CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jace was angrier than
she’d ever seen him, and she could guess why. He’d figured out she
was using the heat between them to induce her visions. She knew she
should have told him her theory earlier. Now he was furious. He
must feel deceived and … hurt, if the look in his eyes as they
emerged onto the roof of Ezra’s building was any
indication.
She’d hurt him, which
shouldn’t have pleased her. But it did. Just a little.
If she’d hurt him,
that meant he had to be feeling what she was feeling. Jace was
falling in love with her, too.
That she could be
happy about that when a man she cared about had been severely
injured just showed she wasn’t as good a person as she’d
assumed—once upon a time, before Jace and all the intense emotions
he inspired came into her life. Maybe he was right and he was bad
for her, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She just had to
make him see that she hadn’t intended to deceive him, and that they
had to do whatever it took to stop the man-thing that had streaked
by them in the hall before it claimed its next victim.
A victim she was
terrified would be the man she loved.
When he’d chased
after that creature, she’d felt as though her heart were going to
leap out of her chest. It had smelled a little bit like the aura
demon, but looked almost like a man. And in the vision she’d had in
Ezra’s apartment, she’d watched those sticky, yellowed hands
transform into a man’s hands—the man collecting human eyes for the
demon.
She’d never even
heard of something like that, and couldn’t wait to learn what the
books Jace had tucked under his arm had to say about these
particular aura demons and that evil box. But she would have to
wait. There was no way the books were written in Braille, and Jace
clearly wasn’t going to read anything until he got a few things off
his chest.
And arranged for some
backup of the big, mean, and heavily armed variety. “We’ll meet you
at the southern edge of the ruins,” he said, finishing up another
call to his uncle Francis, one of the most notorious mob bosses in
New York City.
Francis Conti had
started a bounty-hunting business twenty years ago and ended up
owning half the property in Southie. He also had his hands in a
good number of high-profile businesses uptown. As far as mobsters
went, he was rumored to be a fairly stand-up guy, but she still
would have been scared to meet him … if she and Jace weren’t
already facing down far scarier things.
“Down near the docks
would be easiest. I think that’s the best place to start
looking.”
“I didn’t see any
water in my vision. It looked more like—”
“Right, see you in
twenty minutes,” Jace said, ignoring her and ending the call with
an irritated tap on the bud in his ear.
“Listen, I understand
that you’re upset, but it’s stupid to ignore what I’ve
seen.”
“How long have you
known?”
Sam didn’t insult him
by asking what he was talking about. “I started to suspect our … um
…” God, she was suddenly at a loss for words, more nervous than she
had been around Jace since their first interaction on the street.
Seeing the hard look in his eyes, realizing he might not forgive
her, banished any shred of satisfaction she’d received from
realizing he cared. It didn’t matter whether he’d cared, only
whether he trusted her enough to keep caring.
“Suspect that fucking
me made you jump into other people’s bodies?”
“No,” she said,
wincing at the anger in his voice. “I started to think maybe the
energy between us had something to do with the visions and seeing
that man on the street this morning.”
“Before we went up to
the hotel room?” His jaw clenched and the look in his eyes grew
even colder.
This wasn’t going to
a good place. She had to make him understand that she hadn’t kept
him in the dark on purpose. She’d been blind for years, for God’s
sake. She knew what it felt like to be the person who never got the
joke, who was left out of countless conversations because she just
couldn’t relate to the average person’s experience. She’d never do
that to him.
“Yes, but I swear I
meant to—”
“Your ex-boyfriend
and his girlfriend put you up to it? They look like the
types.”
“I just wanted to ask
them if it was possible, and why it seemed like I was starting to
see the present instead of the future. When I talked to Sunny on
the phone this afternoon, she seemed to think it was because I was
consciously attempting to contact the demon instead of
subconsciously—”
“Sunshine’s just full of information. Ezra,
too.”
“Jace,
please.”
“Why didn’t you just
jump in bed with the two of them?” he pushed on before she could
get a word in. “Or does fucking old men not do it for
you?”
“No, it doesn’t do it
for me,” she said. “No one has ever made me feel the way
you—”
“Save
it.”
“No, I won’t save it.
