had blocked the trap door, I doubted they would have left the cellar door to chance.
“Now,” I said, prepping my body to hit hard, hoping I was wrong, hoping the door wouldn’t be barred magically.
Our bodies hit in tandem and we were flung backwards, bitch slapped by the power that held the door against us. I grabbed the jug of salt water and flung it on the door, but it did nothing; the spell was on the other side.
Intermittently howling and choking on the smoke, Alex sat on the floor, tears streaming down his face.
Even with all the weapons I had, there was nothing to break through magical barriers. There’d never been a need, and we were about to die because I hadn’t been prepared.
I slumped to the floor, as a gunshot went off outside.
“What the hell?”
Alex answered. “Guns.” He paused. “Big guns. Man with gun here.”
Man with . . .
“O’Shea!” I screamed. “Here, we’re trapped!”
Another round of gunshots went off, then the sound of sirens. Shit, I’d never been so happy to have a constant tail from the agent that had tried to frame me for murder.
Coughing, I crouched back to the floor. Within moments, there was rattling on the cellar door and then it flung open. But it wasn’t O’Shea.
“Milly!” I ran up the steps and caught her in a hug. She was crying, her hands white with powdered salt. The fire raged behind her, but it wasn’t as close as I’d thought; the smoke had just been funneled toward us. Nice.
“I’m so sorry, Rylee.”
“Hey, you made it in time, that’s all that matters.” Alex ran around us in circles, yipping until O’Shea ran into view. The wind, the real wind and not some magicked wind, picked up and blew the smoke and fire back out into the wheat field. That wasn’t good either, but better than the alternative.
I turned to face him, putting Milly just behind me. I couldn’t help it; we were a team, but when it came to O’Shea’s anger, she didn’t deserve to get the brunt of it.
But he didn’t flare up. His face was pale, and it occurred to me he’d just seen magic for probably the first time in his life.
“Where’s mini-me?” I asked, hoping to shake him out of his stupor.
He stared blankly at me.
I stepped closer and touched his arm, the chill of his skin evident even through the shirt. “Where’s your partner?”
“Dead. I don’t . . .” He shook his head. “How did this happen?”
I wasn’t entirely sure what he was talking about. “Milly, what happened?”
“I knew you were in trouble, could feel the vibrations stronger than anything ever before.” She pushed a long strand of dark brown hair off her forehead to reveal eyes that at times could be a soft green, and when she was pissed deepened to an almost neon green that flashed. Right now they were as soft and gentle as I’d seen them in a long time.
She went on. “I came out to the house, but they had already trapped you. O’Shea and his partner showed up—”
“Those people attacked us, we shot at them and . . . .” O’Shea stared at me as if I was going to have the answers. Oh, this was not going to be good. “Our bullets swerved, came back and hit Martins, right in the forehead.”
“Was it your bullet that swerved back?” My mind already caught on to the implications.
O’Shea frowned. “What does it matter? He’s been killed in an impossible situation.”
The sirens were almost here. “Listen, there isn’t a lot of time. Think, O’Shea. You’re going to tell people the bullets did whatever the fuck they wanted, swerved back and shot your partner with YOUR bullet? You’re about to be implicated for murder.”
His face paled. “They won’t believe me.” He put a hand to his head. “I wouldn’t believe me.”
I couldn’t help it. “Just like you won’t believe me when it comes to Berget.”
Again, he just stared, his eyelids twitching as I watched emotions run across his face. Anger, fear, disbelief.
“Come on,” I said. “We can’t be here if you want to stay out of jail tonight.”
“I’m not going with you. That’ll only prove I’m guilty,” he said. “When you run, it shows your guilt more than anything.”
Well if that wasn’t a dig at me, I didn’t know what was. I laughed; I couldn’t help it. Milly, standing beside me in her fashion-forward bright white pantsuit, was shaking her head.
“Rylee is right, Agent O’Shea. You can’t prove