Chapter 2 2

The phone rang. It was a hollow, digital trill against her ear.

Behind her, the window of the trailer slid open with a screech of metal on metal.

Regina leaned out, her face flushed with malicious glee. "Look what I found in your sock drawer!"

Seraphina turned slowly. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a sudden, violent rhythm. Regina was dangling a bracelet. It was old silver, tarnished in the crevices, set with rough-cut emeralds that caught the afternoon sun. It had belonged to Seraphina's grandmother. It was the only thing she had managed to hide.

"Put it back," Seraphina said. Her voice was low, barely carrying over the distance, but the air between them seemed to tighten.

Regina laughed. She shoved the bracelet onto her wrist. It was too small for her. She forced it, her skin bunching as the metal scraped over her hand.

"Finders keepers, loser!" Regina shouted.

Brenda's voice yelled from inside. "Stop talking to the trash, Regina! Close the window!"

Seraphina stared at the bracelet. She felt a phantom pain in her own wrist. That metal was conductive. It was forged in intentions that Regina couldn't begin to understand.

"Take it off," Seraphina said. "This is your only warning."

Regina sneered. "Make me."

Seraphina placed her hand on the wooden frame of the window ledge from the outside. She didn't push. She just rested her fingers there. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, severing the protective ward she had placed on the object years ago to keep it dormant.

Regina flinched. She looked down at her wrist. "Ow!"

The bracelet wasn't just sitting on her skin. It felt hot. To Regina, it felt like the silver was rapidly cooling, shrinking, pinching the nerves beneath the soft flesh of her arm.

"It's pinching me!" Regina clawed at the clasp. It wouldn't budge. Her fingers slipped on the metal as panic set in.

Seraphina watched, her expression blank. That object had a defense mechanism. It recognized bloodlines. It recognized thieves. Regina wasn't being crushed by metal; she was being crushed by the weight of her own stolen intent.

The phone in Seraphina's other hand connected. The ringing stopped.

"Hello?" A male voice. Deep. Steady. But there was an edge to it, a vibration of intense alertness.

Seraphina pulled the phone back to her ear. She turned her back on Regina, who was now cursing and pulling at her wrist with frantic, jerky movements.

"It's me, Harrison," Seraphina said.

There was a crash on the other end of the line. A chair falling over. Then, the sound of movement, swift and urgent.

"Seraphina?" His voice cracked. It was a sound of disbelief, of a prayer answered after a decade of silence. "Where are you? We thought... the reports said you were gone."

Seraphina looked up at the sky. It was a brilliant, harsh blue, but to her left, over the tree line, gray clouds were beginning to swirl, gathering with unnatural speed.

"I'm done," she said. "I'm out. The Pact is fulfilled."

"Give me the location," Harrison commanded. He was shouting at someone in the background now. "Get the pilots! Now!"

"I'm sending the signal," Seraphina said.

She hung up.

Behind her, Regina was whimpering. "Mom! It won't come off! It burns!"

Seraphina didn't turn around. She watched Mrs. Higgins from the neighboring trailer peek through her blinds. The old woman's eyes were wide, hungry for gossip.

"Are they kicking you out, honey?" Mrs. Higgins yelled through the screen.

Seraphina ignored her. She looked at the phone. She needed time. She closed her eyes and hummed a low, discordant note under her breath. A subtle 'Aversion Ward'. To anyone watching, she would suddenly seem uninteresting, like a shadow blending into a tree trunk. Mrs. Higgins blinked, looked confused, and let the blinds snap shut.

She sat on her bag.

Forty-five minutes.

She looked back at the trailer. Regina had disappeared from the window, but her voice was audible, rising in pitch.

"My hand is turning purple! Mom, get the butter!"

Seraphina touched her own wrist, tracing the empty space where the heirloom should have been. She could have ripped it off Regina. She could have broken the window and taken it. But the bracelet was doing its job. It was a beacon. And it was a lesson.