I love you. I didn’t mean to keep anything from you. I tried to
tell you, but then I … I don’t know.” Shit … She’d said it, that
she loved him. It had popped out of her mouth before she could
think better of it. Now her heart was racing. “I just … I was going
to tell you, but I—”
“Is there anything
else you’re keeping from me?” he asked, not interested in her
confession of love. He hadn’t batted an eye when she dropped the
L-word. Which meant he didn’t love her back, that all the
you’re-too-good-for-me crap was a line
he used to keep women from getting too clingy. That the
mind-blowing sex between them wasn’t making love at all. It was
just—
“Tell me, or I’ll
drop you off at the hospital and head down to the docks
alone.”
“I don’t need to go
to the hospital.”
“You’ll be safe
there.”
“No one is safe
anywhere, and you’re not going to find him at the docks,” she said,
not bothering to hide her frustration.
“The docks are the
best place to start a search. We can fan out from there. Are you
going to answer my question?”
“But in my vision,
the man was already coming out of the ruins when he transformed. He
was close to some kind of garden … and a building I didn’t
recognize,” she said, knowing they shouldn’t be wasting time. This
was Jace’s life on the line. Whether he believed that or not, she
did, and there was no way she was going
to let him put himself at risk. “Even if I was seeing the future,
that means he’s going to—”
“Fine, I’ll go
alone.”
“No! I’m not keeping
anything else from you! I told you, I wouldn’t have—” Her bud
pulsed weakly in her ear. She hadn’t charged it in nearly two days
and it would lose power soon, but it still had enough juice left to
weakly announce Stephen’s name. It was her brother. Great. Perfect timing. Still, she felt obliged to
answer. To let him know that she was alive, if nothing
else.
She sighed. “That’s
Stephen. Should I tell him—”
“Don’t tell him shit.
Your brother’s a drug dealer.”
“What?” She’d
suspected Jace and Stephen had some sort of secret, but drugs? It
just didn’t make sense. “Stephen doesn’t use drugs. He barely even
drinks.”
“He deals. Demon
highs, all of it illegal. I used to buy from him six years ago,
before I got clean.” The look on his face left no room for doubt.
He was telling her the truth.
She didn’t know which
was more shocking: that the always-in-control Jace had once been
into drugs or that her straitlaced brother sold them. Both ideas
made her sick to her stomach, and made her wonder how well she knew
the men in her life. Maybe she was as stupid and naive as Stephen
had always assumed.
“I was sure drug
business gone wrong was the reason you were in danger,” Jace said.
“But even though it seems like Stephen has nothing to do with this,
I don’t think you should trust him.”
“Stephen would never
hurt me.”
“No, but he might
cause you to be hurt.”
“No, he wouldn’t. I
don’t care what he’s into. He’s too careful. He would
never—”
“He asked me if I’d
noticed anyone following you,” Jace said, his words sending a
shiver of doubt down her spine. She’d been about to tap on her bud,
but she let the call go to voice mail. She knew her brother would
call back. Probably in less than two minutes. “Last night at the
bar, he was worried you might have been in danger from something
other than that Ju Du demon.”
“Stephen always
worries about men following me. Since I was sixteen, he’s been
convinced half the male population is hot for his blind sister.
He’s crazy like that, but—”
“He’s not crazy. Half
the male population probably is hot for you. You’re a beautiful
woman,” Jace said, though he managed to make the words sound like
an insult. “But it wasn’t just normal worry. I think there’s
something going on, and that he has reasons for wanting you locked
up that have nothing to do with brotherly love.”
“Stephen doesn’t want
me locked up,” she said with a strained laugh.
“He called the
Department of Human Services to see what kind of evidence he would
need to have you declared mentally incompetent.”
Sam sighed and
swallowed the sour taste that rose in her mouth. She hated to admit
it … but that sounded like Stephen. He would do something like that. He’d never had a
problem restricting her freedom in the name of doing what was best
for her, no matter how many times she’d told him she didn’t want
him controlling her life anymore. And he had been mental since she’d moved out, acting like he’d do
anything to get her back in the same apartment, where he could be
sure she was safe.
Safe. In the same
house with a man who ran demon drugs.
How could he? After
all those years telling her how important it was for her to walk
the straight and narrow, to do well in school, to not drink too
much, not wear provocative clothing, not date older guys, and on
and on and on until she would have chewed her own arm off to get
some distance from him and his rules. She’d always thought he was
acting out of love for her—she still did—but the double standard
made the news that he was trying to have her declared officially
crazy a very bitter pill to swallow.
“Well… thanks for the
heads-up. Looks like I wasn’t the only one with secrets,” she said,
trying to keep the hurt from her voice. “I’ll have to watch myself
more closely. Stop talking about invisible demons and prophetic
dreams, I guess.”
