I can’t register physical pain right now. Not when everything is falling apart. Hazel is gone. The enchanted net is gone. Sophia Madsen has escaped, and we lost our chance to catch her and Oaklyn.
“How could she side with them?” I ask, my voice breaking. “Did I not explain how awful they are?”
Natalie’s expression softens. “It’s not your fault. Love makes people do things that don’t make sense.”
My eyes sting, and I wipe my face, smearing blood down my arm.
However safe Hazel thinks she is, she’s in danger. And so are the chimeras at Lighthouse Park. I’ve failed everyone tonight.
I stare at the destruction around us—the shattered concrete, the wounded Shadows, the space where Hazel should be standing. Dust and blood linger in my mouth, bitter and too dry to let me swallow.
Hazel’s cold, distant gaze lingers in my vision. My best friend, the one who came for sleepovers in high school, who sat with me over countless video calls to stop me from being homesick, who helped me get through my fight with Natalie…replaced by someone I don’t recognize.
Natalie pulls me against her, her heartbeat strong and steady. “We’ll get her back.”
Sirens wail in the distance. We have to go.
I believe Natalie—first because I trust her, and second because I won’t have it any other way. The alternative—accepting that I’ve lost my best friend to the Madsens—is unthinkable.
Ethel trots over with her tail up, and I break away from Natalie to scoop her into my arms. I amnotlosing her too. But as I bury my face in her fur, trying not to cry, I see Hazel’s face in my mind’s eye—that final glimpse of my best friend driving away with two murderous women, leaving me with a cavernous hole in my chest.
From the Journal of Hazel Okada
The drive away was tense and silent for the first few blocks. The net sat in my lap, strangely weightless and silky.
Wyatt panted heavily beside me on the back seats, his breath fogging the window. Diagonal to me in the passenger seat, Sophia touched the cuts on her face, wincing as her fingers came away with blood.
Oaklyn caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “That was brilliant, Hazel. I can’t believe you got it. You’re incredible.”
I flushed under her praise, still trying to process what I’d done. I stole from witches. I made a choice that might make Katie hate me forever.
I tightened my grip on the golden threads, which shimmered in the passing streetlights as we wove through traffic. My stomach twisted with each block we put between us and Katie. That hurt look on her face wouldn’t get out of my head. I betrayed her—the friend who’d been there for me through tumultuous high school years, and who I trusted enough to come out to first. I’d just shattered an irreplaceable friendship.
Was magic worth that price?
Shouting at Katie felt so wrong. But I needed to do it to save my own ass. If I’d shown weakness, uncertainty, conflicting loyalty… I don’t know what Oaklyn would have done.
Sophia turned in the passenger seat and opened her palm, beckoning with bloody fingers. “Give it to me.”
Her voice was cold and commanding—nothing like the way Oaklyn speaksto me.
I held out the net. She took it, and though she didn’t smile, I could see the elated glint in her eyes as she inspected it. Bright blood smeared across the delicate gold threads.
I studied her side profile, searching for the resemblance between mother and daughter. It was difficult to see past Sophia’s harshness.
“We’ve been trying to get our hands on Tracker technology for months,” Sophia said finally. “You might be more useful than I thought.”
Wow, high praise.
Oaklyn gave her mom a double-take, then met my eye in the mirror again, a small smile on her lips.
Although the way she looked at me sent warmth flooding through me, Katie’s devastated expression flashed through my mind again, and the feeling trickled away as quickly as it came.
“I guess we’ll have to find our next chimera, hey Mom?” Oaklyn said, her fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on the steering wheel.
I pulled out my phone to check my tracking app. “On it.”
The familiar interface greeted me, dots of activity scattered across the map—my creation that started all this when I tracked that first chimera to White Rock. If I hadn’t been in the cafe that day, would I be here now? Or would I still be living my ordinary life, coding during the day and going home to an empty apartment at night?
