Chapter 14

14

DECLAN

T here’s a pulsing in my lower left abdomen and pressure on my chest. It’s uncomfortable, like something heavy is sitting right on top of me, making it hard to breathe. I groan as I open my eyes, blinking them rapidly to clear my vision.

Where the hell am I?

As my eyes adjust, I realize I don’t recognize anything. The ceiling is not the same white popcorn one I wake up to every morning. This one is high and has wooden beams that run across it.

As I try to shift myself into a sitting position, I see the cause of my chest problem but wince at the pain that shoots through my side. Sharp, immediate, like a knife digging into my skin.

A black cat on top of me blinks slowly like it’s trying to understand what I’m doing here. Same.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Camila Castillo says from across the room. Her voice startles me. I didn’t even realize she was there. “Silas, get off of him,” she snaps at the black cat.

It doesn’t, but it does narrow its eyes at me, and I feel judged. I hate cats .

“How’s your side doing?” Camila asks, walking quickly toward me with a glass of water.

Her eyes are bright with concern, but there’s a casualness to her movements like she’s used to dealing with this kind of thing.

I look around at the room, wondering if I’ve somehow ended up in the Castillo sisters’ living room. It’s ornate and decorated with large pieces of antique furniture. An array of Persian rugs is tastefully layered, one on top of the other. The room is bright, and it drastically contrasts the colors of the coffee shop. I wonder if it was Camila’s doing.

“Uh, hurts a little…where’s Carolina?” I ask, attempting to sit up again, but I give up when the pain flares again. The cat, still perched on my chest, meows loudly.

“She’s dealing with a problem upstairs,” she says, setting down the glass on the table in front of the couch I’m lying on. “I’m supposed to wait for her to come back downstairs before I help you with that injury, but we also thought you’d be out longer.”

I frown at her. How could she help me? “What happened?”

Trying to piece together the fragments of my memory wasn’t going well. It’s like trying to grasp smoke—every time I think I’ve got a piece, it slips away. Carolina and I had followed Elijah Thorton into the alley, and then…nothing.

I should check in with Bas, but based on a quick check of my pockets, I don’t have my phone on me.

“Uh…best to wait for Carolina. She should be back any second.” Camila’s face and voice are apologetic.

I’m battling two sides of my personality. The one that wants all of the information immediately and the one that knows that the truth has a way of revealing itself when the time calls for it. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, so I reorient to the cat still sitting on my chest.

“This must be Silas.”

Camila gives me a small smile, possibly because she’s grateful for my forced patience. “Yes, he’s our cat.”

I raise a brow at her. “Carolina was very clear that Silas is your cat.” I drop my voice to a whisper like he can understand me when I say, “I don’t think she likes him much.”

Silas rears back on my chest. His eyes narrow into tiny slits, and for a second, I’m almost convinced he understands every word I’m saying. “Well, she’s no peach either.”

I blink and realize I must have hit my head, because it sounded like that came from the animal in front of me. I watch him as he leaps onto the table and slinks away.

Camila laughs nervously. “Yeah, Silas is an…acquired taste.”

“Right.” I don’t know what else to say. Everything feels slightly off, like I’m missing some crucial detail that would make sense of this entire bizarre situation.

When the door opens behind her, Camila lets out an audible sigh of relief.

“Thank the cauldron. Everything go okay?” she asks, turning to her sister who looks like she just went three rounds with a wild animal. I almost jolt forward, but the pain reminds me there’s a reason I’m lying here.

Carolina wipes her right eye with the back of her hand and frowns. “Well, I’m alive, so by all accounts—Oh, hi,” she says when we make eye contact.

I definitely must have hit my head because Carolina’s eyes soften under my gaze, which has never happened in any of the times we’ve been in a room together.

My eyes dart from her to Camila to Silas, who’s found a new resting spot on a large table across the room. The entire scene feels surreal, like I’ve stepped into an alternate universe where cats talk and Carolina Castillo actually seems to care about me.

Perhaps the only explanation for this situation is that I did actually hit my head in the alley and landed myself in a coma.

That would make sense. Coma dreams are supposed to be weird, right? A rather unfortunate one if I’m still feeling this pain in my side, but now that I’ve realized it’s a coma, maybe it doesn’t— Nope, still hurts .

Carolina hurries to my side at my grimace. Her movements are quick, almost frantic, like she can’t stand to see me in pain. It’s unnerving.

“Camila,” Carolina says.

I’m not the only one who thinks Carolina is acting differently because even her sister shoots her a confused glance at her concern. Camila’s eyebrows lift, and she looks between the two of us like she’s missed some crucial development. Me, too.

“I was waiting for you.”

“He’s in pain ,” she replies like Camila should have obviously been trying to help me. Aside from offering me an aspirin, I’m not sure what exactly she could be doing.

Camila blinks slowly at her sister, and her eyes move to me and back again. It’s like there’s some silent conversation happening between them, something I’m not privy to.

“Sorry,” she finally says and turns to me. “I’m going to finish healing this for you, but you must be very still. It will feel a little strange, but it shouldn’t hurt.”

Healing? Did she just say healing? If I’m not in a coma, I’m in a dream, at the very least. There’s no other explanation for the strange things coming out of her mouth. Carolina hovers above me, watching her sister as she pulls up my sweater and places her hand against my skin. I jolt at her cold hand.

“ Camila .” Carolina’s voice has more than a hint of impatience .

