“Not usually.”
“Hey,” Jared said, jogging up to us, the grin on his face causing little quakes to shiver through me. He did human so well.
“Hey.” I offered him my hot chocolate. He took a swig, winking at me from behind the cup, then handed it back just as Cameron tackled him, ramming him into the back wall of our house.
“Cameron, we totally need that wall,” I said, suddenly annoyed. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Cameron was genuinely trying to hurt him.”
“He might be,” Brooke said. She bowed her head. “He was really scared.”
I looked over in surprise. “For Jared?”
“For you. He didn’t think he could do his job without Jared. He was worried he’d fail, and he believes by getting shot he did.”
“He told you that?”
She shook her head. “No, but I’m beginning to read him pretty well now.”
“Like, when his tongue is down your throat?” I asked. “Can you read him pretty well then?”
She gaped at me, appalled, and I laughed the evilest laugh I could. Which wasn’t so much evil as sad. I couldn’t help but notice Glitch turn away. I felt so bad for him, but he would have to face Brooke’s affection for Cameron sooner or later. Fortunately, I had a Plan B, and she was walking up as we spoke. Unfortunately, Glitch chose that exact moment to confront his archnemesis.
He stood and pushed Cameron as he tossed the ball. “She’s too good for you,” he said, matter-of-fact. “She is better than you will ever be.”
Brooke and I hurried over before Cameron could grab him by the throat again. You’d think Glitch would learn.
Cameron turned a humble expression on him. “You think I don’t know that?” he said softly, as though embarrassed. Then he looked over at Ashlee Southern. Who’d just walked up because I’d invited her over. Yep, Glitch just pretty much blew Plan B.
“Oh,” Ashlee said when we all turned in unison to look at her, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know, Glitch.”
“Didn’t know what?” he asked.
“That you … I’m sorry.” She hurried away.
“What was that about?”
“Glitch,” Brooke said, rolling her eyes. “Oh, my gawd, she likes you, you idiot.”
“Really?” He looked at Ash’s retreating form. “Me?”
“Yes, you,” I said. “I’m getting really sick of you pining after our best friend. We’re best friends! It’s like having a crush on your sister.”
Everyone cringed just a little at that thought.
Glitch had yet to take his eyes off Ashlee. She was getting in her car. “So, Ashlee Southern likes me?”
I stepped next to him. “Yes. Dork.”
“Okay, well, I’ll be right back.” He took off as Ashlee was backing out of her parking space. She stopped and rolled down her window.
“Wow,” I said to Brooke, more than a little shocked, “he got over you really fast.”
“He did, didn’t he?”
Cameron and Jared went back to playing football. Or, well, their violent, bloodthirsty version of football. And Brooke and I went back to our parking lot seats.
“Hey, you guys,” Ashlee said as she walked back up with Glitch. “Sorry about that.” She was embarrassed now, but not enough to leave, which boded well for Plan B.
I grinned. “Hey, Ashlee. How’s Isaac?”
“Much better. Thank you so much.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t do a thing.”
She glanced around at Jared, Cameron, Brooke, and then Glitch. “I’m pretty sure you guys did a lot more than you’re letting on.”
Glitch shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. “Lor did all the hard work.”
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, looking at me before turning back to Glitch. “All of you.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Want to sit down?”
They sat beside us, and Brooke and I exchanged high-five glances.
Jared called a time-out and plopped down beside me, stealing my hot chocolate in the process. We’d done a lot of talking over the past week. About the attack. About the darkness and where it came from. He remembered everything like it was a dream, overcome by a great and terrible black, a cloud so thick and choking, he felt he could hardly see right from wrong. Like they were tangible things just out of his reach.
Then he explained where it came from. Deep within his core, within his makeup was a darkness of unspeakable cruelty. But the light that surrounded it kept it at bay. Somehow the symbol the descendants had branded on him had blocked the light and let the dark loose.
