Spring Rain (The Witchling #4)(31)
The taxi arrived in ten minutes, and Morgan had it take her to the bus station. Only after she had bought a ticket did she start to relax and sat in the overheated waiting area beside the ticket booths. Of all the people on her mind, her thoughts were on her mother, who passed down the stone to her. How much strife had her mother gone through because of her duty to protect the stone?
How much more did her mother know about the stone than she did? Was there any institutional knowledge remaining at all, or was the history of their duty as vague as the instructions on keeping the stone safe?
There had to be something that would help her help Beck. Morgan tapped her phone, fire magick agitated enough to irritate her.
She had never really thought about her mother’s past or how she had to lie to everyone around her to prevent the stone from falling into the hands of any other witchling. It was a burden, and she viewed her mother and those who came before her with newfound appreciation for their dedication to their duty.
Morgan felt ill prepared, more so now that she’d failed to keep the family secret, and terrified of messing up. Had her mother lived with such fear as well? Was it part of why she divorced Morgan’s father four years before, a turn of events that sent Morgan’s life plummeting into a nightmare?
She had once been charged by her uncle to bury the stone in the heart of the Light. It struck her that he wasn’t supposed to know about it, that no one was. She ached for her mother, wondering if she had fallen to the harsh punishment of Gordon the same way Morgan had. Was this how he discovered it, by beating the information out of her mother?
Morgan shuddered, not wanting her thoughts to go down the path of how she’d spent the past few years in an abusive household. The only way to know for certain was to confront Gordon, and she was never, ever going to see him again.
Her sole regret from December, aside from lying to Connor and Beck about being alive, was not checking in on her father. While he screamed and raged at her occasionally, he was also unable to care for himself and confined to a wheelchair. Gordon had threatened to kill him if she failed. She’d disappeared – presumed dead – instead. For the first month after her disappearance, she had watched the daily reports in the newspaper local to her father, terrified she’d see his name among the obituaries.
But she didn’t. Gordon hadn’t touched him, and distance gave her the ability to see Gordon for what he was: a manipulative liar, one who hurt her because he was a mentally damaged bully. She pitied her father, but also wasn’t about to put his life in jeopardy by calling.
There’s always Mom. Her mother also thought she was dead. If Morgan revealed the truth, she knew her mother would call her father, who would tell her uncle. The secret would be out. Was Gordon knowing truly worse than condemning the world to Dawn’s plan to unleash the Dark?
Morgan wrapped her arms around herself tightly and slouched down in the chair, resting her head against its back. She stared at the florescent lights above her and tried hard not to think about Beck, the only person who made her feel safe enough to trust him.
He was perfect, a flicker of light and peace in her nightmare of a world. She always believed so despite his self-deprecating digs and the fact he found himself so flawed. Beck was beautiful, the only person she had ever met who deserved to become the Master of Light.
In another time, another place, if they were different people … could she take the final step towards him? Or would her fear and past push her away from the one man her heart ached for?
Her eyes drifted closed, and she started to doze, thoughts on the night she and Beck walked into a fire together. She wanted to return to that time. It had seemed stressful at the moment, but compared to the drastic turn her life had taken, the decision to trust Beck seemed simple when she thought of all that had happened since the night they first kissed.
The phone vibrating in her pocket awoke her, and she stretched to grab it. She checked the contact before answering.
“Hey, Noah,” she murmured into the phone, gearing up an excuse about where she was until her bus was on the road.
“Hey, Morgan.”
Morgan sat up straight, alarm flying through her at Dawn’s voice. “What happened to Noah? Is he okay?”
“I’d never do anything to my little brother,” Dawn replied. “But Bartholomew might.”
Morgan’s breath caught.
“Why don’t you tell me where you are? If you care about Noah even the smallest amount, you’ll want to listen to me.”
Morgan hung up. It was instinctive, the need to shut off any connection with someone as evil as Dawn. She stared at the phone in horror at her actions. She didn’t want Noah dead, but there was no way in hell she was turning herself in, now that she knew what the stone could do to Beck.
Her phone pinged with a text. Connor is next, then Beck.
After her rough night, Morgan was in no shape to handle the words. She hunched over and breathed deeply to keep from throwing up. Fear made her want to do anything Dawn said to save Connor and Beck, but the voice of reason warned her this was a game Dawn was playing. The Dark witchling wanted to flush her out of hiding, render her vulnerable and then steal the stone. If Dawn had it, the threat to Beck became twofold.
Noah didn’t deserve what awaited him when he went to beseech Dawn to stop what she was doing. Even so, Morgan was almost relieved he of all people had been caught, because he had the best chance of surviving until she got him help. If it had been Summer, Decker, Beck … they’d be dead by now or close to it.