“We don’t know what we’re walking into, but we do know what we’ll be doing once we get there.”
Saving kids’ lives.
And when put like that, it made all the sense in the world to risk everything, even ourselves.
And that was how I fell in love with Sebastian in a matter of days.
It was the way he called to my inner self. The way he sang the sweetest song quieting all the demons that haunted me, and he gave me hope when my flight response wanted me to run from my past and my future.
One minute in a room with Sebastian. One minute in a room with Julius.
That was all a person needed to recognize the difference between heroism and corruption. Light and dark. Honesty and deception.
The darkness rested. For how long, I didn’t know.
But my time was now.
“I want to be like you,” I whispered. “And more than anything, I want to prevent Julius from doing whatever it is he’s doing.”
He smiled. “That’s my witch.”
My next truth would be the scariest one of all, but I’d grown used to myself and the need to spill my heart with him.
“Don’t let me go.” I met the ocean in his eyes, and within the waves, maybe I could find a permanent home.No more running, and oh, how I loved the sound of that. “I need you, but I want you just as much as I need you.”
He stepped in, taking away the space that separated us. “I’ll never let you go.” He took my hand and brought it up to his lips to kiss. “Because I want you more than I need you, so don’t let go of me either.”
Twenty
Sebastian
Isabella clung to my shoulder as I faded us to our destination. It was another cave of sorts if you’d call it that. This one was made up of metal. You could tell that someone spent a lot of time and energy into embedding this material into the rocks.
The smell was rancid. Isabella was covering up her mouth and nose with her hand the moment we got here. “What is that smell?” she asked me.
“Evil that’s been left to fester,” Prudence muttered ominous words as she stepped ahead of us and moved on inside the cave. We still stood at the entrance.
“None of them is dead yet,” Joy said, hopefully. “I can feel it.” We all could, but the ball could drop at any moment. All that mattered, though, was getting the kids out of here and making sure Harvest didn’t get his hands on Isabella.
There was never an occasion where we all went out together like this. Even our parents came. I wondered just how much they weren’t letting on about what was really going on for us all to be here?
To ignore the inkling in my gut, I ran my fingers through my hair. It didn’t help. I was still restless, even worse that I hadIzzie to think about. I couldn’t leave her alone but bringing her along was doing nothing to calm me. I stared at her small stature next to mine and my heart beat went up a notch.
“Stay by me.” I grabbed Isabella’s hand.
“And far away from me,” August said behind us. I turned and arched an eyebrow his way. “Her touch of death is some serious shit. We all need to be careful not to accidentally graze her skin at any point. My nut sack wants to shrivel up every time I see her and that’s saying something.”
“You’re disgusting,” Maureen told him.
“What nut sack?” Payne couldn’t help but say.
“And what the hell do they have to do with Izzie?” I gritted the question out, earning a few knowing smiles from the entire family.
“All right, let’s go,” Dad told us all. “Wait, where’d your mother go?” He looked around for her.
“Her and Kitty are both gone,” August noticed.
“No, they’ve gone on ahead,” Barron told us. “Maureen, Prudence, and even Joy slipped inside with them.”
