“How about this? As soon as I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”
“What?” I ask, a latent shot of adrenaline coursing through me. “You don’t have a plan?”
“I have a plan,” he responds, his green eyes flashing when he gives me a quick look. “Just some of the details aren’t fleshed out yet.”
“Unbelievable.” I huff out a breath. “He kidnaps me without so much as a concrete plan.”
“I did not kidnap you,” he says gruffly.
“Debatable.”
A muscle tics in Becks’ jaw. “Things escalated further than I was expecting. And besides that . . . ”
“What?” I ask when he doesn’t go on.
He glances at me out of the corner of his eye, and I get the impression he’s trying to decide how much to tell me. Which means he’s hiding things.
“If you want me to trust you, keeping stuff from me isn’t helping your case,” I point out.
He sighs, but nods. “The original plan was to take you back to the Order headquarters,” he says.
A spike of fear pierces my heart. I know about the Order. My parents blame the organization for what happened to us all those years ago. I may tentatively trust Becks, but I have a deep-seated apprehension, bordering on hate, for the Order.
If my parents had never been part of the secret organization, or had simply left when they found out they were pregnant, I might have had a chance at a normal life, one that didn’t include moving a dozen times before I hit middle school, or parents who jumped at every shadow.
“Why aren’t we going there?” I ask, making sure to keep my voice level.
Becks said he wasn’t an Order member, but it seems he has ties to them. Until I understand those dynamics, I need to be careful. If he plans to shuttle me over to that sketchy organization, I think I’d rather take my chances on my own. But he doesn’t need to know that.
He falls quiet again, and it starts to annoy me.
Just as I open my mouth to tell him off, he says, “Because I’m no longer confident the Order is a safe place for you. I’m going to be real with you.” His eyes stay fixed on the dark country roads ahead. “There are a lot of good people in the Order, some of the best I’ve ever met, but it looks like there might be a mole in the organization, someone actually working with the demon.”
The thought of someone aiding the demon, a being of pure evil, is almost unfathomable, and it makes my stomach turn.
But I’m also relieved. Relieved that it means he’s not taking me to them.
“Why do you think someone’s helping the demon?”
A muscle tics in his jaw again, and when he talks it feels like he’s forcing the words out against his better judgment.
“Because before I found you, there was a string of dead girls the demon left in its wake.”
I swallow the gasp that rises in my throat as Becks goes on.
“For weeks, we’ve been one step behind. As soon as we found someone we thought might be you, they’d turn up dead before we could reach them. The only way we can figure that the demon kept getting to the girls before us was if someone inside the organization leaked the information. Until he or she is discovered, I don’t think it’s a safe place for you anymore. The only ones I trust are Locklyn and Talon.”
He cuts a look my way. “They will protect your parents. With their lives.”
I nod, struggling past the lump in my throat at the mention of my mom and dad. I’ve been trying hard to keep my thoughts off them these last few minutes, because if I don’t I’ll drive myself crazy with worry. But my mind keeps circling back to the guy who attacked me in the woods. The preternatural strength. The endurance. The sharp claws extending from his fingers.
Taking a deep breath, I remind myself that the ambulance arrived right as we left the house, and that according to Becks, Locklyn and Talon would be with them in a couple of hours.
I can only hope that my sister and her husband are as strong a pair as Becks keeps making them out to be, because if the demon goes after my parents and they’re not, I won’t ever see them again.
“Those girls were killed just because they weren’t me?”
“It’s not your fault,” Becks says in lieu of an answer.
