Silverthorn (14 page)

I didn’t have enough time to sidestep the massive table, but if I didn’t act quickly enough, it would plow into my chest, knocking me off my feet, and driving the air from my lungs. I didn’t intend to give Alexis a chance to follow up on her attack because every second she spent trying to hurt me meant another moment that my friends remained helpless.

So I did what worked last time. Calling upon all the anger and fear inside me, I pushed that energy toward my sister. For a fraction of a second, a pulse of air formed a wide bubble a few inches from my body before shooting out towards the table.

Just as the table entered five feet of my personal space, it slammed into that invisible field of energy I’d pushed toward it and it came to a halt.

Alexis’s eyes widened. Her cheeks twitched. She swallowed, unsure what to think of what had just occurred, and met my gaze with hesitation.

I lifted both hands again, ready to blast her with another shot of…

My sister started whispering.

I held back the urge to attack my sister until her mouth stopped moving. Reluctant to trust her, I stepped out of Alexis’s path and glanced at my friends.

They separated. Both gasped for air as though they had just finished half an hour of cardio, rather than standing still for over a minute. Neither of them looked at each other though. Instead, they glared at Alexis.

“Aw, come on,” my sister said, regaining her inflated sense of importance. “Don’t get mad at me.” She made her way toward them with a grin. “I read your minds. I knew what you were
both
thinking. So what if I sped up the inevitable.”

Brandon bent over, put his hands on his knees, and closed his eyes, sucking in oxygen.

Kendall had completely regained her composure, aided by the quick recuperation time of her vampiric abilities. She started toward Brandon, but he waved her off, shook his head, stood upright, and turned his back on her.

Alexis looked pleased by the drama she had caused. “Little Miss University and I know you enjoyed it.” She turned toward me. “Admit it. I saved them a lot of stress and uncertainty. You know, the will-they, won’t-they kiss. Now if anyone asks them, ‘When did you two know you were meant for each other?’ They can think about this moment…and thank me for bringing them together.”

What persuaded my sister to treat people without respect? Not only that, but what warped her thought process to think that she had a right to interfere in anyone else’s private life? Her ego had no boundaries!

I turned away from my friends to address Alexis, but a swift blur passed across my line of sight. I didn’t need to bat an eyelash to know that Kendall zipped past me, intent on thrashing my sister.

Alexis swiveled to the side, extended her arms, and just a few feet before Kendall reached her. She gestured with her hands toward the five-foot window across from her. With Kendall moving so quickly, Alexis barely needed much effort to accomplish her task: lifting my friend off the ground and directing her body toward the window.

A second later, Kendall crashed through the window as shards of glass rained down on the floor. The shattering glass sounded as though a window five times its density had crashed due to the speed with which Kendall traveled.

Downstairs, the DJ cut off the music, and a few dancers shouted over what they thought would be a pumping bass line in the otherwise silent building, as everyone below no doubt stopped dancing to direct their attention to the second floor.

“That was easy,” Alexis said, slapping one hand against the other. “Step right up,” she said, adopting a throaty voice used most often by those working at carnivals.

Brandon peered over the balcony and addressed those below: “A bird just crashed into the window.” A few moments later, the music pumped through the speaker system again. Brandon spun around and said, “There’s a manager or someone rushing across the floor. He’ll be here in about ten seconds.”

Sure enough, a few seconds later, a stout man hustled up the steps, wearing a sky blue polo with what appeared to be cracked bricks that spelled out the word
“Fractured.”
With a bushy, black mustache, he appeared like a driver’s education instructor instead of a nightclub manager. He set his beady eyes on the broken window the moment he stepped on the second floor.

A second later, Kendall sped up the stairs, grasped his shoulder, and pushed him forward. But she hadn’t accounted for her newfound vampire strength because the man flew fifteen feet in the air before landing face first against floor. His head rammed into the far wall, knocking him unconscious.

At least, I hoped he was only unconscious. Fright swept through me. What if he was…dead? I rushed over to him, felt for his pulse, and when I found one, let out a sigh of relief.

Alexis nodded with a small smile, revealing she was impressed by Kendall’s ability to come away unscathed from the second-story fall, not to mention her speedy reflexes to reappear so quickly.

“Let’s finish this!” said Kendall, fixing her with a glare. A gash had opened on her right cheekbone, but a couple seconds later, it vanished. She rolled her left shoulder and winced. She jerked it backwards and a bone cracked. Kendall drew in a breath as though satisfied to have re-set the bone.

“Gladly,” my sister said and hurled a chair at Kendall.

Somehow, Brandon managed to get in between them. He punched the chair, splintering chunks of wood in all directions, which persuaded Alexis to end her assault.

