The back of my throat burned. “I thought about you, too. I wanted you to find me. I just—”
He squeezed my hand. “What?”
I struggled to find the words. “I know you said you were thinking about me, but after everything that happened, I didn’t think you’d want me anymore.”
And I don’t deserve you.
Jared looked stunned. He pulled me into his lap, and pressed his forehead against mine. “You’re the only thing I want. But it’s more than that. The way I feel about you…”
“What?” I didn’t know what he was about to say, but I wanted to hear it.
“I need you,” he whispers. “More than I’ve ever needed anything.”
I tugged on the collar of his thermal and kissed him like I might never get the chance again. When we finally came up for air, Jared pulled the sleeping bag around us. “I’ve never said that to anyone before.”
I wanted to tell him I felt the same way, but I stopped myself. “Are you sorry you said it?”
“No.” He shook his head in the darkness. “I’m just not used to talking about the way I feel. I was the guy who never let anyone get too close, because I didn’t want to care. Not like this.”
“And now?”
He tightened his arms around me, the only answer he could give. I rested my head against his chest and listened to the sound of his heartbeat.
As I drifted off to sleep, I heard Jared whisper something else. “I don’t even remember how to be that guy anymore.”
12. BLACK-EYED GIRL
I awoke with Jared’s body curled around mine, his chest rising and falling against my back in a gentle rhythm. His lips grazed my neck each time he took a breath, sending a shiver up my spine.
I forgot about where we were and all the things that had led us here, until the sun sent a streak of light across the wall of weapons.
I untangled my body from Jared’s and tiptoed down the attic staircase.
We needed Faith, no matter how crazy she seemed. She knew more about Andras and the Legion than the rest of us, and if she was right about the Illuminati, we were in the dark on yet another front. As much as I hated the thought, if I promised to sit on the sidelines, maybe she would reconsider and help.
I padded down the silent hallway. The bare, white walls and emergency lighting along the baseboards reminded me how different my aunt’s life was from mine—and how much lonelier.
When I reached Faith’s door, I stood there with my fist poised in the air.
You can do this.
A strange sound came from inside. Was she crying? The sound intensified, and I recognized the insistent whimper.
Bear.
“Faith?” I called through the door, knocking over and over. “It’s Kennedy. Is everything okay?”
A door opened down the hall, and Alara poked her head out. “What’s going on?”
“Something’s wrong.” I kept pounding. “Her door is locked, and Bear’s in there whining. She’s not answering.”
Alara jammed her feet into her black tactical boots, buckling her tool belt around her waist as she walked toward me.
“Can we break down the door or something?” I asked.
“It’s not as easy as it looks in the movies. You have to kick it in just the right spot.”
Alara pushed me out of the way. “Back up. This is a one-woman job.”
I stared at the layers of chipped white paint coating Faith’s door. It had been painted at least a half dozen times, each new shade slapped over the peeling layer below it.
Something terrible is waiting on the other side.
Alara kicked the middle of the door with the bottom of her boot. The wood cracked, littering the floor with splintered pine. Alara’s boot made contact a second time, and the lock snapped. Rusty screws rolled across the floor.
The door swung open slowly, and I stumbled into the room.
A sweet scent clung to the air. At least it wasn’t sulfur, the telltale sign of a demonic presence.
Bear whimpered, and my eyes drifted to where he was sitting next to the four-poster bed. Tiny green pods the size of olives were scattered all over the floor.
“Oh my god.” Alara clamped a hand over her mouth.
Faith sat slumped against the headboard, with her arms outstretched at her sides. The ripped sleeves of her flannel shirt were knotted to the bedposts, binding her wrists, in a twisted re-creation of the Crucifixion.
My mind flashed on the image of my mother’s empty stare, and her arm hanging off the bed, the night I found her body.
I just wanted her to wake up.
I inched closer to my aunt, unable to stop myself.
Wake up, Faith.
