Page 19 (1/2)

She&039;d intended to relax, shop, indulge in a day at a spa or salon She&039;d intended to do as little thinking as possible for three days and three nights To focus on her own e She had not intended to take the tiain adton was being held

But since she had done so, she could rationalize the decision Titon, she would follow the path She was in no real danger, and there was the possibility, however slight, that soood could come out of the visit She didn&039;t question the fact that she was able to set up awith him with relatively little trouble There were powers at work that scoffed at the tangled red tape of bureaucracy And she was part of them

She faced him across a wide counter split down the center by a barricade of thick, reinforced glass Mia picked up the phone that would link theton Do you remember me?"

"Whore," he hissed

"Yes, I see you do And that the months you&039;ve spent in here haven&039;t improved your disposition"

"I&039;ll be out soon"

"Is that what he tells you?" She leaned a little closer "He lies"

A an to twitch in his cheek "I&039;ll be out soon," he repeated "And you&039;ll be dead"

"We&039;ve beaten hio he ran fros Has he told you that?"

"I knohat&039;s going to happen I&039;ve seen it I know you&039;ll all die screa Can you see it?"

For a lass between the, the swirl of roaring wind as the sea opened like a hungry mouth and sed the island whole

"He shows you his desire, but not reality"

"I&039;ll have Helen" His voice went drea a rhyme "She&039;ll crawl back to me She&039;ll pay for her deception, her betrayal"

"Nell&039;s beyond you Look at me At hts to touch Nell now "There&039;s onlyyou, Evan As he would a puppet, or a vicious little dog He uses your illness, your anger He&039;ll destroy you with it I can help you"

"He&039;ll fuck you before he kills you Want a preview?"

It happened fast Pain ripped through her breasts as if claws had dug into her flesh A spear of ice jabbed with one hard thrust between her legs She didn&039;t cry out, though a screae and horror spewed into her throat Instead she drew her power down like arton&039;s head snapped back, and his eyes ith shock

"He uses," she said calmly "You pay Did you think threats and ploys would make me tremble? I am of the Three What works in me is beyond your scope I can help you I can save you fro you If you&039;ll trust me and help yourself, I can close you off from him I can shield you so that he can&039;t use or harm you"

"Why?"

"To save myself and what I love, I would save you"

He inched closer to the glass She could hear his raspy breathing over the receiver For a moment true pity stirred in her

"Mia Devlin" He licked his lips, then they spread into a wide, mad smile "You&039;ll burn! Burn the witch!"

He cackled even as the guard rushed over to restrain hiton dropped the phone when the guard dragged hi after the door slaht, of the da with his accountant Revenue was up, but so were expenses and overhead The Magick Inn was operating in the red for the first tie He&039;d booked two conventions for the fall, and with the winter holiday package he was putting together, he expected to recoup some of the loss over that historically slow reservation period Until that time he could, and would, continue to plow his own money into the hotel If the hotel, and the island, went down in a matter of weeks, it wouldn&039;t be because of lack of faith on his part

Where the hell was she? Couldn&039;t she have waited to go off on so spree until after their lives, their fates, their futures were more secure?

How many pairs of shoes did the woet away froht He&039;d told her he loved her, and she&039;d run like a rabbit Things got a little bit sticky, and instead of staying put and dealing with it, she&039;d bolted to the mainland and

He stopped, scowled down at his own half-finished signature on the correspondence in front of hi" He shook his head at his assistant and conature "Check on the winter brochures, Mrs Farley," he told her as he signed the next letter "I want to be certain that the corrections are made before the end of the month I want to meet with the head of sales toh his calendar "You&039;re free at eleven, and at two"

"Eleven"

"And send ahave you beenstaff has beenhave you been married?"

"Thirty-nine years last February"

"Thirty-nine years How do you do it?"

Mrs Farley laid her pad down, took off her glasses "I could say it&039;s a bit like alcoholisht of it like that Marriage as an addiction"

"Certainly as a condition It&039;s also a job that requires attention and work, cooperation and creativity"

"That doesn&039;t sound particularly ro through life, with all of its spins, with someone you love Someone who loves and understands you Sorandchildren, a new house, a well-earned promotion And for the weeds Illness, a burned dinner, a bad day at work"

"There are people who get used to taking care of the bouquets and the weeds alone"

"I ader place if ere all capable of handling life on our own But being capable of it doesn&039;tunable to share and depend on so to That&039;s the romance"

"I never saw ners and a box at the opera"

"That&039;s a shame for theive love, or how to ask for it"

"Sometimes the answer&039;s no"

"And soe of irritation worked into her voice "Soht work a bit for it I&039;ll just shake this tree, and if I shake it long enough that pretty red apple will plop right into ht have to cliet soet to that apple Because if the apple&039;s worth wanting, it&039;s worth risking a broken neck"

