Confined (A Tethered Novel, Book 3) by Jennifer Snyder Page B

here?” I asked. I prayed she said
food, even though we’d already eaten.
    “A spell to keep my mom at bay,” Callie said without
bringing her eyes to mine. Her voice was shaky as she spoke. “I know she won’t
allow us to go through with the initiation without some sort of interference,
not with the way she was spelling you so heavily to leave town. I just need
something that will counteract anything she might try, maybe something to make
her seem more compliant with the whole idea?” She swallowed hard as she gripped
the handle to her car door.
    I stared at her, unbelieving she was even thinking of going
through with something like this, especially after the way she’d reacted when I
told her it had been her mother trying to get me to leave town.
    “Do you really think it’s necessary?” I asked. I licked my
lips as I continued to stare at her.
    Callie let out a long breath and looked me directly in the
eye. “She’ll try to stop us if I don’t do something to keep her from doing it,
Addison. I know her well enough to know that. I’m sorry. Please don’t think any
less of me, but this is something I feel like I have to do.”
    Her eyes grew misty, making it clear to me how much she
worried I would think less of her after this.
    “I know this seems sort of hypocritical of me, but trust me
when I say this is something that needs to be done,” she insisted.
    “Okay, but umm, I’m hanging out here,” I said.
    There was no way I was stepping foot in Fisherman’s Brew
with this tether still in place. Actually, I shouldn’t even be in the parking
lot.
    “That’s fine.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her
ear, and then opened the driver’s side door. “I’ll be just a minute.”
    As I watched her walked across the nearly full parking lot,
I thought about how much I hated that she felt spelling her mother was the only
way we would be able to continue the initiation without any problems. Callie
had always seemed so innocent and sweet to me. The notion of her doing
something so vindictive made my skin crawl. I prayed this was the only time she
chose to do something so malicious.
    I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Callie had gone
inside, but I soon felt the familiar warming sensation, which signified Theo
was nearby, swim through me. My skin tingled as the feeling intensified. A
mixture of agitation and desire rippled through me, causing a sickening feeling
to consume my stomach instantly.
    Leave me alone, Theo , I said in my mind as loudly as
I could. I hoped this new mind trick we’d obtained still worked, and he’d heard
me clearly enough to listen.
    “I won’t. What are you doing here?” Theo asked from
somewhere beside my opened window.
    Jumping, I glanced at both sides of the car, trying to
pinpoint where he was standing. He had to be close, because he’d used his
actual voice and hadn’t been inside my head when he’d spoken. However, he was
nowhere to be seen, or so I thought, until I noticed the paint of the red car
beside me ripple as though it were made of flowing water.
    He was using a glamour.
    “Callie needed to get something from your grandma. I’m just
waiting for her.” I spoke directly to the waving paint, knowing that was where
he was standing.
    “You shouldn’t be here. My grandmother has been making
herself crazy with all the spells she’s been trying to use against you lately,”
he said. His voice was low, but I could feel the concern and attraction he felt
for me behind his words. This made my stomach knot even more. “She knows we’re
tethered now.”
    My breath left my lungs in a puff of air. That couldn’t be a
good thing.
    “How did she find out?” I asked.
    “She has her ways.”
    “Well what happens now? Is she going to come after me or
something since she knows?” I asked as I attempted to swallow the lump that had
risen in my throat.
    I remembered what Theo had said his family would most likely
do to me if they ever found out we