Jace winced, as if he
could feel the same hurt and betrayal that pulsed through her and
regretted being the cause of it, even indirectly. His eyes
softened, and, for a second, Sam thought he was going to apologize
for keeping Stephen’s secret and tell her that he forgave her for
neglecting to tell him the entire truth about her visions. But when
he spoke, his voice was as cool and in control as
ever.
“No more secrets
between us, and you listen to any orders you get from me or from
any of the people we’re headed to meet,” he said, stalking toward
the edge of the roof as the sound of sirens once again filled the
air. Ezra must be on his way to the hospital. Sam sent up a quick
prayer for his swift recovery. “Uncle Francis won’t go for this
invisible-demon shit. That’s why I didn’t bother telling him about
your …”
“My crazy visions,”
Sam said, realizing that a part of Jace still didn’t believe she’d
seen what she’d seen, no matter that he’d been with her every time
the visions had overtaken her. And if he couldn’t believe in
something he’d witnessed, there was no way he was going to be
prepared to deal with the aura demons.
“I don’t think you’re
crazy, Sam. I really don’t. But I—”
“Right. I get it.
Don’t mention anything in front of your uncle Francis.” This was
completely ridiculous. How was she supposed to help keep Jace safe
if she couldn’t even be honest about what she’d seen, or use her
newfound power to get a bead on the box or the man working with the
demons? She didn’t even have to ask if Jace would be willing to
lip-lock for the cause again. He was freaked-out by the paranormal
side of their little investigation and determined to take this back
to a place where he felt comfortable—even if it got him
killed.
Shit. And shit again. What the hell was she going
to do? She couldn’t let Jace put himself at risk like this, but she
had no idea how to stop him.
“You can mention what
we saw downstairs. He’s plenty interested in that. The bounty on
whatever we just saw could be in the millions. New species are
pretty fucking rare and—”
“It’s not a new
species of demon. It’s the man I saw,” Sam said, giving Jace one
last chance to listen to her. “Somehow he shifted into the form we
saw in the hall and then shifted back again. I saw it. It’s
probably because of the ritual he’s trying to work with the demons,
like Ezra said. I remember a couple of the grown-ups in my parents’
cult got sick right before they summoned the demons. I’d never
thought about it, but maybe the same thing happened to
them.”
“They turned into
snot monsters?”
“I don’t know, maybe.
I never saw them. They were locked in the infirmary
and—”
“We should get
going.”
“No. We should look
at the books and see—”
“I’ll drop you at the
hospital and you can read the books there.” He reached for her and
turned back toward the door to the roof.
“They’re not in
Braille. I can’t read them,” she said, pulling away from the hand
he’d wrapped around her elbow. They weren’t going to start this
bullying crap again. Not now. Not after all they’d been through in
the past twenty-four hours. “And I’m not going to the hospital. If
you’d just look at the books and tell me what they—”
Jace cast a swift
look down at the volumes in his hand. “It’s just an old history
book, stuff about artifacts unearthed after the
emergence.”
Artifacts unearthed
after the emergence … why was that ringing a bell? God! If she’d just had the chance to get a little
bit of sleep sometime in the past day and a half, she knew her
brain would be working far better.
“Can you read it to
me? I think—”
“I’ll read it to you
later,” he said. But Sam didn’t get a chance to enjoy the
insinuation that they were going to have a “later.” “We don’t have
time to waste doing homework.”
“That may be the
stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.” She sighed and barely
resisted the urge to stamp her foot as her earbud pulsed again. It
didn’t have the juice to speak his name, but she would bet a few
grand it was Stephen calling back, just as she’d known he would.
She ignored him a second time. He could leave another voice mail.
“How can we not take the time to understand what we’re
facing?”
“Sam, the pages
turned down here are about some kind of Pandora’s
box.”
“The box that
unleashed evil upon the world?” She couldn’t remember her dad ever
referring to Pandora’s box, but it made a bone-chilling kind of
sense. The box she’d seen had been more terrifying than any demon.
“I bet that’s why the demons can interact with people, because they
come from Pandora’s—”
“Pandora’s box isn’t
real. It’s legend, purely mythical—”
“You thought aura
demons were mythical, too,” she said, her voice rising despite her
attempts to remain calm. With every moment they wasted, the man
they needed to find got farther away … which … might not be a bad
idea, now that she thought about it.
