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I hate when he calls me “little brother” just because he was born two minutes before me.
I wonder how he’d like it if I refer to him as Grandpa…
“Okay, so, the number six in the room… It’s some kind of timer, right? He did the first couple, then wrote a six on the wall, and six weeks later, he came back for the second couple. Then this last murder was six weeks after that.”
“Yeah.”
“So, the next one is going to be six weeks after that, unless the clock starts speeding up. Which means that he’s going to be back for another victim. He’s bound to this job now. Demons may be beasts of hell, but they always have a master. His master would have bound him to this task by the power of their name. If you know the demon’s name, then you can control them.”
“So we just walk up to Levi and say, ‘Yo, I know we haven’t exactly been on friendly terms before this, but can you reveal your demon name so that we can trap you?’”
I swallow. “You probably couldn’t. But Lily could.”
“No. Oh, hell no.”
I nod. “I knew that’s what you’d say. But I’m just telling you in case…”
…in case you have no other choice.
I shudder. “I don’t want to leave you while you’re fighting a demon.”
“Yeah, well…” Jackson turns away.
We don’t have a choice.
I scratch at my wrist again. A tuft of coarse hair has appeared. I can hide it with a long shirtsleeve, for now. But I don’t have long before I need to be locked up here.
“Why did she choose him?” Jackson asks.
I shrug. I’m not used to questions like that coming from Jackson. He’s never been the type to pine after a woman, but then again, none of the women he’s been with have been Lily Dean.
Over the years, I’ve watched him and Brooks bed an equal number of gorgeous women. Jackson, at least, enjoyed their company. He loves to laugh and flirt. He may not have been in love with them or anything, but helikedthem, which is more than I can say for my older brother. Brooks used them as vessels to pour his hatred, and still, they came begging for more.
“Do you want to go back to the hotel?”
I shake my head. There’s no way in hell I’m going back to our room while there’s a chance that Lily and Brooks are still…doing what they’re doing. “Let’s get started on the windows.”
25
TWENTY-FIVE: LILY
I’m deliriously happy when I wake up a few hours later, muted moonlight trickling in through the open window and casting strange shadows on the bed.
Brooks is still fast asleep beside me, his features slack and his brown hair mussed. Without that angry glimmer in his eyes, he looks like an entirely different person. Softer, almost. Peaceful.
Two words I would never usually associate with the grump of a hunter.
I ache to rub the back of my hand across the stubble on his jawline, but I resist.
Mainly because I feel a pair of eyes on me.
My neck prickles, and the fine hairs on both of my arms stand at attention. I imagine that this is what woke me in the first place.
And now that I know it’s not Brooks creepily watching me sleep…
I palm the hilt of the dagger I always keep under my pillow and then jerk upright in bed. A naïve part of me still hopes that I’ll see Orion and Jackson, the former peering down at me with a pensive smile and the latter grinning goofily.
But of course, the universe has never been that kind.
