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THE WHOLE WAREHOUSE shook as if in an earthquake. Liam managed to get up, but he struggled to stay on his feet. He tried to get to Iris and Bill while covering himself with shield spells as pieces of the ceiling fell down.
Theo leaned against the wall, looking at Ciara in amazement.
Theresa and the other witch hunter tried to stand up, but they fell back onto the floor, unable to stay on their feet.
Ciara was floating in the air. Her screaming seemed never-ending, her hands clenched into fists, and her eyes shut tight.
It felt as though hours passed, even though it was only minutes. Ciara’s screaming ceased, and she fell limp to the floor.
The building stopped shaking.
Liam rushed to help Iris and check on Bill. Once he was standing in front of Bill and Iris, he gripped his wand, flicked it and sent both Theresa and the other witch hunter flying against the wall behind them. The guy was knocked unconscious.
Theo saw his chance and rushed to Ciara. He gripped her hand and brought his other hand to her face.
Liam glanced at Ciara after making sure Iris was still conscious. His eyes widened when he saw Theo leaning over Ciara, but he was forced to turn his attention to Theresa who attacked him with curses.
“Ciara!” Liam exclaimed, duelling Theresa. He was too busy blocking curses, so he couldn’t turn to see if Ciara had reacted to her name being called out.
He wasn’t sure what had happened. Ciara was special, having the ability to harness magic without a wand. But it had to be more than that. Because what they had witnessed was even more rare than wandless magic.
Ciara’s eyes fluttered open, as if she were waking up. She looked up at Theo who was leaning over her. “Please, Theo, stop this madness,” she begged tiredly.
Her outburst had weakened her.
Theo looked into her eyes, his gaze softening, and brushed her hair off her face. “I’m doing what’s right. If you’d just see that, Ciara...”
It broke her heart to see him like that. Her fiancé. The man she had thought was dead.
She had loved him. She had loved him so much.
But she couldn’t accept what he was doing. He was one of the witch hunters. He had killed innocents.
Ciara gripped Theo’s hand. “Theo, please.”
“I can’t,” he said and looked at her with sorrowful eyes.
“Did you leave the notes?”
His brows furrowed. “The note.”
One note. He was lying again. It had been him the entire time—even at the supermarket.
Ciara closed her eyes, and tears began to form. She knew what she had to do, but she wasn’t sure if she could do it. Even the thought sickened her.
“Jenna’s bleeding out!” River screamed through the link in panic. “I need help!”
She had to save her friends before it was too late.
Theo cupped her face. “Come with me, and I’ll tell everyone to leave the warehouse. Every last one. Then, this will all make sense.”
She became unusually aware of her and his every breath. His heart beating. His warmth—the warmth she had longed for in the past year.
Estella’s face flashed in her mind, and more tears cascaded down her face.
“Theo.” Her voice broke, and her hands shook.
“Ciara,” he breathed out, gazing into her eyes.
She looked into those beautiful stormy grey eyes, memorising every last detail. The little speckles of silver painted on a stormy sky.
She let her eyes wander, memorising all of his face. His flawless olive skin. His high cheekbones. His dark eyebrows. His thick eyelashes. His distinctive Cupid’s bow.
She looked back into his eyes. They stared at each other in silence, forgetting everything going on around them and blocking out the sounds of duelling for a second.
Ciara wanted to stay there forever.
But she couldn’t. She snapped her fingers, and her knife flew from her boot into her hand. For a split second, she hesitated. Then she pushed the blade into his abdomen. She cried out as if she was the one in pain, feeling the warm liquid coat her hand.
Theo’s face contorted in pain, and he hissed. His eyes didn’t leave Ciara’s, and he touched her shoulder, his palm against her skin. He whispered something inaudibly and cast a spell, still gazing at her.
His eyes shut, and his hand slid away from her shoulder as if he was slipping—dying—before he teleported away.
Ciara sat up, her muscles screaming to give up. But she forced herself upright and onto her feet. She wanted to fall back onto the floor. She was tired, but she couldn’t tell if it was the outburst or stabbing her fiancé that exhausted her so.
Theresa gave up, seeing Theo was gone, and ran off.
“Take them to safety,” Ciara ordered Liam and stumbled out of the room.
She had barely made it halfway down the corridor when she heard River’s voice through the link. “They’re leaving.”
Ciara ran. Somehow she stayed upright despite her exhaustion. She forced herself to rush down the stone corridors and through the concrete rooms.
She found River’s team. Jenna was on the floor, barely conscious. River was kneeling beside her, pressing onto her wound to keep the blood from pouring out.
There was one dead body in the room Ciara didn’t recognise. The two others she did.
Eric lay lifelessly on the floor in a pool of his own blood. His throat had been sliced open.
Hannah had seemingly been killed with a spell. She hung in an unnatural position, and it looked as if her neck had been snapped. Her eyes were still wide open.
“Take Jenna to a hospital,” Ciara ordered River. “I’ll handle Eric and Hannah.”
