Wicked Sense (40 page)

When I arrive at P2, Skye is in my Volvo, the motor running, parked right in front of the elevator. I sneak a quick glance to the cargo are
a
of my car before jumping into the passenger’s seat. After I close my door, I look at the back seat.

We leave
in a hurry.
Skye asks me, “What are you looking for?”

“For a moment, I thought we were kidnapping Jane,” I answer, finally
seeing
her up close. She’s different. “Wow, was it rough in there? You look like hell.”

We took the ramp up out of the parking lot. Her eyes are on the driveway. We reach daylight, and I
take a
closer
look
.

Her face is different. What is going on?

She goes
four
blocks without a word,
maneuvers around a piece of road blocked by the earthquake debris,
and
then
parks
i
n
a strip mall’s lot. She turns to me.

Skye looks like she just go
t out of bed after a rough night. Her eyes are puffy
. Her skin’s
dry
.

It’s weird. She is still beautiful, but she lost that gloss, that sparkle. It’s like
seeing
a movie star without make
-
up
and flattering
lighting
.

It doesn’t matter to me.
“What happened?”
I ask.

She stares at
me, no doubt looking for clues, but s
he finally relents. “I’m not sure,” she says. Her voice becomes throaty once again. “I think Jane might have stolen my Allure Charm.”

This is one weird sentence.
I try to wrap my mind around it.

“Is that even possible?
” I ask
“
Wait, wasn’t she in a coma?”

A frayed
Skye
shakes her head
. “I don’t know what’s possible anymore.”

She tells me how green sparks flew from her hand and healed Jane’s face. She points to her face when she explains all the signs of Allure left her.

I laugh.

She gets mad.

“Sorry,” I say. “But… This is just insane.” She turns her back to me, staring out of her window. “Try to see it
through
my eyes. Imagine you weren’t trained since you were a kid to see magic as natural.” I want to touch her,
make her
turn to face me, but I just talk. “To me, it’s easy to accept when we’re talking about potions and
… and…
feelings. It’s unlikely, but it’s somewhere between, I don’t know, homeopathy—to me, very plausible—and
horoscopes
.”

“Is that how you see me? A New Age
weirdo
?” Her voice quivers.

No sense hiding it. “
In the beginning, a little, yes.
I mean, can you blame me?
Since then
I’ve seen
enough to believe in you.
But now we’re entering the realm of special effects
.
”

She turns to me. “Look at me,” she says, tears streaking her face. “Look at me!”

I stare into her eyes.

She takes a long time. “I’m changed. Can’t you see it? Can’t you accept it?”

“You look different,” I say, wiping a tear from her cheek. “But you’re still Skye.”

She tries to back away from me, but my hand cradles her face. My other hand reaches behind the back of her ne
ck
,
and I pull her gently toward
my chest.

She lets out a few
hiccupy
sobs. “I’m not vain,” she says without moving, her vo
ice muffled. “I’m not one of tho
se girls. I know it’s easy to say this when I never had to worry about it, really. But I’m not shallow. I’m not.”

It’s not a question
.
I want
to
give her some
reassur
ance
. “I know,” I say.

After a long pause, she becomes less agitated. She says, “
It’s just that she took away something that’s been
a
part of me forever.”

I nod. I understand
her pain now, but she can’t see me.

“I’ve never seen anyone do it, Drake. It can’t be done.” She moves away from me,
wiping her face with her sleeve
.

She’s
a mess, yes, but at the same time she
looks
so… real, so much like a person, and not someone supernatural. Vulnerable. I didn’t know it was possible
to want
her more.

“It can’t be done, Drake,” she repeats.

“What do you mean?”

She untangles herself from my embrace and faces me.
“She must be the Singularity. Can you imagine Jane wi
th
all that power?”

After I share my suspicion
s
with Drake, he stares at me, speechless.

“Do you understand?” I ask.

“
I do
,” he says. “But you’re wrong.
Jane told me she was twenty. The witch you’re looking for should be seventeen, right? Or even a boy.”

I shake my head. “Jane could be lying. Or maybe the Singularity operates differently, maybe her Daybreak comes at a different age. The Singularity does have magical shields up, and that’s unheard of.”

He sighs.
“
There’s also the logical explanation.
If she were the Singularity, she would have used her power against us.
She wouldn’t hang around Mr. St
uffy, who’s searching for her. Or s
he woul
d
’ve
be
en
gone, doing whatever it is
almighty
witches do.”

Drake
has a point. It still doesn’t explain how she stole my Allure. I point that out to
him
.

