Tracking Magic: A Rylee Adamson Short Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

antagonizing a demon for god’s sake? I couldn’t seem to stop myself, even though a part of my brain was freaking out that death was what I was trying to avoid.
    Again though, he seemed more amused than anything as he walked away muttering to himself. “Trackers, such fun they are.” The air seemed to groan as Orion disappeared into the hallway, his presence leaving the house causing a physical ripple through the building, pushing the very structure to one side on a wicked slant. With him gone, I was sure I could talk Milly out of wiping our memories clean. She had to have been just going along with him to keep us all safe.
    Milly stepped in front of me, her hands gripping a shimmering red and black stone the size of a golf ball. Spikes erupted out of every piece of it, like a porcupine on steroids, some straight, some twisted like corkscrews. The main stems were black, the tips red as if dipped in blood.
    “Milly, don’t do this. He’s gone now. You can let us go and we can find a way to stop him,” I said as she held the spiked stone up and began to chant.
    The words melded into a white noise that embedded itself in my brain, wiping away everything I’d experienced in the last two days. Apparently I was wrong; I couldn’t change her mind.
    My experiences with Martin, Seps and Orion were gone in a flash. Next the encounter with O’Shea, and the drive out to the mineshaft. Everything to do with the demon stone washed out of my mind, I let it go, none of it vitally important. And then came the part I did fight.
    The ability to Track. That was the only chance I had at ever finding my sister, and Milly was going to take it away from me. I bucked against the bonds the witch held me in, fought the white noise as it scrubbed my mind clean.
    “NO!” I screamed as the understanding I’d gained left me, despair settled in, and the blackness took me over once more.
     
     

CHAPTER 6
     
    I woke up in the hospital next to a kid I didn’t recognize. She introduced herself as Milly Waters, the new girl Giselle was going to help mentor.
    According to what everyone told me, I’d taken a tumble down the stairs in the middle of the night, smacking my head—hard—along with breaking a bunch of ribs. I couldn’t remember a damn thing about it, but Giselle nodded when I looked to her.
    “I heard you tumble down; the noise woke me up and I found you at the foot of the stairs,” she said. “When you go down, you really go down. I can’t believe how badly you were hurt.”
    “How long have I been out for?” I croaked, my mouth and throat as dry as popcorn farts.
    Giselle handed me a paper cup of luke-warm water I greedily slurped back. Nothing had ever tasted so damn good as that stale, cardboard flavoured water.
    “You’ve been out for nearly a week.”
    “Holy shit,” I grumped. A week? Damn, that was a long time.
    Milly stepped forward, big green eyes staring down at me. “I stayed with you a lot. I wanted to make sure the doctors took good care of you.”
    I gave her a smile. She reminded me a little of my sister and a pang resonated through me. “Thanks.”
    The kid pulled up a chair, sitting right beside me, her fingers tentatively curling around mine. “I think we’re going to be best friends. I just have a good feeling about you.”
    Something about her was familiar, a recognition so strong and immediate. Like a dream I couldn’t quite recall. I nodded and squeezed her hand.
    “Yeah, I think so too.”
     
     

AUTHORS NOTE
    Thanks for reading “Tracking Magic”. I truly hope you enjoyed the introduction to Rylee’s story, her friends, and the world I’ve created for them. If you loved this book, one of the best things you can do is leave a review for it. Amazon.com is where I sell the majority of my work, so if I can only ask for one place for reviews that would be it it – but feel free to spread the word on all retailers.
    Again, thank you for coming on this ride with me, I hope we’ll take many