Heart of Vengeance (Alice Worth #6) - Lisa Edmonds Page 0,107

along with my anger. Just like Charles back home, she’d forced me to act against my will. My shields, tuned to the magic of my world, had done nothing to prevent her from forcing me to get into her jeep and put all of us—Malcolm, Daisy, and myself—at her mercy. I hadn’t even noticed or suspected she’d done it, which was worse because it proved just how dangerous her ability was. She could have nudged me to do or tell her anything, and I might have done so without thinking twice.

“Alice, I’m sorry,” Malcolm said, shooting Lucy a venomous look. “I had no idea. I wondered why you accepted the offer, but I figured you had a good reason. I should have said something, I guess.”

“You weren’t the only one who watched it happen.” I turned to look at Daisy. “So much for not letting her use her magic on me.”

Daisy put her paw on one of the bags from the roadhouse and stared back at me with golden eyes. Her motive for letting Lucy push me was clear enough: she’d wanted us to go with Lucy to the roadhouse to meet Ronan.

Malcolm could be forgiven for not understanding what had happened, especially because we’d had no idea at the time Lucy was capable of pushing, but Daisy’s choice to let Lucy nudge me into accepting a ride cut like a knife. I would never have expected that kind of betrayal from my own wolf.

Lucy was a Guardian, tasked with tracking down potential threats and solving mysteries, much like myself. I could understand her motives, though I firmly believed stealing someone’s free will was wrong, regardless of the reason.

Sick to my stomach and almost too angry to feel anything at all, I turned toward the window.

“Alice—” Lucy began.

“Just drive,” I told her, my voice toneless. “Don’t talk. Just…drive.”

Malcolm’s fingers touched my shoulder. I shrugged him off. He floated back away from me.

Lucy drained the last of her coffee and set her thermos in the cup holder. Daisy let out a little whine. I ignored them both.

Ronan’s Harley rumbled behind us. I wished I was riding on the back of his bike, so I could focus on the wind and sun on my skin, and not on the pain of having my will stolen yet again and the knowledge Daisy had permitted it.

My stomach growled. Damn it. I tore open another protein bar. If Lucy wondered why I was eating so much, she didn’t comment—which was good, because I was in no mood to answer questions or make polite conversation.

No one in the jeep said a word for at least an hour, when we reached the edge of a town called Walliston and found ourselves in the middle of a nightmare.

Like most little towns we’d passed through on our journey south, Walliston was small, picturesque, and home to several hundred inhabitants who lived in modest homes and worked in the same kind of short, squat office buildings we’d seen since our arrival.

Unlike those other towns, however, Walliston was now a ghost town—quite literally.

Our two-vehicle caravan rolled slowly down Main Street, past empty shops with broken windows, silent houses still shuttered and locked down for the night, and office buildings still dark in the afternoon because their employees had never come to work—at least, not in a form in which they could do their jobs.

Ghosts of men, women, and children wandered the streets, visible in our supe lights. Some wept, some screamed, and some flitted frantically, calling out for family members or friends. Most moved out of the way of our jeep, but others stood rooted in place and didn’t react even when Lucy drove slowly around them. Daisy whined when a ghost’s outstretched arm passed through her.

I checked my side mirror and saw Ronan still behind us, riding slowly in our wake. I might have been imagining it, but I thought the ghosts seemed to be giving him a wide berth.

“Oh, this is bad,” Malcolm breathed. “This is so bad.”

My dark magic rose and swelled like ocean waves in response to the lingering traces of power around us. The sensation was less like how my blood magic reacted to spilled blood, and more like the way proximity to a ley line energized my earth magic. I inhaled deeply. The scattered traces of dark energy promised power, if I just reached out and took it. I stifled the impulse, but the hunger remained.

Whatever had happened here, it wasn’t gravelings that did it.