Moonset - Scott Tracey

Was Bridger hiding in plain sight?

“I’m just extra annoying,” I offered, and Jenna made a noise of agreement.

No one seemed very active. We all just kind of dozed in front of the television. I curled up in one of the arm chairs, Cole sprawled around my feet. It was late afternoon by the time my yawning became uncontrollable, and I went for a coffee refill. Just need more caffeine. I don’t know why I was so insistent on staying up, but I wasn’t going down without a fight.

Jenna followed me into the kitchen. “You should get some sleep. Just an hour or two. You look terrible.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m not even tired.” I think I was a step beyond tired. Exhaustion had passed me by entirely and now I was running on nothing but coffee and stubbornness.

Bailey craned around in her seat. “You should sleep, Justin.”

“I don’t need to sleep,” I insisted.

There was a weird tension in the room. Jenna watched me, looking like she was trying to make up her mind about something. Finally she nodded, then shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “At least take a shower. Five minutes. You look like hell.” She grabbed down a bowl, a box of cereal, and the milk out of the fridge, setting it up on the counter like some sort of self-serve station.

“Would you guys just stop? Seriously.” Part of me was worried about leaving them in the house with Sherrod’s book in my room. Did I give it away somehow? Did they know?

“You stink,” Cole said flatly, from his spot spread out on the floor. A chorus of agreements (or grunts in Mal’s case) followed.

“Fine, I’ll take a shower,” I snapped.

Once I was under the spray, and I could feel the tension of the last twenty-four hours draining out of me, I had to admit that maybe it was a good idea. I was still only in there for about ten minutes, but it was enough time to pull myself together, and figure out what to do next.

I came out of the bathroom, dried and dressed even if I was still a little damp. I got as far as my room before I realized just how quiet the house had gotten.

“Jenna? Bay? What are you guys doing?” I called down the stairs. The house was silent. Still.

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. I dropped my towel and dirty clothes and flew down the stairs.

No no no no no. I went through the living room, the dining room, and finally the kitchen. The chairs were still pulled out, but each of them was empty. “Quinn!”

The milk was on the countertop, turned on its side. Most of it had already spilled out, and trickled down onto the floor, but there was still a steady plop plop plop. “Quinn!” I shouted, as my eyes fixed on the edge of the table. Lined up like toy soldiers or a stack of dominoes were four cell phones. Their four cell phones.

Quinn came thundering down the stairs. “What’s wrong?”

I turned in a circle. “I–I just left for a minute. I just went to take a shower. Five minutes, max.”

“Justin?”

The others were gone. And it was all my fault.

Twenty-Six

“We knew it was coming. They made us promise not to avenge them. To lay down our arms.

Even on the last day, knowing they were embracing death, they were so tragically beautiful. I wish I could have gone with them.”

Lucinda Dale

Interview about the day Moonset surrendered

After that, the house was a whirlwind of activity.

“Someone disabled the guards,” Quinn said when he came back inside. There’d been two

Witchers sitting out in front of the house, unconscious when he’d gone to check. No one had seen anything, coming or going.

“He got into the house somehow,” I said. “He made them go with him.”

Quinn didn’t immediately agree with me, and the expression on his face suggested he thought the answer was something else.

“They wouldn’t have gone with him,” I insisted. “Not by choice.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know what you all think. That we’re just like Moonset, just waiting to turn evil and bring down the establishment. But we’re not! Jenna and the others wouldn’t do that!”

“Okay,” Quinn said, his voice calming. “Relax. We’re going to find them.”

There was a sick feeling in my stomach, and it was only getting worse by the moment.

Something was wrong. Really wrong. It was more than a hunch; it was like there was an intangible part of me inside, and it was all knotted up. Like my spirit was cramping.

I spent two hours pacing the downstairs waiting for news. Quinn left with one of the search groups, but each one came back later without news. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

Last night I was half convinced that I would never talk to Ash again. But now she was my only option.

“Justin?”

“I need your help,” I said, trying to push down the hurt I still felt at the sound of her voice. “I need to break out of my house.”

She laughed, sharp and brief, immediately followed by a long pause. “You’re serious?” It wasn’t a question.

“You owe me,” I said, and hung up the phone.

After that, I was very busy. The sun was setting, and night would be here before long. My earlier exhaustion was a distant memory. Now my body was wired, running on fear and a weird kind of anticipation. This is what we’ve been waiting on. I didn’t know where the thought came from, but I knew it was right. This was the warlock’s plan. Finally.

