When Lightning Ignites [COMPLETED]

Chapter 28: Leaving Seelie

"Why are you throwing that in the water?" Andromeda asked as they got up from the restaurant next to the town bridge. They had stopped for breakfast on the way out of town. Her parents were going to drive her to New York and get her settled in over the weekend. Jamie was staying with her grandparents. He didn't want to go.

Julie watched her red notebook float away on the water. "I don't want to have those memories anymore."

Her mom frowned at her but was distracted as her phone rang. "Hello?"

The book floated away a few feet then sank under water, heavy with the weight of the words on the paper.

She snorted at the stupid thought. Heavy with the weight of the words on the paper. Who thought things like that?

But it did feel as though a big weight was lifted off her shoulders. She wasn't trapped here now, in this gilded cage. She was free. It was what she always wanted, so why wasn't it everything she had expected? She sighed. Jamie and Kara were both trapped here still. Jamie, maybe forever.

"Julie, have you seen Kara?" Andromeda frowned at her.

"No, not since the other day when I said goodbye." Julie shivered. Something was wrong. "Why?"

"She's disappeared. No one can find her." Her mom looked worried. "They haven't seen her since yesterday. They think she may have run away. She left a note saying not to look for her."

"Wait, what?" Had she said too much to her friend? Had Kara broken free herself and left the island? How had she done that?

Julie felt sick. Was Kara okay?

Andromeda held up a hand as she listened to Kara's mom.

"Julie hasn't seen her since she said goodbye a days ago. She was fine then." She nodded. "Okay, I'll tell her. I'm sure if she knows anything she'll let me know."

She hung up the phone. "Are you sure you don't know anything?"

Lir came over and took Julie's hand as she answered. "No. I swear. Is she okay?"

He looked at Andromeda. "She's telling the truth. She doesn't know anything. I'll call Kara's family. Sorry, Julie, they would have asked me to anyway," he said in apology that he'd read her mind.

Julie pulled her hand out from his, fighting between anger and the desire to do anything to help find Kara, even if it was uncomfortable for her. Nerida was standing outside the brick building staring down at them. Julie looked at the council member and swallowed. They were serious about her leaving today.

"Come on, Julie. We have to go."

"But what about Kara? How can I just leave?" Julie was half temped to go back to Seelie and tear everything apart.

"If Kara ran away, that means she knows. They will find her soon enough. She'll be okay." Her dad looked at her kindly. "If she was taken, it's not safe here for anyone anymore."

Julie got in the car, looking back as she left. Three more bodies stood on the steps now as the car drove off. She wasn't sorry to leave any of them or the island, but what had happened to Kara?

♦

I'll be posting the last book in this trilogy like I've done with the first ones, one chapter at a time. See in you in the next book: When Lightning Burns