Chapter 22

22

DECLAN

J ust like the alarm clock in Carolina’s guest room, the numbers on my phone mock me endlessly. Each minute feels like an hour dragging by in the quiet of the hotel room. I could see the sunlight peering into my room through the slit in between the blackout curtains.

I’d sent Bas on a wild goose hunt, which will keep him buried in paperwork for the foreseeable future. When I was certain he was distracted, I went back to my hotel room to catch up on sleep, but it continued to evade me.

Maybe because I was so anxious about Carolina and Camila going down—I’m assuming it’s down —to the Underworld. They’d been gone a little over 12 hours at this point.

Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw crime scenes, and the victim was always Carolina. Each dream felt more real, the details clearer, her face frozen in some kind of pain or terror. On the precipice of sleep, the images jolted me awake each time. At this rate, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever sleep again.

I should have never let them go, but really, what could I have done to stop them? I was a human, and they had supernatural powers. It's not like I could pull rank on them or use logic when magic was involved. The attempt alone would probably have Silas rolling on his back hysterical with laughter.

I wondered what the extent of their powers were. Judging by the lack of pain I was in, it seemed like Camila could heal people at the very least. I knew they could both cast spells and make potions. Did they have particular special abilities? If so, what could Carolina do, and did it have to do with what I saw when I went to wake her up from her nightmare?

A sudden knock at the door startles me from my line of thinking and erases the image of lacing up Carolina’s dress.

I check my phone for the umpteenth time to see if I missed a call from Bas or Carolina. Nothing .

“One second,” I call while pulling on a pair of sweatpants. I tug them on hastily, my heart picking up a beat. What if it’s Carolina? What if it’s not her? What if something happened? My mind’s spiraling already.

When I open the door, Carolina stands in front of it, arms crossed, looking at me expectantly.

“Up for a trip, Detective?” she asks, her voice casual like she’s inviting me to get coffee and didn’t just get back from the Underworld.

The breath I didn’t realize I was holding releases in a slow exhale. My gaze drifts over her body, cataloging anything different about her. Her long, dark hair cascades around her shoulders, and she’s wearing an oversized sweatshirt, jeans that hug her hips just right, and white sneakers. She looks the same.

She was here, alive and standing in front of me. The relief that overcame me was so potent that it catapulted me forward, my arms wrapping around her and pulling her against me.

“Uh, what are you doing?” she asked, mouth moving against the exposed skin of my chest.

What was I doing ?

My arms drop from her immediately, and I take a step back, but my body feels drawn to her. “Sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

Lie . I know exactly what came over me—fear. The idea that I’d never see her again had settled in my gut like lead.

She blinks, her dark gaze roving over my torso. Satisfaction that she’s at least slightly affected by me courses throughout my body. I bury the smirk that wants to take over my face deep inside me.

“Come in,” I say, turning back into the hotel room and leaving the door open for Carolina. Grabbing a clean T-shirt out of my suitcase, I pull it over my head before turning to face her. “When’d you get back?”

She’s looking around the room, and a part of me is embarrassed that I’ve been using it as a catch-all. Clothes are strewn everywhere, and old takeout containers and coffee cups line most available surfaces. The sight of my mess suddenly feels more exposed, but I catch her eyeing the rumpled bed and the color creeping into her cheeks.

It’s the first time I’ve been truly alone with her since the stakeout, and I wonder what’s changed to make her act this way.

“About an hour ago,” she says. “What have you been up to?” she asks, leaning her hip against the small table near the kitchenette.

“After I buried Bas in paperwork, I came back here to try and get some sleep.”

She nods her head slowly, processing. “Any luck?”

I lift a shoulder. “Not much. Did you find the bounty hunter?”

There’s a shift in her demeanor, a flicker of apprehension that crosses her features. “I’ll tell you about it in the car.”

“Right…where are we going again? I don’t think the rental pl an covers miles to the Underworld,” I quip, turning back to my suitcase to find a new set of clean clothes.

“New York. We need to visit the City Coven. I figured you might want to come with me.” Her voice is overly casual like she’s trying too hard to make it sound that way.

Yeah, she’s definitely being weird.

“Okay, I just need a minute to shower. Feel free to…” I freeze when I see that the entire room has been cleaned, and there are folded piles of laundry on the newly made bed. “Make yourself at home. You folded my laundry.”

Carolina rolls her eyes. “Please, I don’t fold laundry. My magic seems to like you for whatever reason.”

