Ember knew the empty feeling in the pit of her gut was nothing to do with hunger. The ache in her chest was nothing to do with neither an exerted nor tense walk back home. If anything, she had plodded home less vigilantly than usual.
With just over two days to go until she was free of that district, her excitement should have been simmering. Instead, more than ever, it felt dampened by the question of what she was gaining in exchange for what she was leaving behind.
Amongst it was Nate. It shouldn’t have hurt so much. Seeing him in that café again shouldn’t have been as painful as it was. Watching him leave no sooner than he had arrived had been exactly what had left her with that ache. And she despised herself for it.
But she had to move on or lose the chance forever. She needed to get settled in Midtown first and then decide what she did from there. Because even if her father and brother were both still alive, they were the clichéd needle in a haystack. It would take money to find them. A lot of money.
But there was still that sense of betrayal even considering it. It was the one thing her aunt had pleaded with her to do when she’d finally told her that her brother hadn’t been taken by chance: that she was not to go after him; that she could tell no one what she had learned about herself.
Witches were the pariahs of human society as much as the third species were. Classed as rare ‘second’ species because of being human but with additional skills, they didn’t fit in anywhere except with their own. Humans viewed them with suspicion, coupled with them having a reputation amongst the third species for being untrustworthy. Neither attitude was helped by the fact they were impossible to detect. It was how so many witches remained undisclosed, even after the regulations had come into being. Those who had been approved for Midtown or Summerton, and who did choose to disclose their heritage, were forced not to practise. One hint of being a practising witch and you were banished, whatever your background. But a witch born to Lowtown was born condemned. Any disclosure would mean an instant dismissal of her application, practising or not. A witch born to Lowtown was instantly judged a risk: prejudiced, biased, dangerous.
And now it made sense why her aunt had never told her it was her father who’d taken her brother that night. Her aunt would have known she’d be more tempted than ever to find them. If her aunt had even known that’s who’d come.
What she now knew couldn’t change anything. She couldn’t let it change anything. Not for now.
She turned the corner and headed down the alley. Taking a left and passing the recess, she stopped abruptly.
In all the years she’d been there, she’d never seen a car in the alley, let alone one parked a few feet away from her door. Expensive-looking ones like that certainly weren’t a frequent occurrence around Lowtown.
Her thoughts flicked back to the spectacled guy in the café. The guy she had long forgotten about. His visit had been disastrous – her disappearing into the toilets and not returning until he had gone. She could only conclude that, if he had been a part of the authorities as she’d suspected, they’d now come to follow it up – a random drop-in, exactly as they had warned could happen. Either that, or they’d come to tell her that their offer had subsequently been withdrawn.
Her pulse picked up a notch further at what they might find – at what they might have already found.
As the breeze whipped behind her, as if edging her onwards, Ember glanced over her shoulder before taking a few wary steps towards the car. It was soon apparent it was empty, a fact that further exacerbated her unease. If it was the authorities, they should have been around to greet her.
She cast a tentative glance over her shoulder again before closing the gap between her and the car. There was no other option unless she was planning to stand there all night. Ember rubbed her hand down her arm as she stepped closer to the wall and out of the car’s path. She checked out the back seat as she passed and found it equally empty.
Removing her keys from her jacket, she placed them in the lock to the outer door, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the car and the alley beyond. She turned her key, but it didn’t budge. Frowning, she gave her full attention to what she was doing. She tried once again before removing her key and trying for a third time, her palm flat to the door. And then it gave way. It gave way without her needing to turn the key at all because it was already unlocked.
Ember’s instincts screamed for her to hightail it back down the alley but, as the door crept open, she saw him sat waiting on the stairs.
Relief flooded over her, accompanied instantly by despair at her instinctive reaction to him.
She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. ‘I thought you’d gone.’
‘I had,’ Nate said.
Her pulse picked up a notch at the prospect of all the possibilities as to why he could have returned. She knew there was only one reason she wanted to hear – and it was the reason she could do with least of all. ‘So what are you doing here?’
Because whatever the reason, he’d been waiting for her return.
‘I have information for you,’ he said.
‘About what?’
‘Your family.’
Her heart skipped a beat. ‘You said you didn’t know anything more.’
‘I lied.’
She clenched her keys in the palm of her hand. She folded her arms. She didn’t dare take her eyes off him.
‘You said you wanted to know everything that happened that night,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what I know.’
She crushed the keys. ‘At a cost?’
Because it was still there just as she was sure it would always be there – that distrust. Because why wouldn’t he turn it to his advantage? Especially now.
He stood up. He sauntered down the stairs as if he had nowhere to be by any particular time. ‘My car’s outside,’ he said as he made his way past her. ‘You’ll need to come with me.’
‘To go where?’
‘To my place.’
‘You can say whatever you’ve got to say here.’
He turned to face her from the doorway. ‘Ember, I’m offering to give you the answers you want. It’s up to you whether you take me up on that. But I’m only offering once.’
Offering because she knew as well as he did that he didn’t need to ask her permission if he had any intention of dragging her into the car outside.
She could only conclude that was why he’d come to the café earlier. But, for some reason, he’d lost his nerve to say what he was saying then. For some reason, instead, he’d left without a word.
‘I can’t risk being seen out there with you,’ she reminded him, despite still not being convinced she cared enough about the consequences not to chance it.
‘You won’t be.’
He stepped outside. He got into the driver’s side.
She didn’t have to go: that’s all she kept telling herself over and over again. She could close the door. She could walk away. She could never know. She could remain forever in ignorance; never really know what had happened and why. Never know the chances of them still being alive. Close the door on the last link to her past.
Close the door on Nate.
Instead, after a couple more minutes of hesitation, she followed the only lead she had.