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Something fluttered over my head and I ducked slightly, horrified that a bat was in this creepy place with me, even more horrified there were probably hundreds of them. “Um…” I hated to point this out, “you sensed the magic the other night and she stayed here.”
“Exactly,” Kipp muttered.
Dane’s eyes narrowed into slits, only hearing my remark, but his gaze held little heat as it once did. “Because I wasn’t worried about the magic, but now…” his eyes flicked to Kipp, where I assumed he thought he was standing from when I’d been talking to him, “I’m more concerned.”
Meaning, he thought something was about to go down and that sure-as-shit worried me, too. “Gotcha.” I gave a firm nod. “It’s not safe for anyone to be here. But what are you going to do? Stay away from the Animus forever?”
He shook his head. “Once we find out what’s going on here with Alexander and get this all straightened out, we can look into more what spell has been used in the house and then we can break it. Right now, we have more important matters to attend to.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” Even though, we’d never find out what was going on with Alexander, not that I’d tell Amelia that, especially since Dane did his best to hide it from her. For now, I pushed it aside, sticking to present problems. “Okay, I’m done here. Not like I really found out anything at all, except that Nettie died after going into the Netherworld.”
Kipp nodded. “Not sure how that helps you, either.”
Turning toward the workbench, I nodded in agreement, trying to hide it from Amelia. Dane hadn’t mentioned to Amelia that Kipp had returned and I figured he had a good reason behind the silence. Besides, even I could see the darkness under her eyes and the weakness I’d first spotted when I had met her. And well, I could understand wanting to protect someone. That’s why I now stood in this scary barn—to find a way to protect Kipp and save him.
As I looked at the book, I noticed the spider had left its spot, and I hurried to get the book back in the drawer, hoping to hell it wouldn’t pounce on me. I closed the drawer with a slam, since what good was the diary to me anyway, expect to make me wonder what happened to Nettie. “All right.” I turned to Dane. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Another sudden squeak of the door had my heart once again leaping up into my throat. My flashlight was aimed at the door in 2.2 seconds and the door slowly creaked open.
“We’re all packed.” Gretchen covered her eyes, shielding herself from my flashlight aimed on her face. “Do you mind? I can’t see.”
With another sigh of relief, I lowered the beam of my light to her thighs. I really couldn’t take many more of these surprises without dropping dead.
More than ready to get the heck out of this old spine-chilling barn, I put a little fire in my steps, but Kipp’s icy fingers on my arm stopped me. Dane and Amelia strode toward Gretchen at the doorway with Alexander in tow, and I whispered to him, “What?”
He frowned. “I didn’t finish my thought earlier.”
With a roll of my eyes, I turned my back to the others and bent, pretending to fix my shoelaces and giving him the chance to continue, “The question has to be asked if Wayde thought Nettie became trapped in the Netherworld…”
My cell phone rang, causing me to jump a foot off the ground, and Kipp gave a disgruntled sigh. When my heart didn’t explode out of my chest, I laughed shakily to shed the fear engulfing me. “God, I’m on edge.” I raised a finger and whispered, “Hold that thought.”
Kipp crossed his arms, a frown marring his face.
Reaching into my pocket, I took out my phone, and looked down at the call display. I glanced over my shoulder at Dane, who stood at the doorway with Alexander, Amelia, and Gretchen. “It’s Max. I need to get this.” Then I raised the phone to my ear. “Hi, Max.”
“Get out of that house now!”
At his urgent tone, I scanned the dark barn with my flashlight, since suddenly it seemed darker and all I could hear was things crawling about, bat wings fluttering…scary things around me. “Pardon?”
“We’ve zeroed in on a suspect.”
I looked at the faces around me and while I suspected it wasn’t Dane or Amelia, in this moment, I experienced a second of terror that maybe I’d been entirely wrong. I forced the whisper out of my tight throat. “Who?”
“Wayde.”
I blew out a very long breath, releasing the images of Dane suddenly turning on me and killing everyone here except the ones he wanted to live. “No, that’s impossible. Wayde’s the one who made me bind the promise to help him. It doesn’t make sense. Why do you think he’s responsible?”
“Because Wayde Hagen is, in fact, dead.”
