Serena grinned proudly at me. “It’s all yours, Starling.”
“You’re going to need a stronger sword,” Jupiter added practically.
I knew he was right. I’d given my mom’s sword back to her, since my katanas worked as well as anything else on Earth. But if I went after a Council member, it wouldn’t be simple and my sword would have to be durable enough to kill a higher Angel than the soldier-class Stars and Warriors belonged to.
Nate and Serena stood up and reached for each other’s hands almost immediately. “We’ll spend our down time hunting,” Nate explained. “Jude is only one way of finding the bastard. We’ll hunt on our own whenever we can.”
“Thank you.”
My parents echoed my sentiment as my mom and I walked them to the door. Serena squeezed me in a rough hug and told me to, “Hang in there.” But it was Nate that gave me the best advice.
“He’s a jerk,” Nate said. “But it’s not his fault. Yeah?”
I nodded, “Yeah.”
“It’s frustrating though. Serena and I have always been together. We’ve had the bond since we were born. I know it’s different for you and Seth, but the connection is there. And I know you feel it. The best thing you can do is fight it out. He’s pissed you off; use it. He’s made you feel lost, confused and alone… use it. It’s one of those, ‘Show him what he’s missing,’ things. Make him regret every hurtful thing he’s done to you. And then kill the man responsible for separating you. That’s how to get through this.”
I found myself smiling at him. “Sage advice, Sensei.”
He barked out another one of his loud laughs. “What can I say? I know the satisfaction that comes with a clean kill.”
“Now you’re just being serial-killer adorable.”
He reached out and messed up my already-wild hair. “Look who’s talking, Cujo.”
“Where is all the pop-culture trivia coming from?” I laughed at him. It wasn’t that long ago that every important reference I made to anything relevant would sail right over his head.
“Netflix.” He shrugged and followed Serena to the middle of our gravel drive, the area of our property that I was starting to think of as a runway.
“Of course.” I shook my head and waved at the departing couple. A stab of jealousy hit me hard in the gut. They had what Seth and I were supposed to have.
I didn’t let the feeling linger though. Nate was right. I could use this. I could let the bitterness, abandonment issues, and blinding anger until they became the deadly weapon I needed to get me through this.
Hell, hath no fury like a woman scorned and all that.
And in Seth’s current state, it might be the exact thing to remind him how much I mean to him.
****
“Was that Callie Stein I saw stumbling out of the barn earlier this afternoon?”
Jude jumped at the sound of my voice behind him but recovered quickly. He turned around slowly, wiping his face with the shirt he’d just ripped off while I snuck up behind him.
His lean muscles stretched over his frame and droplets of sweat ran from his temple and hairline to the planes of his chest. His dark hair was slick with perspiration and his usually pale complexion tinged red from a day of working on the Shield’s farm.
Why was he sweating?
We didn’t actually sweat. I mean, there were times when I was at my most human that I could sweat and I usually tried to during practices or days like today. But Jude didn’t seem like the type to care so much about appearances or proving that he wasn’t alien to this planet. In fact, he kind of flaunted all his otherworldliness.
He scowled at me and looked around quickly to make sure we were alone. Tucking his t-shirt into the back of his shorts, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes and tapped one into the palm of his hand.
“So?” he grunted before putting the disgusting little nicotine stick to his mouth and lighting the end with the tip of his finger.
“Are you trying to mess up my life? Or does Bree know things aren’t going anywhere monogamous between you two.”
His grumpy expression turned cocky and he granted me a shit-eating grin. “Starling, I’m not the kind of guy girls want to settle down with. They know exactly what they’re getting into when they get involved with a guy like me.”
“And what’s that?” I should not have asked that question.
“A good time,” he laughed. And with an insanely cheesy amount of innuendo, he said, “A really good time.”
“Please,” I groaned. “More like an STD and second-hand smoke.”
