Chapter Eleven
Raven slipped into the house to grab some dance CD’s from her room, but she paused as she passed the room Nick shared with Adam. Nick was kneeling in the middle of the floor, his head bowed, his lips moving silently. His hands trembled as he shaped the small charm, ice flowing from his fingertips as he worked the copper wire. Raven recognized the symbol shaped like a fancy question mark. Nick was defending himself against something – whatever against, only he knew. He fixed the charm to a string of leather and then slipped it over his head. Then he buried his face in his hands and began to cry.
Raven’s mouth fell open. As far as everyone knew, Nick had never cried. He was that kind of guy. One could believe that sobbing and blubbering like a baby just wasn’t something he’d do. Nothing ever touched him…But he was hurting now. Raven turned to leave, only to smack into Adam. The rest of the Circle was
stirred from the den by the sounds of Nick’s muffled sobs.
“Raven –!” Adam began, but she slipped by him and ran, vaulting out the window through which she’d entered.
It was almost midnight when the window slid up and a dark shadow slipped inside
the house.
Raven stole silently down the carpeted hallway to Nick and Adam’s room. She inched open the door silently and peered in through the darkness. The whole
Circle was crammed into the room, presumably to comfort Nick. Cassie and Adam were in each other’s arms on the floor. Suzan and Deborah were on a mattress in the corner. Diana, Melanie and Laurel were on the bed. The twins were in the closet, their feet sticking out, and Sean was huddled in a corner,
snoring softly. Nick was sprawled out nearest to the door.
Raven felt a wrench in her chest when she saw the tear stains on his face. All her nightmares of love were coming alive before her eyes as she gazed down at the boy who was her soulmate.
Nick, tough and manly with his lean, hard body and love for fast cars. Nick, so cool and distant, icily handsome with a face like a perfectly carved ice sculpture, his dark eyes so dark and devoid of emotion. Nick, angelic in
sleep, lashes dark against his tear-stained cheek. Nick, seductive as silver, deadly as a cobra, yet vulnerable like a hurt child beneath it all. A stubborn, fighting child.
Raven had never been so confused. How could an emotion so wrong feel so right? She was torn between what she had to do and what she could do. She wouldn’t be able to deal with it much longer.
After staring at Nick for a long time, she knew what she had to do. She went into the kitchen and got a piece of paper. Briefly lighting a candle, she
wrote a quick note on it, signed it and folded it up. She crept back to the room and slipped the note beneath Nick’s hand where he would see it when he woke up. She then went to the room she shared with the other two and quickly
packed her duffel bag. She leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on Nick’s forehead, turned, and took the long walk back down the hallway. She glanced
around, taking everything in for a last time before she slipped out the window
and slid it shut.
Nick opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was the folded paper beneath his
hand. He sat up and unfolded it with trembling hands. His eyes scanned the
words without his mind registering them, and tears filled his eyes. He blinked them away and read the words again.
-Nick-
Didn’t want to wake you up when I came in to say good-bye last night.
-Raven-
He re-folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket so the others wouldn’t
see. It was all he had left of her. He stood up, drying his eyes with
the back of his hand.
There came a scream from outside. Adam ran to see what the problem was. Diana was standing at her door, staring at the note taped to it.
“What’s wrong?” Adam asked.
“Raven – she’s…” Diana turned to Nick, her eyes full of tears.
“Gone,” he finished flatly. Then he walked to the kitchen to get himself some breakfast. Melanie cringed as she heard a plastic cup bounce off the tiled floor
followed by a curse.
Nick returned to the den with a glass of milk and a handful of pumpkinseeds.
“Don’t you care that Raven’s gone?” Suzan asked.
Nick brushed past her and went into his room.
“Don’t you?” she pressed.
Diana and Laurel waited to hear his reply.
“She doesn’t, why should I?” Nick retorted. He emerged from the bedroom
with a new change of clothes. “Bathroom’s mine.” He slammed the door behind him.
“This isn’t good,” Adam said grimly.
“It’s his way of coping,” Melanie pointed out.
“It’s not necessarily right,” Cassie disagreed.
“Henderson!” Diana shouted.
“Which one?” came the reply.
“Both of you,” Diana answered. “Go down to that AJ guy’s place and see if Raven went there. Go, now!”
The brothers nodded and loped off.
Nick stepped out of the bathroom, clean and freshly dressed.
“The rest of you had better hurry if you want to get to work on time,” he said.
Suzan darted into the bathroom right before Deborah could in and shut the door
quickly.
“Suzan!” Deborah fumed.
“Can it,” Suzan shot back. Deborah gritted her teeth and turned away.
The porch door swung open, Chris and Doug coming in and tracking sand across the
floor. Laurel groaned.
