Free Heartache (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 5) by Annie Bellet Page B

were in there, they’d have escaped or already be dead.
    “The barn,” Harper said. Her expression went from relief back to panic and she turned and bolted for the barn.
    The barn wasn’t on fire, but it had taken a lot of bullets. The wood was chewed up with hundreds of holes, chunks and splinters sticking out from the doors like spines.
    The horses were dead. Something had ripped apart one of them; the other two had died from gunfire. Though my ears rang after the mad flight and the roar of the house fire, the barn felt eerily silent and still.
    “Oh God,” Harper whispered, looking into each stall, her movements growing more panicked as she went. “Oh God.” She slammed shut a stall door and kicked over a bucket, a litany of curses pouring from her mouth as she searched.
    My legs felt like lead but I climbed up the ladder into the loft. Sleeping bags were still laying on mounded up hay. A turned over milk crate had a thermos and a stack of playing cards on it. A broken mug lay on the floor nearby. No sign of Harper’s mom or Levi’s wife. The upper door was open, a rifle on the floor by it. Hay was everywhere.
    Something glinted in the hay by the door, too big to be spent casings and too small to be a gun or knife. A cell phone.
    “Is that Mom’s?” Harper said. Her voice was soft, flat, as though she’d shouted herself out.
    I held up the phone. “Yeah,” I said. “They aren’t here. There aren’t any bodies. No blood. Maybe they escaped?”
    “In this snow? Junebug could fly off, but Mom couldn’t get away without leaving a trail. Come on.” She didn’t wait for me as she turned and climbed down the ladder.
    “Blood,” Levi said as we met up with the twins on the side of the barn. “Junebug’s.”
    “How can you tell?” I asked.
    “I know my wife,” he said grimly.
    “No fox tracks?” Harper said, looking around.
    The ground here was a mess from boots tramping it down. I was no tracker, but I could recognize boot tread and that many feet had been here. Samir had brought in help. It figured. He’d used people to abduct my family, too. The bastard seemed to hate getting his hands dirty unless he had to.
    More information about him, but useless unless I could find a way to turn it to my advantage. I sighed and followed Ezee and Levi through the snow. My skin was turning from brown to blue in the cold and I pumped more magic through myself to keep from shivering.
    “Where is your coat?” Ezee asked.
    “I left it in town.”
    The blood droplets ended in the trees, as did the boot tracks. Someone, or maybe two someones had come in here and tried to follow Junebug, but given up quickly.
    “Just drops,” Ezee said to Levi, rubbing his twin’s shoulder reassuringly. “Takes more than a flesh wound to hurt your girl. She’s okay.”
    “Unless they got her,” Levi muttered, shaking Ezee’s hand off.
    “We need to go back, look for where the tracks go.”
    Something rustled above us and I readied magic, pooling purple fire in my hand.
    Junebug, in owl form, dropped gracefully out of the trees and shifted as she hit the snow, effecting a far better landing than I had. She practically jumped into Levi’s arms, tears on her cheeks.
    “No point tracking them. They came in snowmobiles,” she said, then looked at Harper. “Rosie’s gone.”
    “The house is burning. No one is in the barn,” Harper said. “What happened?”
    “She made me fly away. I got hit, just a graze,” she added quickly as Levi growled. “I didn’t want to leave her, but, nobody argues with Rose.” Junebug turned imploring eyes on Harper. “She said she’d be right behind. But they had her pinned. I tried to fly back, but two of the men came after me. They took her. There were too many, Harper. I’m sorry.”
    “No,” Harper said, her voice still deadly quiet, as cold as the snow surrounding us. “Not your fault. Was she still alive?”
    “Yes,” Junebug said. “I heard her swearing at