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“I’m sure. I have some errands to run and laundry to do. Oh, and the current plan is for Kylie and me to switch shifts. She’s taking mine tomorrow, and I’m taking hers on Saturday.”
Merida pursed her lips. She didn’t have to say a word for me to read what she was thinking. She thought I enabled Kylie, and maybe I did, but I couldn’t very well lock her in the apartment and not let her meet people. She was twenty, not five.
The walk from Fountain of Youth to the apartment Kylie and I shared usually took me fifteen minutes. Since spring, I’d been walking every day it wasn’t raining. The regular exercise was definitely not hurting my physique, and Mom would be happy. She’d been obsessed with my health since—
I cut that thought off before it could fully form. I didn’t want to go there tonight.
I made a mental list of things I should do when I got home and tried to take inventory of my kitchen from memory. I was successfully lost in my thoughts when a scream cut into my distraction technique.
It didn’t sound anything like a horror-movie scream. This was a raw cry of pure pain, and it sent an icy shiver rolling down my spine.
The smart thing to do would be to call 911 and get help, but I knew deep in my bones that it would be too late by the time help arrived. It was a gut feeling I couldn’t ignore.
I lived on the outskirts of Nashua. The area wasn’t exactly known for its high crime rate, and the scream had come from the direction of a church parking lot.
There must have been an accident. Maybe involving a vehicle? I ran toward the sound.
What I saw stopped me in my tracks.
There was no explanation for the scene in front of me. A girl who couldn’t have been much older than my twenty-one years was down on one knee. Her hand was splayed over her stomach, and what looked like liquidgoldseeped between her fingers, dripping to the pavement beneath her.
A young man stood over her, one hand buried in her hair and tugging her head back. He looked normal other than his eyes, which glowed like a cat’s in the dark.
Neither of them seemed aware that they had an audience. And that was probably what saved me since I was standing still as a statue while my brain tried to process what I was seeing.
Glowy Eyes smirked down at the girl. “Face it, sweetheart, you’re not surviving tonight. My father is going to capture the half-blood and use him to steal the key.”
“You’ll never find him,” the girl moaned.
“Because you couldn’t?” He laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound. There was something purely…evilabout his laugh. He yanked on her hair again, forcing her to her feet, and she let out another agonized cry that snapped me out of my state of shock.
I pulled the Sig 365X from the holster at my hip. There was a click as I flicked the safety off. The sound was soft, but clearly the man heard it. He turned his head in my direction, his glowing eyes boring into mine. How could eyes that shone be so cold-looking? And why was I thinking about that at all? There were far more important things to worry about at the moment.
He dropped the girl, and seconds later he was mere feet from me. His glacial expression promised death, and I didn’t have time to second-guess my next move.
I aimed my pistol and fired, shooting a living, breathing person for the first time in my life.
He jerked back as if he’d been shoved, but he looked more annoyed than hurt.
Shit.
I fired until the magazine was empty but only succeeded in pushing him back a couple of feet.
If people could bleed gold and eyes could glow, I guess it shouldn’t have been much of a stretch that this guy was immune to bullets.
I dragged in a shuddering breath. I was so screwed.
There was a flash of movement and the girl was right behind him, a slender metal stake grasped in her hand. She didn’t get the chance to use it. Glowy Eyes struck out, and she collapsed with a grunt, more golden blood leaking from the corner of her mouth.
I was probably minutes, if not seconds, from sharing her fate. Except I was certain I wouldn’t bleed gold.
The girl’s eyes met mine. Hers were a vibrant blue, clouded by pain and determination. She slid the stake toward me. “Aim for the heart.”
At least I thought that’s what she said. I was mostly reading her lips.
I grasped the slim stake as Glowy Eyes turned back to me. I met his gaze as my self-defense instructor’s voice played in my head.Act fast and commit to that action. It’s all or nothing.
There was no deep breath, no psyching myself up. I moved, running on pure adrenaline and prayer.
