“Let’s just try to focus on there not being a sixth,” Kade says as he rises to his feet, his gaze still locked on the girl.
“Did you find anything?” I ask, and Kade finally tears his gaze from the body to look at me, his dark skin dulled, his eyes haunted.
Kade sighs. “Besides signs of a struggle, not much. There are some blood spatters and hair. We found a ripped-off nail as well, but nothing from the demon besides some claw marks on one of the walls.” Kade’s eyes drop to the body. “She was a fighter.”
I shake my head. There’s nothing else to say. We failed. Again.
Once we figured out that the series of murders over the last year and a half was related to the demon, we tried to get ahead of them. We looked for girls who fit the general profile of the ones who were killed—specifically, females around Locklyn’s age and build who, at some point, slipped and accidentally revealed their creature magic. In an era of AI, filters, and deepfakes, most humans dismissed these accidental flashes.
The demon didn’t.
How it knew about them, we don’t know. But catching on to what was happening gave us a place to start, and we’d been trying to reach the girls before the demon ever since, with no success so far. This was the seventh corpse we’d come across since I’d returned to the human world.
The demon hasn’t found Locklyn’s sister yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
A renewed sense of urgency rises in my chest, making me antsy. The space between the killings is starting to shorten. The last one was less than a week ago. We arrived a day late, finding her mutilated body in the marshlands near New Orleans, where she went to school. Her parents didn’t even know she was missing yet.
The blood in the room today is still fresh, not even starting to congeal. I’m not an expert, but my gut says if we’d been just thirty minutes earlier we might have prevented this tragedy.
“Have the local authorities been called?”
Kade nods. “Let’s get out of here. There’s nothing else we can do.”
I start to follow him out when I notice Talon isn’t with us. Glancing over my shoulder, I catch him staring down at the dead girl, a hollow look in his eyes, and finally a splash of emotion on his face: dread.
I can guess what he’s thinking. If the second part of the prophecy had been about Locklyn, that girl could have been her.
I try to ignore the grin on Talon’s usually stoic face during the flight back to NYC. Generally speaking, the mood in the jet is somber. Kade glowers from his spot in the back of the plane, looking like he’s ready to bite anyone’s head off who disturbs him. The other Order members have been uncharacteristically quiet. Conversations over the three-and-a-half-hour flight have been no more than low murmurs, and short. But with an hour left until landing, Talon’s phone pinged with a message and he’s had a permanent smile on his face ever since.
The worst part is he’s sitting right across from me, so I can’t miss it.
It’s not until we are on our descent into the small airport outside the city when he finally pockets his cell again, his mood still disgustingly light.
“Locklyn?” I ask, not needing to say any more than that.
He nods. “She’s waiting at the airfield for us.”
She’s not waiting for us. She’s waiting for him.
As the plane decreases altitude, he keeps checking out the window and fiddling with his seatbelt. It’s clear he’s antsy to get off the plane to see her.
I lean back in my seat, settling in even more. The last thing I am right now is in a rush.
“I still don’t understand what she sees in you,” I jab, hiding my pain behind biting humor.
He glances over at me with a smirk. “It’s the jawline,” he says without missing a beat, and I roll my eyes.
“I have a sharp jawline too,” I grumble just as the plane touches down.
Talon laughs and then pops out of his seat before the plane stops moving. He slaps me on the back good-naturedly, like I’m joking.
Which I am . . . mostly.
Crossing my arms, I let my biceps stretch my sleeves, making a point, and he laughs harder and heads toward the door.
As soon as the plane rolls to a stop, he throws open the door and rushes out, not bothering to wait for the cabin crew to do it.
I, on the other hand, take my time, letting the rest of the Order members deplane, until it’s only Kade and me left.