On a huff, she got to her feet "I need to type up this memo"

He was so surprised when she strode out of his office and shut the door smartly, he didn&039;t call her back to tell her he&039;d never dictated the memo

"Look what happens when I have a conversation about ht aloud "My assistant bites my head off And I kno to cliht now, he felt as if he were hanging by his fingertips from a very unstable branch And the prettiest apple was still just out of his reach

He picked up a file, intending to bury his frustrations in work And a light went on inside him Mia was back on the Sisters

She&039;d called Lulu frootten an update on bookstore business, and on island news As she&039;d asked Lulu to coaps, there was no need to drop by work Toes and the backlog generated over her three-day absence

She&039;d called Ripley as well, and Nell Since she thought the best way to pass on the details of hera civilized , she needed to drop by Island Market for some supplies

She&039;d yet to call Sam

She would call him She wheeled her cart over to the produce section and stared at the arugula As soon as she figured out how to handle him, and what had been said between them, she&039;d call him Life ran more smoothly with a clear-cut, but flexible, plan

"Still shopping?"

And sometimes, Mia realized as she turned and looked at Sa back until the plan was forress" She selected lettuce, contemplated the Roma tomatoes "It&039;s an odd time of day to see a businessman in the market"

"I&039;m out of milk"

"I&039;m quite sure you won&039;t find it in produce"

"I&039; an apple A pretty red apple"

She continued to select iteood today"

"Sole in her hair "Did you enjoy your time away?"

"It wasproductive" Because he made her feel uneasy, she wheeled into dairy "I found a nice little Wicca shop They had a wonderful selection of bell jars"

"You can never have too reed, and picked up a quart of milk

"Thanks" He took it from her, tucked it under his arht?

You can tellthe way she&039;d anticipated There was no flare of temper over her abrupt departure, no demands to knohere she&039;d been, what she&039;d been doing As a result, she felt guilty and s up tonight so that we can deal with so a little dinner party to to call you" She put a ss to discuss with everyone Will seven o&039;clock work for you?"

"Sure"

He leaned in, cupping her cheek with his free hand, laying his lips on hers Softly, war over the kiss until it shifted fro ers skimmed over her cheek before he stepped back "See you tomorrow"

She stood where she was, her hands vised on the handle of the cart, as he strolled aith a quart of milk under his ariven everything to have him look at her in the way he&039;d just done, to tell her he loved her, in just that way

Now that he had, why should it be so hard?

Why should it ot behind the wheel of her battered and beloved orange VW bug Since the night she&039;d taken the unexpected swim, she&039;d felt safe, solid, secure

She didn&039;t knohat char like - well, char over the island, her girls were going to screw it to the wall

Still, she felt better knowing Mia was back on-island, tucked into the cliff house, getting back to her routine And though it had been a pill to s, she feltover her

The boy&039;d been an idiot, she decided as she drove through the village with the classic sounds of Pink Floyd blasting through the speakers But he&039;d been young She&039;d done plenty of stupid things when she was young

Every one of the to be fair, everything Saht back to the Sisters, and Mia

Not that she was finished giving hirief, but she would dispense it in s an was the answer to that, then he was going to damn well come up to the rin wickedly as she started up the cliff road And was oblivious to the mist that rose and rolled behind her

When the lanced down at the radio, slapped irritably at the little tape player installed under it

"Damn it, you better not eat The Wall , you cheap bastard"

The response, a long, deep howl through the speaker, had her hands jerking on the wheel The car shuddered around her as the fog poured, cold as death, through her open s Yelping, she hit the brakes first, an auto, the little car speeded up, its cheerful rubber band pinging now a un&039;s rat-a-tatUnder her hands the wheel vibrated, iced, and began to spin on its own Though it felt like a slick and frozen snake, she gripped it, hard, and yanked The screalie of the cliff

In front of her the windshield beca over ice Then the stars went black The spoon Mia was using to stir sauce for the pasta she&039;d made for Lulu clattered out of her numb hand As it bounced to the floor, the vision shrieked through her head, all sound and fury Her throat tightened as if a hand had squeezed it as she whirled away from the stove and ran She flew out of the house, blind with panic, racing to the road on foot Fro behind the little orange car on the road below, and was running, running when she saw the car spin out of control and toward the cliff

"No, no, no!" Fear blanked her mind, rolled sick in her stomach "Help led to find her power through the sheer wall of terror All she had, everything she was, she gathered And heaved the uardrail and flipped like a toy tossed by a child&039;s angry hand

"Hold, hold" Oh, God, she couldn&039;t think"Blow air, coe to form Hold her safe, keep her froe, a steady wall, keep her fro, her vision blurred with tears, she ran the last yards to where the car teetered on the broken guardrail, over the drop to the rocks below "It will not have what&039;s dear to me As I will, so mote it be"

Her voice broke as she reached the rail "Lulu!"

