Page 130 of The Blood Witch

“Hey, Vee,”Jayce called out, smiling as he watched her storm into the clubhouse. She slammed her hand over the light switch on the wall the second she arrived, turning on the bulb that hung from the ceiling. “Check out the score we got tonight. Paul found a mansion near the border that hasn’t been occupied in months, and we?—”

He stopped and stared at her. Vee was panicked.

And Vee never, ever panicked.

“Vee?” he asked, scrambling to stand up. “Vee, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“I messed up,” Vee muttered. She looked around frantically, her breaths quick and panicked. She rushed from the light switch to thelamp they kept in the corner, turning it on. Scowling, she tore the lamp shade from it, flooding the room with even more light. “I got caught.”

“Vee—” Jayce started.

“No time,” she interrupted. “Do we still have those massive lights on the poles? The ones we took from that factory by the docks?”

Jayce blinked. “Flood lights,” he told her. “And yeah. We have three of them, down in the basement.”

“I need them. And I need you to set them up. All of them, up on the roof.” She was manic, her head twisting as she looked around the warehouse. She positioned herself in the center of the room, directly under the overhead light. “And they need to overlap, do you understand? All of them pointed at the center of the roof, no … no shadows between them, okay? And then I need you to get everyone out of here. Take them to my Nan’s, take them to Jasper’s place. Take them anywhere, I don’t care, but they all need to be gone.”

“Vee,” Jayce said, voice soft. “I can help. We can help. Whatever it is you did. Just talk to me.”

Vee growled so furiously Jayce took an involuntary step back.

“It’s too late, Jayce,” she snapped. “I told you, I got caught. There’s no fixing this anymore. I need you to get everyone out. I can’t let anyone else go down for my mistake. I can’t let anyone else get hurt.”

“What happened?” Jayce pressed.

Her power hit him so quickly he had no time to react. One moment he was taking a step toward her, and the next he was on his knees, kneeling.

“No more questions,” Vee ordered. “Get the lights up and get everyone out, Jayce. As soon as you can. Do you understand me?”

As quickly as she had taken him, she let go, and that power that held him in her grasp was gone. Jayce blinked, heart pounding.

“I understand,” he said. “I’ll do it. But, Vee, you’re not alone anymore. And we’re not little kids. We can help, we can…”

He looked up, but the room was empty.

She was already gone.

Chapter 60

JASPER

Jasper awoke to the sound of someone ransacking his kitchen.

It had been so long since anyone had been stupid enough to break into his home, the sounds didn’t fully rouse him, not right away. For a moment he just lay in his bed, lost in the fog that exists between sleep and consciousness.

Then something shattered, and that fog dissipated in an instant. Jasper was awake, snarling as he barreled out of his bedroom and into the kitchen.

But it wasn’t a thief who awaited him there. It wasn’t a thief who had ransacked the place, upending drawers and digging through his cupboards.

It was Vivian.

“Viv?” Jasper asked, looking around at the mess. His floor was covered in a hodgepodge of junk. Tools and kitchen utensils. He tried to step around it all, pushing aside a ladle with his foot to make room.

Vivian was buried in a lower cabinet, on her hands and knees. She whipped her head out to scream, “Don’t turn off that light!” before immediately diving back in, digging through his emergency supplies. She tossed items out behind her, leaving them in a pile on the ground.

“She can move through the dark,” Vivian was muttering, her voiceso low Jasper could barely hear her. “I don’t know how, but she can. Dark and shadows. She controls them, somehow.”

“Who are you talking about?” Jasper asked, pushing more junk out of the way to take another step forward.

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