“Raven wasn’t there, and AJ’s at work. Trey
was down there. Says no one’s been by all night,” Doug reported.
“Maybe she’ll be at work,” Chris added.
“We’ll see.” Cassie sighed and turned away.
It was early in the day. The sun had only been up for a few hours. Of the few
people that were actually in the city that day, none of them paid any attention
to the girl standing at the mouth of an alley, half obscured in shadow. She watched, eyes as intent as a hawk, a group of three people clustered on the sidewalk just outside the Safeway where five teenagers were working.
Two boys and a girl, with a vague family resemblance. That didn’t matter. What
mattered was that they were murderers, all three of them. They had gotten away with the first series of killings, twelve people in all. That was the first and last time. The next twelve would live. She would protect her Circle. If they did a single thing, she would kill them. She’d done it once, she could do
it again.
She reached into her jacket, her fingers toying with the hilt of her blade. She could use it well, and she wouldn’t hesitate to if the need arose.
The three of them were planning to kill again. They believed they would get away with it. She could read one word that was said over and over again, the
word that curved the girl’s lips now as she gave a slow, evil smile.
“Tonight.”
There was another weapon that she had. She didn’t like using it, but she would, if she had to, she would. The five teenagers in the store peered out
the window anxiously, their eyes dark. They were saying the same word.
“Tonight.”
Tonight it would be, then.
There was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” AJ Robbins grumbled. The knock came again. He pushed his chair back
from his desk and crossed the room in a few quick strides, yanking open the
door.
“What do you - Dove?” He stared at her for a moment before pulling her into the office and closing the door behind her. She plunked herself down on a nice comfy chair opposite his desk.
“What are you doing here?” AJ asked.
“Well, stuff at ‘home’ wasn’t going great so I bounced,” Raven answered.
AJ sat on the edge of his desk opposite her. “Your coven? Isn’t deserting
them punishable by death?”
Raven avoided answering for a minute, surveying the large office approvingly. “Nice place you got here,” she commented. “No, it’s not punishable by death, especially now that they have no one in line to replace me. They’ll do anything to keep me because they need a full Circle.”
“So where did you get this new coven, anyway?” AJ asked. They’d always been really open about Raven’s being a witch.
“It’s not mine. Cassie and Diana are the leaders,” Raven replied. “I met them
when I moved into Aunt Geraldine’s old place on New Salem Island.”
AJ nodded absently, then his head snapped up and he stared hard at her.
“New Salem Island?” he echoed. “Where the cult came from?”
“Yeah, that’s us,” Raven answered nonchalantly, toying with the hilt of the blade strapped to her wrist beneath her jacket.
AJ stared at her. “All those murders…”
“We didn’t do them, but because everyone on the island is afraid of us, even the
cops are buying the hunters’ story.” Raven rolled her eyes. “Superstitious idiots. We didn’t kill Kori and we - well, we did kill the principal, but he wasn’t really a principal and he was already dead.”
AJ frowned at the last part. “I don’t want to know,” he muttered, waving her explanation aside. Then he looked at her again. “You’re still in school?”
Raven nodded. “Well, we dropped out, but I got to see three and a bit months of my junior year. Cassie and Sean are juniors, too. The rest are seniors.” Raven grinned. “Nick’s a junior and a senior.”
AJ gave her a funny look.
“Never mind,” Raven said, rolling her eyes again. “Listen, can I crash at your place for a couple of hours before I…do some stuff…and then leave?”
AJ nodded. “Sure, Trey should be down there holding down the fort.” He
reached into his pocket to hand her his house keys, then stopped. “By the way, some kids from your high school came around looking for you.”
Raven turned wary. “What were their names?”
“There was a guy called Jordan, one called Logan and one girl called, um, Porsche?”
Raven laughed. “You probably mean Portia.”
AJ shrugged. “Sounded like the car to me. But they asked for you as Dove.”
Raven’s eyes widened. “No one at school knew me by that name, not even the new principal who let me register.”
“Thought you might want to know. Said they’d see you around,” AJ said.
“What did you tell them about me?” Raven asked.
“Said that you weren’t here, that you were probably at work,” AJ answered.
Raven cursed. “Probably why they went to the store.” Then she frowned. “They didn’t ask about the others?”
AJ shook his head. “Nope. Some of the other kids looked like they wanted to ask some stuff, but the Porsche girl hustled them out, muttering something about Uncle Billy.”
Raven was surprised. “Don’t know any Uncle Billy. Thanks, man.” AJ handed her his key and she headed out of the office building.
“Oh yeah, and Mr. Robbins, thanks a lot,” she added on the way out with an
overly-sweet smile.
AJ gritted his teeth and glared. He hated being called that. Raven laughed and sauntered away.
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