines of his face as he drove. He was an enigma, someone you’d be hard pressed to find every day, but other times, he was a regular guy just talking to his sister. His assholishness swept aside, he was nice, fun even.

He pulled the Jeep into an angled spot near Pentagram Park as I’d started calling it. What kind of town had a park shaped like a pentagram in its center?

Jennie let me take lead as we walked the steps we took that day. I remembered the feel of the salt canister in my hand, the way my heart thumped in my chest, as I recounted everything to Travis. He looked almost sorry I had to go through it again. When we got to the spot where my Mom hung from the cross and my aunt and I struggled rolled into the fire, I choked up.

Jennie put a hand on my shoulder and rubbed it. “It’s okay. We’re done now, right Travis?”

He nodded.

“I’m okay,” I said, shrugging her arm off. “What I never understood was, if the townspeople came out of their trances after Mother Shipton died, why didn’t Drake and Marlene? If the person who put the spell on someone dies, shouldn’t the spell break, too?”

Travis and Jennie exchanged a look. After a moment, Travis shrugged. “The only explanation I can come up with is that she must have been one powerful, evil witch to keep her binding spell going after she lived.”

Jennie sat down in the grass. “What if Courtney being alive is still keeping the binding in place?”