Page 52 of Never Say Die
The pack of witches drove a two-door Chevy with a bench seat and rusted door handles. Aiden and Shay rode in the bed with Cit, who kept her gun trained on them, smiling fondly as they bounced through the desert. Laura sat in the driver’s seat beside two pale-faced partygoers, dressed in their fishnets and knock-off elevator boots. Night beckoned, yawning open for white stars and a slender moon. Saguaro cacti stood like sentinels throughout the desert, and Aiden wondered if theywould uproot themselves and walk to him if he called for their help. When he was a child, his abuelita had told him about the cacti who were once people—their ancestors lying dormant where water pooled beneath green skin. He caught himself praying. Begging for an ancient Ramírez brujo to rise from the dirt and crucify Cit. But the cacti stayed put, and the truck left a dusty cloud in its wake, speeding away from Roswell’s twinkling lights.
“Have you done this before?” Shay asked, nodding at Cit. “Taken power from someone like me?”
“We’ve tried,” she said. She held her hat with one hand and the gun with the other, leaning against the tailgate. “Like I said, transferring power from someone possessed is ultimately impossible. When you’re dealing with sentient beings, you get the entirety of that somethin’ and no access to its power.”
“And you think whatever is inside me isn’t sentient?”
“You catch on quick. See, honey, you’re a whole new kind of carnivore. When you died, someone left somethin’ inside you. A key, you could say. Like a flower busting through concrete. It’s growin’, puttin’ down roots in an unnatural place, forcing an evolution.”
“And you can take it out? Stop whatever prophecy we started?”
“I think so.” She laughed into the wind.
Aiden hadn’t realized he was trembling until Shay clutched his palm, steady and sure, gripping in the shadowed place between their bodies. Wind snapped at his face and fear curdled in his stomach, thoughts racing through exit strategies, panic responses, impromptu plans. They’d traveled too far into the emptiness to run. Given too much information to stay gone if they got away. They had one option—one.
“It’ll be okay,” Shay whispered. He brushed his thumb across Aiden’s scarred knuckles.
The truck rolled to a stop.
Hinges squeaked. Cit hopped over the gate, landing with athudon the packed dirt. Silhouettes melted from the darkness—two other devotees. Six, altogether. Aiden kept their hands linked until Shay let him go. He climbed over the side of the truck, faced with Cit’s gun, and brushed dust off his pants, watching Shay move through the darkness. Careful steps. Straight spine.
A lighter flicked, turning Laura’s round, girlish face orange. Cigarette smoke curled from her lips. “Candles?” she asked, spitting crudely between her buckled boots.
“Just need to be lit,” someone else said.
Aiden glanced from one haunted face to the next. Sunken eyes, Jack o’ Lantern smiles—carved by a false mother—and deliberate, willful devotion. People like them flocked to the unknown, to radical ideas spoken casually, to the thrilling taste ofnowandyes. They were parentless scavengers, trained and weaponized by a clever woman. He almost felt sorry for them.
Laura lit each pillar candle, arranged in a circle around a flat stone. Firelight illuminated white chalk sketched on the rock—sigils, maybe—and a tiny, brown rabbit, lying in a red pool. Aiden swallowed, thinking back to the bone cradled in Laura’s palm.Were you someone’s pet?He exhaled sharply through his nose and turned away. Headlights crossed the highway in the distance like fireflies. Once the candles were lit, Cit took a serrated knife from a boy wearing chunky signet rings, and pointed to the bloody stone.
“We’ll need to see your eyes,” Cit said, bowing her head to Shay. “Same as Cassandra did. Yourblackeyes.”
Shay inched toward the rock. His lips quivered and he furrowed his brow, confused. “That’s not how it works. I can’t—I don’t control it.”
Cit sucked her teeth, considering. She handed the knife toLaura, and in one, quick movement, back-handed Aiden. Her knuckles met his cheekbone, stirring a memory: Camila’s palm stinging his skin in the hospital. He closed his eyes, shocked at first, and opened them to the hard wrench of Cit’s fingers in his hair. A startled yelp burst from him—fucking embarrassing—and his knees gave out. He scrambled to his feet, leaning away from the gun digging into his temple. She yanked his head back, forcing him to bare his face.
“Ah, there you are,” Cit purred.
Shay snapped his teeth. Black veins crawled toward his hairline and his pupils expanded, pouring over the whites of his eyes. His chest heaved. Obsidian claws tipped his fingers.
“You have no idea who you’re fucking with,” Aiden said. He winced, enduring a hard twist against his scalp.
“On the contrary, I know exactly who I’m fucking with. We all serve a purpose here. Even you,especiallyyou. Laura, let’s see that knife.” She traded the gun for the knife and pressed the blade against his throat. His eyes burned, hot and wet, and his legs threatened to fail again. He stared at Shay. Wished he looked half-decent. Tried to arrange his terrified expression into something different. Anger, maybe. Something Shay would’ve expected. He mouthedit’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, because he couldn’t speak, and Shay stared back at him, wide-eyed and lethal. “Good,” Cit whispered. Her voice lifted, silencing warm wind and invisible insects. “That’s the suckerpunch, darlin’. These things won’t work unless you’ve got somethin’ to give. Love’s potent, but your friend already knows that, don’t he? He foretold this moment. We’re changin’ the script, though. You’ll die bymyhands, just like Cassandra died by his. In this scenario, I’m fate, knockin’ on his door, rippin’ that beautiful power from between his bones, savin’ you from yourself.”
Do it. Don’t do it. Do it. Don’t do it.
Aiden glanced at Laura. Her dollish hands grasped the gun,and her teeth snared the smoldering cigarette. The others—four, only four—stood at attention.
Shay went horribly, animalistically still, poised on a tripwire in front of the makeshift altar.Do it,Aiden thought.Do it. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t tear himself away and plunge the knife into her chest. He imagined it repeatedly. Side-stepping, angling the handle inward, spearing Cit with the blade. But if he did, Laura might put a bullet in Shay.
“Burn the intent,” Cit said, jutting her chin at another fishnet-clad servant.
Like Aiden had burned his own wish, they did the same, lowering folded pieces of paper to flickering flames. The blood spreading around the dead rabbit dripped over the stone, landing in black droplets next to Shay’s shoes. Aiden tried to breathe. Searched for courage. Looked at Shay and wished they would’ve talked, wished he would’ve said it all—everything.
Here we are again, he thought. Different dirt, different night, same bullshit.This time, the right person dies.
“Laura, it’s time,” Cit said. Her breathing turned ragged with excitement, laughter growling in her throat. “This is your moment, girl. In the chest, like we talked about. Yes, right there.”
“What?” Aiden hadn’t meant to speak. He watched Laura aim the gun heart high.
