I kept my hands by my sides as I neared. “The children need stability, and you could give that to them.”
He leaned his head to the side. “You think if you come closer, you can hurl me, hold me pinned until help arrives?”
“I don’t want to have to do that, Josh.”
His answering cold smile sparked cunning in his brown eyes. There was no fear on his face, no concern at all.
My chest contracted. If he was a witch, even one without strong powers, turning him would have enhanced them, especially because it was Karson who’d turned him.
But it was Josh. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. He abhorred violence. The guy who wouldn’t even drink human blood straight from them. All I needed to do was make him see reason.“We should go now, before anyone gets here. We can talk about it in the car.”
“Sure,” Josh said, his lip curling slightly. “Georgie, darling,” he said quietly as he dropped a match. Purple smoke erupted all around him—he had cloaking powder. I couldn’t see him anymore, but his voice shuddered through me as he said, “You know what to do.”
Georgie’s gaze watered. Her hand shook wildly as she took a blade from her pocket?—
The girl in the bar?—
The blood rushed from my face.
“Georgie, no!” I cried, my hands flying up.
But I was too late.
Georgie slit her throat.
Chapter 77
I Killed Her
The rush of red-hot horror firing through me disabled everything. I forgot about the grimoire. I forgot about Karson. All I could see was my friend dying before my eyes.
The knife clattered to the floor as she let it go, her eyes wide in alarm; the mind control he used had broken. Georgie staggered, her hand pressed against her neck, trying to stop an impossible red tide.
The wind gushed into the room. Josh must have yanked the door open and taken off into the night.
Georgie stumbled until her back met plaster, her legs wilting like a dying flower as she slid down the wall.
“No!” I screamed, my feet pounding as I ran to her side. “No, no!”
I collapsed to my knees, pressed my hand to the warm, wet wound and chanted, “Elmorsa repaires elmorsa repaires.” Blood streaked through my fingers like a shredded flag. It didn’t ease, didn’t slow down. Healing powers were not my strength, and even if they were, Georgie wasn’t a witch. She didn’t heal as easily as witches did. I kept chanting, kept trying.
I needed … Karson … but I’d stabbed him and he couldn’t help.
I’ve killed you, I thought.No!
This was another nightmare. All of it. The world couldn’t possibly be so cruel. Georgie was in bed watching a movie, probably one-quarter drunk, and I was asleep in bed. Everything that happened was just a terrible dream.
Not real. Not real. Not real.
“Amy,” she rasped, breaking my chant, her blue eyes wide with terror and sorrow. Her blood, terribly warm on my hand pressed tight to her neck, didn’t allow the delusion to persist.
My heart split in half.
“You’re going to be alright,” I said, like an order, a prayer.
“He made me do it.” She coughed weakly, red spluttering from the corner of her lips, leaking into the side of her jaw, down to her neck like the devil’s garnets. Her eyes pleaded with me to believe her. “He made me.”
He’d used her as a distraction to get away. I thought he cared about her. All this time, he was using her for his own gain. My eyes fell to the bloody blade. It was the same type as the girl in the bar had used, the one used to murder Mary.
