Page 45 of Practically Witches

I jump out of the Jeep and run around to the passenger side. Dad has already climbed out and is helping Zane stand, although he’s mostly limp, and I shove my shoulder under his arm and lift him to match what Dad’s doing on the other side.

When we get him inside, Mom motions me toward the sofa and I ease Zane down as gently as I can, but he’s no lightweight. I finally have proof that muscle weighs more than fat. There isn’t an ounce of fat on this guy, but he weighs a lot.

Mom repeats the same process with Zane that she usedon Aimee and I watch her as closely while Aimee stands beside me, her arm a comfort at my waist.

To her credit, Aimee doesn’t stare too hard at Dad. Doesn’t even give him much more than a glance. And I wonder for a second if she knew about him, but she didn’t. No way could she keep a secret like that from me. From anyone. She’s shit at secrets and the bigger they are, the harder it is for her. This one is the Mount Everest of its kind.

Mom steps back from Zane and we wait for him to open his eyes. Mom glances at me. I don’t know if she can tell he’s important to me or not, but she seems to be respecting it because she looks at me, not Aimee. “He’s resting, RJ. He’s fine. Do we need to call his parents?”

I don’t know the answer. “Maybe in a little while.”

We leave him on the sofa and move into the dining room and sit at the table. Aimee and I are on one side, a team, and Mom and our dad are on the other.

“Are you all right?” Mom asks and reaches across the table for my hand. I nod and lay my palm across hers and she curls her fingers and gives me a squeeze.

“I guess you have questions.” Dad looks at me first, then Aimee. I want to be mad, to not ask him anything out of pure spite because there had to be a better way to protect us than by abandoning us.

Aimee speaks up first anyway. “Why are you here?” She is looking at him, and even for me, it’s hard to tell if she’s pissed off. Her voice is soft, but her hands are clenched into fists in her lap.

“I’ve always been here.” I want to call bullshit or at least point out that our ideas ofhereare very different. But I’m still silent. “Being in the house with you all was too dangerous. But I couldn’t leave you. I’ve watched you grow, turn into beautiful young women, then beautiful adult women.”

I don’t need my ass kissed. “That isn’t the same as being here, helping with homework, mowing the lawn and being friends with our friends’ dads.” These were things normal families did. And we’d missed out while they lied to us, over and over and over again.

He nods. “Don’t you think I wanted to be here for all of that?”

I shake my head. “No. I don’t.” The anger is real, makes me more honest than I probably would be if I hadn’t spent my entire lifetime being lied to.

“Well, you’re wrong, RJ.” He shakes his head and looks at Mom for a second before he turns back to me. “I would’ve loved to be here with you, to be able to teach you how to throw a spell and tap into powers you might not recognize from the jump. But I did what your mother and I thought was best.”

I don’t bother to hide my eyeroll. “Does it seemnowlike it’sthe best?” I’m sarcastic because they made decisions that affected all of us. Not just our family, but the entire town now. There are four people who’ve lost their magic. There’s a fucking syphoner on the loose and I’m the only one I know of except for him who might be able to put the syphoner out of business. Time to train for such an endeavor, since they have always known it could happen, would’ve been nice.

“We didn’t know all the ways that the future would play out.” Mom’s voice is soft and she tries to hold my gaze, but I’m not in the mood to be placated. My sister, the boy I like, and two innocent girls have been stripped of their magic and if we can’t get it back for them, I don’t know what that will do to them.

I turn to our father. “Why did you protect the syphoner?”

He looks at my mother and they lock gazes. “I protected you, RJ. You couldn’t kill her without the scepter and we didn’t have it.”

I nod. “The stone was already dug up and opened before I got there. The syphoner must have it.” Which means not only can I not kill the syphoner, but now she has the power to kill me.

Dad smiles at me and reaches to pat my hand. I pull away before he makes contact and he ends up patting Mom’s palm. I’m not intentionally rude, but I’m hurt and it’s not going to go away just because he let his glamour slide.

“The scepter has never been at the school.” He smiles like he’s made some great statement about hiding a magical staff that may or may not be part of some old legend. I’ve decided that I’m not going to believe in anything until I see it. This is what they’ve done to me. And I’m angry—fists balled, eyes narrowed, blood burning—about it.

Aimee nudges me with her knee under the table. I look at her and she smiles softly, like she’s trying to calm me. “Tell me what happened.”

“Zane and I went to the club where the syphoner has been before.”

“Club Mera.” She fills in a blank for our mother, who’s taking mental notes. Her idea of me and Aimee staying safe is not hunting down a syphoner on the syphoner’s hunting grounds, but for now, she won’t ground me. I’m sure of that much.

I nod at Aimee. “I used magic to find your magic, so I could link myself to it.” I didn’t want to explain too much. “And the spell led me to her, the syphoner. She was at Club Mera. She was going to take my magic”—but of course Ihave none—“and Zane pushed me out of the way. She took his.” I nod to the sofa. “And then she got away. I followed her to the Institute and we fought, but I didn’t have the scepter and he stopped me from throwing the spell and holding her in it until I could find the scepter.”

We both look at Dad. “Who is the syphoner and why did you protect her?” Aimee asks him.

He sighs and looks at Mom, who nods. “Her name is Elizabeth, and she’s my sister.”

His sister? That’s the reason he let her go.

“Lizzie was taken away when she was young and put into a sanatorium when she started syphoning from other spellcasters.” He shakes his head. “As soon as I found out she’d been released, I came back to the school and started watching out for you. Protected you.”

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