If Bridger thinks we’re going down without a fight, he’s an idiot. I don’t know how he managed to get the others out of the house—and I refused to think about any other alternative —but I would find them. Somehow.

I emptied my school bag of all but two of my notebooks, and then I tucked Sherrod’s spellbook in between them. Moving very carefully, I crept through the halls, pausing at every minor creak and groan of the floorboards. The downstairs was full of Witchers, but none of them was up here.

I didn’t turn on the lights in Quinn’s room, just in case someone downstairs noticed. He kept his tools in the cedar chest at the foot of his bed. I needed one of his athames. Just in case. I misjudged the distance right off the bat, slamming my toe into the side of the chest, and making a sound I was sure could be heard all the way downstairs.

I froze in place, and started counting to fifty. Any minute, someone was going to slip up the stairs and find me in Quinn’s room, rummaging through his stuff.

But no one came. I got to fifty, waited a few extra seconds, and then found the chest. With the spare knife in hand, I slipped back out of the room, and dropped it in my book bag. I wasn’t sure if we were going to need it, but better safe than sorry.

“It’s getting pretty rough down there,” Ash said, materializing in my doorway. “What happened?”

“Everyone disappeared. Witchers think they’ve all gone rogue. Trying to convince them it’s the warlock is pointless. They’ll just keep letting Bridger do whatever he wants until he collects all of us.”

“Whoa,” Ash said, eyes widening. “Slow down. Reverse. Start over. Bridger? As in Bridger?”

Crap. I looked at her helplessly. Begging her to forget what she heard wouldn’t work. I might have been running on nerves, but my brain was still a little slow. I sighed. “He came after us at our last school.”

“I thought you got attacked by a wraith?”

“A wraith working for Bridger,” I said. “And now he’s here. He left me a note yesterday. And it makes sense. The warlock’s been doing stupid little attacks, trying to get the Congress to bring us here. Why would someone like Cullen Bridger care about burning down a building?

He’d burn the whole town.”

“So how can you be sure it’s him?”

I showed her the postcard of the Golden Gate bridge, and the note on the back.

“Okay … ” Ash took a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Why doesn’t Quinn know about this?

They still think the warlock is a local.”

“Because I can’t tell them how I got it.”

“How did you—no, never mind. I don’t think I want to know.” She looked around the room, her eyes considering. She looked up, and met my gaze. “It’s a lot tamer than I would have thought.

I expected a poster of Carissa the underwear model over your bed or something.”

“Sorry,” I said, zipping up my bag. “Any idea how to get us out of here?”

Ash very carefully closed the door behind her. “Start walking around.”

“What?”

She twisted the little lock on the side of the handle and spun around. “Walk around.”

I paced out of surprise, walked to the side of the bed and then back to the closet.

Meanwhile, she sauntered over towards my bed, whispering words under her breath. And then she fell back, bouncing off my mattress with a laugh.

“Come here,” she murmured, eyes full of mischief.

Was she kidding? “Ash, I can’t. We need to focus.”

“Come. Here.” She even crooked her finger at me, a challenging smile on her face.

I crossed to the bed, set one knee on it, and hesitated. But that wasn’t good enough for Ash.

She leaned forward, grabbed me by the shirt, and pulled me forward. On top of her.

“There,” she said breathlessly once we were nose to nose. Her eyes were dark. Fathomless.

There was a moment where my breath caught hers, where we were staring into each other.

Where I started to lean forward.

Then she pushed me back off. “That should do it,” she said brusquely, leaping to her feet.

I sat back, dazed. “Do what?”

“Araic infious,” she murmured. Suddenly I heard the sounds of movement on the floor, despite the fact that neither of us were moving. Bedsprings groaned, there was laughter. Every sound that had happened over the last thirty seconds. As the sounds and the shuffling repeated over again, I got it. It was an illusion, but a realistic one. As far as anyone else in the house was concerned, we were still just hanging out in my room. And they’d be too busy to worry about the girl in my room.

“It’ll buy us some time,” she said, heading for the window. “But they’re going to find out you’re gone quick.” She pulled the window open and had one leg out onto the roof when she looked back at me still on the bed. “Well?”

I followed her onto the roof, moving carefully while Ash seemed to bounce from step to step.

We crossed the front of the house and over the garage towards the backyard. “Hope you’re not scared of heights, Ace,” she grinned. She whispered “aerousí ” and leapt down into the backyard.

“Come on,” she called up, the sound of her voice muted by the storm. I looked down. At least a ten-foot drop. But Ash seemed to be fine. Ash was also trained by Witchers, I reminded myself. But I jumped anyway.

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