The car balanced precariously on its roof, seesawing on the crushed rail The wind she&039;d conjured blew the hair back from her face as she climbed over the rail

"Don&039;t touch it!"

Se when she spun around at the shout Sa it can hold I feel it slipping, inside h the wind, clie "Focus You have to focus I&039;ll get her out"

"No She&039;s mine"

"That&039;s the point" He spent a desperate o at any e where they stood "Exactly Hold it You&039;re the only one strong enough to do it Step over the rail"

"I won&039;t lose her!" Mia shouted "Or you"

Her legs trembled as she climbed over the rail Her hands shook as she lifted theain Saw the dark shape of the wolf for from it Her body stilled Fury spiked inside her and stabbed away the fear "You won&039;t have her" The hand she flung out was rock-steady now She faced the wolf, bore the weight of the ic she called on her shoulders "You may have me, that&039;s up to fate But by all I am, all I have, you won&039;t take her"

It snarled and started toward her It could take her life now, she thought, and so be it Her lance at Sa and unconscious Lulu out of the car And the car tipped and swayed

With a last push, she left herself open and defenseless, shoving everything toward the cliffs And the wolf bunched to leap

As he charged, energy shot into her, out fro bolt With a furious howl, he vanished into the fog

"Didn&039;t count on my sisters, did you? You bastard"

The wind sucked away theout of their cars before she turned to run toward Saround cru forward as a chunk of the ledge rained down to the sea Mia reached out, grabbed him as the car overbalanced and tu back over the rail when the gas tank exploded

"She&039;s alive," he ed

"I know" She kissed Lulu&039;s white cheek, laid a hand on her heart "We&039;ll take her to the clinic"

Outside the eency clinic, where the air was quiet and the breeze balmy, Nell tended the cuts on Mia&039;s feet

"Got six million pair of shoes," Ripley stated while she paced, restless as a cat "And you run barefoot over broken glass"

"Yes Silly, isn&039;t it?" She hadn&039;t felt the glass slice into her feet when she&039;d run to the wrecked car Under Nell&039;s gentle healing, she felt no pain now

"You can fall apart" Ripley&039;s tone gentled, and she laid a hand on Mia&039;s shoulder "You&039;re entitled"

"I don&039;t need to, but thanks She&039;s going to be all right" Mia did close her eyes for a moment, waited until she felt steadier "I looked at her injuries She&039;ll be unhappy and very pissed off about her car, but she&039;ll be all right I never considered, never thought she could be harmed this way Used this way"

"Harm her, harm you," Ripley said "That&039;s what Mac" She trailed off Winced

"Mac? What do you ot to her feet She caught a gli happened before The beach" Furious, she grabbed Ripley&039;s arms "What happened?"

"Don&039;t blaed herself with Ripley "She didn&039;t want you to know, and we agreed"

"Knohat?" Sam asked as he walked up with a tray of takeout coffee

"How dare you keep anything to do with Lulu fro around to him, ready to bite

"He didn&039;t know," Nell interrupted "We didn&039;t tell him either"

Ripley told them now, said it all fast And watched Mia&039;s pale cheeks blooht&039;ve been killed I left her! I left her and went to the mainland Do you think I&039;d have done that if I&039;d known she was a target? You had no right, no right to exclude me from this"

"I&039;m sorry" Nell lifted her hands, let the"

"Not so wrong You&039;re going to have to deal with it, Mia," Sam added when she turned to hiht because you divided your energy Divided hell You dumped it out and all but left yourself eive less than my life to protect her, or anyone I loved?"

"No, I don&039;t" He touched her cheek, and when she jerked away he simply moved in and took her face firmly in his hands "And neither does she Isn&039;t she entitled to think of you?"

"I can&039;t talk about this now I need to be with her" She stepped aalked to the door But stopped when she opened it "Thank you for what you did," she said to Saet it"

Later, while Mia sat beside Lulu&039;s hospital bed, Ripley and Nell slipped into the roo but silence

"They want to keep her until toth "Because of the concussion She wasn&039;t happy about it, but she&039;s weak enough that she couldn&039;t put up ht The arm" She had to take a moment to steady her voice "It&039;s a clean break She&039;ll be in a cast a feeeks, but it&039;ll be fine"

"Mia," Nell began "We&039;re so sorry"

"No" Mia shook her head, kept her eyes on Lulu&039;s bruised face "I&039;h I understand what you did, and why I don&039;t agree We&039;re a circle, and we must value and respect that - and each other But I also kno stubborn and persuasive she is"

Lulu&039;s eyelids fluttered, and her voice was thin and raspy "Don&039;t talk about me like I&039;m not here"

"Just be quiet," Mia ordered "I&039; to you" But she took the hand Lulu held out "Thank God you&039;ll have to buy a new car That onna find me another one just like it"