Legend of Witchtrot Road - By E.J. Stevens Page 0,44

through the strap.

He was being as gentle as he could, but I cried out when the knife final y made it through. Simon caught me in his arms and pul ed me out of the car, but his eyes were on Emma the entire time. He carried me to his borrowed car and set me in the front passenger seat. We needed the back seat for Emma.

Simon’s eyes flicked back to the wreckage of Emma’s car.

“Go to her,” I said. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.” I didn’t feel fine, but I kept that to myself. Simon went to help Emma. She was the one who needed him right now.

I tried not to cry, or pass out, while waiting for Simon to return. Simon would occasional y mutter under his breath and at one point it sounded like he was pleading with either Emma or the car, but she never made a sound. The lack of arguing, the absolute silence from Emma, made my heart break with every passing minute.

Simon approached the car with Emma’s unconscious body in his arms and arranged her as careful y as possible in the back seat. I tried to look at her in the rearview mirror, but the limp form didn’t look like Emma. The ragdol reflection haunted me the entire way to the hospital.

“Cal is going to kil me,” Simon said.

He was driving us to the hospital and taking ful advantage of his werewolf reflexes. Simon ran one hand through his hair and I thought he’d pul it out the way he was tugging on it.

“There was nothing else you could do,” I said. “And I’m okay.”

“You obviously haven’t looked at yourself lately,” Simon said. “You’re turning black and blue.”

I tried to check my reflection in the mirror, while avoiding looking at the crumpled form in the back seat.

Ouch. I was turning black, blue, and yel ow. My right cheek looked tie-dyed and a lump was forming above my eye.

“Why didn’t you cal an ambulance?” I asked.

“Because I don’t know what’s going on in that place,” Simon said. “If it’s something supernatural, then I’m not going to lead a team of human paramedics there to duke it out with evil spirits. Plus, did you see the size of that road?

They’d never be able to drive fast enough.”

“How did you even know where to find us?” I asked.

“Cal knew you were in trouble,” Simon said. “His wolf spirit told him where to find you.”

“And it’s the ful moon,” I said.

“Yes, love, it’s the ful moon so Cal couldn’t come himself,” Simon said. “He sent me here instead. I’m the only member of our pack who can stay in human form tonight, though if you do anything else stupid I might claim I shifted due to stress and bite you just to teach you a lesson.”

Simon flashed his teeth at me and I shivered.

“Al we did was drive down the road,” I said defensively. “How could we have known it was going to start raining toads?”

“Toads?” Simon asked. “You better start at the beginning.”

Simon continued weaving down treacherous back roads at ful speed while I relayed everything that we had recently learned about the legend of Witchtrot Road and the details of our brief trip there.

“You’re sure that you saw the human form just before the toads started hitting the car?” Simon asked.

“Yes,” I said. “And now that I’m not al freaked out with toads smashing into the windshield, it seems obvious that it was a person and not a ghost that I saw.”

“Why is that?” Simon asked.

“Because there wasn’t any smel ,” I said.

“So a man, or woman, was sneaking around at the exact moment that your car was hit by toads,” Simon said.

“It doesn’t sound like a coincidence.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I said. “But why would anyone go to such lengths to make the legend seem real?”

“I don’t know, love, but I’m going to find out,” Simon said, knuckles whitening on the steering wheel.

Chapter 12

The Goodhealth Hospital emergency room was chaos when we arrived. Apparently a logging truck had slid on a patch of ice causing a multiple car accident nearby.

Ambulances were bringing in the accident victims and hospital staff were ignoring our attempts to get their attention.

Simon snatched an empty gurney with his foot and settled Emma on it gently before barking out orders for me to keep an eye on her. Like I would do anything else. He was definitely in a mood—not that I could blame him.

Simon stalked off in search