Hold Tight

“Need I remind you, you promised your date you wouldn’t be long? Promised,” he said again, stressing the word. “Your brother doesn’t have to die, but that woman’s time is up if you keep our deal or not. Eventually, she will leave the house, and I will be there. If she resists too long, hell will sick the hounds on her. You’re sparing her that torment.”

“Don’t make it sound like I’m a hero.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my hands over my hips. “What do I have to do?”

Caden was beside me. I hoped he felt winter’s nip through his dress shirt. “She had a witch cast a spell on the house.”

Smart woman, but not smart enough.

“Sorry,” I said flippantly, “I didn’t squeeze my pocket-sized book on wards into this dress.”

He handed me a slip of paper. “I need you to cancel the protection keeping me out and to get rid of the devil’s shoestring above the patio doors and in those pots. It’s the plant with the wide leaves.” He pointed to the large terracotta planters flanking the entrance.

“It’s dead.”

“Doesn’t matter. It still keeps out evil, and as charming as I know you find me, I’m a demon and therefore in the evil category.”

I bit back my sarcastic comment.

“Need I remind you again what happens if you break our deal?”

I shook my head and swiped at a tear that rolled down my cheek. “You’re not going to stroll in there in front of her kids, are you?”

“No. I’ll drive you back to the dance, which—” he glanced at the time on his cell phone “—if you hurry, will be within thirty minutes, and then I’ll come back. She’ll tuck the little ones in bed. Her family will think she passed in her sleep.”

I glanced at the paper. “This sucks.”

“What were you expecting I’d need your help with?”

“I don’t know.” I had been trying not to think about it. “You have a crappy job.”

He shrugged. “Hell has worse.”

I watched the mother with her children a moment longer. My heart broke knowing the boy and girl would be growing up with only a dad and that this family would never know just how far the woman had gone to give her daughter a second chance.

“You still suck,” I said.

With the exception of the Latin words that Caden had to pronounce first, the counterspell was simple enough. Casting it put the bitter taste of copper in my mouth, but I couldn’t find any positive emotions to help me fuel my powers. With the protection ward removed, the devil’s shoestring was the last obstacle standing between Caden and the woman.

I held a trembling hand out, hating myself at that moment and sorry I had learned how to summon things. Had I still been working on mastering the spell, the mom inside the house would have had at least one more day with her children. I glanced at Caden. He gave a nod.

With a heavy heart, I said, “Devil’s shoestring.”

When the cold, dried plant touched my skin, I torched it in blue flames.

I couldn’t stand to look at the woman a moment longer. “Can we go now?” I turned away from the family inside the house.

We drove in silence back to school.

Before stepping out of his car, I said, “Make sure the father is there before you…you know. The kids are too young to be home alone.” I handed him back his coat.

“I will.”

I jogged up the walk, the soft click click click of my heels lost in the noise coming from the gym as soon as I opened the doors. Isaac spotted me first and hurried over. Kaylee and Josh joined us and huddled close.

Isaac took my hands in his and looked me up and down. “What did you have to do?”

“Remove the protection on a building,” I replied. I couldn’t bring myself to say I’d helped take a mother away from her family.

Isaac studied me a moment. “That’s it?”

“Yeah, I’m his personal locksmith.”

“That’s not bad, right?” Josh asked.

I shrugged.

Kaylee rubbed my arm. “Want to talk about it?”

Sarah rushed over, saving me from having to answer. A few blond locks had escaped her elegant ponytail. Her cheeks were flushed from dancing.

“Why are you guys hiding in a corner, frowning like this is a funeral?” she shouted over the pop song blaring through the gym.

“We were just taking a break,” Kaylee replied.

“Well, break’s over.” Sarah grabbed my and Kaylee’s wrists. “Mark refuses to dance to anything with a beat, so I need you guys.”

I glanced at Isaac, who raised his shoulders as if to say, What do you want me to do?

Sarah dragged Kaylee and me through the crowded floor to where a group of our friends danced. We were jostled by people shimmying to the music. The song was too fast to slow dance and too slow to fast dance. I slid my feet a few inches left then right and swung my arms, but I couldn’t find my rhythm. I tried smiling, hoping the simple gesture would lift my spirits.

“I’m going sit this next one out,” I yelled so Sarah and Kaylee could hear me.

“Me too,” Kaylee said loudly.

Sarah frowned but shouted okay.

I headed toward the bleachers where Isaac and Josh were talking, but Kaylee stopped me. “Ladies’ room.”

I nodded.

Kaylee didn’t go to the restrooms near the gym, though. Instead she led us to the benches outside the coaches’ office.

She sat. “Okay, spill. And don’t you dare say it’s nothing, because you haven’t been the same since you got back.”

Desperately needing to tell someone, I lowered myself onto the cold wooden seat next to her and told her what I’d done. She was quiet for what seemed like forever.

“Hell would have collected her soul with or without you, and if you removing the ward spared her having hell hounds rip her apart—” Kaylee shuddered “—then, in a way, you did help her.”

My shoulders slumped forward. “Tell that to her family.”

“Madison, you couldn’t have saved her even if you wanted to. You know that, right?”

“I couldn’t save her, and I couldn’t save Natalie.”

She rested a hand on my leg. “But you did save Chase, and you made it so Reed can’t steal anyone else away from their loved ones.”

“Caden saved Chase,” I said, fidgeting with my rings. “And Reed wouldn’t have been here in the first place if I’d listened to Isaac.”

“If I remember correctly, Isaac didn’t come right out and say just how dangerous the Fae can be.”

I twitched a shoulder.

Kaylee sighed. “Nothing I say is going to make you feel better, is it?” She glanced over her shoulder toward the doors to the parking lot and then back at me. “Want to get out of here? We’ll pick up some chocolate peanut butter ice cream and make it a girls’ night. Eat junk food and watch bad movies until we forget our problems.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a set of keys I recognized as Josh’s. “I’ll drive.”

Her offer was tempting, but I couldn’t let Kaylee cut her evening short because of me, and I couldn’t ditch