Dallas squawked a laugh, but all Darien did was get back on his phone to let Tanner know they’d made it to the other side. It was the quickest phone call in the history of phone calls.
And then he was stomping up the stone steps, toward the door that hung lopsided on the hinges. He mumbled something she couldn’t make out and swept inside.
Loren supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that he was literally ditching them out here in favour of the shadows in that building. Before coming here, she’d argued with him for a full thirty minutes about whether she should sit this mission out or go with him.
Needless to say, she’d won that particular argument.
“Is he always this charming?” Dallas said, wiping the tears of amusement from the corners of her eyes.
Loren hugged herself and surveyed the building, with its shattered windows and busted chimney. “Usually.”
A gust of wind swept through the area, ruffling her hair and drying the blood on her wrist and leg. While most old and abandoned places gave a feeling of emptiness to the person looking upon them, this one only gave her the creeps.
She’d prayed long and hard to Caligo that they would find something tonight that would give them a lead. Something that might explain the meaning of the phoenix tattoo that had plagued her dreams since Sabrine’s disappearance.
The fact that the schoolboard had gone out of their way to give this building an extra layer of protection… Therehadto be something valuable inside it. A secret worth keeping.
“Let’s go,” Dallas said.
As Loren crept after her, into the impenetrable darkness of the Old Hall, she wondered if it wasn’t so much about the people they wanted to keep out.
But something they wanted to keep in.
PART III
WISH UPON THE LIAR
24
Loren was disappointed to find that there was nothing of interest in the Old Hall. Nothing except desks pushed up against the walls, cobwebs drooping in opaque curtains from a patchy ceiling, and dust.Lotsof cobwebs and dust.
Loren kept close to Darien and the flashlight he swept about the room. The amber glow bounced off spider’s nests and sent mice scurrying for holes in the walls.
“There’s no way we came all this way for nothing.” Loren’s words echoed softly, evoking a hiss from a tarantula squatting somewhere in the shadows nearby.
“If there’s something here that’s worth protecting,” Darien said as he led the way through the room, “no one with half a brain would hide it in plain sight, Rookie.”
“Thanks for pointing that out, Mister Obvious,” she grumbled. She knew she was pushing him tonight, but…after how wounded she’d felt at the hospital, she’d planned to distance herself from him. To force herself not to care what he was doing or who he did it with. It was easier said than done but…she had to try. Even if she made him hate her in the process. She cleared her throat and stepped in front of him, edging around the scattered desks, being careful to remain in the beam of his flashlight. “Where do you propose we look? All I see is four walls and a roof that’s barely there.”
Behind them, Dallas was muttering something about spiders and mice and how she should’ve listened to Darien—thebossy slayer,as she liked to call him—and stayed behind.
Darien was taking too long to answer Loren’s question, so she turned around to face him, only to see him quickly looking away from her, as if he had been staring at…at—
“What were you staring at?” Loren demanded, her spine stiffening.
“I beg your pardon?” The words were coated with innocence.
Loren repeated, “What were you staring at?”
A smile flirted with the slayer’s mouth. If he kept looking at her like that, she might just fall in love with him. “You have beautiful hair,” he said, his voice a croon.
Loren tightened her jaw. “You werenotjust staring at my hair.”
“What was I staring at then?”
She crossed her arms. “Why don’tyoutellme?Your smile suggests you were having inappropriate thoughts.” Her face was warming up, despite how cool it was in the building.
And because she certainly wouldn’t mind if someone like Darien had taken appreciation in the way her ass looked. Especially when he’d just been talking about spanking it.