I can’t stop my smirk this time. “Just your magic, huh?”

She shifts her weight to her back foot. “I thought you were going to shower.”

“Right. If your magic has time, the water pressure kind of sucks.”

The comment earns me another eye roll, but I see her fingers twitch, and sure enough, the water in the shower feels more like a massage than a depressing trickle of water.

Carolina has spent the last 30 minutes explaining what she found out from her trip to the Underworld and why we’re going to Manhattan at 8 a.m. I’m half convinced that the only reason I’m here is to drive the 3 hours into the city.

“So, Camila used to date a bounty hunter?” I ask, flicking on my blinker to merge onto RT-15 South.

“Well, he wasn’t a bounty hunter back then,” Carolina says.

We hit a bout of stop-and-go traffic, and I prop my elbow up against the door frame, leaning my head against my fist. “ What did she say about it when you got back?” She looks at me curiously, brows raised, and I raise mine right back at her. “I mean, you asked her about it, right?”

There’s a flicker of something—guilt, maybe—that flashes across her face. “It’s not like she knows anything about it. She was just as surprised as I was to see him.”

I grab my coffee from the center console and take a drink. “No, I know that, but you didn’t ask her if she was okay?”

She shifts in her seat and crosses one leg over the other. “Camila and I aren’t like that. We don’t talk about that stuff.”

A laugh slips out of my mouth before I can stop it. “Feelings, you mean? You don’t talk about your feelings?”

Another one of the least surprising things I’ve ever heard. It explains a lot—her walls, her evasiveness. Nothing about Carolina tells me she’s exactly forthcoming with her emotions. That must have been hard for Camila when they lost their parents and then again with their grandparents.

Carolina waves the comment off. “Whose side are you on here?”

“I didn’t realize I was picking a side.”

“Okay, enough judging me. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Any kids? Pets?”

This time, the laugh is genuine. “No kids, no pets. When I was little, I had a fish. That was the only pet my stepmom would allow.”

“Your parents are divorced,” she says.

I lay on my horn when someone merges in front of us abruptly without signaling and roll my eyes when they flip me off in their rearview mirror. “My mom died when I was a kid, and my dad got remarried to his secretary a few years later. She has pretty bad allergies, so no pets.”

“And no kids? ”

“You’re really adamant about the kid thing. Do you know something I don’t?” I glance over at her to see she’s trying to hide a smile. “Never married. No kids. I’m only 30, Carolina. Not nearly old enough to have a whole family.”

She tilts her head at me. “Why not?”

I shrug. “I travel a lot for work. Never met anyone I was serious enough about for me to settle in that place.” When she doesn’t say anything, I turn the question on her. “What about you? Any demon ex-boyfriends or ex-boyfriends of other magical varieties?”

She hums to herself, thinking. “I dated a vampire once, very briefly, but just humans before that.”

Naturally.

“Why’d you end it? Bad kisser? Too much teeth?” I ask, hopefully sounding unfazed, even though I’m internally reeling over the idea of the existence of vampires.

Which versions of them were right? I silently hoped it wasn’t the shimmery ones, but for the good of the world, those might be the best ones. And what other kinds of creatures existed if witches and vampires were real?

Her laugh fills the car, and it’s like it solves all the world’s problems. Even the traffic in front of us clears up.

“No. I wouldn’t consider converting.”

I almost slam on the brakes at the statement. “To vampirism?”

She laughs again. “No, he was Jewish. I’m Catholic. Cauldron , not everything has to do with magic, Declan.”

“That’s cute. Cauldron ,” I murmur under my breath.

“Nice to know you think I’m cute,” she says.

I raise a brow but don’t look at her. “Not what I meant, but you should know that I find you to be much more than cute , Carolina.”

“Anyway,” she says, changing the subject, her favorite pastime with me. “When we get to New York, we’ll need to visit Annabelle. She’s the leader of the City Coven. She’ll either have the First Witch’s grimoire or know where we can find it. She might also have an idea about who’s behind all of this.”

My forehead wrinkles in confusion. “Then why haven’t you talked to her before this?”

She hesitates before answering. “Well, the other reason Camila isn’t here is because they don’t get along. Difference of…opinions.”

“Oh?” Astonishment coats my voice because I wasn’t sure that I could imagine Camila not getting along with someone…but then again, her ex-boyfriend is a demonic bounty hunter, and they seem to be on uneven footing.

“ That’s a story for another time,” Carolina sighs like it’s one she’d rather avoid telling altogether.