Page 96 of Love's a Witch
“Oh no,” Dorothy cried. We both ran to the window, and Blue followed, scrambling to land on my shoulder until I reached up and tucked him into my arms.
Below, a minivan was wrapped around a tree, its front end smoking and crumpled like an accordion.
“No,” I breathed, turning. “That’s Felicity’s car. We need to call for help.”
“Already on it.”
“Keep Blue with you.” I put Blue on the couch. “Buddy, stay here. It could be dangerous.”
Grabbing my coat, I raced outside.
The sight that greeted me was dire.
Felicity sat hunched in the driver’s seat, blood pouring down her face, unconscious. I was the first to arrive, though shouts greeted me through the swirl of snow and sleet that hammered the car. Wrenching the door open, I pressed my palms to the blood at her head, hoping to stem the flow. My breath caught in my chest.
“Felicity,” I called, hoping she would wake up. “Honey, I need you to wake up. You’ve had an accident.”
I wasn’t even sure if she was breathing. Did I need to check that? Maybe I should be administering CPR instead of stopping the flow of blood. Panic clenched my throat.
“Sloane, move back.”
“Raven,” I gasped, immediately making room for the healer. “I don’t know… I’m not sure if she’s okay.”
“Just move,” Raven ordered, and I slid out of the way. Shifting my coat from my shoulders, I held it up, trying to block Raven and Felicity from the sharp shards of icy snow that hammered down from above. Raven put her hand on Felicity’s chest and closed her eyes, her face going as still as a statue’s. A moment later, her eyelids fluttered open.
“She’s alive, but she’s seriously injured. We need to get her into surgery.”
“What can you do?”
“I’m going to work on the internal bleeding. The broken bones will have to wait. Now wheesht.” With that, Raven closed her eyes and went to work, murmuring spell after spell until sirens pierced the air and an ambulance slid to a stop next to the car, Knox right behind it.
Everything was a blur of movement as the officials took over, and we were pushed back, back, back, until we could barely see through the snow as they strapped Felicity to a stretcher and whisked her away.
“Is she going to…” I grasped Raven’s arms, unable to say the words.
“I don’t know. But I have to call her family.”
“What can I do?” I asked Raven, feeling helpless.
And Raven, despite her loyalty to me, couldn’t help but glance at the snow that barreled down from the sky and then back to me. I winced.
Even if it hadn’t been intentional, the meaning was clear. The snow was becoming a true threat now, and if we didn’t do something to fix this soon, I might not have any choice but to leave.
I’d been handed a cold, hard slap of reality in the form of one friend’s van wrapped around a tree.
What I needed to do was go home, pack everyone up, and get out of town before all of Briarhaven descended into chaos. It was clear we were running out of time. Raven squeezed my arm once, understanding on her face, and my heart fell. She knew as well as I did what we had to do. It wasn’t fair to ask people to live with this. Staying in Briarhaven to break the curse had been a pipe dream at best.
Tears threatened, and I swallowed them back, pushing them down, down, down, behind that wall that I’d been so good at keeping up most of my life. Dorothy handed me Blue, and I bundled him into my coat and beelined for the Land Rover, ostensibly ignoring where Knox stood speaking to the police.
I couldn’t face him.
Not now. Not like this. With the blood of an innocent victim on my hands. It wasn’t my curse, but it was mine to bear.
But as I made to close the driver’s door, a hand stopped me. Already I knew who it was.
I struggled in a breath and then swung my gaze up to his.
“Sloane. No.” Knox’s voice was ragged, his face ravaged with grief.