Just like it might
not be a bad idea for Jace to head in the opposite direction of
where she suspected they’d find the killer. If only she could see
something other than Jace’s face! Not that she’d be able to read
print even if she could see the books, of course. She’d learned to
read in Braille, and Braille was all she knew.
“Just tell me what
the book says about the box.” And then she’d find a way to ditch
him and take care of this herself… somehow. The thought of facing
either the demon-man or the man and the demons as separate entities
was terrifying, but she would do it. The demons hadn’t hurt her,
and the man-thing had run right past her in the hall. Either they
couldn’t hurt her or they didn’t want to for some
reason.
A shiver of
apprehension whispered across her skin. Why wouldn’t the demons
want to hurt her? The more she thought about it, the more she
suspected the fall down the stairs hadn’t been part of the plan.
The demons didn’t want to kill her or take her eyes. They wanted
something else….
“I’ll read it on the
way if we have time,” Jace said, interrupting her thoughts before
she could grasp the ribbon of understanding teasing at the edge of
her brain.
“We need to make
time. Now,” Sam said. “It seems like the aura demons are turning
the man they’re working with into some kind of monster, but
why—”
“I’m not going to
spend any more time fighting with you about this fucking fairy-tale
bullshit!” Jace turned away, storming toward the door leading off
the roof, forcing her to follow him.
“Fairy-tale bull—You
know I’m telling the truth about the demons, so why won’t
you—”
“I don’t know
anything.”
This was ridiculous!
“How much evidence is it going to take to—”
“I’m willing to give
the aura-demons theory the benefit of the doubt, and I admit that
there’s something weird going on with you that I can’t begin to
explain,” he said, turning back to her with his hand on the door
handle. “But I can’t even read whatever language the first book is
in, and the second one is just about human eyes being the ultimate
demon sacrifice because they’re the window to the soul or some
shit.”
“Exactly! So we
should—”
“We already know the
freak likes to collect eyeballs. Now we need to catch the
motherfucker before he collects any more,” he said, his mind
clearly made up. “Catching demons—all kinds of demons—is what my
family has been doing for twenty years. It’s the way I make my
living. I’ll find a way to take down these demons and whoever or
whatever we saw in the hall.”
Sam sighed. There was
no way she was going to change his mind or get him to listen to
her. She was going to have to do this on her own … or maybe not. It
was a long shot, but there was one person she had left to turn
to.
“Fine, you go take
care of this your way. I’ll go have a talk with my brother,” she
said, the tiny lie pricking at her conscience. She was going to
have a talk with her brother, but not the talk Jace would
assume.
“Do you think that’s
a good idea? He seemed pretty pissed off at the
hospital.”
“Stephen has never
hurt me. Never.” She tried to keep the anger from her voice, but it
was hard.
Stephen was the one
who had untied her and pulled her out of that circle of blood in
the confusion after guns started firing that night at the commune.
He’d carried her into the woods to hide and probably saved her
life. The elders had killed several of the other children who were
in the barn while the police were still busy in the main farmhouse.
They had thought that the demons they worshiped would protect them
from the police if they added a few extra sacrifices to the altar
where Stephen and Sam’s baby sister had been slaughtered only a few
minutes before.
Without Stephen, Sam
would have joined her sister in the afterlife. But Jace couldn’t
know that, just like he couldn’t know that Stephen had dedicated
his life to getting her out of foster care as soon as he was old
enough to be named her guardian. As soon as he’d had enough money,
he’d—
“The demon drugs.”
She should have realized the truth immediately. “They were for me,
to help him earn money faster so he could finalize the paperwork to
get custody,” Sam muttered, not caring that Jace overheard
her.
He should know that
Stephen wasn’t the type to take a risk like trafficking illegal
substances for no reason. He’d no doubt done it for her, to get her
out of that final foster home.
“You’re probably
right, but that doesn’t explain why he’s still selling,” Jace said.
“Just … be careful, okay?”
Sam nodded. “I will.
You be careful, too. Please.”
Jace’s eyes met hers,
and for a second she thought he was going to kiss her, but he
didn’t. He just reached out to cup her face in his hand. “I’m glad
you’re not coming. I don’t handle myself well when I think you’re
in danger. I get … distracted.”
“You distract me,
too,” she said, knowing it was the closest she would get to telling
Jace what he meant to her right now. She wasn’t ready to say the
L-word again, and he certainly didn’t seem ready to hear
it.
But as they hurried
down the stairs and out to the street below, Sam prayed she would
have the chance to tell Jace all that was in her
heart.