This Coven Won't Break - Isabel Sterling Page 0,59
Cal is trying to pull me back to my feet.
“Hannah, come on,” he urges, and his panic makes me wonder how many times he’s said my name. “We have to get out of here.”
I nod and stumble to my feet, grabbing the wall for balance when I slip in blood. Cal’s right. We can’t stay here. The Hunters could come back. Who knows if they’ve already called the police, hoping we’ll get caught inside with blood on our hands.
My stomach clenches, and when we hit the kitchen, I glance back. There are bloody footprints following me everywhere I go. Handprints on everything I touch. I hurry to the sink, scrubbing my skin raw, scraping under my fingernails.
“Hannah, we have to go.”
“I need him off me.” I scrub until my skin is burning under the water. “We need to call the police. We need to tell Archer.”
“We have to get out of here first.” Cal shuts off the water and grabs my arm, dragging me toward the door, past the table with Dr. O’Connell’s research.
I lunge for the three leather-bound books, but Cal holds me back. “What are you doing? We need those!”
“You’re dripping wet and covered in blood.” He says it so matter-of-fact he might as well have reminded me the sky is blue. “Let me take them.”
Cal releases me and stashes the books in his messenger bag. “All right, let’s go.”
When I don’t move, he grabs hold of my arm and tugs. I stumble forward, and the window I was standing in front of shatters. The wall behind me sprays bits of plaster into the air.
“What was that?” I cling to Cal as he guides us into a crouch.
The junior agent tightens his grip. “Don’t panic.”
“I’m not panicking.”
“You are, and I need you to focus.” Cal waits until I meet his eye. Another window shatters. A pile of chemistry homework scatters into the air. “They’re shooting at us, but we’re going to be okay.”
“In what world is this okay?” I reach for my magic, but I can’t find anything. Not even pain. Another window shatters as the Hunters—I assume they’re Hunters—try different angles. A tall shelf to my right breaks and falls over, spilling books across the floor. “Are those bullets? Why aren’t they shooting the cure at us? Why are they trying to kill us?”
Cal reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out two vials, one with an off-white color and the other pitch-black. He pours the white potion over both of us, and it settles against my skin like sand.
“What is that? What did you do?”
“I told you I would protect you.” He stoppers the white potion and puts it back in his bag. “Light will refract around us. It isn’t true invisibility, but it’ll make us harder to see.”
Another bullet ricochets past us.
“And that one?” I point to the black vial, my hands shaking.
“It’ll help us disappear.” Cal puts the messenger bag back over his shoulder and reaches out a hand. “Do not let go, no matter what. Understood?”
I grasp his outstretched hand tightly with mine and nod.
“Okay. Things are about to get really dark in here. Hold on.”
“What are you—”
A series of bullets rains into the house. Cal shatters the vial. Darkness blooms, spreading like ink through the air until the entire floor is filled with impenetrable shadows and there’s nothing left to see.
With only Cal’s touch to guide me, we escape the dead Caster’s house and disappear into the winding streets.
* * *
Why do they keep killing us?
It’s the only coherent thought running through my head. The only thing that isn’t a loop of blood and death and pain. Between his two potions, Cal manages to get us back to the hotel unseen, and while I shower and scrub every last bit of David’s blood from my skin, he calls Archer to explain what happened. I dress in fresh clothes in the steamy bathroom—hazy and opaque, just like the one where we found David—and Cal calls my mom to explain that I’m safe and that we’ll return soon.
What did we ever do to them?
Why do they hate us so much?
The questions swirl like twin cyclones as I climb into the too-soft bed and pull the covers all the way to my chin. I am un-tethered and barely clinging to the edge of a mental cliff, but Cal is focused. He paces the room as he waits for Archer’s instructions, and when the call finally comes, Cal leaves to handle things with Dr. O’Connell’s body.