Hold Tight

The temperature dropped again. The torrent froze solid from the ground up for as far as I could see, leaving Josh and me trapped in a smooth tube of ice. The grass became slick. I twisted, looking for any sign of Reed, and slipped. The next thing I knew, I was on my butt looking up at Josh.

“Happy now? We’re his hostages.”

“It’s not over yet.” Josh pulled me to my feet.

I brushed frost off my jeans. “We don’t have any other choice, Josh. You know it.”

Fine spider-like veins raced along the wall of our jail, producing thin cracks all around us. Chunks of ice exploded inward from our left. Josh and I ducked, arms over our heads, as debris pummeled our backs. Reed stepped through the hole created by the explosion, bow in hand, arrow drawn and pointed at Josh.

“No!” I jumped up, my boots slipping on the frozen ground, but I managed to stay on my feet. Reed didn’t even flinch. “Arrow!” I screamed, hand held in front of me, praying that adding the word to my desire would make the spell work.

An instant later, I held the arrow in my right hand. I chucked it to the ground behind me. While Reed reached over his shoulder and grabbed another, Josh threw a bolt of energy at him. I pushed out a surge of power and just managed to knock it away.

“What are you doing?” Josh barked.

“We’re not killers!”

“He’s the one with the arrows!”

“Bow!” I yelled. The bow disappeared from Reed’s hand and reappeared in mine. I looked at Josh. “Using your powers to kill will turn your soul black!”

“Then so be it!” Josh’s eyes narrowed, the sky darkened, and lightning cut a jagged line from the heavens toward Earth. Reed jumped backward just before it struck the ground where he had stood.

I dropped the bow and, with my hands raised in front of me, hit Reed with a burst of air, pushing him a few feet away from us. To Josh, I said, “I won’t let you kill him, Josh. He’s not worth an eternity in hell.”

“And I won’t let you risk a lifetime in Neverland!”

“Yes, you will.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Trust me, please.”

“Only if this fails.” Josh attacked Reed with another bolt of energy. Reed shouted a stream of words in a language I couldn’t understand.

Josh held another bolt. He’d just brought his arm back to launch it when a layer of ice slinked over his shoes and up his legs. Dropping the bolt, he tried to move, but before he could free himself, he became encased in a frozen shell.

Reed appeared next to me, and I quickly moved to the other side of Josh.

Reed leaned around him. “You may not have noticed, but Witch Boy can no longer protect you.”

“Release him!”

“So that he may attempt to kill me again? I think not.”

I ran my fingers over Josh’s ice-covered bicep. It was smooth and extremely cold. “If he doesn’t freeze to death, he’ll suffocate!” When Reed only chuckled, I yelled, “I kept him from killing you!”

“You ended our battle. Nothing more.” He held a hand out. “Come with me.”

The afternoon couldn’t have possibly gotten worse. Reed had managed to free his sister without stepping foot in our circle or near the door back to his realm, Josh looked like an ice sculpture, and I was stuck in the creepy section of the cemetery with the faerie I was supposed to avoid and half-dozen shadows that hadn’t been scared away by the supernatural fight. To add to my list of growing problems, now that I wasn’t battling Reed, it was all I could do to keep from trembling with a mix of want and dread.

Reed waited patiently for my answer.

“You’ve proven your magic is stronger than ours. Now, please, defrost him—” I pointed a quivering finger at Josh, then promptly shoved my hand in my pocket “—before it’s too late.”

“Is that a yes?”

I could barely think with Reed staring at me. His entire presence was mesmerizing. From his otherworldly looks to his intoxicating scent, all I wanted to do was give in.

“My family needs me,” I whispered, which was lame. My answer should have been Get lost.

I tried to warm the air, but Josh remained encased in ice.

Reed dropped his arm to his side. “Tell me this, at what point in your grand scheme to rid your world of me did you decide I was worth protecting?”

“I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to let a friend of mine risk his soul for me.” Yet by sparing Reed, I might have killed Josh, the guy who had been like a big brother to me.

“That right there is your downfall.” Reed paced closer, and I stumbled backward. Seemingly unfazed, he continued, “I will visit everyone you have ever loved, and they will meet the same fate as Witch Boy, starting with your father and brother. Then I will freeze this land, and I will make sure you are there to see it all.”

“Why are you doing this?”

He shrugged. “Isaac once threatened to ruin everything I loved. I’m merely doing to him what he failed to do to me.”

“If all you cared about was ruining his life, why pretend to be human? Why take a job with my father? Why not lure me to your realm before I realized what was happening?”

“I donned this appearance—” his body shimmered and transformed to the honey-blond-haired man whom I’d first met on my front porch “—to prove I could be adorable and gentlemanly, something my sister bet I couldn’t pull off, and the job with your father was to demonstrate how well I could blend in and make myself useful.”

“In the middle of ruining everyone’s lives, you’re playing Handyman’s Assistant to win a bet?”

“I do like to prove Rhoswen wrong, and my winning meant she couldn’t interfere in my business here.”

And I thought humans could be petty.

He held out his hand. “We can do this the easy way or, if you prefer, I can pop over to the movie theater and check in on your father and that spunky little brother of yours.” When my mouth fell open, he added, “Yes, I know where they are.”

I gritted my teeth. “Leave them out of this.”

He looked at his outstretched hand and then at me.

My gaze went to Josh. “Fix him first.”

“I can’t, but a kiss of summer will have him back to his old annoying self in seconds. Brea will take care of him as soon as we leave. I’m sure she didn’t go far.”

So am I. My eyes narrowed as I deciphered his words. “Like the flowers? He’s frozen in time, not frozen to death?”

“You spared my life. I spared his.”

“Josh, I promise Brea will fix you,” I said, not really knowing if he could hear me. With a heavy sigh, I placed my trembling fingers in Reed’s palm.

“You needn’t be afraid of me,” he said. With his free hand, he offered me his flask. “Drink.”

I bit my lips and shook my head. He hadn’t won, yet.

“It will make our travels more comfortable,” he warned.

I shook my head again and prayed we would head straight for the door before I changed my mind. He stuffed the flask into his back pocket and picked up his bow without letting go of my hand. “Do not say I didn’t warn you.”

Cold gripped me. A thousand needles stabbed at my veins as I gasped for air. I grabbed my neck with my free hand, choking. Death would have been more merciful than Reed’s magic. He stepped closer and snaked an arm around my waist.

“Next time, drink the wine,” he said, though his lips didn’t move.

There wasn’t going to be a next time if I had anything to say about it. But at the moment, I couldn’t say anything—I would have sworn Old Man Winter himself had reached down my throat and yanked my small intestine through my mouth. The cemetery vanished, and the next thing I knew we were standing in my kitchen.

I ran to the sink and threw up.

“We could have driven,” I said hoarsely, then vomited again.

“And give you time to call your boyfriend? No, thanks.”