“By the way,” said my sister, “throwing your lover through the window was payback for stealing my mind-reading ability yesterday.”

But Brandon had just taken away her snow machine for the next three hours, and Alexis’s failure to mention that infraction meant she would set aside her desire for retaliation in order to concentrate on the present, all the while showing no ill will towards Brandon, despite probably concocting some heinous act of retribution for the future.

I appreciate that Brandon hadn’t attempted to use her ability to manipulate water, since he had no idea how to use or control it and might end up doing more harm than good. Either that or he recalled how using Alexis’s mind-reading ability had resulted in a momentary loss of morality.

But we’re not even, not after you stole my snow machine. ” She smirked at him. I’m gonna give it to you good!” She winked at Kendall.

Kendall’s expression switched from furious to bitter. “Is this a game to you?”

“What’s your problem?” Alexis asked, oblivious.

“I could have died.”

“Not unless it was daytime and sunny, or if a shard of glass decapitated you...or if a chunk of wood from the panel around the window lodged into your heart.” She shrugged, looking bored. “Pretty unlikely, so…chill.”

“Chill?” Her eyes blazed with intensity, and she started toward Alexis. “Chill?”

“Hey,” Brandon said, blocking her passage. “At least give me some warning; I might not be able to protect you if she threw anything else at you.”

Kendall looked at him as though he was a seven-year-old who sought every opportunity to play with a new toy. She must have acknowledged that she wasn’t exactly in harm’s way, because at the sight of Alexis preparing to sling more furniture at her, she lowered her guard. Either that or she was satisfied Alexis had withdrawn her intention to harm Brandon. Regardless, I knew that she would
never
forget or forgive Alexis for her actions. One day, Kendall would seek revenge, and I hoped that she’d walk away from that battle.

Footsteps started up the stairwell in our direction. I was surprised that curiosity hadn’t persuaded those customers to climb the steps sooner. A few couples reached the second floor and glanced at the broken window, scanned our faces, then saw the man whom Kendall had tossed across the room. One young man pulled out his cell phone and stabbed the screen three times. “I’m at a club named, uh…” He stared at Alexis, who hit him with a threatening expression, and he paused. “I think we’ve got…I mean, well, my name is—um...”

I ran toward the stairwell.

“Sorry about that,” the man said into his cell and hung up, while his friends stared at him in disbelief, puzzled why he’d hung up before telling the cops what had happened here.

“The cops will get his location from his phone,” I said to Kendall and Brandon. “We need to go. Now!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Where are you going?” I asked my sister, who’d been heading down the sidewalk. As always, whenever I was around her, I blocked her from reading my mind.

“To the bus stop. I’m not driving home. I’ve had a few.”

Or more than a few. “You would’ve gotten a ticket for not continuing to feed the meter.”

“I’ll just toss it in the glove compartment with the others.” She stopped to face me, her face lined with uncertainty. “You’d prefer that I drink and drive? You’re a cold-hearted bitch!”

Although she twisted my intentions, since I planned to drive her home, I appreciated the insult. If we ever threw down again, Alexis might question how low I might go to defeat her. “I’m driving you home.” I held out my hand for the keys.

“I’d rather take the bus.” She turned around, raised a hand, and waved goodbye.

I hurried up to her. “What if the cops come and one of the bystanders fingers you?”

Alexis gave me a hideous sidelong glance. “Just because I’m an exotic dancer doesn’t mean I’m a slut,” she said, mangling my question by taking it literally.

I kept my hand out. Stone-faced, I refused to fall into the conversation or take no for an answer when it came to driving her home.

With a long sigh, she dug into her purse, removed her key ring, and plunked them in my palm. I acknowledged the Elsa key chain and grinned. If only Brandon had been here to see it!

She closed her eyes. Pink crept into her cheeks. “Celestina got it for my birthday.”

Taken in that context, I had to admit that keeping the gift was a loving gesture, so I dropped the subject.

Alexis led me to a red Dodge Challenger. “This is me.”

I unlocked the doors and got behind the wheel while my sister rode shotgun. I started it up, pulled into traffic, and checked the rearview mirror, glad to see that Kendall and Brandon followed us inside my car. “We’re
all
going to your house.”

“Why is that? Plan to kill Mother again? Isn’t once good enough for you?”

“Our mother…is dead.”

“Maybe to you, since she abandoned you, but she’s never failed me.”

I didn’t have enough knowledge about our mother to dispute that claim. “That’s not what I meant. She may look like your mother, but she’s not. It’s—”

“Do you really think I’m going to believe whatever fairy tales you’re blowing up my ass? Do I look like a Disney princess?

I opened my mind to let her hear one thought:
okay, Elsa!

