Apparently recovering from poison wasn’t an instantaneous process, even with the antidote she recalled Kit pouring down her throat. Moaning, she turned her face into her arm. Hot warmth leaked onto her forehead, and she realized she was bleeding. Again.
The bastard must’ve cut me again.She didn’t bother to open her eyes to see the slashes. And Visha had just healed her arms from the vampyre attack. How ironic, that it’d been the exact same place Drayer Netherton always left his mark.
Knowing that she was going to have to wrap it up to staunch the blood flow, Gentry sat up and edged towards the bed, only opening her eyes so that she could place her feet onto a carpeted floor. Distantly, she remembered waking up, but not much else.She must’ve been out of it. From the time Visha poisoned her, her memories were pretty foggy — she recalled some details of the flight from the bunker. Kit’s voice, his arms wrapped around her. Not much else.
Considering she was alive, she assumed this had to be the place with the cure. From the texts she’d read on Kit’s phone, she assumed this had to be the Jumper hideout.
Standing up and hugging her injured arm close to her chest, Gentry shuffled toward the door. Each step took more effort than it should’ve, a testament to her weakened state.Holy hell, but that poison packed a wallop.She regretted ever trusting a snake like Visha.
She entered a joint living room and kitchen area that was infested with plants, their leaves and flowers unnaturally healthy considering their home was in a desert. Many were taller than her. She peeked around the messy space, spotting liquor bottles and secondhand furniture. To her surprise, Kit sat kicked back at the kitchen table with his phone in his hands. He didn’t look like his usual unflappable self.
"What's the matter?" she croaked, a little entertained when Kit jumped two feet out of his chair in surprise.
"You're awake already?" he asked, surprised.
"How long was I out?"
"An hour. I was gonna give you twice that amount before waking you up," His eyes went from open and kind to sharp when he noticed the blood on her face. “Unexpected company again?”
She nodded. He retrieved the first aid kit from her backpack that lay against his chair. "Come here."
She obeyed, and he immediately pressed a large hand against her forehead. “You're burning up. I won't be able to give you any healing potion until that fever's gone." He picked up a bottle of pills and rattled it at her. "But we've got these."
Gentry snatched the bottle out of his hand, thrilled that a witch's house would have non-magical medicine like this.
"Pills first," she said before downing them. Then she sat down and handed her arm over to Kit. He got to work, taking a washcloth from the kitchen and cleaning the blood off as he applied pressure with his other hand. Gentry gritted her teeth.
Kit stopped cleaning her for a second. "This is different," he said, his voice puzzled. "The lines… look like words."
Hot fury made her ears ring. “Keep applying pressure,” she ordered, and then Kit helped her twist her forearm so she could see the pink-tinged skin from Kit’s wiping. Her heart stopped when she saw droplets of blood squeezing out of a jagged201 Old Springs Rd.
“Shit.” The curse left her mouth in a rush of air. She pulled her arm from Kit’s grip and grabbed her laptop from the backpack, her hands shaking as she flipped open the screen.
“Easy there”—Kit caught her injured arm again—“you don’t want to fry it.”
Gentry turned the screen on. “I’ll need the internet password,” she said.
“Not until I’m done wrapping you up.” His voice left no room for arguments.
Kit made quick work of wrapping her arm so tight she could almost feel the tips of her fingers turn white. Then he gave her a piece of paper with the password on it, and she was in. She went directly to the ship's security site she'd hacked into for her sister and mother's cruise.
Only when she caught footage of them eating breakfast thirty minutes before did she relax and slump forward. “Thank goodness,” she whispered, tears burning her already sensitive eyes.
Before she could blink them away, Kit pulled her into a hug. Her brain short-circuited at the physical contact and remained stiff.
"That was their address, wasn't it? Your family's?"
Gentry caved, pressed her hot forehead against his shoulder, and closed her eyes against the terrible light. "Yes." Drayer Netherton had carved her mother's address into her arm, letting her know that he was starting the precursory moves necessary to hunt her family down. Time was running out.
"They're on a cruise over international waters," she told Kit. "It's one of the cruises that keeps its movements pretty locked down to prevent piracy from witches. They'll be home in about two weeks," she said miserably.
Kit moved his hand in a circular motion on her back, and against all odds, she relaxed a little. "He won't get them," he promised.
"How do you know that?"
"Because you're smart," he said simply. "And you planned this whole thing out to give you the time you needed to break the curse. And if the worst comes down to it, I'll help you.”
Gentry pulled back and looked at the witch, who she'd imprisoned with the Favors, specifically at his neck, where that bloody mark lay. "Why are you helping me now?" she asked.