River nodded and teleported himself and Jenna out of there.
Ciara stood alone in the room, devastated. Then she heard running. She raised her wand, knowing wandless magic wouldn’t work in her exhausted state. But she lowered it when she saw Kellan and Henry.
Ciara looked her best friend over, noting a nasty cut on his arm. It was wrapped with a piece of clothing.
“Henry!” she cried out and ran to hug him.
Henry hugged her back the best he could while eyeing the room. “Where’s Jenna?”
Pulling away, Ciara saw Henry’s wide eyes and pale face. “River took her to the hospital.”
“Is she—”
“Go.”
“But—”
“Go,” Ciara said firmly.
Henry didn’t have to be told a third time. He teleported out.
“We need to deal with the bodies,” Kellan said, looking at the aftermath of the bloodshed that had taken place in the room.
“I can’t teleport.”
Kellan’s eyes widened, and he looked unusually worried. “What happened?”
“I’m just...drained. Can you take them to the Rosslers’ place?” she asked, gesturing to the bodies of Eric and Hannah.
“But someone needs to—”
“I’ll make sure everyone gets out,” Ciara said.
Kellan nodded. He floated the two bodies to lay side by side. Touching both, he teleported away with them.
Ciara continued to run through the warehouse. Next she ran into three people from Ray’s team: Laura, Dominic, and Deanna.
“Where’s Ray?” she asked instantly.
“Vincent took him to the hospital.”
Ciara sighed in relief. “Go to the Rosslers’.”
The three did as they were told. Then Ciara continued on.
There were a lot of corpses scattered around the warehouse. Ciara was happy they had all been witch hunters. Still, she checked every one of them.
The only team left in there was Shawn’s. But at least Ciara hadn’t found any of them among the dead.
She had to run through the entire warehouse and out until she finally found them—except three were missing.
Hugo rushed to her. “Ciara!”
“Where are Shawn, Felix, and Grace?” she asked.
“At the Rosslers’. Shawn was injured,” Hugo said.
Ciara nodded. “That means everyone’s out.”
“We should go,” Niles said.
“I can’t teleport,” Ciara said sheepishly. “Long story.”
Hugo offered his hand, and she took it.
“To the Rosslers’ place,” she instructed. Both Niles and Hugo nodded, teleporting to the Rosslers’.
Ciara and Hugo rushed inside to see what was happening, but only Kellan and Shawn were there. Niles followed them in.
It turned out everyone was at the hospital.
Mary had treated Shawn and then rushed to see her husband. She had taken the younger Rosslers with her. Liam had taken both Bill and Iris to the hospital, so he was there, too. Henry was at the hospital, both to be treated and to see Jenna. River was also there, having taken Jenna. Mary’s and Ray’s friends—the ones still alive—had also gone there.
“We killed more of them than they did us,” Kellan said, but those words brought no comfort to Ciara.
“This isn’t a victory,” she said and leaned against the wall, exhausted.
“I wouldn’t expect victories until the very end of this war,” Kellan said solemnly.
Ciara nodded.
At least they knew more. They had better chances preparing in the future. They no longer had to guess how the witch hunters always escaped. It had all been Theresa’s doing. She had kept the witch hunters informed of their every move.
But none of that comforted Ciara.
“Someone needs to check on Bill at the hospital. I don’t even know if he’s...” Ciara shook her head, refusing to say the words out loud.
“Niles and I can go,” Kellan offered.
“Good.”
Kellan and Niles left.
Shawn walked closer to Ciara and Hugo. “You alright, Ciara?”
She shook her head. “I need to do something,” she said and ran upstairs.
In Liam’s room, she started throwing her things in her bag mindlessly. She had no idea what she was even doing.
She didn’t come to her senses until she reached to take the bracelet from the nightstand.
Except it was beyond broken. It wasn’t just the gem that had shattered. In fact, none of it had shattered. The entire bracelet had turned to ash.
Apparently that happened when someone killed her own fiancé on the anniversary of his faked death.
Even if Theo had turned out to be a bad guy, Ciara had still missed him. She had loved him. She had grieved his death.
And this time she had been the one to kill him.
As she thought back to the moment, she realised her hand was still covered in his blood. She sprinted to the bathroom and threw up.
She was shaking, and she was struggling to keep her hair off her face. Her cheeks were wet with tears, and she couldn’t see through them.
I just killed Theo, she kept thinking over and over again until she was chanting it in her head.
***
WHEN CIARA FINISHED vomiting, she rushed to the sink to wash off the blood. She kept rubbing at her fingernails, trying to get all the blood off her hands, but it kept staining the water.
She hated red.
Her hands were still shaking. She had to look up, but the view in the mirror wasn’t any better. All colour had drained out of her face. Her eyes were red, and tears ran down her cheeks.
And there was something on her chest, just below her left shoulder, where Theo had touched her. A burnt witch hunter mark, like a branded tattoo.