His smile stretched wider. “Aliah recruited the wrong Angel. You’re way more fun than your Counterpart.”
I rolled my eyes while internally all of my organs shriveled into desperate nothingness. “Have you seen him lately?”
It had been a week since I’d seen Seth on my birthday and, true to his word, we hadn’t run into each other once. I’d even been out with Serena and Nate as much as I could in hopes of catching a glimpse of him. But even when we ran into some naughty Fallen, he was nowhere to be found.
But, then again, Aliah and Seven had been suspiciously absent as well these days.
“Nope,” Jude answered succinctly but his eyes darted off to the horizon. “But I’ve been otherwise preoccupied these days.” He sucked in a deep puff of cancer and held it for a few beats before he exhaled it in a long, thin stream of white smoke.
“With the female population of Mead?”
“Not the entire female population.” He waggled his eyebrows at me and I rolled my eyes.
“You should probably get that idea out of your head right now,” I warned him.
“I don’t think I can do that,” he took a step toward me. “Especially when you wear these short little shorts out here. And what’s with the tank top? Are you trying to get me killed?”
I couldn’t help it, I started laughing. The regular tension and hatred that usually simmered between us dissolved at his obvious attempts to distract me. I slapped his hand away when it started reaching out for some part of me that was yet to be determined.
“God, the sexual tension between us is so thick,” Jude groaned and then attacked me. He grabbed me around the waist and dropped his head to my neck. He started sucking as hard as he could and I had to wrestle my way to freedom before he gave me a hickey.
I came up laughing and gasping for breath. “I thought you were worried about getting killed?”
“It’s worth it, Baby,” he answered smoothly.
“You’re so full of shit.” I was still laughing though and I hated that he’d made me relax so easily after I’d been wound this tight since Seth first sold his soul.
Jude clutched at his chest. “That hurts, Stella. I pour out my soul to you and this is how you respond? I’ll never recover.”
“Your soul?” I raised a serious eyebrow at him.
“What’s left of it,” he drawled. “And what’s not under contract.”
There we go. “Seriously, Jude, if you gave me a hickey, Seth will murder you.”
“Seth won’t find out, will he? It’s not like he’s made an effort to check up on you lately. He’s all but disappeared down the rabbit hole. Are you really worried about him? I thought he broke up with you? I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore. At least that’s what I heard him say. I thought you knew-”
“Geez, Jude, I get it.” Was he trying to get me worked up? It was working.
He frowned an exaggerated expression so I knew he didn’t really care. “Well, I have to go. So…” He breathed in the last of his cigarette before he threw it on the ground.
I forced myself out of the Seth-induced depression I’d been slipping into and put my game face on. “Where?”
His whole body stilled with my question. Apparently he didn’t expect me to pry. “Uh, what?”
“Where are you going, Jude? Home?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to hang out for a little bit??
?? There was no way in hell I was going to hang out with Jude but I had to test these waters. “I could use some company.”
“No,” he answered quickly.
“But I thought you had to keep an eye on me. I feel in danger. Do you feel like I’m in danger? I don’t know what it is… instinct or something. But I definitely feel danger.”
“It might just be in your head.” He sounded unsure and I worked hard to keep my satisfied smile at bay.
“But it might not be either…”
His eyebrows dipped lower. “Why are you so clingy all of a sudden?”
“I’m not clingy. I’m scared.”
“You’re not scared. You’re weird.” He started moving toward his car. “You’ll be fine. I have it on good authority that you’re safe for the next few hours.”
Bingo.
He was obviously going to meet up with Aliah. How else could he know for certain that I was actually safe?
Although maybe he hadn’t exactly bought my fear-routine either… Still, it was worth checking out.
“Fine, Jude. I hope you’re right. It’s just your life after all.”
He whirled around and started walking backwards. He immediately pulled another cigarette from his pocket and started sucking it down. “Are you seriously scared? I can’t tell with you. You’re all… ambiguous.”