“That’s what’ll happen to the world if we don’t stop the war,” he’d said. “A darkness that will block the light, that will bring out the evil, and millions will fall victim to its force.”
No pressure.
I wrapped my arm in his and snuggled up against him. Storm clouds were rolling in and the wind was picking up. Cameron ran up to him, nudged him with his foot.
“I’m taking a break,” he said, looking up with a challenging sparkle in his eyes.
“Breaks are for wusses,” Cameron said.
“I hope Tabitha’s okay,” Brooke said out of the blue, and we all gaped at her. “You know, after that kiss, the girl might think you two are an item.” She grinned at Jared.
“Kiss?” Ashlee asked, suddenly very interested.
Jared ducked his head in embarrassment. “I still think you guys are lying about that part.”
We laughed, but with everything that had happened, that kiss still stung me. I was pathetic.
“Speaking of kisses,” he said, turning his beautiful gaze on me, “I seem to remember a promise about kissing me somewhere other than my cheek.”
“What?” I asked, a microsecond before his meaning dawned. A heat spread up my neck and over my jaw. “I have no idea what you’re talking about and you were unconscious. How could you possibly know that?”
“It’s all coming back to me in pieces. And I distinctly remember a promise you made. But if you’re the kind of girl who doesn’t keep her promises…”
He let his meaning hang in the air, studied me with his incredible eyes. I lifted his hand, turned it over, and kissed the inside of his palm.
“There,” I said, wrapping my hand in his. “I’ve kept my promise.”
But all the humor had fled from his face. He looked down at my lips, and I could feel the heat of his gaze. Everywhere it touched, it left a trail of warmth. His tongue slid out to wet his own lips; then one corner slid up and he asked, “Are you getting anything?”
I gasped. “How do you know every single time?” I asked, appalled.
I dropped his hand in disgust at having been caught trying to get a vision off him again, but he continued to gaze at me, his expression serious. “You can ask me anything, Lorelei. I’ll answer truthfully. You know that, right?”
“Of course.” But just to test out that theory, I asked, “So, is your blood really like heroin?”
He pressed his lips together and sighed. “Yes.”
“Can I try some?” Brooke asked.
Cameron pulled her to her feet, took aim across the lot with the football, and told her to go long.
“What the heck does that even mean?” she asked. “And these boots have heels. I’m not going anywhere, especially long.”
He scooped her off her feet and spun her as she squealed.
“Can I try it?” I asked Jared.
He placed an appreciative look on me. “No.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You said I could ask you anything.”
“And I answered truthfully.”
“So, what? Would I get addicted?” I asked, kidding around.
“Yes.”
“Oh.” That put an abrupt end to that. “Okay, then how did you beat me to the canyon floor?”
He grinned. “I stopped time, how else? But one of them knocked me senseless for a moment, and time restarted. I was worried I’d be late.”
“That would have
ended badly,” I said.
“Yes, it would have.” He wound his fingers into mine and placed them against his heart. “I wouldn’t have let that happen.”
The conversation he’d had with my grandparents seemed to be forgotten. He was back to his old, charming self, and I wondered what that meant.
“Your grandparents were right, Lorelei,” he said, holding my hand steadfast when I tried to pull away. He always seemed to know exactly where my thoughts were. “I’m not worthy of you,” he continued. “I never will be. But I am in love with you, and if wanting you makes me selfish, then so be it.”
His words caused a hopeful warmth to rush through me. It mingled with the heat radiating off him, soaked into my skin, and in turn caused a heat of a different nature. A spark flared to life inside me and spread from my abdomen to the tips of my toes.
Jared’s face went blank. Then he leaned back and gazed at me wide eyed, as though I’d surprised him somehow. “That— That was amazing.”
I blinked to attention and looked around, completely confused. “What?”
“You. Your aura.” He leaned close again, still holding my hand. “It’s like the smoldering embers of a fire. But just now, it flared to life, its flames roiling softly over your skin, bathing you in a soft, glowing light. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”
His description stole my breath. His eyes, sparkling with something more than just mere interest, made my heart shudder to life, like it had been lying dormant before, waiting.
