Something Witchy This Way Comes: A Jolie Wilkins Novel (29 page)

I opened my mouth, about to ask her what the hell was going on, when I felt the box begin to quake back and forth. I lost my balance and nearly toppled into Bryn. She grabbed my shoulder and righted me.

“Get on the floor!” she screamed, and threw herself down at the same moment I did. I covered my ears with my hands as explosions rang through the air. The box felt as if it were being tossed this way and that, like we were riding a cork through a turbulent ocean. On the floor, I noticed two enormous bolts in the steel, which must have been holding the box in place, otherwise we would have been launched to Kingdom Come.

I wasn’t sure how long the box rocked back and forth or how long the explosions continued to echo through the air, but as soon as it was finally silent, I turned to face Bryn.

She calmly smiled, shaking her head as she said, “Don’t say I never did you any favors.”

After another few long moments of silence, I figured the destruction was over. Bryn was staring at me with the same pensive expression, as if both of us were waiting for the other to make the next move.

“What do you think?” I asked as I felt my heart rate slow down.

She shrugged but her eyes were still wide. “I think it’s over, whatever ‘it’ was.”

I nodded and started to stand up, leaning against the steel wall to get my balance. Then I glanced at Sinjin’s still form lying on the floor. He looked like he was sleeping, but as I eyed him, I noticed that his fingers were beginning to twitch. I watched his lips tremble in sync with his twitching fingertips. “I think he’s waking up,” I said, looking up at Bryn. “What was in the syringe?”

“Charmed blood,” she answered as she studied Sinjin in a detached way. She looked up at me again and, noticing my expression of wonder, explained, “It’s a way to freeze them for a few minutes.” She looked down at him and exhaled, shaking her head, no doubt
still shocked that she’d just saved one of her enemies. “Yep, he’s coming out of it.”

Sinjin opened his eyes and blinked a few times, apparently surprised to find himself encased in a steel box. He was on his feet in the flash of a second and his startled eyes rested on me and then Bryn. Before I could say boo he had Bryn by the throat, her legs suspended in the air as he held her against the wall.

“No, Sinjin!” I screamed, hurling myself against him.

I could see the confusion in his eyes as he studied her. Even though his fangs were fully deployed and ready to sink themselves into her carotid, he hesitated and appeared to be restraining himself.

She glared at him, but I could tell she was afraid. “Get away from me,” she seethed in a voice that was cold and calculating, albeit somewhat muffled, given the fact that his hand was wrapped around her throat.

Sinjin just continued to study her intently. Then he licked his lips as if recalling her taste. “You look and taste like Jolie.”

Bryn wrapped her hands around Sinjin’s, trying to loosen his hold around her neck, but it was futile. He finally loosened his grip, apparently to allow her to breathe. She inhaled deeply, relief flooding her face, then focused on him again and frowned. “That’s because I’m her sister, you moron!”

As soon as she said she was my sister, even more surprise flooded Sinjin’s face, followed by that devil’s smile I was so relieved to see again. He still made no move to release her. Instead, he looked at me and raised a brow. “Is this true?”

I nodded. “Yes, Sinjin, it is,” I said, taking a deep breath.

“Poppet’s sister,” Sinjin said and chuckled, shaking his head as he took Bryn in. He apparently liked what he saw because he licked his lips again.

“Stop looking at me like that, dickhead,” Bryn spat out.

Sinjin threw his head back and erupted into a hearty chuckle. “The very same vivacity.”

“Hey,” Bryn said, turning to face me. “Can you tell your ‘friend’ to put me the hell down?”

I glanced at him and shook my head. “Sinjin, she just saved your life.” And although I had to swallow my pride, I looked at Bryn and said, “Thanks for … what you did.”

“She saved my life?” Sinjin asked. His eyes were piercing and deadly when they returned to Bryn. “As I recall, she was attempting to kill me only moments ago.” I assumed he was referring to the sunlight barbecue.

I nodded, but didn’t get the chance to speak. Bryn took it from me. “And I wish I’d succeeded!” she railed at him. She was still kicking out with her legs, trying to get him to release her. He just pushed the weight of his body into her middle, which instantly stopped her.

“Interesting,” he said, eyeing her bust.

Bryn shot daggers at him with her fiery eyes. “Let’s get one thing straight, bloodsucker, the only reason I did what I did was to get my dumb-ass sister out of the building before it blew up around us.” She narrowed her eyes as if zeroing in on her adversary. “And I have no freaking idea what she sees in you.”

I didn’t even flinch at the name-calling. I was grateful to her, because for whatever reason, she
had
saved Sinjin from dying. As far as I was concerned, that was all that mattered.

“And you allowed me to feed on you?” Sinjin continued. He looked amused now, as if toying with her, playing a game of cat and mouse.

Her lips were tight, her jaw even tighter. “Well, it wasn’t like I could ask her to do it, considering the fact that she’s pregnant.”

I felt my stomach drop as Sinjin’s gaze landed on me. His surprise instantly gave way to hurt as he asked me, “Pregnant?” in a hollow tone.

I sighed, long and hard, but before I could respond, he released his hold on Bryn and she fell to the ground. Righting herself immediately, she pushed away from him and started for the door to the steel cell, rubbing her throat as if it pained her.

“We don’t have time for this crap,” she said, shaking her head at me, careful to ignore Sinjin. It was more than obvious that she was afraid of him. “We need to find out what the hell just happened.”

That was when I realized Bryn had no clue that Rand and my people had come for me, much less that war was on the horizon. The battle was brewing. She apparently hadn’t read my mind as well or as often as I’d guessed. Knowing she was still first and foremost my enemy, I said nothing. I decided to keep that particular bombshell to myself.

