“Why not?”
“You don’t know what that power will do to you. To me.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said with a wave of her hand as if to dismiss the thought.
“You don’t know that. Youcan’tknow that.”
Evie's eyes sparkled with purpose as she gazed at her in the torchlight. “I have to believe I will.Wewill. I have to believe the Triple Goddess would not give us this power if it harmed us.”
Chloe huffed out a breath, exasperated. “How are we going to slice open our hands anyway?”
She looked around their baren cell. There was a chamber pot in one corner and a three-legged stool in another.
“I’ll find a jagged stone or something.” She ran her hands over the stone walls, looking for a loose stone with a sharp edge.
At the thought of slicing open her hand with a random jagged rock, a wave of disgust went through her followed by a surge of stubbornness. “I don’t want to do that.”
She paused her search and turned to face her. “It may be our only way out of here.”
“We will wait for the guys,” Chloe said, her voice determined and hard.
“But what if they don’t come?”
“Seriously? Do you believe they won’t?” Chloe looked at her as though she may have lost her mind.
“Well, no, but what if—”
“Stop with the what ifs, Eve.Ifthey don’t come, then we decide our next steps.” Clutching her elbows, she paced the short length of the cell. “Besides, I have faith in Malcolm and Callum. They’ll come for us.”
Evie was silent as she watched her pace back and forth. She chewed on her lower lip. “Fine. We’ll do it your way and wait. But I’m still going to look for something to use.”
Her sister went back to her desperate, intense search for some tool to enact the blood magic residing within them in conjunction with the keystone. A hard flash of resolve glinted in her eyes. Her hands shook, but there was a fierce determination burning within her. Chloe understood then—it was Evie’s deep-rooted desire to protect them both at any cost, driven bytheir unbreakable bond forged through their hardened years of sacrifices and struggles.
She admired that about her sister. She had always been the one to take care of things while Chloe was busy studying into the long hours of the night, paving the way toward her future. A future, she realized, that didn’t include Evie.
Guilt swamped her.
“Eve?” Chloe said, her voice timid in the shadowy darkness, echoing through the cavernous room.
She halted her search and turned to look at her. “Yeah?”
“We’re going to be okay, you know. We’re going to get out of this. You should rest before you wear yourself out.” Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Think of the baby.”
Air whooshed out of her lungs as her shoulders slumped in defeat. Her chin quivered as though she were about to break. Chloe rushed to her, wrapping her arms around her, hugging her tightly.
“YouknowI’m a sympathy crier, sis,” she said against her hair.
Evie giggled, which was nothing more than a cover for the emotion shuddering through her slender frame. Chloe hugged her harder, squeezed her, then pulled back.
“You’ve always been the strong one,” Chloe said. “You’ve always been the one to take care of us, even after Brianna left. And here you are, pregnant and looking for a way out.”
She gave her a weak smile, tears pooling in her deep brown eyes. “It’s what I do, you know. Take care of you. It’s what I’ve always done.”
“Well, now you have to take care of yourself. Have faith. They’ll come for us. And they’ll make him pay.”
Evie wrapped her arm around her waist and clung to her. They walked to one side of the cell—the side farthest away from the chamber pot and the three-legged stool. Together, theylowered down to the ground, resting against the cold stone wall, clinging to each other. They were each other’s salvation.
Chloe forced herself to tamp down the rising tide of worry, but her mind kept slipping into a shadowed spiral. She remained silent, swallowing the words before they surfaced. Bruce would return. She knew this as sure as the silence grew thick. She didn’t need Evie sharing in her dread.