“Your Grace!” Grandma cried from the back door.
Her summons startled me out of my stupor, mostly because she sounded alarmed. When we turned around, I realized she wasn’t looking at Jared, but was looking inside the house, her back to us.
Jared was beside her in a flash. Cameron was next; he had farther to run. And the rest of us followed eons later, even though we were hurrying. Jared pushed past her and into the house. We shuffled inside and gathered around one end of the breakfast bar. There was a kid on the other side, wearing an army jacket three sizes too big.
“Noah,” I said, starting forward, but Jared stopped me. “Noah, it’s okay. You can put down the knife.”
He had drawn one of Grandma’s kitchen knives and was holding it at his side, staring blankly at Jared.
“We won’t hurt you.”
“You’re not with the descendants,” Jared said.
He scoffed, and yet never blinked, never took his eyes off Jared. “The descendants are bottom-feeders. They have no real power without chants and incantations and blood rites. Always trying to hold on to their heritage, but they lost it centuries ago. Half of them aren’t even real descendants. They just believe they are, like people who believe they’ve been abducted by aliens.”
“Can you help him?” A woman was inching inside our house from the store. It was locked. Noah must have broken in.
The woman was so frail looking, so fragile, shaking with fear and cold. She had a bruise on her cheek and the remains of a black eye. “Can you help my son?” she said through a breathy sob. “He said to come here. That you could help him.”
“What’s your name?” Jared asked him.
“Noah.”
He glared at him from underneath his lashes. “Lie to me again, and I’ll make sure you suffer.”
“That’s his name,” the woman said. She eased closer but kept her distance from her son.
“What is your name?” Jared asked again.
The woman seemed confused. She looked at Noah.
“Atherol,” he said with a smile. “I seek Azrael.”
“You’ve found him,” Jared said. “What do you want?”
“Out.”
“Then leave him.”
“To have you come after me?” he asked. “To wait for the war? I can’t go back. And you are the only way out.”
Jared was in front of him in that faster-than-the-eye-can-see way of his. Cameron was beside me, doing his static-cling thing he did so well.
Jared tossed the boy onto the island like a sack of potatoes, oddly enough, knocking over a sack of potatoes. Noah started to struggle, but it was short-lived. Jared relieved him of the knife and tossed it to Cameron before refocusing on him.
He held him down, his brows drawn in question. “You’ll cease to exist.”
Noah’s gaze slid back to him. “Better here with you than face what is to come.”
“So be it.”
The thing inside the boy finally spared me an angry glance. Like this was somehow my fault. “They’ll never stop,” he said, his words venomous. “And everyone close to you will die.”
“That’s enough.” Jared leaned over him, almost touching his mouth to his like he was about to give mouth-to-mouth, but Noah kept his gaze locked with mine.
“More are coming,” he said. He refocused on Jared. “So many more.”
“I know.” Locking his hand around Noah’s throat, Jared opened his mouth and breathed in the evil spirit that had been consuming him. A dark fog left one mouth and entered the other, and I jerked forward in reflex, my only thought that Jared would be possessed.
Cameron caught me to him. “It can’t live inside him,” he said. “The spirit is essentially committing suicide.”
“Why?” Brooke asked, her eyes glued to the scene.
“It’s jumping ship. Like a rat does before it sinks. It wants out before the war begins.”
Jared rose up, looked toward the ceiling, and filled his lungs as though absorbing the spirit. Noah grew limp and the woman ran to him, her eyes pleading with Jared, hopeful.
“It’s done,” Jared said. “The spirit’s out.”
“Thank you,” she said, sobbing and holding an unconscious Noah to her.
“Do we need to call an ambulance?” I asked Jared.
“Wouldn’t hurt.”
