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SHORTLY AFTER KELLAN and Mary left to the hospital with Declan, Liam took Ciara home. She had told him she would be fine on her own, but he insisted.
Liam helped Ciara take off her jacket and noticed the dry blood on it. “You should wash this.”
Ciara sighed. “Blood?”
“Yes.”
Ciara grabbed the jacket and went to the kitchen to throw it in the washing machine.
Liam followed her at first, but he stopped in the living room. He looked around to see how much the flat had changed. But he couldn’t see any new furniture.
He walked to his old room. He was shocked to find it completely empty—just like he had left it when he had moved out.
“Liam?” Ciara called, walking out of the kitchen.
Liam turned to look at her. “You know, most people already have Christmas decorations in their homes, but you don’t even have furniture yet.” He walked back to Ciara, still looking around.
“I haven’t been home much.”
“So, you’ve been at Kellan’s place,” Liam said, thinking he knew what Ciara meant.
Ciara shook her head and chuckled, but her gaze lacked emotion. “I’ve never been at his place.”
Liam furrowed his eyebrows. “Never?”
“Never.”
“So, you, uh, broke up?” Liam stammered.
“We were never dating, to be honest. We just had to pretend for work.”
Liam scrunched up his nose. “Seemed pretty real to me. Unless your job description includes having sex with your boss.”
Ciara closed her eyes and hid her face in her hands to avoid eye contact with Liam. In her head, she was going through ways she could repay Kellan for the sex sound spell.
“So it wasn’t just pretending?” Liam asked bitterly.
“No, it was just pretending.” Ciara opened her eyes, looking anywhere but at Liam. “He, uh...it was some stupid spell Kellan came up with.” She grimaced. “Guess it did its purpose, because we got you to move out. It was Bill’s idea, actually. It was stupid, but it worked. I mean—”
“Wait,” Liam said, stopping Ciara. “You wanted me to move out? Why didn’t you just say so?”
“I didn’t want you to move out. I needed you to move out,” Ciara corrected. “There was a threat and—”
“What threat?”
“There was a note taped to the door. Someone threatened to hurt you,” Ciara said, gesturing towards the flat door. “You were already here, and I saw it when I came home from work.”
Liam paused, opening his mouth and then closing it before he found the words. “You pretended to date Kellan to make me move out?”
“It was Bill’s idea.”
“I thought you were Bill’s boss.”
“Kellan liked the idea.”
“Well, no man in their right mind would say no to that,” Liam said as if stating the obvious.
Ciara bit back her smile, her cheeks turning pink. “Right.”
“So you’ve been working on the witch hunter case more than you let on.”
“You can’t lecture me about that after what you’ve been doing behind my back,” Ciara said defensively. “For me, it’s just my job.”
“Not just me,” Liam reminded.
Ciara crossed her arms. “Doesn’t make it any better.”
“Josh has been helping us.”
“What?” Ciara exclaimed.
Liam had expected that. “He was helping you out originally, wasn’t he?”
“How do you know that?”
“Just a lucky guess.”
“So, for now, who are part of the reformed group?”
“Like I mentioned, Josh is helping us. Besides that, there’s me, Henry, Jenna, Shawn, Hugo, my parents, a few of their friends, and Iris. Remember Hannah, Eric, or Tony? They are back in the group too.”
Ciara flinched at Iris’s name. “So I suppose every one of them is trustworthy.”
Shawn and Hugo were new to the group, but Ciara could trust them. Eric was the one who had lost his brother, and Ciara could also remember Hannah and Tony. Iris was the only one she wasn’t sure she could trust.
“They are,” Liam assured.
Ciara nodded. “Anyway, you can go home or whatever. I need to write a report and who knows what else.” Ciara froze and her brows furrowed, realising her laptop was in her office. “Or, actually, I’ll do that tomorrow at the office.”
“So you’re okay?” Liam asked. “I can—”
“I’m fine. I’ll hear about Declan’s condition tomorrow and I’ll call everyone in the morning.”
“You’re just worrying about everyone else and looking after them. That doesn’t mean you’re fine,” Liam said.
“I’m fine. But I’ll feel better once I hear about Declan.”
Liam nodded. “Call me if you need anything. Anything at all.”
“I’m fine.”
“The offer still stands.”
“Alright.”
Liam and Ciara said their goodbyes, and Liam left.
***
CIARA TOOK A DEEP BREATH, standing in her empty-feeling flat. She walked to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle from her liquor cabinet. Using magic by snapping her fingers, she popped the cork off. She raised the bottle to her lips and took her first sip—or rather, a big gulp.
On her way to the balcony, she snapped her fingers to float her cigarettes from the nearby table to her hand. Sitting down on the floor of her balcony, she set down the bottle beside her. She took one cigarette and placed it between her lips.
She used magic by snapping her fingers and lit up the cigarette. She inhaled, then took the cigarette away from her lips.
Blowing the smoke out, she reached for the bottle. The liquid warmed her throat.
It brought back memories of Doherty. She had once sworn him she would never develop the bad habits of her colleagues—drinking and smoking—but she couldn’t keep that promise anymore.
