Mason leaving her. Mason and Vivi together. Mason and Vivi kissing.
Scarlett closed her eyes, driving the pain of their betrayal from her mind with effort. She was a Winter. She was a witch. She was stronger than her broken heart. And she had more important matters to deal with. She stole a glance across the street at Jackson, who was hunched inside the pay-phone booth they’d finally found after half an hour of hunting for one.
A sense of unreality hung over the whole night, like this was just another of Scarlett’s nightmares. She kept waiting to wake up . . . but this was real. The cars passing by, their wheels bumping over the potholed street, were real. The bar at the end of the block, with its flickering neon sign, was real. The goose bumps on her arms were real. The mounting dread in her gut was real. And it was real that Gwen was dead and Tiffany was . . .
Stop, Scarlett commanded herself, not letting herself go there.
The sky above was deathly dark. The night of the new moon, when the earth, sun, and moon were aligned in such a way that left the moon completely invisible to the human eye. Minnie had told her that it used to be called the old moon. Whatever you called it, the symbolism was the same. It was a time for destructive magic, a time to cast powerful curses, a time to embrace your own wickedness.
It wasn’t surprising that Tiffany’s kidnapper had picked this night to perform a dangerous ritual. And now Scarlett had only a few hours left to stop it—only a few hours left to save her sister.
Movement caught her eye, and she tensed on instinct. But it was only Jackson hanging up the phone. He hurried across the empty street toward her, hands stuffed in his jean pockets.
“Did you do it?” Scarlett leaned against the roof of the car, watching him, worried.
“Used my best Batman voice, just in case.”
She offered up a small smile. She knew what he was doing—trying to keep things just light enough to prevent her from sinking into despair over Tiffany.
They’d decided it wasn’t safe to call the police from their cell phones. If they did, they’d have to explain what they were doing on the scene—and what could they possibly say? We were breaking into this girl’s apartment to find out if she’s an evil witch who stole my sorority sister—sorry, Officers.
Better to leave an anonymous tip. Jackson had just told them he’d smelled gas coming from Gwen’s apartment. It’d be enough to get someone in the door. To let them find . . . what they needed to find. Scarlett had cleaned up all traces of magic and all traces of her and Jackson—anything that could lead the police to wonder, to ask too many questions. Then they’d turned on the oven and left.
Scarlett forced down the memory of Gwen’s glazed eyes, her sagging mouth. All she could think about was Tiffany. She can’t be dead; she can’t. Scarlett couldn’t imagine finding her best friend in that same state, lifeless and empty.
Jackson touched Scarlett’s shoulder gently. She startled. She hadn’t noticed him coming around to her side of the car. “Why don’t I drive?” he asked, and she handed him the keys, too tired to argue. “You can stay at my place if you need to.” She shot him a look as she circled to the passenger side and got in the car. He misunderstood it. “Not like that. I mean, you can have the bed. I’ll take the couch,” he said, looking a little embarrassed.
She looked at him a beat. She hadn’t imagined it; he felt it too. In the middle of all this awfulness, something had shifted between them. Seeing Jackson Carter flustered by her was something Scarlett couldn’t have imagined before tonight. And even though she felt completely scraped raw inside, his sheepish smile broke her despair for a split second before it descended around her again.
“Jackson, I appreciate the offer . . . but I need to be with my sisters tonight.”
She needed to tell them what had happened. They needed to figure out a new plan. If Gwen was dead, then either she had been the kidnapper and she’d killed Tiffany before she . . . Before she what, Scarlett? Cursed herself to death?
There could be no mistaking the billowing clouds of smoke or the lack of marks anywhere on Gwen’s body despite the sea of