Page 92 of The Human’s Heart

I jumped to my feet, and Hugo didn’t hesitate to follow. We both slipped our shoes on as I reached out to the wards with my magic, trying to get a sense of who was on the other side.

The second I recognized her signature, I froze. “It’s Beatrix.”

Hugo froze too. “What do we do?” He was still whispering as if he was afraid she’d hear us. But the wards around the house wouldn’t allow that. They kept our noises inside so passersby wouldn’t hear. Although, if we were outside, there was a chance she could hear us.

I understood the inclination to whisper. I kinda felt like whispering too.

I pulled out my phone without answering him and called my granddad.

When Hugo saw what I was doing, he nodded in agreement and released a relieved sigh.

We’d both learned our lesson the hard way about doing things like this alone. I knew better than to go out there without telling Granddad what we were doing. I put the phone on speaker so Hugo could hear him too.

“Hey, kiddo, what’s—”

“Beatrix is banging on my wards.”

His tone changed immediately. “We’re on our way. Can you… I hate asking this of you, but can you go out there and stall her? Don’t you dare step a single toe outside the wards, okay? I’ll kick your ass if you do.”

“I won’t. Promise.”

“Good. We’ll be there in about two minutes. Keep her there.”

“We will.” I hung up, grabbed Hugo’s hand, and pulled him with me.

I saw her standing on the other side of the wards, and I couldn’t help but notice how terrible she looked. She looked like she hadn’t slept since the last time I saw her weeks ago. Her hair was a mess, she had bags under her eyes, her clothes were disheveled, and I was pretty sure she had a bruise on her cheek.

What the hell?

When we got closer, I could see with the way she was holding her arm that it was hurt… possibly broken.

But I had no sympathy for someone who was okay with hurting my family, with someone whose actions caused harm to my viramore. Hugo almost died because of her and her family.

It didn’t matter if she didn’t want to do it. She still did. She pretended to be my friend and put us all in harm’s way, and I didn’t think I could ever forgive her for it.

“What do you want, Beatrix?” I asked.

And of course my viramore had to be all nice, asking, “What happened to you? Are you alright?”

“They found me,” she whispered, looking over her shoulder.

“Who found you?”

The BCA? They wouldn’t have hurt her like that. No way.

They definitely wouldn’t have released her either.

“Theroli and the rest of the clan… a lot of us left when he killed Phia, but he still has at least eleven with him—maybe more. They… they found me.”

“And you decided to lead them straight to me and my viramore?” I asked, pissed.

She met my gaze, and her eyes filled with tears, pulling at my heartstrings despite myself. “No. Of course not. I… I’m so sorry, Zay. I didn’t know what to do. He was… he kept threatening me, and he had my little brother and our mom. I couldn’t go against him. Not when he could hurt them. They… they got away from him last week, but then he found me, and he hu—no. It doesn’t matter. I just… I wanted to warn you.”

“Warn me about what?”

She took a deep breath and glanced over her shoulder again. “I’m supposed to convince you to let me through your wards so I can disable them from the inside. They think they’ll be able to get through and then use the portal you told me about in your yard or whatever. They want to get to the rest of your family. He’s so stupid. I can’t disable your wards, for crying out loud, and how he thinks he’ll be able to take on your grandfather is laughable. He’s gone insane, Zay. He’s seriously lost his mind. It’s ridiculous, all of it.”

My grandparents chose that moment to walk around the house so she could see them. I’d known they were there, listening in.