Renegade (Heven and Hell #4)(22)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“I think—” I began, but she cut me off.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have a boyfriend to see.”

I couldn’t let her out of this house.

As much as I wanted to deny it, it seemed her magic was coming back. She was mad; she was feeling vengeful, like she had something to prove. I didn’t want her anywhere near Cole like this.

She was pulling open the door when I stopped her.

“He’s in love.”

She turned back, a smile curling her pink lips. “You admit it, then?”

I nodded. “But it’s not you he loves.”

Energy crackled through the air as she pivoted around to stare at me. “What did you just say?”

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Kimber.”

“Who is she?” she demanded.

I didn’t say anything. Telling her it was Gemma when she was like this wasn’t a good idea.

“Tell me!” she yelled. All the windows began to rattle and the door flew open to bang against the wall. The room was instantly filled with the cold night air. Kimber’s eyes widened. She looked at the door, then back at me. She smiled.

Then she lifted her hands in front of her, spreading her fingers and wiggling them around. The half-cut loaf of bread resting on the island lifted and suspended in the air. The knife followed. Soon all the utensils and counter appliances in the entire kitchen were up and dangling in the space usually only filled with oxygen.

Kimber looked at me and laughed.

All the lights in the house flickered and the TV in the other room came on, its volume extremely loud.

“Heven?” Gran called from upstairs.

With a great snap, everything floating in the kitchen slammed back down at once. But the door caught in the wind and moved back and forth, the curtain waving wildly.

Kimber walked from the room, striding confidently onto the back porch. I ran after her, as her purse seemed to materialize in her hand.

“Wait! Where are you going?” I called.

She turned back, retrieving a set of car keys from the bag. “To see Cole. I’m going to tell him about your lies!” She yelled the last part and her car hummed to life, the headlights blinding me.

I held up my arm to block some of the brightness. “Your powers are back.”

“And I’ve never felt more powerful,” she said.

“You need to stay here, now more than ever.”

I felt myself lifted, my feet dangling above the stairs on the porch. Kimber yanked her wrist like she was pulling a rope, and I was pulled out into the yard, still hovering over the ground. “Put me down.” I growled.

“Tell me who it is.”

“No.”

“I’m going to find out, you know.”

“Yeah. But not tonight. Not while you’re all drunk with magic.”

She laughed. “That’s exactly what I am! Drunk with magic!”

My body was lifted higher and sent sideways until I was pinned to the roof of the porch. The rough shingles snagged my sweatshirt and scratched at my back. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. She was strong. A lot stronger than I realized.

I watched from the roof as she walked around her VW Bug and climbed into the driver’s seat. She smirked at me through the windshield and gave me a snotty little wave.

So I lit her car on fire.

I reached down into the heat in my center and concentrated on the hood of her car. She gave a scream of outrage when flames engulfed the pretty red paint and the metal of the front end began to groan. I looked at the front tire next, smiling when the rubber began to melt.

Kimber bolted out of the car and stared at me through the flames. Then she waved her hands and they went out. Then I was dropped from the roof like a sack of potatoes. I braced for the landing, but it didn’t hurt. That must’ve been her doing, because even though it wasn’t too far of a fall, it wouldn’t have been painless.

I got up and went to the car, staring at the blackened, smoking front end.

“You owe me a car,” she said, surprisingly without heat.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” I said, realizing her car was now completely totaled. “I’m sorry.”

She laughed. “For once, you do something that isn’t all goody-goody and you ruin it by apologizing.”

“Kimber—”

She shook her head and pulled out her cell.

“Who are you calling?”

“Cole. I need a ride home.”

“Stay here.”

She glanced up. “Seriously. I just made everything in your house float, pinned you to a roof, and then you lit my car on fire. You think we should live in the same house?”

I looked at her aura. There was still a cloud of black, the aura of a witch, but her other colors were in there too, and they were no longer cloudy. That must’ve been because her powers were coming back. But beyond the black and the other colors that made up her aura, I also read something else. Fear. Doubt. Loneliness.

What I told her about Cole rattled her. It made her doubt what she thought she had. I realized I’d stripped away her safety net, the one thing she was sure of. I sighed. She was watching me, phone still in hand, but she wasn’t dialing.

“We aren’t exactly what I’d call friends,” I began and she snorted. “But we used to be. And we’re kinda in this mess together. The invite to stay here still stands, but let’s try not to destroy the house or each other, ‘kay?”

She studied me for long moments, and I saw the decision in her aura before she even spoke. “Truce?”

I nodded. “I really am sorry I ruined your car.”

She shrugged. “I wanted a new one anyway.”

“Did you bring your stuff with you?” I asked, going back up the porch steps. I opened the door and turned as two very large suitcases followed by a duffle bag floated past me into the house.

“How much magic do you have, exactly?” I asked when she followed her luggage into the house.

She only smiled.

I didn’t really take that as a good sign. Kimber and a lot of magic wasn’t really a good combination. As we went up the stairs toward Kimber’s new room, I decided I better warn Gemma. It was only a matter of time before Kimber found out where Cole’s heart lay.

Of course, that wasn’t my only problem.

There was something a lot bigger at stake here than just my brother’s love life. The return of Kimber’s power… it meant something. Something big.

Hecate was out of the cell.

And that meant Beelzebub probably was too.