Moonset

“Hey, enough of that,” I said easily. “Don’t take it out on Quinn. Why don’t you go into the living room and curl up on the couch? Take a little nap or something.”

Without another word, Bailey got up from the kitchen island and headed into the living room.

Mal shrugged and followed her. When they were both gone, I looked in Quinn’s direction. “I guess it’s been a rough night for everyone.”

“Keep an eye on them,” he said, watching the direction they’d disappeared in. “Just in case.”

“Just in case of what?” I could feel last night’s frustration rearing up again. Quinn kept trying to take over, to edge me out of the way. But it wasn’t his job. He wasn’t the one who’d still be here in six months, looking after Bailey and the rest. I had to do it.

He held up his hands. “Just … in case. Let me know if anything’s off.”

“We’re. Fine.” I said, and that was the end of that.

Cole trudged over about an hour later, around the same time that Jenna graced us with her presence. Jenna and I were the only ones in any semblance of a good mood, although mine was more coffee based than anything else.

The five of us watched television in the living room for a few hours, Mal dozing in one of the recliners. Jenna tried on several occasions to start up a conversation with Bailey, but Bay was having none of it.

“So we’re just supposed to stay in the house all day?” Jenna asked, turning towards me after the latest attempt to talk to Bailey failed. What’s with her? she mouthed.

I had no idea what to tell her about Bailey, so I just looked away. “Yeah, for a couple days maybe. They’ve got extra Witchers coming into the city I guess, and they want us to stay out of the way.”

“I’ve left the house lots of times,” she said thoughtfully. “And I haven’t had half the problems you have. Why’s he so focused on you?”

Ash had summed it up perfectly earlier. If you want to get to the others, you go through

Justin. Maybe that meant he’d read our files. Or he’d been closer than we thought all along.

Someone had brought that spellbook into the house, and with the amount of Witchers in the neighborhood, someone would have noticed a stranger.

Was Bridger hiding in plain sight?

“I’m just extra annoying,” I offered, and Jenna made a noise of agreement.

No one seemed very active. We all just kind of dozed in front of the television. I curled up in one of the arm chairs, Cole sprawled around my feet. It was late afternoon by the time my yawning became uncontrollable, and I went for a coffee refill. Just need more caffeine. I don’t know why I was so insistent on staying up, but I wasn’t going down without a fight.

Jenna followed me into the kitchen. “You should get some sleep. Just an hour or two. You look terrible.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m not even tired.” I think I was a step beyond tired. Exhaustion had passed me by entirely and now I was running on nothing but coffee and stubbornness.

Bailey craned around in her seat. “You should sleep, Justin.”

“I don’t need to sleep,” I insisted.

There was a weird tension in the room. Jenna watched me, looking like she was trying to make up her mind about something. Finally she nodded, then shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “At least take a shower. Five minutes. You look like hell.” She grabbed down a bowl, a box of cereal, and the milk out of the fridge, setting it up on the counter like some sort of self-serve station.

“Would you guys just stop? Seriously.” Part of me was worried about leaving them in the house with Sherrod’s book in my room. Did I give it away somehow? Did they know?

“You stink,” Cole said flatly, from his spot spread out on the floor. A chorus of agreements (or grunts in Mal’s case) followed.

“Fine, I’ll take a shower,” I snapped.

Once I was under the spray, and I could feel the tension of the last twenty-four hours draining out of me, I had to admit that maybe it was a good idea. I was still only in there for about ten minutes, but it was enough time to pull myself together, and figure out what to do next.

I came out of the bathroom, dried and dressed even if I was still a little damp. I got as far as my room before I realized just how quiet the house had gotten.

“Jenna? Bay? What are you guys doing?” I called down the stairs. The house was silent. Still.

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. I dropped my towel and dirty clothes and flew down the stairs.

No no no no no. I went through the living room, the dining room, and finally the kitchen. The chairs were still pulled out, but each of them was empty. “Quinn!”

The milk was on the countertop, turned on its side. Most of it had already spilled out, and trickled down onto the floor, but there was still a steady plop plop plop. “Quinn!” I shouted, as my eyes fixed on the edge of the table. Lined up like toy soldiers or a stack of dominoes were four cell phones. Their four cell phones.

Quinn came thundering down the stairs. “What’s wrong?”

I turned in a circle. “I–I just left for a minute. I just went to take a shower. Five minutes, max.”

“Justin?”

The others were gone. And it was all my fault.

Twenty-Six

“We knew it was coming. They made us promise not to avenge them. To lay down our arms.

Even on the last day, knowing they were embracing death, they were so tragically beautiful. I wish I could have gone with them.”

Lucinda Dale

Interview about the day Moonset surrendered

After that, the house was a whirlwind of activity.

“Someone disabled the guards,” Quinn said when he came back inside. There’d been two

Witchers sitting out in front of the house, unconscious when he’d gone to check. No one had seen anything, coming or going.

“He got into the house somehow,” I said. “He made them go with him.”

Quinn didn’t immediately agree with me, and the expression on his face suggested he thought the answer was something else.

“They wouldn’t have gone with him,” I insisted. “Not by choice.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know what you all think. That we’re just like Moonset, just waiting to turn evil and bring down the establishment. But we’re not! Jenna and the others wouldn’t do that!”

“Okay,” Quinn said, his voice calming. “Relax. We’re going to find them.”

There was a sick feeling in my stomach, and it was only getting worse by the moment.

Something was wrong. Really wrong. It was more than a hunch; it was like there was an intangible part of me inside, and it was all knotted up. Like my spirit was cramping.

I spent two hours pacing the downstairs waiting for news. Quinn left with one of the search groups, but each one came back later without news. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

Last night I was half convinced that I would never talk to Ash again. But now she was my only option.

“Justin?”