She straightened in her seat. “Let’s drop the shit. I don’t like you, and you don’t like me.”

But just as Alexis opened her mouth, prepared to talk again, I said, “It would be easier for you that way, wouldn’t it? Hating everybody so no one expects anything from you. But here’s the thing. You and Celestina are the only family I’ve got. That’s why I’ve forgiven you.”

“I killed you.”

“Kinda hard to forget, but thanks for the reminder.”

“As in past tense dead. Hasta la vista! You’re outta here!”

“My memory is fine, in case you’re asking.”

“Murdered. Killed. Slain.”

“So, are you telling me I’m a ghost?”

Incredulous, she just stared at me.

“Gotta admit that would be fun. Haunting you 24/7 for weeks on end. Oh, don’t worry, I wouldn’t do anything malevolent. No, I’d be a trickster. You know, hide your liquor bottles.” I snapped my fingers. “If Celestina hadn’t revived me, we could have been roomies!”

“You are insane.”

“An insane ghost would probably be mean-spirited.”

“You’re…so fucking obnoxious!”

“You have some wicked skills in creating nicknames.”

“You’re an idiot.”

I grinned. “Nothing like sisterly camaraderie.”

She threw up a hand in defeat.

Now that I’d broken her defenses, I got serious. “Here’s what I think. You’re jaded. I can’t blame you for that because our mother brought you up and…because of other factors (namely that an adult had raped her as a child, resulting in having a child…as a child, a mystery I still found utterly confounding). For that reason, with the exception of Celestina, you don’t know what it feels like when someone loves you.” Once more, just as she prepared to speak, I interrupted her. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a parent who believes in you, who trusts you, who loves you unconditionally. Yeah, you can talk about how Delphine taught you magic, but really, who cares? Do you know what
deep
friendship feels like? No! Did our mother love you? No! You know why? Because she was so hell bent on gaining more power that she couldn’t give you her undivided attention. I don’t doubt that she cared for you, but did she love you? No. She used you, Alexis. She used you to get what she wanted most in her life: power.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, unaffected by my sentimentality. “You’re projecting your feelings about your grandmother onto me and my relationship with our mother. You’re the one who’s hurt and confused.” She folded her arms across her chest.

The only way to reach my sister was to bare my soul, so I did precisely that: “I miss Grams.” I looked out the windshield and tried to blink away the tears, because my sister would regard that as an emotional breakdown. “I won’t pretend I don’t. I want her back.” And this time, rather than hide my sadness from Alexis, I looked at her until she met my gaze. “I’ve never loved anyone so much.” I wiped the tears that scrawled down my cheeks.

Alexis did her best to hide a cynical expression, which I appreciated but in the end, she disregarded my feelings as misplaced. “She never told you about your heritage. My God, Serena, she never told you that you were a witch! She didn’t prepare you for what’s going down right now!” She shook her head. “And you call that respectful? It’s cruel. How could she have done that to you?”

Perhaps I mistook reality for wishful thinking, but it appeared that tears glistened in her eyes. “I don’t regret anything,” I said. “I had a childhood. I was a Girl Scout. I was on the volleyball team in high school.” I scoffed. “I bet you trash-talked girls in middle school and high school. Not only that, but I bet you did it to feel better about yourself, to feel like you weren’t missing out. Did you ever go to a birthday party? Or a sleepover?” Seeing a droll expression on her face, as though silently disputing that those activities were worthless, I suspected she was hiding behind ignorance to avoid feeling that she’d missed the carefree childhood every kid should experience. “It’s tragic you had Delphine as a parent. Thankfully, you’ve gotten over it, at least from what I can tell based on how you relate to Celestina.” I let those statements settle between us for a long moment. “But you’re wrong about one thing.” When Alexis looked at me, I said, “The woman in her bed…is not our mother.”

My sister let out an annoyed sigh. “This again? You already killed her, so live and let live.”

“This from someone who killed me.”

She chuckled without humor. “This from someone who
forgave
me.”

“I’ve forgiven you, Alexis, but I’ll never forget what you did.” I purposely didn’t look her way to give the impression that I didn’t care how she took my statement, even if I wanted more than anything to do just that. I pulled to the curb outside her home, cut the headlights, and killed the engine. I saw Kendall do likewise just behind us.

I realized that nothing I could say or do would convince her Zephora had squeezed Delphine out of her own body, so I opened the door and got out when she met me on the other side of the car. I tossed her the keys as we headed toward her front door.

“Is that why you wanted to visit?” my sister asked. “To prove that our mother is no longer in her body?” She stopped, faced me, and wagged a finger in my face. “Fine, we’ll do this. But it’ll never happen again. Got it?”

