by Tara Brown
“We could work as a team. You’re trained?”
“You could say that.” I laughed resentfully. “I’ve been to Roses Academy twice so far.”
“This is bizarre. I feel like I know you. Were we friends?”
“Best.” I smiled hopefully at Aimee.
“What about us?” Aleks raised an eyebrow, giving me a look. “Were we friends?”
“Ari was friends with everyone, except Lucas.” Lydia spoke simply as she cut into her meal.
Lucas looked up at me, frowning. “We weren’t friends?”
“Oh, you two were more than that, Lucas.” Lydia chuckled to herself.
My jaw dropped. “Lydia! Awkward much?”
Lucas didn’t smile or laugh. His stare intensified instead. “Is this how you’ve brought us exactly what we would’ve ordered?”
“I know you all better than I know myself.” I turned and strode away from the table again. I served my other tables. I didn’t want my uncle to see me talking to them.
“That boy is sure checking you out and he’s a looker,” Lorna whispered to me at the dish sink.
“Which boy?” I asked flatly.
Lorna nudged me. “If you didn’t notice that one, I’ll just keep him to myself then. You don’t deserve him.
“Dirty cougar.” I snickered.
“Rawrrrr.”
I cleared the tables, avoiding theirs until I had to go over. “So how was everything?”
“Delish.” Aimee rubbed her belly. “Best veggie burger ever.”
“That thing smelled like death on a bun.” Lucas laughed, avoiding my gaze. “But my steak sandwich was perfectly rare.”
My eyes darted to Aleksander. “Was it all right?”
“It was very good, thank you.”
Lydia grabbed my hand. “Enough small talk. We need to make a plan. We need to stay and fight so we can save your family and friends.”
“I agree. I can’t leave them alone.”
Aleks cleared his throat, thinking out loud, “We should hide now before they see us. It’s bad enough they have a shifter. They will smell us out. Where are you meeting them?”
“Bus depot for the last bus out. It’s in three hours.”
Lucas frowned. “Well, we have to assume they’re watching you right now. There is no way they would have left you without surveillance. I wouldn’t have.”
I wanted to take it the wrong way. “Probably.”
“Well, keep your uncle busy and let us work on something. Did I read it correctly that you can knock an immortal unconscious?” Lydia asked.
“Except Lucas. I’ve done it to him too many times. He’s immune to it now.”
“Awesome.” Aimee laughed. “We are best friends.”
Lucas scowled at Aimee but spoke to me, “If we were dating why would you use your powers on me?”
“You were taking piercings out of my face one time with pliers, and once you fought with your brother Ben over me. And another time, a wolf kissed my cheek in front of you. They were all really just misunderstandings.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Someone kissed you?”
“It was a long time ago. It was nothing.” I didn’t even know why I had said that.
“That would have annoyed me.” He licked his lips, staring at mine.
Lydia smacked him. “Anyway, you better get back to work while we come up with something.”
“Okay.” I walked away and when I glanced back. Aimee was already gone. I hoped their plan would work.
Chapter 27
Bane
Aimee
Lorri flashed to us at the table, took my hand, and flashed us to the bathroom.
“So Ari is legit?” Lorri asked gruffly when we were alone.
“Yeah. It’s weird.”
Lorri laughed. “I met one once. It was weird. It’s a weird glitch. It only happens in Nephilim. They really are the banes of our existence. They mess with everything. I’ll sneak out back and follow you guys discreetly. I don’t want whoever is doing this to her to see me. Lydia said she didn’t recognize the faces of anyone in Ari’s memory except a kid named Mitch. A shifter. Which means this is happening behind my back.” She growled the last part.
Whoever was crossing the devil was insane.
Lorri flashed away.
I waited a minute before I walked casually back to the table and sat down.
“Where is Lorri going?”
“To hide in the shadows and watch out back.”
Once the diner had closed, we slipped out into the night to hide around the property. Lucas and Aleks went to the bus terminal to wait and watch for the others.
I hid a distance away, watching as Ari said goodbye and hugged everyone at the diner. Her uncle got into the truck to drive her over. He seemed devastated about her leaving. I was sad for him and thought about my own father, and how keeping my distance was the only thing that had kept him alive.
Ari climbed into the truck, hugging the blonde older woman once more through the window.
“Take care of yourself, sweetie, and we expect visits at Christmas.”
“I will.” She waved to the woman as her uncle pulled out of the parking lot.
I ran to the suburban and jumped in, starting it and following after them.
The plan had seemed pretty basic. Use Ari as bait and kill everyone as her uncle left. The only part I was uncertain about was whether or not Ari could handle herself. If she didn’t handle herself it could mean trouble for Luke. I didn’t know her; I would sacrifice her before him.