Grandma went for her phone just as an older man rushed into the store. “I’m looking for someone named Azrael,” he said, glancing around, his expression panicked. “My granddaughter. There’s something wrong.”
“Where is she?” Cameron asked.
“In the car. Out here. Please, hurry.”
We hurried outside, leaving Grandma inside to help with Noah. I was right behind Jared and slid to a stop when I saw the little girl.
“Please,” the man said.
Glitch took over. He went to the man’s car and lifted her out, so tiny and frail, no more than five.
“Jared,” I said, my voice a soft whisper. He wrapped an arm around me and looked up at the sky. The clouds were dark and low, rolling over us in waves.
“It has begun,” he said, words I never wanted to hear. Words I feared more than anything.
I felt a sprinkle then, a drop of rain, and I knew everything I’d ever known was about to change.
THE LIGHTS OF RILEY’S SWITCH
Everyone close to me is going to die.
Those words reverberated in my head over and over as I gathered my belongings by candlelight. After the incident with Noah, I realized my presence was the problem. I was the problem. I was the reason bad people were coming to Riley’s Switch and I was responsible for all the horrible things that were happening to everyone around me. So I did the unthinkable. I bent to my grandparents’ wishes. I went to them and agreed to be secreted away, thus the 5 A.M. wake-up call. I’d packed that evening while everyone was at church so no one would know what I was doing and then hid the bags in my closet until Brooke and Glitch went home.
“Don’t forget your pillow,” Grandma said, holding the candle up high to give me more light. “You’ll need it.”
Her voice trembled like china during an earthquake, and I understood at last how hard this was for her. For both of them. They were doing this to keep me safe. I was doing this to keep them safe. If my presence was going to get everyone close to me killed, then surely my absence would keep them alive.
But sneaking out of town with two supernatural beings on full alert was not as easy as it sounded. Gran
ddad sent Jared back to the Clearing with the sheriff to investigate some mysterious anomaly he’d made up. Then he sent Cameron to the church to check the munitions supply. There was about to be a war, after all. We had to prepare.
Even with those precautions, we didn’t want to turn on any lights. It might alert them to our plan. We had a very small window of opportunity in which I could sneak out of town. If we were successful, I would be handed off to another set of believers. Then another and another until we got to the boarding school in the Northeast where I was registered under the name Lorraine Pratt. Granddad had papers, a birth certificate, a student ID from a school in Arizona … everything a girl needed to start a new life. A new existence.
They drove me to the edge of town, where an SUV sat idling on the side of the road, its parking lights on. We climbed out and Granddad grabbed my bags. He handed them to a man in his early thirties. I had never seen him or the woman with him before. These were complete strangers to me, and I was about to be wrapped in a bow and handed over to them.
But this was my choice. The only way I could keep everyone safe.
“Pix,” Grandma said, and the pain in her voice brought tears to my eyes. Before she could say more, she pulled me into a hug, and I realized she couldn’t have said more if she’d wanted to.
vzyl Granddad patted her back as she hugged me to her. “Vera, we don’t have much time. Cameron’s going to figure this out sooner than we want him to if we don’t get back.”
Her breath hitched and she held me at arm’s length. “You know how to contact us if anything goes wrong.”
I nodded and bit my trembling lip, afraid to say anything. Granddad hugged me then, and his shoulders shook with emotion. Emotion that almost crushed me into dust. When he let go, I hurried to the SUV and slammed the door shut. I hugged my pillow to me as the couple got in. They introduced themselves, but I didn’t hear a word they said. They smiled nervously, and I got the feeling they thought I was something special. It made me dislike them. Just a little.
I was going to be in one car or another for two days straight. Four legs of the journey. Four different vehicles. Trying to keep supernatural entities off my trail was going to prove tricky, but Jared and Cameron had been through enough. They had both been shot because of me. And they would both give their lives for me because they also thought I was something special. No one understood I didn’t know a thing about war, much less how to stop one. I refused to let their blind faith in my abilities get them killed.