Bad Moon:Book One in the "I Am Chaos" series.

Chapter 14: Fear and Fury

Chapter 14: Fear and Fury

It was a fifteen-minute drive to Salem, and I rehearsed my speech the entire way. In my bag, my phone buzzed incessantly. I didn't pick it up. I didn't need Cal's permission, or his warnings, or whatever he was going to try to say to me. This wasn't about him, and it wasn't about me. This was about Amelia.

As I parked my car in the lot behind Salem's famous pedestrian mall, I had to stop and take a deep breath. Adrenaline coursed through me, and magic with it. My desperation to find my friend had taken on a violent edge, and though I didn't yet know all the rules to this whole ilicon world, I knew I couldn't walk into a witches shop craving violence.

I needed their help. They had to help me.

Thirty seconds was not nearly enough time to collect myself, but it was thirty seconds more than I had. Cal had confirmed my worst fear: Vehendi had Amelia. I needed to get her back.

I got out of the car, and patted my pocket where the silver pocketknife was a warm, almost comforting weight. I didn't think I'd have to use my magic against witches, but Cal's warning had shaken me. Would his mother really harm me? No. A mother who'd raised a son like Cal would be bound to listen to logic.

The first time I'd arrived in Salem, I'd been an anonymous member of the pre-Halloween crowd. Now, the atmosphere seemed different. Watchful.

It was as though the town itself was aware of my presence.

There was a strange stillness to the air. And it was quiet. A nearby seagull's shriek seemed almost startlingly loud. While there weren't many people walking about the mall mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, I felt more than a few eyes on me. It made my skin itch.

Though the sign on the Raven's Nest read, OPEN, I felt a sense of unwelcoming dread slide over me. For about five seconds I thought about turning around, about running back to my car, closing the door, and not returning.

Witches create spells that impact emotions.

Touching my pocket lightly, for security, I summoned up my mental shield, letting it create a barrier between my awareness and the strange, eerie quiet of Salem. The dread evaporated. The feeling of eyes following me faded.

I opened the door, sending the bell above the shop chiming. The scent of earth, dust, and pungent herbs filled the air and beneath it all, was a harsh, sour smell of dung that I'd not noticed last week. One customer, who was crouched near the wall of books, scanning titles, looked over at me curiously and, when I met her eyes, she turned them back to the books.

The woman behind the cash register looked up too, and my stomach tightened. In all the drama of the previous hours, I'd managed to put aside an important piece of information: I wasn't the only girl sleeping with Cal.

Morgan – my brain supplied – was behind the counter, a thick paperback book with a clearly cracked spine sitting face up beneath her hand. For a moment she looked surprised, then an expression I can only describe as avid stole over her face. Her smile was small, bemused. "What can I do for you?"

"I need to speak to..." I realized I didn't know Cal's mother's name. "Mrs. Goode." I said, finally.

As if the woman's name summoned her, there was a noisy twist of a knob, and the door behind the cash register swung open. The woman I'd confronted before, the tall one with the dark blond hair and the stern face, strode in with a large box in her hands. She stopped when she spotted me.