“Don’t be mean,” Lydia remarked. “She’s his mate.”
“What? It’s weird. The way Luke watched her, like the wolf and Little Red. He would die for her. Which is crazy for Luke. He’s never shown an ounce of interest in a girl. Then suddenly this little sporty, okay-looking waitress comes along telling him they have a thing going on, and he’s drooling.”
“One day, Aimee, you’ll fall in real love and you will understand.” Lydia laughed.
“I don’t think things like me feel real love, Lydia.”
“Oh, you do.” She glanced over, her eyes twinkling with mischief. I didn’t even want to know what that look was for.
We pulled in behind the uncle’s old beater truck and watched as he helped unload Ari’s bag from the back. He hugged her and handed her some cash. She tried to turn him down but he insisted.
“He loves her so much,” Aimee whispered.
“It’s mutual. Her uncle is second to Lucas in her heart. They’re the only people in the world she counts on. She would die for either in a heartbeat,” Lydia whispered back.
“I don’t understand how she has such deep feelings for Luke. She’s eighteen.” I’d once thought I had feelings like that, soul-mate feelings. Apparently, I was wrong.
“She’s been through more than any of us will ever understand. She’s lived this year four times, each time as a different version of herself. One of the girls was raped and beaten, living on the streets as a drug addict. Lucas saved her. Ari is the only one who remembers all of it. She feels a deep connection to him because of it but also to his wolf. Ari and Lucas haven’t had some great love affair. Like you just said, they’re only kids.”
“I didn’t say it out loud.”
“You know you don’t have to.” She chuckled.
“What does the wolf have to do with them being in love?”
“His wolf fell in love with Ari the moment he met her. That’s how wolves fall in love. They have a soul mate, it’s instant. Neither of them can fight the intense love. They don’t need a deeply passionate love story, not like you do. Wolves fall in love once. It’s very simple and scientific in their world.”
“I don’t need a deeply passionate love story.” I scoffed. “I have no soul, I’m dead inside. That love story I might have wanted as a kid, it’s gone.” The bitterness seeped from my words.
“Okay.” She smiled and nodded the way my French teacher always told us to when we didn’
t want to argue with someone who’s dumb.
We sat in awkward silence, watching as Ari hugged and kissed her uncle and dragged her suitcase over to the bus stop. He ran his hands through his hair and paced as if ready to tell her not to go.
“Why is he so stressed out about her leaving?” I glanced at Lydia.
“Her uncle saw something a very long time ago. He was warned people would come to take her away. I think he’s always worried about that. It’s why they’ve lived here in the middle of nowhere for so many years. It’s time,” she said frankly.
“Okay.” I got out of the truck and walked up to the bus stop.
“Ari?”
She eyed me, confused. “Hey.”
“You catching the bus?” I pretended like we were friends.
“Yeah.” She smiled innocently.
“Me too. Awesome! At least we won’t be alone. You must be her uncle. I’m Aimee. I graduated a year before Ari.” I held a hand out to him.
He smiled brightly at me. “Nice to meet you. What school do you go to?”
“Aimee goes to Columbia too.”
I nodded, playing along. “I do. Second year. It’s an amazing school. You catching the flight from Albuquerque?”
“Yeah. I got full scholarship.”
I whistled. “Good for you. You must be proud of her.”
Her uncle turned to hug her once more. “I am. Stay safe, okay, kid? Stay together.”
Ari smiled at her uncle. “We will, Vince. Jeeze, easy on the PDA. It’s only a few months till Christmas.”
He laughed. “You’re a brat. See you at Christmas.”
The bus pulled up. Ari let them load her suitcase and looked at Aleksander in the corner. He nodded. She hugged her uncle once more as I climbed onto the bus and waved at Lydia as if she were my mom or grandma. Lydia waved, smiling from ear to ear.
We went to the back of the bus and sat down. The bus driver scowled at us from his seat. “Tickets?”
I smiled at him. “Just let us find them.”
“You have a minute.”
Ari and I sat and watched Vince get back into his truck, waving at the bus once more before driving away. When the truck was gone from sight I winked us back to the bus stop.
“Wait here for them, okay?” I winked myself away and watched from across the street as Ari stood by herself at the bus stop under a lonely yellow light.
“She seriously looks like bait.”
Lydia added, “That’s good. Ari is.”
We didn’t wait long before a tall, thin man walked up to her. He was alone which made me nervous. Dark Ones never traveled alone.
He spoke softly to Ari. I couldn’t hear it.
“What’s he saying?”