“This is me at my most serious.” Lie. Major lie.
He sighed, before attacking his cigarette again. “Fine, listen. I’ve got this thing to do. And I can’t get out of it. Soul or not. I’ll find you when I’m finished. That cool?”
“Fine, yeah, I guess that’s fine.”
He shook his head in disbelief but we both knew this conversation was way over. He jumped into a white jeep- the kind without a roof and had more rust than paint over super-sized tires. He revved the engine and peeled out of the makeshift parking lot, kicking up dust and gravel in his haste.
I watched his jeep disappear down the long winding drive before deciding that this scenario specifically called for grand theft auto.
I looked around at the cars in front of me and decided on a little four-door red sedan. It was as inconspicuous as I could get with such short notice and in a parking lot filled with mostly monster trucks. I took a chance and opened the door as stealthily as I could while trying to remember whose car this belonged to.
It was vaguely familiar from school and I thought it might belong to a sophomore? Maybe? It didn’t matter because I had already decided to steal it. I would return it, of course… just later.
The keys were still in the ignition, like I knew they would be. I pulled out easily and sped down the drive, hoping nobody saw me since a lot of the kids were on produce runs or in the city working the stand today. The ones left behind had another two hours before they’d even think about leaving for the day.
I had to speed to catch up to Jude again, but once I got sight of the white monstrosity on the highway, it was easy enough to stay at a healthy distance and still keep my eye on him.
I felt so far out of my element I wanted to laugh, but I knew this was important so I kept at my amateur approach to playing investigative detective. Okay, so every move I drew on was taken directly from some kind of movie or TV show I’d seen in the last year, but it didn’t seem like Jude had caught on yet.
He passed through Mead and headed toward Omaha. The drive was about thirty minutes if we didn’t get caught behind a tractor. I started to feel really guilty about the car. When I took it, I had hoped I would be able to return it to the farm without anyone knowing.
Obviously, that was a bit naïve… but I hadn’t exactly planned on driving it into Omaha.
I hoped Jude reached his destination before someone called it in and the Omaha PD found me. Yeesh, I wouldn’t even know what to say to them.
Uh, sorry officer, my boyfriend is trying to kill me, actually wait, he’s not my boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend is trying to kill me and so I’m following that Fallen Angel up there so I can kill this other guy because I’m hoping if I do that, my ex-boyfriend will stop trying to kill me and we can go back to normal.
Okay, so not the truth.
I called my mom to fill her in on what I was doing. Apparently, she was not on board with the carjacking, but I was too deep in this thing to back out now. She told me to call her again when I figured out to what part of Omaha Jude was headed, and she was going to get on the phone with Nate and Serena and organize the backup.
Finally, he drove past the outskirts of the city, which was actually a small town that had been absorbed by Omaha’s expansion and turned into a suburb. He kept driving and didn’t pull off the highway until we were somewhere in the middle of the city.
Traffic had picked up as soon as we hit city limits and I had an obnoxious time trying to keep up with him. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm in my chest and I had to work especially hard to keep my glow minimized. I had been grasping for an excuse earlier when I told Jude that I felt like I was in danger, but the deeper into the city we drove, I couldn’t help but feel like I might have been right.
When he stopped at a grocery store, I circled around the lot and parked a few rows over. I sunk low in my seat and waited until he came out with two plastic sacks. It was impossible to tell what was in them but I couldn’t help but feel like that was a really bizarre thing for him to do.
I was half-expecting him to drive to a school and work a drug deal with all his agitated secrecy, but by his route and choice of stops, I couldn’t figure out what the heck he was up to.
He got in his jeep and took off again. I was more careful than ever to give him space and use my elevated sight to watch where he turned.
After ten more minutes of driving into a more residential area of town, he pulled up in front of a three-story brick apartment complex. I slowed to a stop and parked two blocks back, on the side of the road. I watched him get out of his jeep and look around suspiciously at the surrounding houses.
