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He gave her another squeeze. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your car. I’m sure you want to get home.”
Home.
She liked the sound of that.
But when she went to leave, her car wouldn’t start. The engine not turning over at all.
“I’ll give you a ride,” Vince said. “I’ll get someone to come fix yours in the morning.”
“Would you?”
“Of course.”
Vince’s car was parked in the alley between Revelry and the pizza place next door. Grace put her bag in the trunk and Vince got in and started the engine. When she climbed in beside him, Vince was busy texting someone.
“Something wrong?”
He turned to her, the glow from the dashboard lights washing his face with muted blue. His eyes were wild as he lifted his phone, hand shaking, and showed her the screen.
Hannah.
Grace looked at Vince, then back at the screen. What the fuck was this? Hannah stared into the camera, face bruised, crying. Her terrified eyes met Grace’s. "Help me, Grace," she sobbed, her voice tinny and distant, echoing through the phone. “Please.”
Vince’s wild gaze met Grace’s again. “Block yourself, or she dies.”
Someone gripped Hannah’s hair and she cried out, her frantic gaze locking on Grace again, begging her to do as Vince said.
She had no choice. Too many lives had been lost already, and this was Vince. Whatever he thought he was doing, this wasn’t him. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.
“Oden’s making you do this.”
Vince said nothing as he reversed out of the alley and headed down the street.
He gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I’m so sick of being nothing, Gracie, of having nothing. We…our kind, should own this city, instead, we hide our powers, we cower. We let the knights kill our people.”
“The knights would never hurt demi.”
“I’m not talking about demi. Goddammit, Grace, we are demons. We have demon blood pulsing through our veins. I’m sick of being treated like some fragile fucking human.”
Grace stared at Vince, the male she thought of as a father, in utter shock. “You’re helping them? The demons behind the attacks?”
“This should be our city, and when that demi in Hell gains her powers, we’ll be free. We’ll ascend to the heights we always should have been.” He glanced at her. “I know you think you have feelings for your knight, but in time you’ll get over it, you’ll realize it wasn’t real.”
He’d lost his mind. “You’ve been handing innocent demi over to the enemy?”
“They’re not the enemy, Gracie. They don’t want to hurt us. They want to work with us, work together for a greater good.”
“They killed Tina and Mark. They use their own like fucking puppets to attack the knights, not caring how many are slaughtered. They don’t care about you, Vince, about any of us. We’re a means to an end, to help them gain power, for them to take the city. You think Diemos will keep us around once he’s free?”
He was shaking his head. “You don’t understand, but you will. And Tina only died because she fought. If she’d done what she was asked, she’d be there to greet you when we arrive. She only has herself to blame.”
“You killed her?”
He shook his head again, white-knuckling the steering wheel. “Your block, Grace. Put it up now or they’ll hurt Hannah, they’ll hurt the others.”
Vincent wasn't a killer. He wasn’t a fighter, either. The male she’d loved like family was a coward. So damn greedy and desperate for power he had betrayed his own people.
Pain sliced through her. How could he do this?
