Almost Midnight (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3.5)(83)

But right then, Miranda heard it. “Shh. Listen.”

“To what?”

“Be quiet.” Miranda tilted her head and locked the air in her lungs.

She heard it again. Too far away to be Tabitha. A short, light sound of someone drawing in a shallow breath. “Did you hear it? Someone is breathing.”

“But why aren’t they talking?”

“Like I said, because they’re unconscious. Maybe I should check on them,” Miranda said. “I just wish…”

“Wish what?” Tabitha asked.

“I wish I could see what I was doing. Wish I could see if … the door I was thrown in is the only way out.” She had no idea what the catacombs looked like. Did these mines have back doors? Miranda blinked and tried to make out shapes in the blackness. But nothing came. She touched the wall, it felt like dirt. Was this just one big room, or was it like a tunnel? “I tried to make light.”

“There’s a black spell curse, I can smell it,” Tabitha said.

“I know. I smelled it, too.”

“So we can’t do anything. We just stay here until we … until we fall unconscious, too. And die. We’re gonna die here.”

“No!” Miranda snapped. “We do something. I’m not just gonna give up.” She inhaled and tried to think of what to do. Silence filled the space, time passing in slow, dark seconds.

Tabitha shifted and then spoke up again. “I can’t die,” she said, her voice sounding tight again. “I saw Daddy this morning and I told him I hated him. I can’t let that be the last thing I said to him.”

Miranda found her sister’s hand and squeezed it. “We’re not going to die. Burnett, Kylie, and Della are looking for us. They’ll find us. But for the record, I don’t think … I think our dad knows you really don’t hate him.”

“I’m just so mad at him,” Tabitha said.

“Me, too,” Miranda confessed.

“Did you see him, too?” Tabitha asked.

Miranda nodded and then realized Tabitha couldn’t see her. “Yeah.”

“What did he say to you?”

Miranda paused, unsure if she should tell Tabitha what he said about loving Miranda’s mother. It would probably only hurt Tabitha. “He tried to explain things.”

“Did he tell you that he loves your mother, because that’s what he told me and that’s when I told him I hated him.” She hiccupped. “But I don’t hate him. I hate your mom.”

Miranda swallowed, unsure now was the time to talk about this, but she supposed there would never really be a right time. “He told me that he and your mom were separated when he met my mother.”

“But he was still a married man, and she had no right—”

“He told me that my mother didn’t know he was … married. Not at first.”

She heard her sister take in a deep gulp of air. “It’s still not right. It hurts.”

“I know,” Miranda said. “It hurts me, too.”

Then Miranda heard the slight inhale of air again from across the room. She wondered how long this person had been down here. Alone.

At least she and Tabitha had each other.

She closed her eyes and tried to come up with a plan to help them escape. She knew Burnett, Della, Kylie, and probably even Perry and Shawn were all looking for them, but that didn’t mean she and Tabitha could just sit and wait. “Who the hell is doing this?” she muttered.

Tabitha must have shifted, but the subtle sound echoed. “I don’t know for sure, but…”

“But what?” Miranda demanded.

“They took both me and Sienna. But they didn’t throw Sienna down here.”

“What are you saying? You think Sienna is doing this?”

“No, but I think … her mom might be.” A light gulp filled the silence. “Right before they threw me in here, I could swear I heard Sienna’s mom tell the other vampire to bring her inside.”

Miranda exhaled. “Well, Burnett was going to have a meeting after the practice with the parents. He’ll figure it out. He’s good at that.”

A long silence filled the space. “You seem to have a lot of faith in him,” Tabitha said.

“Yeah, I do. He’s … like family.” She closed her eyes a second. “Wait,” Miranda said as a realization hit. “We’re family. We’re half-sisters.”

“Duh,” Tabitha said.

Miranda rolled her eyes. “Can we not hate each other right now?”

“I didn’t say I hated you,” Tabitha said. “I hate—”

“Forget it. Look, what I was gonna say is that maybe the black spell is strong enough to stop one person’s magic, but if … if we share enough of the same DNA we can try to do blood magic. Maybe with the two of our powers together we can undo the black spell.”

“You’re right,” Tabitha said. “I remember Candy and Sandy did a performance once at a contest. But … they are twins, and we’re just half-sisters.”

“We won’t know unless we try,” Miranda insisted.

“Okay. Do you remember how they did it?” Tabitha asked.

“Sort of,” Miranda said. “They held hands and chanted and said they meditated on the same thing.”