This was an older neighborhood with mostly ranch-style houses that badly needed paint, yard work and general upkeep. The apartment building wasn’t in much better shape but the brick façade kept it from looking completely rundown.
Jude’s perceptive eyes scanned the street up and back while I slunk back down so I could just barely see through the windshield. For a breathless moment I thought I saw his gaze rest on the stolen red car but he went right back to looking around and taking every other part of the sleepy neighborhood in.
When he was satisfied, he reached back into his jeep and grabbed the two grocery sacks. After he fiddled with locking the beast and setting the alarm, he bounded up the short steps and opened the outside entrance with a key from around his keychain.
The heavy wooden door slammed shut behind him and Jude Michaels was officially out of my visual.
I grabbed my phone and took off after him. I needed to text my mom but I was too anxious about losing Jude to waste the time. If he disappeared into the maze of apartments, I would never find him without drawing a large amount of attention to me. And I did not want that.
Especially with the stolen car down the road.
At the door, I turned the handle but it had locked again. Deciding one crime wasn’t enough for me, I used my super strength and twisted the handle until I heard a telltale pop and the door swung open. Hopefully, the landlord was an observant fellow.
I slipped inside the stairwell that smelled like must and cigarette smoke as quietly as I could and blinked against the darkness. There was no light in here and no window to let any in.
My eyesight immediately adjusted to the lack of light and I nearly screamed out my lungs because Jude was standing there, right in front of me! His arms were crossed and his expression one of those utterly pissed looking ones that actually scared me a little bit. No, more than a little bit… definitely more than a little bit. Jude was utterly terrifying like this.
Especially with the foot-long knife with jagged edges and a deadly point rested in his hand.
Chapter Eight
“Stella, what the hell are you doing here?” he hissed at me.
“I, er, uh, um…” Well, I think that was clear enough.
“Seriously, Starling, you have thirty seconds to tell me what the hell is going on or I’m going to have to do something drastic.”
And by drastic, I had to assume, he meant something with the knife.
It was then that I realized all my own weapons were in my car. In my car. Back at Tristan’s farm. In Mead. Forty-five minutes away.
All I had on me now was a Swiss Army knife.
Shit.
I pulled it out anyway. Any blade was better than no blade.
Jude snorted a derisive sound that made it clear he did not agree with me. Or he just disregarded the small pocket knife completely.
“Following you, obviously,” I confessed on a defeated sigh.
“Following me?” he exclaimed in a voice much too high for his elevated testosterone levels. “You have got to be kidding me! You can’t be following me! Do you have any idea how dangerous this is for you? If they catch you… if you are caught this is over. The whole thing is blown to shit. And all because you’re what? Too curious for your own good?”
“I’m trying to catch Aliah, you bastard! If I can get him out of the picture, Seth is safe. He doesn’t have to go through this anymore!”
“Oh, hell, what am I going to do? They’re going to be here any minute. And I have you! They’re going to sense you, let alone sniff down all your pure Light. Shit. Son of a bitch! Goddamnit!”
“What is wrong with you?”
He ignored me. “Come on, Nancy Drew.” He reached for my shirt and yanked me after him. I struggled to keep up with his long gait as he took three steps at a time. His stupid, skinny legs had no problem taking the staircase in giant leaps and dragging me right along with him.
“Stop it, Jude! What are you doing? You know I don’t really care if you hand me over to them. I’m not in any danger from Aliah trying to kill me. You and I both know he can’t touch me. So why are you making such a big deal out of this?”
He continued to ignore me. “Did you tell anyone else where you are?” I hesitated too long for his liking, so he spun around on the steps and I nearly toppled backwards down the third flight. “Stella, tell me right now if you told someone else. I have to know or both of us will die. Do you understand that? And not just us but possibly another person who doesn’t deserve to die. Do you want that to happen? Do you want an innocent child to die?”