Page 26

“Tabitha.”

I blinked.

“That’s my name. Tabitha Brinkley.”

Smiling, I offered my hand to shake. Unfortunately, the vision that flashed before my eyes was Tabitha thrown into a stone cell with what looked like a broken nose. We each gasped and backed away from the other.

“Did you…see that too?” I asked, scanning the street again.

She nodded, wide-eyed. “You’re going to get thrown in a cell with a vampire.”

“Um.” I had no intelligent words for that statement. So, we each saw the other thrown in a cell. In my case, there was undead company. Probably hungry company, considering there were only a few vampires I trusted, and none were likely to be inside of a cell.

“Isn’t that what you saw?” Tabitha asked.

Before I could respond, my phone buzzed, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Ride’s almost here. Driver’s name is Chad.”

Sure enough, a white hybrid turned down the street. The second it pulled to a stop, I opened the door, shoved Tabitha inside, and joined her. “Get us as close as you can to the coordinates I’m airdropping,” I said to the driver as I tapped at my phone. “I’ll give you an extra fifty.”

Once the car was on route, I let my head dip back against the headrest, closed my eyes, and breathed. Whatever we’d seen had to be a possible future far away from now. There was no way they tracked us here.

“Hey, Char,” Tabitha said, and I popped open one eyelid to look at her. “What was it you saw?”

She’d been honest with me, and it was the least I could do, but I hoped she wouldn’t freak out.

“I saw you in a cell.”

Her brows furrowed.

“No vampires at least,” I added quickly.

“Silver linings,” she murmured. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Of course.” I smiled and patted her arm. “We’ll be to safety soon, and we’ll do everything we can to make sure it never happens.”

“I wish I could say the same.”

“Excuse me?” I sat up straight, immediately on edge.

“Marcus,” she said. I turned to look at the driver, a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and moustache decidedly not named Chad.

“Sleep,” he said, and before it registered as a command, I lost consciousness.

Chapter Ten

The Devil You Know

Consciousness crept in with an unwelcome headache, the kind I usually associated with using too much of my abilities. Slowly, I became aware of the cold, damp stone and the awkward angle of my body against it. I coughed and worked my way into a sitting position while trying to blink my way back to reality. The last thing I remembered was being in the car with Tabitha and…

I can accept that she and MorningStar played me, but you, Pythia?

I smacked the side of my head, but it remained stubbornly silent. If Pythia was my subconscious, I sucked. If she wasn’t…well, the fact she was in my head made that a possibility I didn’t want to look at too closely at the moment. I had enough to worry about.

It appeared I was in an underground cell lined with large gray stones. An iron door with silver bars covered the small opening at the top. The dim lighting appeared to come from fairy lights hovering near the ceiling of the fifteen-foot cavern that bathed everything in a creepy green glow. Something felt strange, and after a moment, I realized I was barefoot, and my belt was missing.

“Fuck!” The word reverberated around the space, making me feel slightly better.

It seemed Tabitha hadn’t been telling me the whole truth of her vision, though, since I appeared to be alone.