Faith’s eyes were closed, her face smeared in the same pink stain she’d been painting on the bear traps earlier. A metal bucket was tipped over next to my aunt’s bed, a pool of poisoned sap oozing across the floor.
Wintersweet.
Above the headboard, crushed green pods streaked the walls in the same intense shade of pink. They formed jagged letters exactly like the ones that had etched themselves into the mirror in my dorm room. But the message was different.
HE IS HERE.
Jared, Lukas, Priest, and Elle’s voices drifted down the hallway. They were talking about something—maybe breakfast and hot showers or crazy aunts who tape garbage bags over their windows. They didn’t know she was dead, yet—that I’d lost another family member, even if I barely knew her.
“We’re in Faith’s room,” Alara called out, sounding strangely calm. She looked up at the Eye of Ever painted on the ceiling above my aunt’s body. “The Eye wasn’t strong enough to protect her.”
Maybe nothing would’ve been.
Lukas stopped just inside the doorway. “Hey, what are you guys—”
Elle took one look at Faith’s body and the dripping wall, and screamed. “Is she dead? She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Priest’s eyes darted from my aunt’s bound wrists to the green berries scattered across the floor. “What the hell happened?”
Jared stared up at the message on the wall, transfixed.
“A vengeance spirit… or something poisoned her.” Alara stepped away from the bed, trying to distance herself from the body or the message.
“Something?” Elle backed into the doorjamb and jumped. “What kind of something?”
For once, I was the one with the answer. “A demon.”
Lukas, Jared, Alara, and Priest guided me out of Faith’s bedroom, with their weapons drawn.
“We should bury her.” I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her lying under th
e sinister message.
“Not until we sweep the house.” Priest tossed Jared an EMF, taking command.
“Stay here with Elle.” Jared kissed my forehead and handed me a semi-automatic, with silver duct tape wrapped around the barrel. He slid his hand down the side of my leg until he reached the pocket of my cargo pants. The metal clinked as he dropped salt rounds inside. “Just in case.”
“In case of what?” Elle flattened herself against the wall.
“I’ll stay with Kennedy and Elle.” Lukas’ eyes flickered over Elle’s face when he said her name, but she was too terrified to notice.
Instead, she clamped her hand around his arm in a death-grip. “You won’t leave us, right?”
He pushed a strand of red hair out of her eyes. “It’s gonna be okay.”
She nodded over and over like a mechanical toy with a glitch.
“I’m going to check the salt lines.” Alara headed for the stairs, with her nail gun drawn and a rifle leaning against the opposite shoulder.
Bear followed, racing to get ahead of her.
I stood next to Lukas and Elle, listening to the familiar chirping sounds of the EMFs.
Elle stared at Faith’s door with a dazed expression, and scooted farther away from it. “I can’t believe she’s dead. And the way it happened… I never should’ve taken that bracelet from the museum.”
“This had nothing to do with the bracelet.” My hand tightened around the grip of the gun. What happened in my aunt’s room was connected to the message scratched into my mirror at Winterhaven.
“Kennedy’s right,” Lukas said. “When objects are haunted, the vengeance spirit is attached to the item itself. And the bracelet is buried out in the woods somewhere. Trust me, I’ve dealt with a lot of vicious spirits.”
Elle looked up at Lukas, her chocolate brown eyes still dazed. “Why do you do it?”
“What are we talking about exactly?” He shifted his gaze between Elle’s face and the spot on the floor between them, as if he suddenly realized how close together they were standing.
Elle rubbed her face, smearing a trail of black eyeliner across her cheek. “I know you’re trying to keep a demon from opening the Gates of Hell and turning the world into his personal playground. And I get that. But Kennedy said you’ve been fighting these killer spirits since you were a kid, before the demon even escaped.” Her thoughts spilled out in a crazy stream of consciousness, Elle’s typical reaction when she felt overwhelmed. “Why would you risk your life like that?”