Chapter Thirty-seven: Magic

Chapter Thirty-seven

Willow

MAGIC

Performed by Kelly Clarkson

My entire body was shaking as I crouched behind the boxes. Flashbacks to hiding in a closet tried to drag me under. Would the boxes protect me as the speakers had? What would protect Lincoln? He'd gone out to face some unknown assailant with nothing more than his fists.

Where was Axel's security team?

How had the intruder gotten inside?

I couldn't stay here. Couldn't let Lincoln face this alone.

As I moved, the solid object in my skirt pocket banged against my hip.

My phone!

I pulled it out and almost dropped it as my hands trembled. I was afraid to call 9-1-1. Afraid to talk and be heard. Instead, I texted Axel.

Something slammed into the wall outside the room, and I jumped. Lincoln! I leaped forward, searching the room for anything I could use as a weapon.

I'd just yanked a candlestick lamp from the wall as a body emerged through the closed door—shimmering through it as if the solid wood didn't exist. I almost dropped the light before instinct had me swinging at the woman with the lamp. It sliced through her as if she was made of nothing but air.

He's going to kill Lincoln! You have to help!

I heard the words in my head rather than aloud, and in shock, I nearly lost my hold on the light again.

The reality of what I was seeing sent my blood thumping in a cadence that left me breathless. She was a ghost. A figment of imagination and yet standing before me. My twin wearing a black lace dress. I knew instantly who she was. What she was. But I couldn't stop to analyze it. Not when Lincoln needed help!

I raced toward the door, and when she didn't move, I slid through her. It was like stepping into a cold shower. Shivers crawled up my spine as I eased open the door.

A man was standing right in front of me with his back to me and a gun in his hand. He had it pointed across the landing at Lincoln. I screamed, "No," just as Lincoln plowed toward him. A quiet huff sounded, jerking Lincoln's body as if he'd been hit.

In desperation and horror, I rushed forward, intending to bring the lamp down on top of the gunman's head. But Lincoln's momentum propelled him into the man, forcing them both into me, and we all tumbled to the floor, landing with me on the bottom and knocking the breath from my lungs. I couldn't shove the man off me, couldn't do anything with their combined weight holding me down.

"Drop the gun, or I'll slice your throat open." I hardly recognized Lincoln's voice. It was darker than I'd ever heard it. Deadly and cold.

The man fought against Lincoln's hold, elbows nailing me in my stomach. I shoved at the gunman using every muscle I had, but it was useless until they rolled off me, consumed with their own struggle.

Blood trailed on the wood planks, and when I saw it staining Lincoln's shirt, a tortured wail escaped me.

I stretched my hands out, frantically searching the floor for the makeshift weapon I'd lost in the fall.

The blare of sirens broke through the sound of their fight and the pounding of the opera music.

Help was here and yet too far away. I watched in horror as the gun tipped toward Lincoln once more. Lincoln jabbed at the man's neck with a pocketknife. The gunman stilled as blood oozed from the wound, and eyes full of hate landed on me. Eyes and hate I knew. That I'd encountered once upon a time in a courtroom. Ones that matched the hate his brother had revealed as he'd shot my father.

"The bitch doesn't deserve to live," Aaron gasped. He shifted the gun so it pointed at me, and as his finger pressed onto the trigger, Lincoln dragged the knife across his throat. A mixed sound of strangled pain and disbelief escaped him, his blood spraying across Lincoln.

I finally found my feet, stumbling toward them and kicking at the gun so it went flying across the hall.

The front door slammed against a wall as Aaron's body went limp.

Even in death, his eyes still glared, still shot out evil and hate.

I shuddered, falling to my knees next to Lincoln where he'd rolled off Aaron. I used my hands to push against the blood soaking his shirt. "You're hit. God, you're hit. Don't die, Lincoln. Please, don't die."

I increased the pressure on the wound, and he grunted in pain. His free hand circled my wrist. "Alive, Sweetness. I'm alive."

Boots stormed the stairs.

"He's wounded!" I shouted as my gaze first met Axel's and then, close on his heels, Deputy James's.

"We need an ambulance," Axel spoke into his two-way. "Two down inside. One more out back."

James went to Aaron, checked his pulse, and shook her head.

Axel tried to pull me away from Lincoln.

"The blood. I have to stop the blood," I told him through tears.

