Chapter 145
Heather
As soon as my parents were gone, I went to my room. I’d known as soon as I fainted that something was wrong. That was what happened to Meredith when she’d been cursed. It wasn’t the same, but it didn’t matter. I hadn’t gotten a vision from anything that was in my room.
When I was searching my room, I’d been looking for something missing. But what if she’d planted something?
I started digging around. I tore apart the room inch by inch. I emptied the closet, knocking on the walls and floorboards, looking for some place she could stash something.
It wasn’t until I moved the mattress that I found it. She’d cut a hole in the box spring so that it wouldn’t make a lump. I pulled apart the torn material and reached between the springs. My finger brushed against something and a dirty, oily feeling came over me.
I jerked my hand back, cradling it against my chest. I knew exactly what it was.
No. She couldn’t have. No one would mess with magic that dark.
A gris-gris.
A few months ago I hadn’t even known what a gris-gris was, but after Callista accused me of cursing Brent and using one, I’d done some research. It was a little pouch that carried a curse and was usually inscribed on the outside. Sure, they could be used for good, but I’d bet everything I had that this one was evil.
I didn’t want to touch the thing again. I grabbed a discarded sock from the floor and stuck my hand in it. I picked up the little pouch between two fingers. Whatever was inside jangled as I moved, but I didn’t want to open it. Messing with one of these was dangerous, and letting anything out of it could release a whole world of hurt.
I placed it on the bedside table and stepped back.
As shocked as I was to see it, it didn’t entirely surprise me that Luciana had sunk to this level. What surprised me was that I hadn’t noticed it sooner. Only now did I smell the rotten stench of whatever nasty ingredients were inside; Luciana must’ve warded the pouch against my Were senses.
No wonder I’d slept so well in Claudia’s room. She didn’t have a curse under her mattress.
The front door slammed shut. Raphael and Claudia’s voices were muffled by the distance. Daniel said something, too.
I thought about telling them about the gris-gris, but my gut was telling me that I needed to deal with this alone. If Rosa was right, I needed to start listening to my instincts.
I quickly straightened my room, and put the gris-gris in the drawer of my bedside table. I’d deal with it later. Maybe it was dumb, but I needed to investigate Luciana at least a little before I left. I had to see if this was the kind of thing she was into. I needed into her craft room.
I put on my running gear and laced up my shoes.
I waited until I heard my cousins and Daniel in the kitchen, and then went quickly downstairs.
"Going for a run. See you guys in a bit," I said.
"Have fun," Claudia yelled as I left.
I took off down the front stoop and made a few laps behind the houses. That way, if anyone saw me, they’d think I was just exercising.
It might’ve been better to wait until night, but some things needed to be handled on the spot. This was one of them. I’d had enough waiting.
If I left now with the gris-gris, maybe I could even prove that Luciana had broken our deal, but I didn’t want to hide behind the Seven. I wanted to take her down myself. I needed more information. The more I had, the better my argument would be. I needed it to be airtight. I hadn’t been joking about burning the compound to the ground if I were double-crossed.
Luciana had taken me from my mate. She’d cursed me. Twice. I was done.
It was unfair to damn the whole coven because of one person, but in this case, Luciana had already corrupted almost everyone.
As I circled the compound, I used my Were hearing to listen to the conversations inside the houses.
I nearly slowed when I heard her voice in the schoolhouse.
"To prepare the spell, we’ll need the following ingredients—"
That was all I needed. She was teaching, which meant she’d be occupied for a while. Daniel was in my house, and even if he went home, I didn’t think he’d tell his mother on me.
I dashed toward Luciana’s house. The quicker I went, the less chance I’d have of someone seeing me. Or at least that’s what I figured. I’d never been a very sneaky person and my few escape attempts from St. Francis’s had only proven that.
I carefully went through the backdoor and closed it softly behind me.
The house smelled overwhelmingly of cloves. Sage burned somewhere too, but it wasn’t enough to combat the cloves. Piles of garbage took up a lot of the room. Stacks of newspaper and flyers. Trash from take-out. Things in shopping bags that had never been used.
Luciana was a hoarder. My nose crinkled. It wasn’t dirty per se, but it was dusty. There was no way someone could really clean with this much junk everywhere.
I watched my steps as I moved deeper into the house, not wanting to disturb anything. The layout was pretty similar to the one in my cousins’ house. From what I could tell, most of the houses at the compound looked the same. It made sense if the same contractor had built all of them.
I wandered toward where I thought her craft room might be. If there were something I could use against her, it’d be in there. I let my feet carry me along until I found myself staring at a navy blue door. Fingerprints smudged the black lacquered doorknob.
My gut said that I wouldn’t like whatever was beyond that door.
My palms were sweating as I reached for the knob and hesitated, not quite touching it.
All the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. This wasn’t a place I wanted to be, but I needed to go in there.
In and out, I told myself. I’d be fast. And then I was leaving the compound. Going home to St. Francis’s. Home to Brent.