Perigee [bxb] | Bad Moon Book II

23; {Sadie}: the watch

Alex opened the door for her, took her hand and helped her from the back of Izzy's sun-hot Sedan.

Sadie could still feel the blood on her face—flaked and so dry in places, it hurt. But there were two things keeping her together: a numb, dissociate feeling, like none of this had set in just yet—and then Alex.

That moment, when Qamar stepped foot in the ballroom and saw what those men had done to her wolves, Alex leaned in close and whispered in Sadie's ear,"Close your eyes, don't open them until I tell you."

She did. She squeezed her eyes shut, flinching to every rippling gunshot, but never opening them. She could feel the blood mist her each time a wolf turned. It was in her shoes, in her hair. She felt like retching when she tasted it, but Sadie didn't open her eyes. Not until the hunters—what was left of them, at least—had been chased out of the Opulent Rose. And even then, she didn't look to see what kind of death lay around her. She stared instead at the rose quartz bracelet on Alex's wrist as they evacuated the ballroom, hand in hand.

For an hour, they sat in Izzy's car while the wolves gathered their personal belongings from the rooms upstairs. Sadie didn't care what was left behind. She could forget her tarot cards and her favorite blue goldstone charm, but she could never forget what she experienced in that building.

That was why she breathed a bit easier when they brought in gas cans and set the place up in flames.

"We can't have anyone find out," Izzy told her after they'd packed into the car. She was freshly showered, but still stinking of blood. The whole place smelled like copper pennies. "No one can know what happened here."

The police would come after that. Fire trucks, investigators. That was why the wolves were thorough to remove the bodies from inside. Most of the staff had been wolves—those who weren't already knew of them, so there was no need to concern themselves with the humans of the hotel; everyone here had already sworn their secrecy to Qamar.

Sitting with her head against the backseat window, Sadie watched trees and houses wiz by. It felt more like she was standing in one place while a rotating lamp whirled shadows and lights around her. Like nothing was real—she was somewhere deep in her own head and everything was slewing about in some severed space of reality. She gripped the quartz sword a little closer to her heart.

Elizaveta had found it sitting on the dresser in Matthew's room, offered it to Sadie to be delivered to him. She couldn't part with it though. It felt like that beautiful stone sword was the tack holding all the shredded parts of her together. It was warm beneath her hands. Stone should be cold, shouldn't it?

Izzy had driven them to the nearest watch house where they were all to meet with the each of the Southern Californian sentinels. It was a massive home they'd parked outside of; an old townhouse, fenced in high cement walls and a gate that had been drawn inward to welcome visitors. They parked on the lawn beside four other cars, just as Matt's Wrangler came barreling through the dry dirt and grass. It stopped hard beside them and Bailey shoved himself out of the passenger seat, a manila envelope tucked beneath his arm. Two more men she'd never seen before gathered their things from the car and leapt out into the evening air. One of them still painted in bloody red patches, like he'd dried off on a towel and not bothered with soap or water. The other was a boy no older than herself, curly red hair stuck to the sweat of his forehead. They both followed after Izzy, who marched toward the door with a hefty bag over her shoulder.

Alex's hand had become a permanent attachment, gently leading Sadie here and there when all she wanted to do was stay in place. His encouraging push was the only thing guiding her up those wooden steps.

The door swung in to welcome them and every face inside peered out with looks of hope, looks of fear—and some looks too sullen to decipher. It was like they were drawn to her presence—maybe because she was a witch, or maybe because she was caked in blood. It didn't matter to Sadie, there were far more things in this place to concern herself with.