"You've done a great job, Willow. A really great job. Now, let me see him."

Lincoln squeezed my wrist again. "Let him in, Willow. Let him in."

Sirens grew closer. More feet pounded up the stairs. More bodies emerged.

As I fell back and to the side, my eyes landed on the blood on my hands. Too much of it was the same again. Too much like that awful night. When I looked up, my gaze landed on the woman who'd come into the guest room, slipping through walls. She was pacing at the end of the hall, glancing back and forth between Lincoln and me. Her eyes were so real I could feel the weight of them on me. And yet no one else even registered she was there.

I looked down at Lincoln to see he was watching her pace just as I'd been.

And I suddenly knew.

It was Sienna he'd been seeing all along.

Chills raced up my spine.

What had Lincoln said to me all those days ago? That he'd thought she'd returned to haunting him? What had Felicity told the media? He sees ghosts.

The burning in my chest grew.

Sienna had saved us tonight.

She wasn't really there, and yet somehow she was, and she'd saved us.

The EMTs asked me to step back even farther, but Lincoln reached for me, gripping my hand with his good one. "She stays," he growled out.

They checked his vitals and tore his shirt to get a better look at the bullet wound. "I think it just winged the deltoid, but we won't know if it hit bone or a vein until we get you to the hospital. It's good you're awake. Try to stay with us."

"Somebody turn the lights on," James snapped.

"He cut the electricity from the main line down the street. The whole street is out," Axel responded.

"Then where the hell is the music coming from?" the Marshal demanded, heading toward Lincoln's room.

As the song cut out and a heavy silence descended, a new fear rose through me. Mom. Alone in the cottage.

When James reemerged from the bedroom, a tortured cry leaped from my throat, "Mom!"

"She's fine, Willow. She's at Hector's. She went there as soon as she left here."

I wasn't sure why that knowledge was what started the tremors. Adrenaline. Relief. But when I looked down at Lincoln, covered in blood from him and Aaron, the shaking only intensified.

Shadowed in the weird light of the flashlights, two EMTs arrived with a stretcher and made their way to Lincoln.

"I can walk," he said, and using me and the wall, he attempted to stand and wavered. It was Axel on his other side who stopped him from falling.

"Nothing wrong with letting them take you out on the gurney," Axel barked.

"I leave this house on that thing and someone photographs it, it'll spread that I overdosed. Walk me out. Then, call my mother before she hears it from someone else."

Surrounded by the security team, the Marshals, and EMTs, we were led to the back of the waiting ambulance. Lincoln climbed in, and I stepped up after him. Finally, he lay down on the gurney. His face was white. Whiter than I'd ever seen it. Whiter than the ghost who'd stepped out of nothingness to warn us.

The ambulance moved, racing down the darkened street.

My hand clutched Lincoln's good one as the EMT checked his vitals again, hooking up wires and pads. Panic filled me. A deep, unyielding fear. I couldn't lose him. Not now.

Lincoln squeezed my hand. "Willow, look at me." My eyes met his, and I saw the anger there that blended with a strange sort of relief. "I'm okay. I'm alive. You're alive. We're okay."

I choked out. "You're shot."

"Was that Aaron Vitale?" he asked. "I'd seen his picture, but I wasn't sure."

"Yes." I nodded to reinforce it.

Lincoln's eyes shut. "Good."

The machine he was hooked up to beeped wildly, my heart seeming to keep pace with the frenzied beat as I called his name.

His lids snapped open. "I'm here, Sweetness. Just a bit tired."

When his eyes shut again, I demanded, "What's wrong?"

"He lost a lot of blood," the EMT said. "He isn't dying. His body is doing what it needs to do, shutting down so it can heal."

I wasn't reassured, but as the monitor continued to blip, and Lincoln's chest continued to rise and fall, I held on to his hand and murmured words of reassurance and love, hoping it would be enough.

? ? ?

They wheeled him directly into surgery, and I was shown to a waiting room. For a brief moment, I was alone, until Sienna appeared again, shimmering through the wall and pacing around the room. Which was when I saw the wound at the back of her head, the missing part of her skull. My stomach lurched once more.

For a long time, she didn't say anything, just meeting my gaze with a steely one. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, the doors of the waiting room flew open, and my family ran in—Mom, Hector, and Shay.

