But sitting there with my fingertips frozen over the phone screen, the idea of betraying Oaklyn sent a pang through my chest so intense it took my breath away. Was it just because of my attraction to her, or…?
Or am I starting to understand what she and her mom are fighting for?
Does their mission to democratize magic actually make sense?
I’ve known Katie for years and Oaklyn for minutes, yet somehow the line between right and wrong isn’t as clear as it should be. What does my hesitation say about me? Was I really questioning the coven? Questioning Katie?
God, it scares me how quickly my certainties have unraveled since meeting Oaklyn.
If I sent the witches after her mom and they killed her, how could I live with myself? Oaklyn has trusted me, opened up to me, made me feel pleasures I’ve never experienced. What a total, utter betrayal that would be.
She returned before I could make a decision, and I clicked off my phone, leaving the pin on the map and my message to Katie unsent. I needed more time to sort through my mess of emotions.
She tossed a small gift onto the back seat—a ring box wrapped in purple wrapping paper with a tiny purple bow on top—and slammed the door.
“Everything okay?” I asked hesitantly.
She threw the car into gear. “She’s just so…”
She hit the gas, taking out her anger on the accelerator. The engine roared as we pulled away from the curb.
A minute passed, and she didn’t finish the sentence.
“Has it always been like that?” I asked, wondering if things got harder since her dad or brother died.
“Long as I’ve been alive.” Oaklyn gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Dad used to tell us Mom was just trying to make the world more balanced. That life made her this way.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Oaklyn lifted a shoulder. “Growing up, her parents fought, and she spent hours in the park every day to escape. That’s how she met her best friend, Morgan. It didn’t take her long to notice Morgan was always hungry, and her family could barely afford to survive. Meanwhile, Mom’s family had three vacation homes they rarely visited and cars they never drove. So, Mom started sneaking food to Morgan’s place. Learned the bus routes at nine years old so she could fill her backpack with groceries and deliver them after school. Her parents never noticed—too wrapped up in their corporate ladder-climbing.”
I stared at her, trying to reconcile that awful woman with a kid who actually cared about another person.
“Then, when Mom was seventeen,” Oaklyn continued, “she showed up at Morgan’s apartment, and no one answered. She found out days later that Morgan had died from an infection. Something an antibiotic could have treated… Something magic could’ve cured in seconds.”
My heart squeezed. The lure of magic made a heck of a lot of sense.
“Later, when Mom discovered magic existed,” Oaklyn said, “she became obsessed with the injustice of it—that magic was being restricted by witches while people like Morgan died needlessly. I don’t know… I think after spending her childhood powerless, watching her friend die, magic represents everything she never had. Control. Power. The ability to fix what’s broken.”
“Oh,” I said quietly.
Oaklyn looked sideways at me, her frown deepening. “Don’t let me change your opinion of her. She’s not the same fucking person. Not at all. When I was twelve, my pet snake died, and when I cried, she—” Her jaw worked. “She hurt me, and she made me skin the snake. Said attachment is a weakness.”
My stomach churned. “Holy shit. That’s…not normal.”
“Whenever my brother and I fought, she’d tell us to hit back harder. It wasn’t until…I don’t know, the last year or so, that Freddie and I realized how fucked-up that was. I wish we’d figured it out sooner. All those years, we could have had each other instead of fighting.”
That hard expression was back on her face—the one I’ve come to recognize when the topic of her brother comes up. It makes sense that she puts up a tough front, not to mention how protective she is of the few people she lets in.
“There’s a reason I’ve got Freddie’s dog and not her,” Oaklyn said. “I don’t trust her to take care of anything living.”
My phone buzzed. It was Katie: “SOS. Need intel on the Madsens. Whatever you’ve got.”
My heart dropped through my feet, through the floor of the car, and into the earth’s core. It’s like she fucking knew how close I was to sending her something. Like she was sitting behind me with a fire iron, poking and poking until I cracked.
I knew what I had to do. It was inevitable. But I couldn’t. Not yet.
I reached over to where Oaklyn’s hand rested on the gear shift, lacing our fingers together. Her skin was warm and comforting.