Bryn scanned her wrist across the face of the steel door locking mechanism and it responded immediately. She pulled open the sliding lock and pushed the door open. I heard her gasp in horror when she took
in the wreckage outside. The lab was gone, and in its place there was a huge pit that went at least five feet into the ground. It was singed black, and all sorts of refuse littered the enormous hollow. Pieces of concrete, furniture, and paper were scattered in the wind. It looked like a meteor had crashed into the earth right in front of us.

“It’s all gone,” Bryn said as she looked around in utter disbelief. She leaned down to use the edge of the steel box as support, and dropped herself into the pit. “Everything we’ve worked for. Gone.”

Suddenly realizing she wasn’t alone, she took a deep breath. Then, facing us both, her expression hardened. Before she could address either of us, however, a huge flare lit up the night sky behind a patch of pine trees that stood about fifty feet away. It was a magic cloud, bathed in all the colors of the rainbow. Somehow, I knew it was Mercedes.

Bryn watched the blaze with surprise, then her eyebrows furrowed and she turned to me with an expression of shock and suspicion. “They’ve come for you,” she said simply.

I just nodded as Sinjin materialized behind Bryn and grabbed her by the arms, pulling her into him. At that moment all three of us knew she was no friend of ours, regardless of the fact that she was my sister. She was a Lurker. And now, since we were at war, she was our prisoner.

She tried to fight Sinjin, attempting to free herself from his hold, and then closed her eyes. I was immediately reminded of the self-defense lessons she’d been giving to people in the camp. She was in the process of metamorphosing or dissolving or something equally
bad for Sinjin. And all I knew was that I wasn’t about to let that happen.

I focused on her and imagined all my power roaring into her, sucking her abilities into the center of my being, disarming her, as it were. I could feel her power flowing into me. It was as if I’d been struck by lightning—my entire being seemed to buzz with the intensity of her power. Luce was right; Bryn and I were incredibly potent and, together, I had to imagine we would be almost unstoppable.

“Enough!” she screamed, winded as she drooped forward. “You’re going to freaking well kill me!”

I swallowed hard and opened my eyes. I didn’t say anything, I just watched her glare up at Sinjin as she panted. “I should have killed you when I had the chance,” she seethed.

He chuckled in response. “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, is it not?”

I hopped down into the pit, since there wasn’t any way around it. Sinjin had already forced Bryn halfway through the crater when she collapsed. “Are you all right?” I asked.

“Yes!” she railed back at me. “I just have no energy left, thanks to you!”

Relieved that she wasn’t seriously injured, I watched Sinjin reach down and heft her over his shoulders as he started forward again. Another blast of light lit up the night sky. The closer we came to the edge of the crater, the louder the sounds of screaming and fighting. Growls of werewolves, the gnashing of teeth, and the squealing of otherworldly creatures provided the soundtrack to the explosions of magic that rained all around us.

Rand!
I thought, no longer caring who could hear me.
Where are you?

But there was no response. I closed my eyes and concentrated harder, sending out the feelers of my bond to figure out where he was and if he was all right. But I could feel nothing.

Rand, please answer me!

Still no response. It was as if our telepathic bond had been destroyed. I felt my heart drop. Something hollow and panicky started brewing within me.

Is he alive? Is he hurt? Why isn’t he answering me? God, what if something happened to him?

But I refused to dwell on the what-ifs. I had one goal in mind and that was to survive. I had to keep my baby—our baby—safe.

“You will never be one of us,” Bryn said as she eyed me angrily.

I shook my head, shocked that she could even think I wanted to be. “I never wanted to be one of you and I never will want to,” I spat back at her.

She was silent then, perhaps realizing it would be best for her to keep her mouth shut. As we worked our way through the crater, around the piles of rubble and refuse, the sound of fighting and flashes of light became more frequent and much louder. We reached the end of the pit and found ourselves faced with a wall of dirt and debris. With Bryn held to his shoulder, Sinjin grabbed my hand and pulled me into him. A moment later we materialized on the opposite side of the crater. We were still ensconced in the snug harbor of the forest, hidden from the battle that raged on around us.

I felt my stomach tightening as I witnessed what
was happening. We were outside the open pasture that led to the dwellings of the Lurkers—to A, B, C, and D Streets. As I scanned the perimeter, it seemed that almost every house was ablaze. A third of them had already been burnt to the ground. People ran this way and that, screaming as they fought among one another, some falling to the ground as others pressed forward. Chaos reigned supreme, and I didn’t know where to look because there was so much carnage around us.

“I have one favor to ask,” Bryn suddenly said from her position above Sinjin’s shoulders. Her eyes were wide and there was something in them that hinted at a deep sorrow. “Let me save our children.”

I gulped hard. I had forgotten there were children in this compound. Of course there were. There was no way I could deny her that request, not when I was carrying my own child within me.

“How will we find them?” I asked.

“They live in Building 100,” Bryn answered. It struck me as odd that the Lurkers would separate children from their parents. But I was relieved, in a way, because it would make the job of locating them easier.

“I can walk,” she said, glaring at Sinjin. He dropped her on the ground unceremoniously, and after a few seconds of flailing around like a newly born giraffe, she was on her feet, staring daggers at him. Then she faced me. “We need to evacuate them into the storage facility, which is belowground.”

I turned toward Sinjin. “I won’t let any children die, Sinjin,” I said simply.

His expression was hard. “I am your protector. Therefore, wherever you go, I go.”

I just nodded, taking it to mean that he would assist me, us. I nodded at Bryn. “Let’s go.”

She started forward, but before she could take a step, Sinjin gripped her arm, turning her to face him. His face was stony, unreadable. “Let me make something quite clear to you,” he said, his voice icy cold. “If you so much as trip, I will end your existence.”

She glared at him, hands on her hips and fire in her eyes. “Understood.” She turned around, but he gripped her arm again, forcing her to face him again.