The Ravens (The Ravens #1) - Kass Morgan Page 0,106

Vivi’s Big and Tiffany’s best friend. The phone rang a few times and then went to voicemail. “Shit.”

Vivi hung up and banged her head on the seat back, then flicked on her turn signal and took the exit toward Savannah.

Of course Scarlett wasn’t answering. Vivi hadn’t just hurt her—she’d betrayed her. After all this talk about how much she valued the Ravens and sisterhood, Vivi had gone right ahead and stabbed her Big in the back. She would have to figure out the best way to apologize and make things right later. At this moment, all that mattered was returning the talisman and rescuing Tiffany.

Vivi tapped her phone again, one eye on the road, and hit a different number.

Unlike Scarlett, Dahlia answered on the first ring. “How did it go?”

“I got the talisman,” she said, getting straight to the point.

On the other end of the line, the normally unflappable Dahlia inhaled sharply. “So your mother had it?”

“Apparently she’s the one who stole it from Kappa in the first place,” Vivi said, wincing with shame. “I can explain more when I get to the house.”

“There’s no time for that.”

“No time for explanations?” Vivi risked a confused glance at the phone screen.

“No, I don’t have time to go back to the house. I’m collecting the ingredients we need for the replicator spell. I’m about to call the rest of the sisters now.”

Something about the way she said it made Vivi’s heart beat a little faster, and her mother’s words echoed in her ears: You have no idea how many lives you’ll be risking. “We’re not going to actually give it to the person who stole Tiffany, are we?”

“Of course not.” Dahlia sounded insulted at the very suggestion. “With the talisman, we’ll have more than enough power to find Tiffany on our own. Trust me.”

Vivi did trust her; she trusted all the Ravens. They’d given her the thing she’d craved her entire life, the thing she’d always been missing: a home, a place to belong, and a real family, one that hadn’t spent years lying to her. “Where do you need me to go?”

“I’ll text you the location now. Just please, hurry. We’re running out of time.”

* * *

This time, Vivi had no trouble navigating the highway. The magic she’d conjured to find the talisman still flowed through her veins, making her feel powerful and confident as she zoomed toward the location Dahlia had given her. Vivi checked and double-checked the pin on the map Dahlia had dropped for her. But no matter how many times she reloaded the page, it still looked the same. Right in the middle of a forest, which seemed strange. But maybe the spell needed to be done in a place like this?

She took the specified exit and turned onto a narrow, two-lane road bordered by tall trees. It looked like Dahlia was sending her the back way to Kappa House, except that the pin seemed to be in the middle of the woods behind the house. She kept going for another few miles, until the pavement turned to a gravel road and the trees grew so thick, they blocked the light of the faintly glowing stars.

The road dead-ended at a tiny dirt parking lot. There were no other cars, and for a moment, Vivi considered waiting there for Dahlia. But the pin she’d dropped for her was about a half a mile from the lot. For all Vivi knew, Dahlia could’ve parked somewhere else and was already waiting for Vivi in the woods. She looked down at her phone to see if Dahlia had texted, but there was no signal. And there was no time to waste.

Vivi headed up a steep slope, stepping carefully around the rocks and roots as she made her way toward the place marked by the little dot on her phone screen. Night had settled around her; at first, she could glimpse tiny patches of the star-strewn sky through the thick tree branches, but as she traveled deeper into the forest, the sky seemed to vanish.

The Henosis talisman weighed heavily in Vivi’s pocket. Every step she took, she felt it tap against her thigh. A constant reminder of what she’d come here to do.

Westerly isn’t a safe place, not for people like you.

You don’t know what power does to people. You can’t trust any of those so-called sorority witches.

Her brain felt like it was playing a constant loop of Daphne Devereaux’s greatest hits, all the things she said to drag Vivi down, to