She was losing her mind, and she had no other way to cope. She was losing her grip on herself. For the first time, she was slipping, letting people get too close, too fast and too easily.
She cared too much, and she was losing her focus on the thing that mattered the most—ending the witch hunters and their terrorist acts. Theo and Doherty deserved to be avenged.
Kellan had no right to choose her friends’ fate, and she was livid. He would have felt the same in her position. But he was her superior, and she didn’t have any power over him.
She blamed herself for what had happened to Declan. If she had paid more attention to the details at the manor, he wouldn’t be at the hospital.
She didn’t know if Declan was going to make it, and it was driving her insane.
All she wanted was to stop her friends—to keep them out of harm’s way.
But she was powerless. The only way she could have stopped the others would have required her to use controlling curses on them, and that was out of question.
No matter how many times she inhaled with the cigarette between her lips, she didn’t feel any better. No matter how big of a gulp she took from the bottle in her hand, it didn’t help.
But she didn’t know what else to do.
***
CIARA WOKE UP TO LOUD banging at her door. She sat up, only to realise she had fallen asleep on the kitchen floor.
The air was freezing cold even inside the flat. She quickly realised why. The balcony door had been open all night. She raised her hand and moved it from left to right, shutting the door lazily.
She stood up, shuddering from the cold.
The banging continued.
Ciara headed to the door but tripped over something on her way. Turning to look, she saw the whiskey bottle. “Fuck!” she cursed, watching the contents spill all over the kitchen floor.
She moved her hand in a wavelike motion, and the bottle was standing upright again with all the whiskey from the floor cleaned up. She grabbed the bottle and placed it on a kitchen counter before she continued her way to the door.
This time she made it and opened the door. But it was Kellan, and she wasn’t in the mood to see him.
“See you on Monday,” she said grumpily and tried to close the door, but Kellan didn’t let her.
Instead, he let himself in, closing the door behind him. “You’ve been drinking.”
“How about you don’t judge my decisions, because I’m not allowed to judge yours?” Ciara crossed her arms and glared at her boss.
“Fair enough, I guess,” Kellan said. “Anyway, Declan is recovering well. He woke up this morning.”
Ciara frowned, even though she was delighted by the news. “What time is it?”
“Three in the afternoon.”
Her eyes widened. “Fuck!”
“I’ve already dealt with Declan’s sick leave and the report.”
Ciara pressed her lips together. “Of course you did. Don’t want me to report the fact you want to cooperate with an illegal organisation, huh?”
Kellan rolled his eyes. “You didn’t answer any of my calls. Oh, and we’re having a meeting with the team in thirty minutes.”
“Thirty?” Ciara exclaimed. “I was just asleep!”
“More like passed out,” Kellan said, giving her a long look.
Ciara shook her head disapprovingly. “I’ll be ready in ten.”
“Five.”
“Eight,” she said firmly before walking to the bathroom.
***
KELLAN AND CIARA WERE on time but were the last to arrive.
“Next time we have to be more thorough when we search a building,” Kellan said. “We could have had a chance if we had done so yesterday.”
“There were too many of them,” Ciara declared. She had learned Kellan hated to be disagreed with, but she didn’t care anymore. He was mostly a good guy, but some of his crap couldn’t be agreed with.
“They could have been using a multiplying spell to fool us,” Kellan said defensively.
“It was a trap. It would have been impossible for us to have beat them last night,” Ciara said, leaning back in her chair and playing with a pen. “They were waiting for us.”
“Or your friends,” Niles said.
“With whom Kellan wants to illegally cooperate,” Ciara said, turning to glare at Kellan.
“Doherty did what they were doing. He died doing it,” Kellan said firmly. “If this reformed group is his legacy, I’ll take it.”
“Doherty died because of that stupid group,” Ciara disagreed, shaking her head.
Kellan sighed.
“We won’t need their help,” Bill tried to reassure them.
“Yes, we will,” Kellan said. “The witch hunters are ahead of us, like Ciara pointed out. We’ll need everyone who’s willing to help.”
“This is our job, not theirs. We have other teams,” Ciara argued.
“Your friends are doing their part willingly,” Kellan said. “And I will not stop someone who’s willing to help. So if you don’t want your friends to be involved, make them stop. I doubt you’ll be able to do that, though.”
Kellan was right, and Ciara hated him for it.
“If it makes you feel any better, they were doing great yesterday,” Theresa said.
“They even got away unharmed, unlike our team,” River said. “They’ve done these things before.”
Ciara sighed, refusing to say anything.
“They’re working with us for now.” Kellan turned to look at Ciara. “Okay?”
The team nodded, even though Kellan was expecting Ciara’s answer. But she stayed quiet.
“Okay?” Kellan asked again, raising his voice.
“I thought I didn’t have a say in this,” Ciara spat out.
“You don’t.”
“There you go,” Ciara said, throwing her arms up. “But I’m not going to ask for their help. That’s going to be on you.”
Kellan nodded. “Very well then.”