Read Watch Me Burn: The December People, Book Two for Free Online Page A

proof. But Mom didn’t care about proof. She was crazy. And Dad wouldn’t stand up to her.
    Whatever.
    The truck still smelled of Jude—a mix of sweat and body wash. Cleaning the truck was good because she wanted that smell gone. She didn’t like thinking about him.
    She plugged in her earbuds and listened to angry music—not hard to find in her playlist. She started by vacuuming the air in the cabin as if trying to catch ghosts. She cleaned the dashboard and the windows and mirrors, and found she didn’t hate it. She might volunteer to do this every night, for the chance to be alone in the dark and quiet with something to do.
    Then she pulled out the floor mats to vacuum and shampoo them on the driveway. Some small pieces of trash had accumulated under the mats and she reached for something silver she mistook for loose change.
    The significance of what she held washed over her immediately. The object dripped in magic—an abhorrent magic that felt familiar. Her stomach squeezed into knots. She held Julie Prescott’s charm bracelet.

    Emmy put the bracelet in her pocket and continued cleaning the truck, with more dedication than she had before. She cleaned everything at least twice, until her hands stung from the chemicals in the carpet shampoo. She stayed out there so long, Mom had to come and call her in to go to bed.
    Emmy avoided speaking to anyone when she came in. They probably assumed she was continuing to sulk about her punishment, but her throat felt too tight to speak. She headed straight for the bathroom. When she changed out of her khaki shorts and into her sleeping shorts, she kept the bracelet grasped in her hand.
    The bracelet felt hot and pointy, as if she had shoved a cactus covered in fire ants in her fist. She felt about the bracelet as she felt about the girl. She couldn’t stand it, without a good reason. Some of the girl’s energy stuck to the bracelet, which meant this was Julie’s object talisman, a protective symbol wizards kept with them at all times, which accumulated bits of their magic. A talisman Julie had lost. Emmy touched her own object talisman, a glass orb filled with holy water she wore around her neck.
    Even though she found the thing innately distasteful, she didn’t want to put it down, not even long enough to take a shower. Instead, she turned on the water on so people would think she was showering while she examined the bracelet in the full light of the bathroom. She laid it on the counter, arranging it into a circle. She didn’t know what to look for. Some kind of answer. Some kind of information. She tried her usual senses first. She saw some clay mud crusted on some of the charms, but nothing helpful.
    If it was Julie’s object talisman, she could get some information from it by magic. Maybe get a sense of what spells Julie had performed or where the bracelet had been. She’d never tried to extract information from a talisman and no one had ever taught her how, but it seemed possible.
    She held the bracelet between her palms and concentrated. She got an uncomfortable hot feeling behind her heart, but no insights. She tried putting the bracelet on. Other than feeling like the abhorrent bracelet might contract and lop off her hand, nothing seemed different.
    Finally, she turned off the water and concealed the bracelet in her balled fist so she could leave the bathroom. If anyone noticed she still had dry hair, they didn’t say anything.
    Emmy crawled into her bed and Evangeline hovered over her.
    “What’s wrong?” Evangeline asked.
    “Nothing.”
    “You haven’t said anything since you came in. And you usually talk a lot.”
    “I’m just tired.”
    “Okay.” Evangeline didn’t sound convinced, but went to her own bed without saying more.
    Emmy kept the bracelet in her fist and slept with the wretched thing right against her heart all night.



he kids had all gone to their rooms. Amanda sat on their bed reading, acting completely innocent. David took his