A feeling of triumph rushed through me, but I didn’t say a word, unwilling to do anything that might change her mind.

Kendall and Brandon hurried over and fell in step on my right. Brandon glanced between Alexis and me. “We going to see Public Enema Number One?”

Alexis stopped and faced Brandon with a look of restrained anger that made her upper lip curl. “Does he
need
to be here?”

“Yes,
they
do.” I met Brandon’s gaze and held it, my expression telling him to clamp his mouth shut. He acknowledged my unspoken request with a nod of the head.

Alexis continued walking until she unlocked the door and stepped inside. She left it open for us. After closing the door, she called out to her daughter, who swerved into the hall a moment later. “Hey, Mom.” When she saw me, she broke into a bright smile. “Aunt Serena!” She hurried over and threw an arm around my waist, stuffing her body against my side. “What’s up?”

“Just checking to see if your grandmother is here,” I said. “Making sure she is…who she says she is.”

She met her mother’s gaze. “See? I told you.” She put her hands on her hips with an ‘I told you so’ expression.

When Kendall shut the door, Alexis said, “If you think so then prove it.”

“Hey, guys,” Celestina said to Kendall and Brandon. “Oh, I watched you on YouTube. You have the best band. You’re the best singer ever! Way better than Taylor Swift and Katy Perry.”

“Really?” I asked, shocked she thought so highly of my performance.

It only took her a second to say, “Well, probably not, but almost as good.” She nodded, upbeat once more.

Kendall, Brandon, and Alexis all laughed.

“I want to see your concert.” She spun around to address her mother. “Can I?”

“Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous.”

“Yeah,” Celestina said, her enthusiasm waning once more. “Taylor and Katy have lasers and stuff at their shows. But you had fighting.” She winced as though appalled. “I didn’t like that part.”

“Me neither,” I admitted. “Hopefully, it won’t happen again.”

“See, Mom. There won’t be fighting. It’s okay now, right? So can I go?”

“Absolutely not.”

“But that’s not fair.”

“Congratulations! Now you’ve learned everything about life on planet Earth.”

“You mean like how the old one is hiding inside Granny’s body?”

Very good friends of mine,” I said, meeting her eyes. “You can trust them.”

“Okay, so what’s going on? Are you going to kill the impostor?”

I planned to follow up on her question, but since she regarded Zephora in the same way I had, when she had taken over Grams’s body, I felt even closer to her. “We’ll see,” I responded, staring at Alexis to prove I hadn’t imagined Zephora’s manipulations.

“Yeah,” Celestina said, backing off a bit with a disturbed expression. “You’re going to visit the old one.”

“Old one?”

Celestina blanched. “I told you. That’s not Granny.” She wrapped her arms around her chest, as though a chill had invaded her bones. “She’s someone else. She’s old…like really, really old.”

Alexis knelt down beside her, clutching onto her daughter’s arms. “Who? Who else is she?”

“The one granny told me about: Zephora. It has to be. Even Aunt Serena says so.”

“Oh,” said Alexis, exasperated. “Then it must be true.”

My sister, kneeling down before Celestina, rocked on her knees, almost tipped backwards as though shocked at her daughter’s admission before catching herself. “What are you saying?”

“Can’t you tell?” Celestina asked, scoffing at her mother’s confusion. “She was the first witch. Even Great Granny Lorraine knew. She told me to be careful.” Worried, Celestina met my gaze. “Be careful around her, okay, Mom?”

Alexis shot to her feet. “That’s enough!” She looked down the hall toward her mother’s bedroom. “We’re going to figure this out once and for all!” She headed in that direction.

I held out a hand, indicating to Kendall and Brandon to stay with Celestina. They didn’t even move in my direction. That didn’t surprise me. They knew nothing about my heritage and weren’t curious to find out about it. But Alexis knew enough, and I only hoped she’d pass some of that knowledge along to me sometime soon.

A moment later, I heard Shrek arguing with his wife, Fiona, on television.

I followed Alexis down the hall.

She stopped at her mother’s door, took in a deep breath then let it out, and tried to twist the knob, but Zephora had locked the door. “Stand back.” When I did, Alexis remained in place, and whispered words I couldn’t quite make out. The moment she finished, the lock on the other side of the door clicked.

“What did you say?” I asked, astonished by her skills. Of course, I knew that most witches knew how to perform enchantments, but since I didn’t belong in that group, I could only marvel at her knowledge.

Alexis didn’t respond, didn’t even look my way. Instead, she extended a hand and pushed the door open a few inches. She took in a deep breath and steadied her nerves, as though expecting an attack, and stepped forward…

But her foot stopped in mid air as it plunked against an invisible barrier. Alexis stepped back. “She put a boundary spell on this room.”