Mom had me in her arms before I could say a word, holding me so tight I could barely breathe. Then, more people showed up—Axel, James, and their men.

James wanted my statement. She wanted to know how we'd known Aaron was in the house.

My gaze strayed to Sienna. She was standing in the corner now, tracing a finger over a brow in much the way Lincoln did.

I swallowed, body shaking as I told them Lincoln had heard something, which was basically the truth. He'd heard Sienna, but I wasn't telling them that. Couldn't tell them that. They'd think we were both off our rockers. But I told them everything else I knew. How he'd had me hide. How I'd heard them fighting in the hall and came out with the lamp.

The door opened again to reveal men in black suits with Secret Service pins on their lapels.

Behind them, Lincoln's mom appeared with her eyes wild and worried, and after her, the president of the United States walked in. His face was grim and dark, but he looked so much like Lincoln that it hit me in the chest. Those bright blue eyes matched his son's perfectly.

Silence took over for a second, and then Cordelia rushed toward me, grabbing my hands that were still covered in Lincoln's blood. "Tell me what they've said."

I swallowed over the lump in my throat and told her what the EMT had told me.

Relief washed over her. "Thank God."

She held my hand with one of hers and then reached for Guy Matherton's with the other. He moved in, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and kissing her temple. How many times had Lincoln done the same to me? A fist squeezed my lungs.

"I've sent Daringfield to find out more," the president told his wife.

His eyes found mine, serious and assessing but mostly just worried.

The tears I'd held back finally came, streaming down my cheeks like a heavy rain. "I'm sorry. I'm s-so s-sorry."

My mom was there, on the other side of me, pulling me from Cordelia's hold. "This isn't your fault, kiddo. This isn't on you."

"He came for me. He came for me and shot Lincoln!"

I turned into her, face to her shoulder, while she ran a hand up my back like she had hundreds of times in my life, attempting to comfort me. Just like she had the night Dad had died.

"Let's get you cleaned up," Mom murmured.

And again, it was just like that night, when I'd been covered with Dad's blood.

Tremors ransacked my body.

I let Mom lead me down the hall to a single-stall bathroom. I washed my hands and looked up into the mirror to see blood on my neck and face. I scrubbed at those as well. My shirt was covered with it. Mom unzipped the sweatshirt she was wearing with the logo of Cherry Bay's high school and held it out to me. Underneath it, she had on only a pajama top.

"Put it on," she said when I didn't move.

I pulled off my T-shirt and slid into the sweatshirt, immediately cocooned in her warmth and smell. Reassurance. Comfort. But for the first time in my life, it wasn't her solace I sought. I wanted Lincoln's arms. I wanted Lincoln's soft words soothing me.

"He's going to be okay," Mom said.

I nodded. He had to be.

I needed a minute. A minute alone to gather my thoughts. To pull myself together and stop the torrent of tears.

"I need to pee."

Her eyes narrowed. "I'll just be outside. If you don't come out in five minutes, I'm coming back in."

The door closed behind her, and I sank to the floor. I wrapped my arms around my knees and rocked. It was over. It was over, but Lincoln had been shot.

He's too stubborn to die from a bullet to the arm. The voice in my head had me whipping my gaze up. Sienna was leaning against the wall, arms crossed. I couldn't see the wound at the back of her head from this angle, just the face of a surly, teenaged girl who looked spookily like me.

"I don't understand," I said, keeping my voice quiet so Mom didn't come storming in and demand to know who I was talking to.

Sienna shrugged. Me either. I'm just here when I'm needed. He needed me a lot in the beginning. In those first few years, I was almost always around. The trouble he had sleeping got worse. I think he maybe got an hour or so every other day.

"Wouldn't seeing you make that worse?"

She shrugged. I don't make the rules. I'm just sent, so here I am.

"You saved him tonight."

She looked up at the ceiling and back. I was sent to save you both.

"Thank you."

She tilted her head, as if listening to something. That's my cue. You're good for him, Willow. Maybe even better for him than I ever could have been, because I took the love he gave me for granted. As a teen, when you receive that much love, you just think it's supposed to be yours. That it's always supposed to be that way. But you… You know differently. You know how rare and precious it is. How it can be gone in the blink of an eye. Make sure you live every day as if it might be the last.

Then, she was gone.