Shawn wasn’t cheating on her. Miranda knew that with all her heart. He was the most loyal guy she’d ever met.
The witch looked up at Tabitha and frowned. “And if you’d come to me before you got with him, I would have warned you of him and the death of that relationship before it ever started. The guy was a weasel.”
“I wanted to trust my heart,” Tabitha said.
Her sister’s words gave Miranda’s own reservations more merit. Wasn’t that what Miranda wanted? She didn’t need an old witch’s answer to confuse her. Her heart was confused enough.
“Never trust that fickle organ,” the witch said. “It beats merely to lead you wrong, just so you feel it break and know it’s there.” The witch looked back at Miranda. “Now, give me your hand!”
Feeling optionless, Miranda did as ordered. The witch placed Miranda’s hand on top of the bowl then turned it over. The warm ashes fell against her skin but didn’t burn. Quite the opposite actually. A cold unnatural shiver ran up her arm and down her spine, leaving footprints on her very soul.
The witch continued to hold Miranda’s wrist, but removed the bowl. Miranda felt it then. The power, the undeniable sensation of magic. Whatever the woman said would be the truth. Black magic or not. This woman’s words would not be a lie.
And then what? Her heart thumped out the question. Would she walk away from Shawn? Would she completely give up on Perry? Was she really ready to hear this?
She glanced down. The ashes had created a pattern on her palm, almost like a henna tattoo. She watched as it spread up her wrist and midway to her forearm.
The armadillo rushed across the witch’s feet, his tiny paws and overgrown claws tapping against the old wood floor. Miranda heard the old witch gasp. She dropped Miranda’s hand and lurched back.
Tabitha reached for Miranda’s arm. “Why did her marks spread like that and mine never have?”
The witch stumbled a few more steps back and looked first at the freed creature, then back to Miranda’s arm. The white of her eyes grew larger. But from what? Fear? Shock? Anger that her armadillo was free? What was she thinking?
“You should go!” Her gravelly voice rang in the dark, followed by a sound of distant thunder.
“Go?” Tabitha asked, the single-word question punctuated with a low back-of-the-throat sound of disapproval. “Not until you read me. I need to know about Anthony. My mom hates him, but I think he might be my life mate.”
“Go. Now!” The witch’s gaze shot back to Miranda. Fear and something else flickered in her eyes.
Was she pissed because Miranda had freed the animal, or were … were Miranda’s markings making the witch panic?
Before Miranda could decide which it was, encroaching thunder shattered the silence. The walls, the drapes, the table, everything in the room started trembling. The approaching storm drew closer as if something in this very room called it.
The candles on the table shook, their flames reaching up higher and higher. Miranda held out her pinky to calm the chaos, but no magic came out.
Oh, crap!
She saw Tabitha attempt and fail with the same calming spell.
The armadillo made a hissing noise. It scurried closer to the door, stopping at the threshhold. Its glowing golden eyes seemed to suggest they follow. Smart armadillo.
The sensation of a premonition restarted low in her gut and began to grow.
And grow.
“Everyone should leave.” Miranda looked at the witch and knew it was true. The heart and pulse of the storm was aimed right for them. Thunder shook the foundation of the house. The smell and sting of its power filled the air.
Devastation hung seconds away. “Out everyone!” Miranda waved for the witch to move.
She didn’t move. Could she not feel this? Hear this? Or was she the one causing it?
The roar of impending calamity rang louder in Miranda’s ears. Lightning hit the table and the crystal ball exploded. The sizzle and crack of it sent shards of glass through the air.
Several of those shards pricked Miranda’s skin. Blood trickled down her arm, streaking the marks the witch had put on her.
“We’ve gotta go! Come on,” Miranda screamed, but the witch remained frozen in an odd kind of stillness. A few rivulets of blood snaked down the old lady’s face, getting trapped in her deep wrinkles. Miranda reached for her but she jerked back as if Miranda was the evil one.
