Page 80 of Big Witch Energy

And it was in that moment that she realized that she hadn’t heard Rose or the mystery asshole talk for several minutes.

And her ankles were still bound.

Shit.

The door to the RV swung open. Caroline spotted a small cast-iron frying pan on the counter and slung it toward the movement.

Cole ducked just in time, letting the frying pan fly out the camper’s open door.

It was all she could do not to flop face-first onto the disgusting RV carpet. It hurt knowing she’d been fooled, that she’d let this man into her bar, into space shared with her mother, with Mina. But Caroline supposed she should just be grateful that Cole hadn’t taken one of them.

He’d played all of them with his aw-shucks-I’m-just-here-to-help schtick, and they’d underestimated him. Had he been colluding with Rose all this time? Why had she reached out to him? Had he known she was there before he arrived on the island?

The coven was so used to looking for clever, underhanded miscreants, like Kyle, like Rose. They’d forgotten that sometimes, you had to watch for who seemed harmless.

Was her coven safe? Riley? Alice? The kids? Would her friends come for her, or was she on her own? Maybe it was better that way. Ben could find some other woman, better suited for him, for his kids. Yes, the loss would hurt Riley and Alice, but Josh and Mina would be there for them.

And her family? Oh god, her parents. Maybe her dad would take her advice, since it was the last conversation they’d had…and not sink into another guilt-fueled spiral. Maybe her brothers would step up and help… Yeah, that didn’t seem likely.

“Oh, Caroline, does that mean we’re not going to stay friends?” Cole simpered at her in mock sympathy.

“Asshole,” Caroline sniped at him, even as she wobbled on her feet.

She picked up a can of soup from the table and whipped it toward him, hitting him square in the chest. He yelped. “Bitch!”

“I don’t miss twice, and your sloppy ass left me in here with a camper full of projectiles,” Caroline said.

He rolled his eyes and reached forward with his massive paws. Ducking out of her swinging range, he yanked at her taped ankles, making her flail backward as he pulled her out of the RV. She supposed she should be happy she didn’t smack her head against the counter on her way down.

He left her splayed in the dirt, with Rose standing over her, peering at her with curiosity. Oh, great. “I gotta tell you, in terms of grandparents, you suck,” Caroline spat. “And I’ve seen Alice dealing with her grandparents, so the bar for sucking is pretty high.”

“How hard did you hit her on the head?” Rose asked Cole.

She wasn’t anyplace she knew on Starfall. She could hear lapping in the distance, and could smell the exhaust from a highway somewhere nearby.

Oh, no.

Caroline sat up, finally losing the war with her nausea and throwing up into the dirt. At least she wasn’t trapped inside with it.

“Classy,” Cole said, smirking at her. Caroline grabbed the frying pan from where it had landed and brought it crashing down on Cole’s foot. He howled, and she took aim at his knees. He kicked it out of her hands and slapped her, making her cheekbone feel like it had buckled under his huge hands.

“All of you think you’re so smart, you witches—hell, you Wiltons,” Cole huffed. “You know your family forgot I was around after a week or so? They acted like I wasn’t even in the room when they were talking. Giving me all sorts of information about where you were, what you were doing. That bimbo Tabby left her phone on the bar half the times she was there. It was only a matter of time before I got into it.”

Cole pulled the bright-pink glitter-covered cell phone from his pocket and waggled it at her.

“Dammit, Tabby,” she grumbled. She looked around what seemed to be a campsite. They were the only vehicle parked in a fairly secluded section of an RV park. Cole had parked broadside, facing the water. A rusted tan-and-white sign to her right stated it was the Starfall Views Camp-Inn Resort. She’d heard of it—a past-its-prime campground where tourists made reservations when they had no other options. No wonder there were no other RVs nearby.

Oh, shit. She was definitely off-island. How long had she been gone? Did it count when Rose took her off Starfall herself?

She needed some sort of guidebook for hereditary magic curse rules.

“Look, it’s nothing personal,” Cole insisted, crouching next to her. “You have something the Wellings want—the locks. The Wellings have something I want—money. And I just happened to have put myself in the position where I can get access to both.”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out one of the locks. It looked…different than the others they’d found, worn and dulled by age. It looked like it had been handled quite a bit by hands that were…well, the sort of hands that were OK with living in a Cheetos dust–covered RV.

Caroline could feel the cold, angry energy emanating from the metal loops. It sent a shudder down her spine, being this close to a lock without her coven.

“I found this one in the flue of the kitchen fireplace, when I was doing Riley’s aunt’s remodel,” he said. “Didn’t tell the Wellings, though. It was a bit too early in our relationship to know how much I should show them, how gullible they were.”

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