Her fingers were wrapped so tight around her wand that her knuckles had gone white, the tendons in her wrist standing out like cords pulled too thin.
She wasn’t pointing it because she wanted to hurt us. She was pointing it because she didn’t believe she had another choice. This must’ve been what I looked like to Shreesa the day she came to help me, and I threatened her with a fire poker. But Shreesa hadn’t attacked me. She’d tried to help me see the truth.
And Bastien. Had this been how he’d seen me? Was this the look I’d given him when he’d shoved me against that bathhouse and I told him I blamed him for my awful, miserable life?
Had I looked like this? Ready to burn down the one person trying to help me?
“Get away!” she shouted.
I didn’t hear a threat. I heard a cry for help.
Tansy and I pushed past Okeri. She tried to block us with one arm, muttering something under her breath, but it was half-hearted. Even she knew two armed men looming over terrified children wasn’t going to help anything.
Tyson stayed crouched, hands open, voice gentle. “Easy now. I’m not going to hurt you.” He gestured to the smaller children. “Something tells me you’re not playing hide-and-seek down here. Are you?”
Despite being a vampire, Tyson wasn’t mucholder than the girl. But his easy smile did nothing to charm her. Nor the other children.
“It’s alright. We’re like you,” I reassured her, removing the hood of my cloak so that my red hair spilled over my shoulder. I wanted them to see that we weren’t soldiers or hunters.
They looked at me. Then at Tansy. And her moon-white braids and dark skin, and recoiled. I took Tansy’s hand as a show of goodwill. “We’re from the Unified Territories. Witches get along there.” A lie. But it wasn’t all-out warfare. “Just tell us what you’re hiding from, and we can protect you.”
I could tell by the way she held her ground when the others cowered that she was fierce. “We’re hidin’ from her kind! The wolves.”
Her kind. The words were spat like a curse, and I saw Tansy flinch as if struck, her shoulders curling in on themselves as she quickly turned away. A hot surge of anger and helplessness twisted in my chest. Devlinn rushed over and put his arm around her shoulders.
“They just keep doing horrible things,” Tansy muttered. “And when I think they can’t do anything worse, they find a shovel and keep digging. Now they’re attacking children.Children.”
“Look at me. Look at me,” Devlinn said, taking her face between his hands. “This is why we decided to stay. Because we don’t agree with this, and we’re not just going to let them speak for everybody. Are we? We’re not going to let them keep doing this.”
I burned with the need to say something, anything that would lessen her pain, but the words stuck behind my teeth.
I set my hand on Tansy’s shoulder, feeling her pain more deeply than I could explain.
Tyson gave the girl one of his winning smiles. “We’re here to take care of those mean old wolves so you won’t have to hide from them anymore. So how about you put your wand down and let us help you?”
The girl just shook her head. “They said the same thing. That we would be safe if we just listened. But it was alllies.”
The word came out as a hiss. I knew her fear wasfracturing into something more dangerous, but I didn’t want to believe she was too far gone. “We can help find your parents,” I said, trying to keep a hopeful note in my voice. “Are they down here too?”
Her wand drifted toward Tansy. “The moon witches took ‘em.” Red light flashed in her eyes. “They’re all tricksters!”
She swished her wand to cast the spell. “No!” Devlinn shouted, pushing Tansy behind him, protecting her with his body.
I grabbed her wrist and lifted her wand toward the ceiling. The spell shot from the tip and ricocheted off the ceiling, nearly missing Devlinn by an inch.
Tyson went to grab her, but magick flared under my skin, making my hand glow with light, and I shoved him back ten feet in the air like he was nothing more than a feather.
People started shouting, but I stayed locked on the girl.
Her lip was trembling. Tears were filling her eyes. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, but she was afraid. It was a fear I knew all too well. One that had been put there by stories of evil Dark Witches and merciless vampires. One that had been solidified by the blank eyes of dead relatives.
“I know you’re afraid,” I said in as calm a voice as I could muster. “But we are here to help you. I swear it.”
She drew in a shaky breath, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. “They killed my Ma. In cold blood. Right after they,” her voice broke off. She didn’t need to say the rest. I understood.
I wanted to reach out to her. To hold her. To rock her in my arms. But she wasn’t ready for that kind of love. It was foreign. So instead, I validated her pain. “I’m so sorry. That should never have happened. Your Ma didn’t deserve that, and neither did you.”
Someone shouted at me, but I didn’t move. I had to make her see. If I could understand, she could too.
