“You’re a prude now, and I don’t care,” Penn said, waving it off. “But the point is that if you ever touch Sawyer again when I’m not around, I’ll rip off your filthy little hands.”

Gemma looked up at her then, and saw that, though Penn had kept her tone sexy and almost cheerful, her eyes had shifted. They were no longer her usual black eyes but the odd yellow eyes of an eagle.

“You can’t have what isn’t yours,” Penn said, and Gemma could hear the monster under her words, the beast inside her growling. “Don’t touch things without my permission.”

Before, Gemma would’ve been afraid of this, and part of her knew she should be intimidated by Penn. She’d killed her own sister, so she would obviously think nothing of tearing off Gemma’s head. But Gemma didn’t care anymore. If she was going to live with Penn forever, she wasn’t going to kowtow to her. She’d rather end up dead than as Penn’s slave.

“Sawyer’s not yours, and he’s not a thing,” Gemma said. “Just because you have a spell over him doesn’t mean he’s not still a human being with feelings and thoughts of his own. You just won’t let him use them.”

Gemma had expected Penn to yell at her, but instead Penn threw back her head and laughed. When she’d finished, her eyes had gone back to normal.

“Oh, Gemma, that just shows how little you know about humans.” Penn turned back and walked toward the kitchen island, still giggling to herself.

20. Complications

TWENTY

Complications

They’d picked up Alex on their way out of town, not just because he would kill Harper if she went after Gemma without him, but because he might be useful.

Harper called her dad, leaving a message on his cell phone letting him know that she wouldn’t be home that night. She thought about telling him that she was going after Gemma, but if Harper wasn’t successful in finding her, that would only break Brian’s heart more.

They took Harper’s car on the road trip because Daniel didn’t have one and Alex’s car was so small. He sat in the backseat while Harper drove, and Daniel gave him the newspaper to read.

Both Alex and Harper couldn’t believe that they’d missed the article in the first place. Alex especially had been scouring the Internet for clues on Gemma, but he’d gotten bogged down with pointless e-mails. He felt obligated to follow every “lead” he got, but they all led nowhere.