I will apologize for the delay and in advance for the quality. Hope you like it!
The mood slumped down immediately. This was the last step; once it started it couldn't be stopped.
"Shit! And now what the heck do we do?" The blond cursed looking to each one of them and then resumed "If I remember correctly, Cassie was the last piece, there is not much that we can do now. They are going to form the circle and it's over" she concluded swiping a hand through her short, thin hair as to trying to calm herself down. "So?" she demanded, "What do we do?"
Everybody stared at each other for a moment, their eyes scanning, searching for an answer that nobody had. Just like Patricia said, the plan ended with Cassie, they hadn't considered failure as it was their only choice, but now… Now they were hopeless.
Suddenly and without warning one of the man from the other circle spoke up.
"If we try and convince them not to close the circle?" he said in a blur, and when he saw everybody opening up their mouths to argue back he resumed his argument.
"I know, I know! We can't let them know, but it's their life we are talking about if not the lives of many more, we've got to do something!" he ended with a bit of panic, his son could be one of those many more.
"Exactly Mike!" said Ethan impatiently "It's their lives what we are dealing with here, we can't just try and hope for the best" he stopped to make sure everybody understood and continued, "Remember Evan's words, if we try to warn them the traitor will act and it would all had been for nothing!" he emphasized each word to make his point clear.
"So we are just gonna wait and see?" Jane, the little red hair woman, spoke, incredulous.
"At least that way we have a ch…" Ethan began but was cut off short by Jane.
"We have NOTHING if we wait for them to act! How do you know this is not just a trap?" She yelled, no longer capable of restraining her rage, "How do you know they are not going to kill everyone after is all done? You DON'T"
"Then what can we do?" Amelia inquired "Despite how sickening and powerless that makes us feel, we have no other choice but to wait"
"There is always another choice with magic, that's the beauty of it" Jane spoke to Amelia, her eyes full of tenderness, "We just need to find the way" she whispered.
That caught Amelia by surprise, she hadn't expected Jane to speak like that to her anymore, and specially with the group there to see, but she understood her point so she swallowed the knot on her throat and nodded trying very hard to ignore the inquisitive looks from the rest. Jane gave her an small and familiar smile in return that made her relax a tiny bit.
It was in that awkward silence that one of the men took advantage to speak what he wanted to discuss with them.
"There are news from the South" he simply stated, and was happy to see that they all were listening. "Very strange news"
"What Pete?" Patricia asked while stepping closer though still keeping her annoyed tone.
"There have been strange reports of supposed Witch Hunters" he sought for everybody's reaction and continued "In all the cases it was the same; only one of the kids of each group was attacked verbally and then knocked out"
"That's… odd" Mike said. Odd was an understatement. Why would they not kill the witch instead of alarming the whole circle of their presence? Amelia wondered, and as he looked at the rest she could see that they were thinking the same.
"Yep, and that's not all, they all have the same version which they said before getting into a sort of trance from which they woke up simultaneously"
Ok, that was extremely weird.
"I don't like this" Patricia stated lighting up a cigarette.
"No shit?" Mike mocked.
"Just in case" Interrupted the up to now silent man known as Christian, "we should keep an eye on them, make sure they are not attacked" The whole group agreed, as it was expected.
After finishing the details of the kid's surveillance, they decided to call it a night. Since Amelia couldn't go back to her mother's house Ethan offered her a drink at his place which she accepted gladly. They all said goodbye and Jane surprised Amelia outside by kissing her on the cheek and wishing goodnight.
"What's up with her?" Ethan asked confused and curious at the same time.
"I have NO idea" she said sounding surprised, or at least she hoped. For some reason she didn't want him to know about her.
Once in the restaurant Ethan went to the bar.
"Make yourself comfortable" he said as started to prepare a drink for her and a coffee for him. As Amelia hang her jacket and purse up she pulled her phone out of her jacket's pocket to see if Cassie had called but as she was searching she felt something strange. "Paper" she recognized, there was no paper before. She took it and unfolded it. As she read through the familiar handwriting her heart started to beat faster.
" We need to talk. 001-1020268 J"