Edge of Seventeen by Cristy Rey Read Free Book Online Page B

was
certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Sunday was the Incarnate.
He’d been given the spiel that all the other bodyguards had been
given in anticipation of the Incarnate’s induction ceremony into
Bernadette’s bloated coven. There were policies to follow and
unbreakable rules that could cost lives as penalty for failure to
adhere to.
    On the first night that Bernadette held
Sunday’s head and dropped the wool of forgetting over the child’s
eyes, she and Cyrus had an understanding. Cyrus was to head
Bernadette’s protection team and coordinate security for the
mansion built like a military compound. He was to plan for
attempted kidnappings of the Incarnate and assassination attempts
against Bernadette. He was to plug up any gaps in security that
would let villains in.
    Because of the child’s particular effect on
Cyrus, however, he was never allowed to make contact with her. The
witch promised to help remedy his ailment under that single strict
condition.
    For two weeks, Cyrus took store of
Bernadette’s compound and pored over blueprints. He identified
areas of lax security and wrote up plans to ensure that all
vulnerabilities were covered. Bernadette wasn’t kidding when she
said that hers was a burgeoning empire. The Seattle storefront for
the tele-psychic enterprise was jelly beans compared to the base of
operations. On the grounds resided a coven of thirteen men and
women, seasoned witches subordinate to Bernadette. She was ‘Mother
Bernadette’ and her children were as committed to the cause of the
Incarnate as she was.
    Since they’d arrived, the estate was abuzz
with activity. Every second of every day, someone was dashing down
the hallway to and from the dungeon where they held the child for
the ritual. Cyrus never saw inside, but he could hear the chanting
echo down the hall. He could also hear the screams… until they
stopped.
    This was the Incarnate’s first night outside
of the coven’s torture chamber. Cyrus stood guard outside the room
he’d placed her in to ensure that was the case. According to
Bernadette, she was no longer a threat to anyone under her service.
Bernadette requested that, on this one occasion, Cyrus make contact
with the girl, if only to prove that she was no longer a threat. He
was to transfer her from the ritual area to her new room.
    Crumbled into a ball of oozing, broken, and
tender flesh, the girl he’d carried in his arms was nothing Cyrus
couldn’t handle. Yet what her survival signified created a panic in
him. When she looked up through thin slits to his face as her head
lolled on his shoulder, he caught himself wondering if he shouldn’t
just drop her and run, get the Hell away from her before she
destroyed him. The witch seemed to sense it, too. As soon as Cyrus
stepped out of the room where he deposited Sunday, Bernadette met
him in the hall.
    “You see now that she is fixed,” she said,
grinning and with a glint in her dark eyes. “Yet, you, Mr. Barrow,
are not fixed. Let this be a lesson to you about the
magnitude of her ability. Be it the strength of her magnetism or
some unshakeable consequence of your curse, you will do well to
sever yourself from her entirely. As obligated. ”
    Cyrus nodded sharply with stone-like
expression before pulling the book from his back pocket and
settling into the chair across the hall.
    “I’ll watch her for the night and then I’ll
assign one of the others to take over.”
    Just as Bernadette reached the doorknob of
Sunday’s room with her thin hand, Cyrus added.
    “A part of our agreement was to rid me of
this. You’re beholden to your end of that too.”
    She looked over her shoulder and locked eyes
with him for a moment, assaulting him with unspoken intimidation.
Her narrow speculation would have chilled a lesser man to the bone.
. To Bernadette, she had all the power and Cyrus was nothing but an
employee.
    “We are beholden to it,” she
eventually said. Sharply, she nodded, and turned away again.
    The door