Camila rolls her eyes. “If you’re going to fuss, go away. I’ve done this a million times, Caro. When you become an expert healer, you can scold me. Until then, zip it .”

Healer?

I’ve given up tracking this conversation. It is too confusing and nonsensical to follow, so I let them continue their bickering until something pulses inside me. The sensation is strange—like a warmth spreading through my body, soothing the pain but leaving an odd tingling in its place.

It occurs to me then that if I wasn’t dreaming, I should be asking quite a few questions. Namely, “what are you doing?”

“Healing your wound.” She says it so simply, like this is something totally normal.

“Right…and where did this wound come from exactly?”

Camila glances up at her sister, and they share a silent exchange. “It’s a long story,” Carolina says at the same time Camila removes her hand from my stomach. “You should be able to sit up now.”

I suck in a breath to prepare for the pain, but it doesn’t come as I push myself into a sitting position. I’m shocked—there’s no pain, no residual ache. It’s like the injury never existed.

“What do you remember?” Carolina asks. Her voice is soft, but there’s an intensity to her gaze that makes me pause.

“Not much. Everything after following Elijah into the alley is a blank.” I try to recall more, but the memories are foggy, still just out of reach.

“And what do you think happened?”

All three of them are watching me closely. “I must have fallen and hit my head.”

Silas narrows his eyes at me, and Camila lets out a relieved sigh before looking at her sister. Carolina shakes her head slowly in return .

“Is that...not what happened?” I ask hesitantly.

Camila and Carolina are locked in a staring contest. The tension between them is palpable, like they’re arguing without saying a word.

For a moment, I think they didn’t hear me, but then Camila stands abruptly.

“We’ll let you two talk. Come on, Silas,” she says, leaving out the door Carolina entered through with Silas tucked against her body.

The air in the room shifts once Camila is gone. It’s like all the tension left with her, but something else lingers—something between me and Carolina that wasn’t there before. Just like in the car, I feel drawn to Carolina, but the feeling has grown impossibly more desperate.

I want to touch her, but I don’t.

A part of me knows I should be wary, that I should be searching for my phone to call Bas or my walkie-talkie to radio someone at the station. But that part of me is minuscule, almost non-existent.

The rest of me feels safe and unconcerned.

Right, coma.

This dreamlike state explains everything. I read somewhere that there are no phones in dreams, so it makes sense that I wouldn’t have mine. My tongue flicks over my teeth to make sure they haven’t started to fall out. Classic anxiety dream.

All my teeth are firmly planted, but Carolina’s behavior also makes more sense this way. Only in my dreams—or a parallel universe—would she look at me like she cared.

She sighs, her mouth setting in her usual pout, but her eyes still hold that semblance of warmth. I hold onto it like a lifesaver.

“You didn’t hit your head, Declan. ”

Declan , she said. Not Detective . I was Declan now. I want her to say it again.

“I didn’t?”

She sits on the edge of the table in front of the sofa I’m on, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s in the same tight black sweater and jeans that she had on in the car. Despite everything, despite the insanity of this situation, my eyes can’t help but follow the curve of her body.

Even in a coma, I didn’t have a crazy imagination. Bummer .

“No, you were…attacked.”

My brows dip low. “Attacked? By whom?” Maybe I was wrong about the imagination thing. “Elijah?”

“Technically,” she says, her eyes rolling toward the ceiling like there might be something inscribed there to help her with this situation.

“Carolina.”

There’s the sigh again. It’s becoming a pattern now, this reluctance to say what’s really going on. “I haven’t been…honest with you.”

My skin starts to prickle, and I swallow a bulb of dread that has made its way up my throat as possibilities for what she’s about to say filter into my head.

My mind races through the options, none of them good. Was she behind these disappearances after all? Did she know who it was? Had she come on the stakeout with me for another reason?

“You see…” she starts, her eyes glued to her fingers pulling at a loose thread on the stitching of her jeans. “Camila and I are…”

I start to laugh. I can’t help it. The tension is too much, and the only logical explanation is something ridiculous.

“Carolina, if you’re about to say that you and Camila are witches, I will have no choice but to confirm my theory that I am in a coma.”

She frowns at me. “What? Declan, you’re not in a coma. You are very much awake and alive.”

“Well, that’s good.” I think .

Her lips pull together as she considers her words again. “But, it’s true. Camila and I are witches. You’re here because a demon attacked you, and Camila had to heal the wound on your stomach. You did almost die.”

I’m staring at her more intensely than I ever have, looking for any indication she’s lying to me.

The laugh that leaves my mouth this time is different. It’s a hollow sound, filled with disbelief. “Yeah…sure, you are, Carolina.”

“You don’t believe me?” she asks, standing and looking…annoyed that I’m doubting her.

I stand, too. Surprised that there isn’t any pain that flares again.

“Well, it’s just a little…ridiculous to think you and your sister have magical powers. Don’t you think?”

She frowns. Her expression darkens, and for the first time, I feel like I’ve actually offended her. “Camila just healed you. How do you explain that ?”

Well, I wasn’t entirely convinced Camila “healed” me. I didn’t remember being injured and sure, my skin was a little red, but I could have just bruised it. There was hardly enough evidence to label them as witches.

“Maybe I tweaked a muscle, and it relaxed while I was lying down.”

Carolina scoffs. “Unbelievable. This town has been trying to get us to admit this for decades, and when I do, you don’t even believe it.” She’s shaking her head at me now, and then she stops, her eyes lighting with an idea.

“Carolina—”

My warning falls short as we’re blanketed in shadows that fill the room.