Dead End: Midnight Hollow by Penn Cassidy (best e reader for epub txt) 📕

“Payton, what the fuck are you doing?! You can’t harm a familiar, it goes against our laws! Give her back to October right now!” Cal ordered, his hands fisted at his side until at the last moment, he reached forward to grab Jessica.

He was too late… I was too late.

“Maybe Jessica can say hi to your parents.” With a unhinged chuckle, Payton brought her knife down, piercing through Jessica’s fur, exoskeleton, and straight to the heart.

“No!” My legs buckled as agony rippled through my body, endless pain that I felt the moment the blade sank in.

“That’s what you get when you try to take what’s rightfully mine,” Payton sneered down at me but I was hardly listening as she dropped Jessica in my lap.

I frantically cradled her close as blood coated my fingers, and I didn’t even realize someone was trying to get me to stand by pulling on my elbow until I looked up through my tears to see Cal’s worried face.

“We need to get out of here. Let’s get her to the manor!” He helped me to my feet as I frantically checked on Jessica, finding a weak pulse under her neck.

“It’s gonna be okay… I’ll fix you… You’re m-mine, damnit. I’m gonna take care of you.” I kept muttering to her gently, praying I had time.

By some miracle, we made it back to the broom closet with the sound of Payton laughing behind us. But nobody seemed to be laughing with her. I had a feeling she’d crossed a line, even for the Society. Maddie gasped the moment she saw us, dropping the broom she had between her legs.

“Oh god! What happened? Cal, what are you doing here?” Her gaze swung back and forth between us before landing on Jessica in my palm. “Oh no!” Maddie rushed over, pushing a pacing Cal away to hover over Jessica as tears gathered in her eyes, too.

“I’m going to get a message to my father and have this handled. Maddie, fly her back, and I’ll meet you there,” Cal shot off, not seeing the hurt look Maddie threw his way, the betrayal deep in her eyes.

Maddie wrapped an arm over my shoulder and led me to the broom she was playing with seconds ago. We heard a muttering voice and looked behind us to see Cal talking down at something in the shadowed corner.

“Tell my father that a sacred law was broken tonight, and tell him the whole story. Make it quick…” I watched in shock as the dummy in the trench coat stepped out of the dark with his little porcelain hands shoved in the deep pockets of his coat. He looked at me with genuine pity.

“I hope that spider gal will make a quick recovery. I quite like her.” I watched his lips move, the small square of his mouth coming unhinged as he turned just his head in our direction before running away with his porcelain heels clicking on the ground at a fast pace up the stairs.

“Oh my god, he’s real. Jessica kept trying to tell us, but we didn’t listen…” Maddie said sadly, voice laced with guilt, and narrowed her eyes at Cal before scooting forward on the broom so I could climb on back.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know she had her,” Cal said with a look of genuine remorse in his amber eyes.

He then pulled a vile from his pocket and threw it on the ground with a puff of smoke that swallowed him whole in seconds. I didn’t bother to watch him fully disappear because he should have told us about the Society earlier, and someone should have seen Payton for what she was before Jessica got hurt.

I tucked Jessica to my chest, applying a small amount of pressure to her wound, and prayed we made it back in one piece.

“I got you. Just hold on a little longer,” I whispered to her and gripped Maddie’s shoulder as she cursed under breath, then she pushed off the stone ground.

“Idcirco praecipio tibi ut avolare!” She cast the spell with complete authority, and I gasped as the broom shot forward.

The breath was knocked out of my lungs and we both screamed when the broom dodged the corners of the university halls. Once we made it up the stairs, we shot through an arched doorway and into the night sky. The town was lit up by soft, twinkling lights between each building as they got ready for the festival tomorrow night, and we hovered over Main Street for a heartbeat before the broom shot forward with Maddie crouched over the wood handle. We passed in a blur over the town, and the only thing I could see were the beautiful fall colors of the trees and the twin moons just before we hit my aunties’ street.

“I don’t know how to land this thing, so hold on!” Maddie shouted over her shoulder and narrowly missed the peak of the manor as we started to descend towards the ground at a fast pace.

The greenhouse came into view, the midnight jasmine petals open for the moons, and in the middle of the yard were my aunties, running onto the grass barefoot with Cal on their heels as they directed their palms upwards, facing Maddie and I.

“Idcirco praecipio tibi ut terra!” They chanted a spell together, and the broom slowed its fast speed, slowly descending towards the ground, and then jerked to a stop.

Micheal came running out of the house with wild eyes and my tracker panties in his grip, but he relaxed the moment he saw me as the guys slammed into his back with shouts of panic.

“Where did you go?” Freddy growled as he prowled towards me before stopping and dropping to his knees next to me. The moment we landed, I’d slipped off the broom and crumpled to the ground.

“Jessica is—she’s not doing so well,” Maddie explained through her tears and moved out of the