Page 19 of Second Chance By Fate

Steele calls for Jax to pick us up, and it feels like he takes forever to find us, but when he finally does show up, he has an expression I’ve seen before. It’s the same look he had when I told him our parents died.

“What the hell happened?”

Steele gives him a quick recap. We pile into his crimson sports car, but as we head back to the estate, Violet weakly makes a suggestion that forces him to pull over.

“Maybe the estate isn’t the best place for you right now.”

Jax looks at her in the rearview mirror, and I signal for him to pull over from the passenger side, immediately understanding her concerns.

“She’s right. There could be more spies there. We shouldn’t go back.”

“Dammit, who hired that guy? Why wasn’t a proper background check done on him? What the hell has been happening to us these past few years?”

“No one hired him. He was planted, and no one thought to check,” Steele seethes.

“How? How can anyone get into Dusty Woods uninvited?” I insist. I look at Violet helplessly, and she purses her lips.

“Dark magic works by a unique set of rules. You may have let one of them in by invitation, and they allowed others,” she offers. “I really don’t know how it happened. But it clearly did, and I’d bet there’s more of them. I doubt he’s working alone.”

“Until we can go through every single staff member, Violet is right. We can’t go back there,” I concede, my heart sinking. I can’t believe things have gotten so out of control under our watch, and we’ve allowed it to happen.

Steele eyes Violet, and she looks away, her cheeks flushing as she waits for another reprimand from him. Instead, his words shock everyone. He hangs his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.”

Startled, my chin jerks up. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Steele apologize to anyone for anything in my life.

“It’s okay,” Violet mumbles through a grimace. “I know why you thought it was me. I would have thought it was me, too. The timing… Although they probably planned it that way, too.”

“She needs a doctor,” Jax says urgently. “You all do.”

“No,” Violet breathes. “I just… We need to get somewhere safe, and I need some of my supplies. I can fix us. Let’s just find a safe house.”

Jax glances at me, and I nod.

“Go to the east end pack house,” I tell him. “There should be some supplies there, too. Whatever she doesn’t have, we can get.”

Jax steers the car back onto the road and heads toward the east end Apex pack house, but I’m not sure we’ll be safe there. As much as I don’t want to press Violet for details when she’s injured, I feel like I don’t have much of a choice at this point.

“You said you smelled dark magic on him,” I tell her. “What does that mean?”

Fear floods her eyes, and she starts to shake her head.

Protectively, Steele jumps in. “Do we have to do this now?”

“Yes!” I interject. “We do. Whatever this is, it’s been happening for years. And now they know we’re onto them. So, unfortunately, we have to do this now.”

Violet exhales. “I don’t know what to tell you. He was clearly a warlock. I don’t know him personally, but I could sense the darkness around him.”

“What does that mean?” Jax wants to know. “I thought that was all a myth, the practice of dark magic.”

Violet grimaces again and holds her side, sinking deeper into the seat, her lovely eyes half-closing.

“Stay with us,” Steele murmurs. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” she mutters back. “And I don’t know much about the coven of dark witches and warlocks, guys. For the most part, I thought they were a myth, too. But here we are.”

Silence ensues as we finish the drive to the east end pack house, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Who did this is becoming more apparent, but why they did this still doesn’t make sense.

What does this dark coven want with us? And how are we going to get them off our backs?

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