The sound of the storm screamed louder. Miranda grabbed her sister’s arm and pulled her out of the room, down the dark hall, and hurried in the direction of the door. Hitting a wall, she brushed her hand around searching for … Finding the doorknob, she swung it open.
Sunlight blasted inside, but left her blind. She kept moving. Her clasp tightened on her sister’s hand.
They’d barely escaped to the porch when the loud ka-boom sounded behind them. “Mother crackers!” Miranda screamed as the force of the explosion threw both her and her sister across the yard. The last thing registering in Miranda’s brain was her sister’s fingers sliding from her grip.
She tried to hang on.
She tried with all her heart. With all her strength. But her sister was gone. Nothing but charcoal-colored smoke filled Miranda’s vision.
Everything went black.
Chapter Two
“Just do as he says and you won’t be hurt.” Perry Gomez’s voice came out muffled from behind the Halloween mask. Through the eyeholes he watched the pretty bank teller’s large hazel eyes brim with tears. His father shot his gun up in the air. Her eyes, eyes almost the same color as Miranda’s, held an inexplicable foreboding that he felt in his chest, outgrowing his rib cage—pushing against his chest bone. Oddly the warning didn’t seem to be only about the robbery, but about … Miranda.
Seconds before entering the bank, a flood of Miranda images filled his mind. Her hazel eyes, her long strawberry blond hair, her small, slightly pugged nose. One right after another, the images came.
Her laughing.
Her teasing.
Her crying.
A lot of her crying.
Not that he ever went long without thinking about her. It had been nine months and two days since he’d left Shadow Falls, and damn he missed her. But something about those last visual snapshots felt different. Like she was trying to tell him something. It felt almost like an omen. But that was stupid, because shape-shifters didn’t get omens.
Not unless … someone had sent it to him. Shit! Had Miranda sent it to him? Was she in some kind of trouble?
“Please don’t hurt me,” the teller said, her voice shaking and bringing Perry back to the problem at hand. And what a handful of a problem it was. Damn it. He hated this. He’d sought out his parents hoping to find … something.
Love.
Acceptance.
Answers.
Answers to how someone could just abandon their child. Or maybe not answers. He knew why they’d done it. His powers as a shape-shifter had arrived way too early, and made him … difficult to parent. Impossible some would say.
Hell, he couldn’t even put a name to the reason finding them had felt so urgent, but whatever he’d been seeking, he hadn’t found it.
That empty feeling inside him hadn’t disappeared. He still needed … something. Yet, he’d been forced to admit that their abandonment had been the best thing they’d done for him.
Right now he wished he could return the favor. Just walk away, forget everything, and not look back. He couldn’t. It was too late for that.
“We’re not going to hurt you.” Perry met the young woman’s gaze, seeing and sensing bone-deep fear. Recently, after learning to control his power, he’d tapped into sort of an extra gift. He’d heard other shape-shifters had it, he just hadn’t known he did. It was the ability to read shifts in people’s emotions. He made an effort to sound calm, though he knew his Frankenstein mask didn’t encourage tranquility. Hopefully, she recognized the truth in his voice. He purposely kept his own gun pointing down.
>
He hadn’t wanted to carry a shotgun, but Caleb—his dad’s friend who was the boss of some secret mob-like gang—ran the show and had insisted everyone be armed: If we’re not all carrying, the FRU might suspect we aren’t human.
As powerful of a shape-shifter as Caleb was—though not quite as powerful as Perry—the asswipe had more brawn than brains. And whoever was passing down the orders was a Big Mac short of a meat patty. Because this was their second bank job this week, and Caleb let it slip that two other groups were hitting banks and even some retail stores in different towns in Texas. This wasn’t just a one-man show. Nevertheless, sooner or later the fact that the robbers could disappear without being seen was going to be a red flag to officials and the FRU would be called in.
Perry saw the girl’s hands tremble. “Just put the money in the bag and we’ll go,” Perry assured her.
Another shot rang out behind him. The girl let out a low whimper that gave Perry another wave of regret. He looked back and saw Caleb standing in the middle of the bank lobby, his gun pointing at the ceiling. “Anyone hit an alarm and the next bullet will end up in their head.”
