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And below the banner lay Scout on a long table, her body buckled down with wide leather straps around each ankle and wrist, her arms pinned to her side.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered.
She looked pale—even more so than usual. He cheeks seemed sunken, and dark circles lay beneath her eyes. Her collarbone was visible. Her usually vibrant blond and brown hair lay in a pale corona around her head. But for the rise and fall of her chest, I’d have wondered if we’d arrived too late.
I had to bite my lip to keep tears from slipping over my lashes. “What happened to her?” I whispered.
Michael moved around her and began to work one of the buckles around her ankles. “Reapers,” he said. “This is what they do, Lily. They steal things that don’t belong to them.”
Where there had been sadness, fear, trepidation, in his voice . . . now there was fury. Michael tugged at one leather buckle, freed the pin, then pulled loose the strap. “These kids, these adults, these people, think they have the right to take the lives of others, and for what? For what?”
Michael mumbled a string of words in Spanish, and while I didn’t understand exactly what he’d said, I got the gist. The boy was pissed.
He bobbed his head toward her wrists, which were pinned near her head. “Jamie, keep an eye on the door. Get ready to raise flame if we need it. Lily, get her wrist restraints.”
I jumped to the other end of the table and started fumbling with Scout’s restraints. She lifted her head as I reached her, blinking with the one eye that wasn’t bruised and swollen, but she didn’t speak. They must have hit her while she was being restrained. I hoped she fought back. I hoped she gave as good as she got.
“I think you’ve managed to get yourself into some kind of mess here,” I said with a small grin, trying to make her laugh, trying to keep my heart from thumping out of my chest. “I thought you were going to keep yourself safe?”
She tried a smile, but winced in pain. “I’ll try harder next time, Mom,” she said, her voice cracking.
“You’d better,” I said, fumbling with the latch on the first buckle. “We’re gonna get you out of here, okay?”
She nodded, then put her head back on the table. “I’m tired, Lil. I just—I think I’ll just go home and sleep.”
“Stay awake, Scout. We’re going to get you out, but I need you to stay awake.”
“Hurry, Lily,” Michael implored, and I heard the clank as her first ankle restraint was loosed. “I don’t know how much time we’ll have.” He moved around the table to get a better angle on her other ankle.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” I assured him.
We’d just managed to untie her, to loosen all her restraints, and help her sit up and swing her feet over the bed when, without warning, the door at the other end of the room, crashed open, falling in on its hinges.
Dark-haired Sebastian, the boy with firespell, walked inside. My breath quickened at the sight of him, and my back tightened at the memory of the pain he’d inflicted. Alex walked in behind him.
“Stay with Scout,” Michael murmured. I nodded, and braced my body to help support her as he stepped away and in front of us, a human shield.
“Oh, look,” Alex said. “It’s an entire band of Buffy wanna-be’s.”
“Better Buffy wanna-be’s than would-be zombies,” Jamie said. “You guys are rotting corpses waiting to happen. That’s gonna put a hitch in those Abercrombie catalog plans, don’t you think?”
Alex growled and tried to take a step toward us, but Sebastian put a hand on her arm.
“I assume the vitriol means you’re all acquainted,” a third person said. Sebastian and Alex stepped aside, and he stepped into the gap between them.
He was tall, thin, silver haired, distinguished looking. He wore a crisp black suit, with a white, button-up shirt beneath. Every hair was in place, every bit of fabric perfectly creased. His eyes were pale blue, watery, red at the edges. But there was something about his eyes—something wrong. They were empty—dangerously empty.
“Mr. Garcia,” he said, his voice flat, bored, as he bobbed his head toward Michael. Jamie moved to stand beside Michael, a supernatural barrier between us and the bad guys. “Ms. Riley,” he said. I guessed that was Jamie.
And then the man leveled his watery gaze at me, and I shuddered reflexively.
“I don’t believe we’re acquainted,” he said, just before Sebastian leaned in and whispered something to him.
The man’s eyebrows lifted in interest.
My stomach fell, and I hunched a little closer to the table behind me. I was confident I did not want this guy interested in me.
“Aha,” he said, sliding his hands into his pockets. “The girl who, shall we say, became closely acquainted with Mr. Born’s magic?”
I took a moment to glare at Sebastian, who I assumed had mentioned that he’d hit me with firespell during my fateful trip into the basement.
But more interesting was the look I got back from him. I expected disdain or irritation—the emotions on Alex’s face. But Sebastian looked almost . . . apologetic.
“I’m Jeremiah,” the older man said, drawing my attention away from Sebastian. “And I can’t tell you how interested I am to make your acquaintance. I hope you weren’t harmed?”
“I’m fine,” I gritted out, doubtful that he cared whether I’d been harmed or not. The lights above us flickered once, then twice. When Jeremiah’s eyes flicked with interest to the fixtures, I knew I had to tamp it down. I didn’t want him knowing that I was now an Adept, thanks to “Mr. Born’s magic,” and that I was now one of his enemies.
As if she understood the struggle, Scout squeezed my hand. I squeezed back and forced myself to stay calm.
Since Jeremiah was older than the Reapers around him, I assumed he was a leader, one of the self-centered asses who’d decided that taking the lifeblood of others was a cost worth paying to keep his own magic.
He looked from me to Michael and Jamie. “Your distraction was just that,” he said. “Merely a distraction. Next time, you might do a little more planning. But, since you’re here, what brings you to our little sanctuary?”
As if he didn’t know. “You kidnapped my friend,” I reminded him.
Jeremiah rolled his eyes as if bored by the accusation. “Kidnapping is a harsh word, Ms. Parker, although given the fact that you’ve undoubtedly been brainwashed by these agitators, these troublemakers, I’ll forgive the transgression. These children don’t understand the gifts they’ve been given. They reject their power. They turn away from it, and they blame us for accepting it. For abiding by the natural order. They cast us as demons.”
