“And how did she get through the portals back to the human world if this Kerrim had Shadow Striker?” David asks, drawing my attention away from the weapon.
Leaning forward, I place my hands on my knees. If this doesn’t get to him, nothing will. “With the necklace you gave her. The one with the purple tamalite pendant.”
David catches his breath, his gaze widening, and I think he might finally be starting to believe me.
“She still had that?” he asks, sounding awed. “It was a gift we gave both girls at birth.”
“Whoever took her made sure the necklace stayed with her.” I don’t mention it was probably because they wanted her to make it back to the human world to fulfill the prophecy when she was older.
“But all this time,” he starts, “we thought . . . ”
I nod, knowing what he thought. That she was dead.
“She was out there this whole time?” he asks, his eyes starting to turn glassy.
“Yes.”
He swallows, seeming to have a hard time getting past the emotion clogging his throat. “Did she . . . did she think that we just abandoned her? That we didn’t care?”
“No,” I’m quick to say. “She didn’t even know she was adopted until everything went down with the dagger and Kerrim. After that, she didn’t know you were alive. The Order believed your whole family had been killed that night, and so that’s what they told her. Since the moment she learned that you all might?—”
“The Order?” he asks, his body tensing. “Is she mixed up with them?”
The sudden wild look in his eye tells me to tread carefully.
“When everything happened in New York over a year ago, the Order backed us up. But I’m not in the Order,” I tell him, giving him the technical truth while also dodging the question.
He nods. “Good. Because we’ve been over it a million times, and the only way we were found after the girls were born was if someone from the Order betrayed us. I don’t trust them anymore.”
The details of what happened to David and his family are murky at best, but from what I do know about events so many years ago, I can understand why he might think that. It’s a logical assumption.
“We’re not going to work with the Order on this,” I assure him. “Your daughter, Locklyn, is very important to me. I’ve been helping her search for Haven because we know what’s coming for her, and we want to keep her safe. I need to get Haven and you and your wife out of this town because it knows she’s here. The demon possessed someone and attacked her tonight. It’s not going to stop until it gets what it wants from her.”
With his lips pressed into a hard line, David gives one decisive nod and then gets to his feet. I stand with him.
“All right, we’ll go with you,” he says. “Give me five minutes to pack a bag.” He starts to turn then pauses. “But I have to know, if Rose is out there, why didn’t she come? Why are you here instead?”
“I came here on a hunch,” I tell him honestly, just as Haven walks back into the room. “I saw the video about the frat fire and knew it was magical in nature. I couldn’t see Haven fully in the video, but I felt like I had to check it out, and I’m glad I did.”
David’s body goes tense again, and Haven freezes behind him, her eyes going wide.
He glances over his shoulder at his daughter. “What is he talking about?” he demands, and Haven shrinks in on herself a little.
Shoot. I didn’t realize her parents didn’t know about the fire.
“Right, about that—” she starts, just as the window shatters.
Eight
HAVEN
I scream and drop to the ground, covering myself as glass goes flying everywhere.
There’s a loud thud, like bodies colliding, and then a gunshot rings out.
I pop to my feet, my heart hammering in my chest to see someone sprawled on top of my dad—another unfamiliar guy dressed in trousers and a button-down. A deep red splotch starts to grow on his back, and then like what happened with the attacker in the woods, black smoke rises from him, twisting and snaking about until it dissipates into the air.
The demon came for me again. Just like Becks warned.
