Ch. 73: A Good Witch or A Bad Witch?

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE:
Ally~
Vance was officially expelled. Sean was suspended. So, good news all around I guess? I guess. Something still sat in the pit of my stomach, but there was no way of knowing what it was exactly. At least not yet, not at my ability level. I still knew I needed to find Kyle.
Back at home after school, I tried to focus on school work until my mom came home. She insisted on being here when I tried this. My grandma and I decided I should try a different strategy - guided dreaming. With any luck I could reach Kyle or at least feel where he was. Since he hadn’t been coming to me in my dreams, I worried about why that could be. My grandma wasn’t sure, but there was plenty out there that she hadn’t been familiar with in life. She had been moderately gifted in a small coven that had disbanded after a few years, so what she was able to share now was more what she guessed at during her later stages in life. Once I knew what she knew I would need to go looking for someone who knew more - or go the DIY route.
After re-reading the same sentence of my book for Humanities class for the fifteenth time or so, I heard my mom’s car pull into the driveway. By the time she parked and made it up the stairs, I was seated in a cross-legged position, ready to go. My mom took one look at the determined look on my face and just nodded. She could tell that I really needed to do this.
“Ready?” she asked me as she lit the candles around me that sat posed in a circle.
“As ever,” I said, rolling my shoulders.
I closed my eyes and put a hand on my pendant, feeling for my grandma’s guidance. After a few seconds of guided meditation and some instructions on how to say the incantation, I could feel my soul being pulled. I felt a little off and nearly stopped before I heard my mom’s voice encouraging me further. I took a slow, steadying breath, and let it go.
It was dark. Wet? I felt like I was in a basement. It was moist and chilled my bones. Was Kyle here somewhere? I heard muffled voices and I walked towards them to find myself suddenly in a room filled to the brim with bright light. My feet didn’t make a sound as I walked further in, shielding my eyes. It was a large, bright, empty room as far as I could tell. Emphasis on bright. Any longer and I may go blind in here. I felt along the edges of the wall, at what looked like it could be a doorway. Suddenly my hand hit the air, and I walked through the doorway. After a few seconds it opened into a clearing and as I looked around, I was in the woods.
I turned back around to look for the room I had just come out of, but it was nowhere to be seen. This was very strange. I continued to walk and my steps could be heard by the crunching of fall leaves. All around were large maple trees in the middle of shedding their branches for the cooler months. But it didn’t feel cool. It didn’t feel warm either. As I busied myself touching my arms trying to decipher what this odd temperate weather was, I ended up walking into the opening of a cave that appeared literally out of nowhere. As I stepped inside I noticed something bright. Walking further inside I saw red hair.
I rushed over to see Kyle. Dead on the ground behind a boulder. Dead? I crouched down in my panic and put my hands on his face, he was freezing cold to the touch. NO. I was too late.
I let loose the tears that were brimming in my eyes and I pulled on my hair, yanking some out of my usual perfect bun.
How could this have happened? I cried more heavily as I let go of all the tension that had built up over these weeks of trying to find him, to reach him. Why hadn’t I been fast enough? Why had I let so much get in the way? In my gut I had known something was wrong, but never at this level.
I sank down further until I was laying down beside him. I clutched my pendant and begged my grandma for help. But she was silent here. My body jerked with heavy crying and after a moment I struggled to breathe and cry. What was I going to do now? How did I get out of this? Where was this?
My breathing slowed and I let go of more pain. I fluttered my eyelashes, trying to clear tears and start to think straight. And that’s when I noticed. His eyes had opened.
I jolted forward and reached for his face, “Kyle?!”
He blinked.
“Oh my god!” I sucked in a breath, “Kyle, can you hear me?”
His eyes moved to mine and he nodded ever so slightly.
“Can you tell me where you are? Are you hurt? Are you in trouble?” I blurted out rapid-fire.
He just blinked at me. Okay, one at a time.
“Okay, I’ll slow down,” I began, Kyle blinking once in reply. “One blink for yes and two blinks for no, okay?”
He blinked again, once.
“Okay - are you in trouble? Like are you in danger?” I asked.
He blinked once.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes for a moment then blinked once. Maybe that meant he wasn’t sure?
“Do you know where you are?” I asked.
Two blinks.
“So you know how you got there?”
Two blinks.
“Did someone take you?”
One blink.
“Do you know who took you?”
Two blinks.

Jake~
The need to go to Rachel, protect her from something that was scaring her, hit hard again today. I had Mitchell go investigate what it could be and he told me he was able to get in contact with someone at Pacific. Rachel was okay, but something had happened and two guys were in the office over an incident. I imposed on Mitchell the importance of figuring out the rest and he assured me his friend would find out more.
I was waiting to hear back, holding my energy at bay, nearly splitting a bench in two, when Nick came out of the packhouse. He headed in my direction.
“News,” he said smiling.
Good, some good news likely. We could use any. I dipped my head and gestured to the seat across from me at this picnic bench I had been sitting in.
“Okay, so Lucien, our tracker from Eastern Hills, he has connections with some older fae warriors. He had talked to them a few weeks ago when he first came out here, asking for them to loop him in to anything that might seem relevant. Well, a fae investigation squadron was clearing out this cabin they raided last week. They found some traces of werewolf blood. Lucien went out there and confirmed. Your parents were there,” Nick reported.
“There wasn’t much blood, maybe a little spittle,” he added, trying to ease whatever he was reading on my face.
“And?” I refocused him.
“Lucien was able to pick up a trail. It did fade after some miles but it covered a campsite that was used after the raid. So your parents were with the group who left as of last week,” he concluded.
I looked at him for a second, reading something there - he wasn’t telling me something.
“What are you leaving out?” I asked gruffly, anger rising.
Nick breathed out and twisted his face before admitting, “The raid. It was in a black magic coven hideout.”