She was smiling, her whole demeanor exuding warmth. I liked her. She was everything I’d hope to see in a grandmother.
Suddenly, a cold chill ran down my spine. I straightened and looked around the room. Something had changed about the space.
“I feel it too,” Fern said. “You two need to go. Now.”
That’s when the dark tangle of magic seeped in around me. It wasn’t Elias, he felt a little different. I looked at Xander. “It’s David. He’s here.”
“We can’t leave you two alone.” I turned back to Xander’s grandparents. “You have no idea what he’s capable of.”
“They tracked the stone, didn’t they?” Fern asked. “You have it with you.”
My eyes widened. She was right. The stone was safely tucked away in the necklace around my neck but that was too close for comfort with David outside.
Gerald threw a set of keys to Xander. “My car is in the shed out back. Get out of here. We’ll hold them off.”
Xander stood and nodded.
“You really want to leave them alone with David?” I hissed.
“He gets that stone, Lola died for nothing,” he said.
“I don’t want them to die,” I said.
“We can take care of ourselves. Go now,” Fern said.
Someone knocked on the door. We were out of time. Xander grabbed my hand and I followed him past his grandparents, into a kitchen, and through a back door. I gripped the book tight under my free arm. There was no way I was going to lose our only chance at solving this.
We raced to a shed and Xander used a key to unlock the garage door. Growling came from behind us and I looked back to see the hellhounds approaching.
“Hurry,” Xander raced around to the driver side and I quickly opened the passenger door.
One of the hounds slammed against the door just after I closed it. Xander started the car and hit the gas. We tore out of the shed and one of the hounds leaped away from the car. I looked back as Xander accelerated and caught sight of David standing in front of the house.
He’d followed us here.
I couldn’t help but feel like it was my fault. The stone was locked away, secure in the locket. Was he tracking the stone? Or me?
“How did he find us?” I asked.
“No idea but we’re not going to stick around to ask,” he said. “Could be coincidence. It’s not like finding my family would be all that hard. They didn’t seem to expect us here. Maybe they were hoping to get information.”
“What are we supposed to do now?” I lifted the book. “We have this but we can’t read it. And we can’t exactly lead them back to our safe house.”
“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “It’s a few hours away, but I have a friend who might be able to help us.”
“Someone you can trust fully?” I asked.
“With my life,” he said.
I looked behind us. There weren’t any cars. No obvious signs we were being followed. It was possible it had been poor timing. If they wanted to catch us, they might have approached it differently.
I snapped on my seatbelt and settled in with the book on my lap. A little of the tension forming knots in my stomach eased. I knew we weren’t out of this yet, but the fact that we had any kind of lead was reassuring.
Taking a deep breath, I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes. For now, we were safe but I knew better than to think it would last. All I could do was try to find some calm before the next storm.