The guy, his bright gold eyes peering out of his werewolf mask, locked on Perry. Or maybe not at him, but at the girl standing behind him. And that was even worse.
“Well, well, what do we have here?” Caleb asked.
Perry’s heart raced when the man started strutting over. His cold eyes turned colder.
“How did you score the pretty one?” Caleb asked, leering at the girl as if she were a toy he had the right to play with.
Emotion rose in Perry’s chest. No one is playing with anyone!
“Put the money in the bag,” Perry told the girl, motioning to the black backpack, and wanting to get out of there before things got out of hand.
She did as Perry ordered, scooping stack after stack of bills out of her drawer and dropping them in the opened backpack.
Caleb moved closer. “You are a sight for sore eyes, aren’t you, sweetheart?”
The girl’s gaze widened with more fear and she cut her pleading eyes to Perry as if begging him to help her.
Caleb pointed his gun at her and motioned it to the left. “Why don’t you come around here and let me see all of you.”
The girl made another whimper. When she didn’t move, he pointed the gun at her. “Come on, be a good girl.”
Perry shot forward right in front of the gun. “No. We have to go before the cops get here.”
Through the mask, Perry saw the man’s eyes change colors again. Anger did that to a shape-shifter. And it was never a good sign.
“This won’t take long,” Caleb bit out and attempted to push Perry aside. His tone, his implication was so disgusting, Perry’s own anger ratcheted up a notch. His skin started to burn, a sign that his emotions were heightening to dangerous levels and if he couldn’t control them, he’d shift. Shift into something bigger, meaner, and right here in front of about ten humans. And that was not acceptable. But neither was what Caleb planned to do to the girl.
Perry stood solid, staring through his own mask, and refused to budge. Through the corner of his vision, he saw the girl watching as Frankenstein and a werewolf faced off. He hoped like hell that was all she was going to see. Concentrating, he found that internal switch inside him that allowed his anger to exist without awaking an unwanted beast.
“I said no. The cops have to be on the way by now.” Perry felt his eyes brighten, a sign that his switch hadn’t been completely turned off.
“Since when do you call the shots, kid?” Dislike hung on the man’s words, but Perry didn’t give a damn. Soon the asshole would really dislike him. The plan was already set in motion.
Perry took in a noseful of air, hoping to compose himself. Finding that calm and controlling his shifts had been something he’d only mastered in the last year. And occasionally he still failed at it.
“Since I don’t want to get arrested!” he told Caleb, tightening his jaw.
“What’s wrong?” Perry’s dad shot over holding his own backpack filled to the max with money.
“Your kid thinks he’s in charge.” Caleb put his gun to Perry’s chest. “Now step back before your daddy has to see you die!”
Perry’s breath caught in his chest. Not so much from fear, but from waiting to see his father’s reaction. Would his father defend him against his partner in crime? Silence filled the bank. The hostages seemed to hold their breath. His dad didn’t speak, but Perry saw a flicker of something in his eyes. Something that told Perry he might actually give a shit.
It shouldn’t have mattered. It was too late. But for some damn reason it did.
It mattered.
“I just want to leave before the cops get here,” Perry said, unsure if that flicker of emotion in his father’s eyes was enough to count on. Unsure if it actually meant anything. Right then his heart took an emotional U-turn. Suddenly he wished he hadn’t seen it, because it was just going to make this harder.
“And I want to spend a few minutes with our pretty new friend here,” Caleb hissed and cut his eyes briefly at the girl, then back at Perry. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you a few minutes with her, too.”
Perry’s skin started to tingle with fury. How could his father befriend someone with such low morals? Perry inhaled again, and prayed he could control the beast inside him that wanted to come out and play. That wanted to come out and kill.
“Perry’s right,” his dad finally spit out. “We’ve got to leave.”
Did that mean his father really gave a shit? Or was he just being logical?
“Now you, too?” Caleb hissed. “Since when do you two think…” Sirens echoed from outside. Behind the mask, Caleb’s eyes turned black. Obviously, he hated being proved wrong.
