Wildfire

Chapter 11

11. See

I had never been so cold in my entire life. I could feel my lips turning blue as I followed Darren down a series of dark, dimly lit roads, my senses on high alert. But the cold was the least of my worries; flashes of that night rose in my memory – blurry, hazy images of the gunman, the sound of the gun, the slosh of melting snow beneath my feet.

The blood.

We weren't far from Georgina's phony voodoo store when my stomach started to churn, my heart rate spiking in response to something my senses had picked up. I glanced around wildly, inching closer to Darren, and I felt my fingers slipping along the inside of his arm before I realized what I was doing.

He glanced down at my hand, bemused, but he didn't say anything.

I guessed he wasn't used to having people clutch at him in fear; Darren was the kind of person you ran from, not to. But in that moment, the natural wariness I felt toward him was dwarfed completely by the wave of apprehension that rose in my chest.

"Do you feel that?" I murmured.

This time, the corners of his lips twitched in amusement. "That's the ergot kicking in."

I had expected a sudden lurch, maybe a blinding flash of some sort – but the effects of the ergot crept over me so slowly, I wasn't even sure they had kicked in until strange, little flickers came to my attention.

We were walking down a long, almost empty street when a man stepped through a door – literally through a door.

Shock made me stumble and Darren sighed impatiently, waiting for me to right myself. My eyes were glued to the tall, dark figure as it emerged from the wooden door. I likened the sight to the sprinkle of paint from a spray can; microscopic atoms coalescing as they reached the cold air.

"Did you -?"

Darren flipped his arm, long, tapered fingers curling around my wrist. He squeezed warningly, his eyes dark as he carefully avoided looking at the man. "Don't draw unnecessary attention to yourself. You're not supposed to see them, remember?"

I nodded once, my heartbeat kicking up a notch. Nervous fear churned in my gut; I wondered if this was what hallucinogens felt like to people like Darren. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be on a drug-induced trip and unable to come out of it until the drug wore off –

Well, that's a lie, I thought. The only difference between one of those trips and what was happening to me now was that the effects of the drug were crazily, frighteningly real. I didn't know which was more terrifying: seeing things that weren't there, or seeing things that were.

Just as that thought formed in my mind, a tall, female form stumbled out onto the sidewalk, laughing. She had long, gorgeous red hair and, even in the cold weather, she was wearing a skimpy, black dress. My heart jolted in fright and I unconsciously clutched Darren's arm tighter, ignoring the impatient look he aimed in my direction.

For the millionth time that night, I found myself thinking that this was the worst idea in the history of worst ideas. I should have just left Lexie to her fate; she had gotten herself into this mess, she could bloody well get herself out of it...

But that would mean she'd actually have to use her head and not her hormones, and god knew Lexie wasn't exactly known for using her head. I was the sensible one in our mismatched duo act.

Fat load of good your sensible nature is doing you now, I told myself self-deprecatingly. You've already been peer-pressured into doing drugs by a drug-dealer and his crazy, I'm-not-a-witch friend, and you're seeing strange things that may or may not just be the results of the possible-hallucinogenic.