“Can’t you ask someone? Maybe it
is
possible and you just didn’t learn it yet,
” he says.
“
Your mother would know, wouldn’t
she
? Or
your ex?
” Drake adds, reluctantly. “Why didn’t you tell him about it? Why did we have to run away?”

My mouth creases. I’m ashamed of myself. “Because it’s Jane. All the Sisters will worship the Singularity. She
would have
extraordinary
power.” I stare at him. “
Jane
.”

He
puts
his palms up in a helpless gesture. “But what can you do? If she is the queen of magic, she is. There’s nothing you can do
about it
.” 

I lower my eyes. “I thought about…
preventing it.” I wouldn’t say it
aloud to anyone else.

As I expect
ed
, he looks at me with surprise, his mouth agape. But he recovers quickly.
“Sorry, Skye,” he says with a soothing voice. “That’s not who you are. I know you.”

“But isn’t
it
the right thing to do?”

His voice is firm.
“No, it isn’t.
Sometimes we
just have to
let
things play out.”

***

I call Mum in England. It’s
morning there. S
he doesn’t answer. Nor does Judi. I leave a message for each of them to call me back
ASAP
.

Drake convinces
me to go back to the hospital.
I call Connor and ask him to meet me at the
outside parking lot
. It’s on the far side of the hospital, opposite the ER,
but we need some privacy
to discus
s
th
ings under the
Veil.

While
Drake
goes check on
Mona
and talk to her
doctor
,
I
will
tell
Connor
the news.

When
Connor
first
sees
me, he
can’t
hide his shock. Apparently, my former good looks were important to him.
He
wants to know
what happened
,
but I ask him to answer some
vital
questions first.
I try to shake
off
his magical energy signature so I can focus on our conversation.

An ambulance siren catches my attention—another one. I look around the full lot, so many injured people coming to the ER.

Focus, Skye.

“
Connor, when you were
with Jane
, was anything different?
”

His expression darkens. “
Sod, Skye, are you sure you want to go there? Again?
”

“Don’t be a smart
ass.
I’m not talking about being horny. Was anything different? W
ith your magical energy?
”

“
What do you mean?
”

I search for the right words. “
Did you feel, I don’t know,
a disconnection of some sort? Magic
al energy
flowing?
”

He looks at me startled. “
Yes. Yes, I did.
I mean, I sensed her and all, but sometimes I felt like a decrease of my personal magic… I thought it was just this generic bad vibe she had.” He shrugs.

That’s when I tell him about the Jane
incident
, my Allure, and my suspicion.

“No, it’s not possible,” he says, calm.
“She can’t be the Singularity. It doesn’t make sense.”

“But how did she steal my Allure?” I point out.

His brow furrows.
“I’ve heard of
that
. My parents
like to talk
about the old days, and
I remember them mentioning
a Charm that could absorb magical energy. It might be something like
this
.”

“This must be it then!”

“No, no…” Connor says.
“The Sister could only absorb
magical energy when the source was dying.”

I remember what Mum told me about the magic being part of oneself. Indivisi
ble. Unless, it seems, if you
die. Then the energy abandons you—

I grab Connor’s arm. “She was doing a ritual while I drowned!” I yell.

Connor becomes livid, not because of my revelation, but worried about the Veil. He looks around nervously
even though we are in a sea of cars with no one within hearing distance.

“
Tell me that again,
” he asks.

“That’s what Jane was doing
to me! That’s why she didn’t stab me with her knife
:
she needed me to live for a little bit while she absorbed my energy!”

Connor’s eyes
twitch
when
he makes the connection
.

“Bollocks,” he says.

“Indeed,” I say.

“Let’s see her,” he says, pulling my arm so I follow him. I have flashbacks from when we were
together. His commands and his
hands-on attitude.

I shake
his hands
off, but I say, “Let’s.”

We enter the hospital, cross the lobby, go up the escalators. In some hallways
we pass
gurneys with people. Those are the minor
victims of the earthquake
—the lucky ones.

When we are
halfway
to
the ER
, I see Drake running toward us.

“Mona is gone!”
he
says out of breath. “I mean, not in her room.
They took her for exams but now nobody knows where she is
!”

I’m unable to process the information.
I look at Connor, who only says, “Let’s see Jane.”

The three of us rush
through the hospital,
back to the ER,
toward Jane’s room
on the other side of the huge building
.
When we enter the ER waiting
area
, I already know the truth.
I can’t feel anyone besides Connor.
We cross the area,
ignoring the protests coming from the nurse’s station.