He snatched the backpack from the counter, turned, and hauled ass to the back. Perry’s and his dad’s footsteps slapped the tile right behind him.
Caleb pushed open the emergency exit, no doubt to throw the cops off, allowing them a few seconds to escape. Then he darted into a small office. Perry and his dad followed on his heels.
“Police! Don’t anyone move!” The door had barely clicked shut when the sound of officers entering the bank echoed from behind the closed door.
Caleb closed his eyes, and his human form quickly transformed into a mouse. His father closed his eyes at the same time. But the older shape-shifter lacked the same amount of power and his change wouldn’t come so quickly. Perry waited, wanting to see his father was safe, before he morphed himself. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to protect his dad from the consequences, but right now, abandoning him felt so damn wrong.
Footsteps and voices rang closer. “Police!”
Then closer.
Bubbles of leftover energy filled the air and floated off his father’s weakening human form.
Finally, only a mouse stood where his father had been. Perry concentrated on his own shift into a lizard. The door slammed open at the same time as his skin stung with the shift and his own iridescent orbs of energy filled the room.
Through tiny slits of eyes, Perry watched the officer barge into the room, his gun held out, ready to fire. “Shit,” he muttered and flinched when one of the bubbles hit his skin and the magical current entered his body.
Perry scurried past the policeman now staring at the emptiness of the room. Perry had only gotten a few feet when another image of Miranda flashed in his head.
She lay on a patch of grass. So still. So pale.
Miranda? Miranda? Are you okay?
The vision flashed again and it had his scales tightening along with his heart. Fear of what that vision meant made Perry’s tiny lizard legs move faster.
* * *
Pain. So much pain. Breathing hurt. Her lungs refused the oxygen. Something was wrong with the air.
Something was wrong … with her.
Miranda? Miranda? Are you okay?
The voice echoed somewhere in the distance. A voice she knew. A voice
she had one time loved. A voice of a shape-shifter who’d left her, for a second time, and hadn’t contacted her in over nine months.
Perry.
Then something or someone poked at her face. Once. Twice.
The third time, she forced her eyes open. She expected Perry, to see his blue eyes and blond hair brushing across his brow. Instead she gasped when she saw the hideous pink snout and scaly body. Was that … Perry? She blinked, confused about everything except knowing it wasn’t Perry. Somehow she just knew.
Then fragments of memory came hurling at her. She remembered. The armadillo. The fortune-teller. Her sister. Losing her sister’s hand.
Oh, God! Tabitha!
Lifting her face from the grass, smoke filled her lungs. Her eyes stung. She coughed. Couldn’t breathe.
The sizzle and hiss of fire had her looking up at the burning house, but the smoke was so thick she could only see flames flickering behind the wall of gray fog.
She blinked and saw bits and pieces of burning lumber littering the yard only a few feet from her. Her lungs begged for air. Clean air. She inhaled and coughed and gagged.
The armadillo started poking her with his ugly nose again.
She fought the black spots clouding her vision, and finally saw her sister lying in an unconscious heap about three feet from her.
“Tabitha?” Between gasps and hacks, Miranda screamed her sister’s name, but when she went to push up on her arm, the pain brought her back down. Moaning, she used her other arm to drag herself closer to her sister.
“Tabitha?” she said, but her sister wasn’t answering. Oh, God, was she even breathing?
“Talk to me!” Blood marred Tabitha’s face. Don’t you dare die. She reached over and put her hand on her sister’s neck, praying she’d feel a pulse.
Nothing. No flutter of life touched her fingertips.
“No!” Miranda screamed and called her sister’s name again. “Tabitha?”
An ache burst in Miranda’s heart and subsided only when she saw her sister’s chest move. Miranda’s next smoky breath singed her lungs and throat. She had to get them away from the smoke. Begging the Divinities for strength, she managed to stand, dizziness and wave upon wave of pain almost had her hitting the ground. But determination had her using her one good arm to drag her unconscious sister out of the line of the thick smoke.