There is destiny at work here. I have to trust it.
I hurry to Alisha and throw my arms around her, hugging her tight. “Are you okay?” I ask.
She nods. “I had a dream last night, and when I woke up, there were messages from Sloan about the stone heating up. Something is going down.”
“Yes, it is,” I say, gripping her hands. “More than you know, but it’s finally time to tell you.”
“Tell me what?” she asks, violet eyes widening in alarm.
“We should be on our way,” I answer, feeling a rising anxiety in me, as if we’re running out of time. “We need to get to the stone.”
“We’ll take a supply truck,” Alisha says, gesturing to the nearby vehicles. “They’re doing regular runs. This one should leave in a few minutes.”
“Good,” I reply. “We’ll need the other women as well.”
“Sara and Scarlett?” Alisha asks. “Why? They’ll want to stay here to help their people, and I don’t think Rex or Shawn wants them out there.”
“We have to,” I say in a hard tone. “Get them here in time for this truck, and I’ll explain on the way.”
Alisha looks confused, but doesn’t argue. She pulls out her phone and calls Scarlett. A few minutes later, Scarlett approaches with Sara, and we all jump in the back of the supply truck.
“Okay, what’s this about?” Scarlett says. “I was only able to get away because Rex is too busy to argue with me. Why are we going out to the rock?”
I look around at the three of them, taking a deep breath.
All this time, I didn’t want to keep this secret—and now I can’t stand to tell it!
“The snake has a name,” I say, not even knowing where to start. “It’s Sakesh, and there is an ancient order of witches who guard his secrets.”
“What the fuck?” Alisha cries. “What are you saying, Grace?”
I sigh again. “I knew from the moment I met you that you were connected to Sakesh and that your powers were important to the coven. Since I was a child, I’ve been working with them.”
“Whoa, whoa.” Scarlett waves her hands in the air. “Back up. When you say they guard his secrets—”
“They only exist to control him, or to stop him,” I cut in. “We’ve been working on an ancient prophecy and—”
“Where have these witches been, then?” Sara snaps. “The snake—Sakesh?—has exploded the area multiple times, and they didn’t make any attempt to stop him?”
“They did,” I say. “Many years ago, they stopped interfering because they couldn’t stop it and only got killed in theprocess, leaving one or two witches alive outside the blast zone to carry on the tradition. They knew they’d never stop him like that, so they let Sakesh think he’d killed them all.”
“You mean, when I was in that circle—with my son—you knew what was going on, and you did nothing?” Scarlett asks, her voice low and dangerous.
I shake my head, my eyes filling with tears. “Would knowing his name have helped you? Would it have done any good at all to know there were witches nearby who had watched him for years, but that they didn’t have the power to stop him?”
Scarlett stares right at me, her eyes simmering with fury. “My parents,” she whispers. “They were looking for information on the snake, and it looks like Uncle Azarian killed them to get them off the trail. Then he and Vanessa lured innocent people, and good fighting men out there to sacrifice them, and you did nothing?”
“I didn’t know!” I yell, losing it finally. “I didn’t know everything, at least. I’m not as powerful as the others, and they don’t always share all the information with me.”
“But you knew he lured those people out there to die,” Scarlett says, and I hang my head.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Grace!” Alisha cries. “How could you do this?”
“The only alternative was another explosion,” I say. “So, the choice was to let that scenario play out, and then hopefully it would lead to a chance to stop him for good. Or let Azarian finish the ritual and end up with another explosion that destroyed the area for miles around.”
“And then, he’d still be in the rock, just waiting,” Sara says. “Isn’t that right?”
