Free Control (Book Seven) (Fated Saga Fantasy Series) by Rachel Humphrey - D'aigle Page A

over, his legs feeling like jelly.
    Anger stirred. Fear. Desperation to know where she was.
    He let out a primal scream that shook the entire beach.
    Sand flew into the air, leaving a deep trench from the lighthouse to the water’s edge.
    His thoughts begge d for her to appear at his side, but she did not. Why could he not wish her back to him? Something was very wrong.
    He stood up filled with determination to find her.
    “Whoever is keeping her from me will pay!”
    He rushed back inside, searching for any clues he might have overlooked, trying to keep his mind calm and stay on task.
    “This was not here before,” he said, grabbing hold of a leaf floating in the air just above the sofa, as if waiting for him to find it.
    He glanced around. All was quiet. He was alone.
    He reached up to touch the leaf but backed away when a sinister voice suddenly emanated from it.
    “If you e ver want to see your girl alive again, you will follow the trail I left for you, and you will do it fast. It fades with every moment you waste.”
    Colin had never traced magic before, but he did not hesitate. He gave the order in his mind and felt th e magic within him searching for the trail.
    A path started to form in the shape of hazy wisps of white, streaming out of the lighthouse. Colin followed it without question or worry over what awaited him at the end of this trail.
    If someone had Catrina, he would do anything to get her back.
     
    ##
     
    Mireya Mochrie had fallen asleep in her bedroom’s hidden crawlspace again. She sat up with a rush, fearing she had overslept. Her foot knocked over a glass vial filled with a pinkish liquid. She leaned over and grabbed the vial, thankful she had put the stopper in, and exited the crawl space into the bedroom’s loft.
    After s hutting the little door that led to the crawl space, she shoved a couple pillows up against the door, blocking it from view. She spread out some blankets to make it look as though she was sleeping in the loft.
    She climbed down the ladder plunking herself onto t he edge of her bed. She wasn’t late. Good. She set the vial of pink liquid next to her.
    It was quiet. Too quiet. Almost painfully quiet.
    She had never had a room of her own before and now that she did, she did not care for it. Mainly because this meant her brother, Jae, was gone and would never return. His bed remained made, never to be slept in again, at least not by her brother.
    Mireya had turned fou rteen just a month before he died. He missed her birthday party. He had been missing a lot of other things too, like skipping classes, or skipping school altogether. He wasn’t hanging out with his old friends anymore, he’d made new ones, like Darcy Scraggs. A girl he had once considered a bully. An enemy.
    Mireya bounded off the bed in a flurry to get dressed.
    “No point in dwe lling on it now,” she chided herself.
    She grabbed a thick coat hanging by the bedroom door; she needed it for two reasons. One, it was a cold day. It was always cold now in Bedgewood Harbor. And two, she had cut into the liner inside the coat and sewn in a hidden pocket.
    She grabbed the glass vial with the pink liquid, shoving it into the hidden pocket, and took it, and herself, down the stairs. She didn’t need to look out the window to see that it was another gray day. It had been this way for weeks.
    Since Jae had died, nothing had been the same.
    Because Juliska Blackwell had lied to them all.
    She had betrayed them all. She was responsible for her brother’s death, amongst others, like Garner and Ravana Sadorus.
    Some Svoda were still missing, presumed dead.
    The gray of the outside might as well have been the color of the inside of her house. It fit her mood today.
    She hung her coat over the back of a chair, sat down and pulled on her boots.
    She was not preparing for school.
    Or to play with her friends.
    Playing was no longer permitted in Bedgewood Harbor. In fact, very little was permitted.
    “Morning, Mom,” she spoke