“He said her boss sure seemed to like her. If Ari didn’t play nice there was someone waiting at her boss’s to take care of him. He doesn't know her boss is her uncle, but he suspects they’re very close.”
“Asshat.”
He moved like a flash, grabbing Ari and holding one of his fingers to her throat. I winced, knowing his finger would be as deadly as a knife. All vampires had sharp nails that could cut through steel.
“Don’t travel, Aimee, or I will kill her. You just come out, hands up where I can see them. I know all about you. And tell Lydia to get out here where we can see her too.”
I didn’t need to tell Lydia anything. She walked from the shadows with me.
“I figured eventually you would figure a way around this little bitch’s magic.”
I frowned stepping forward, holding my hands out. “You’re untouched by any of it?”
“Not the first time.” He smirked. “The first time Ari erased my memory, but it came back in odd flashes of annoying déjà vu. Andy came to me and had us glamour against Ari’s special gifts. That’s far enough.” He jerked his finger against her carotid. “I know exactly what those hands of yours do. You killed my brother last year.”
I grinned. “Right, that’s why your voice is familiar. You sound exactly like him.”
Ari snapped her fingers where he couldn’t see, making sparks in the air.
He poked a small slit in her neck, sniffing the blood. “Demon blood. Dorian, if I’m not mistaken. You’re a real full-blooded Nephilim.” He sounded shocked. “No wonder they want you too.”
I looked back at Lydia who was sauntering forward alongside me. She narrowed her gaze, obviously reading something off the vampire holding Ari.
“You’ll make an excellent acquisition. I heard talents like this are incredibly unique, and there are only one or two born every five or six hundred years. So sad that full-blooded angels are not mating as they used to.” He laughed like a villain. It was pathetic the way the old vampires didn’t get with the times. They all acted so dastardly, like it was still the 1800s.
As Ari’s blood wafted through the air, a large brown wolf leapt down from the roof above the bus stop, knocking over the vampire and Ari.
The vampire turned toward Lucas to grab him. Ari froze them both as a light shot from her hands, hitting the thin man.
A huge black panther dashed across the parking lot, grabbing Ari as she knocked the vampire out. The cat ripped at her arm. I winked myself across the asphalt, letting the hunger in my hands have the cat. He changed back into a man as he died.
Across the parking lot Aleks threw a man a hundred feet, and Lydia stood in front of another who was gripping his head. She had crippled him with one of her migraine-of-doom moves. I cringed, knowing the pain he was in as I winked there, killing him instantly.
I winked behind another one of the men, but he expected it and spun, punching me in the face. I tried blocking, but he was stronger than I expected. He was on top of me, choking me with his knee, holding my hands down with his.
The world spun as the air left me.
His grip froze as he fell to his side, passing out. Ari stood over us, smiling.
I put my hand to the man and took his life from him, feeling bad for the fact that he was unconscious.
The large brown wolf walked up, nuzzling against Ari and licking the wounds on her hands and neck.
She stopped him, putting her hands around him. “Demon blood will make you sick—stop it!”
“Not when he’s a wolfie. He isn’t like us.” I shook my head. “Shifters are something completely different. They are like Mother Nature’s warriors. He could eat a demon and not even get a little heartburn.”
“I did not know that.” Ari continued petting him.
“We need to get to your uncle’s to kill whoever is there waiting for him.”
“That’s been taken care of.” Lydia looked haunted by something. “Lorri will be here in a moment.”
A black car drove up, making a horrid squeal as it rounded the corner. Smoke billowed from its hood and bullet holes riddled its doors. The car came to a screeching stop and the driver door was nearly ripped off its hinges. Lorri climbed out, appearing particularly badass. She dragged a bleeding and weak-looking Andy Cromwell from the car.
Lorri threw Andy, rolling the woman along the pavement to Lydia’s feet.
“Your best friend was what was waiting for Ari’s uncle.”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Andy coughed and turned her battered face up to Lydia’s as tears of blood rolled down her cheeks. “Lydia, please spare me. I didn’t mean it. I was trying to help you—save you.”
Lydia’s face crumpled. “You’re my oldest and dearest friend, Andy. How could you?”
Andy spat viciously. “Your little pet erased my memory. I spent a full year of my life trying to find the mole in our organization. All that is gone. All my hard work. And I met someone on my journey into the Dark Ones. I fell in love, Lydia. After a lifetime alone, I finally met someone. That bitch erased it all!” She pointed accusingly at Ari.
“That’s no excuse,” Lydia whispered.
“All my time and effort. She stole a year of my life, all our lives. When I told the Dark On
es about her, asking if any of them had come upon something like her, they said she had likely been taking years and forcing us to redo them. Once you were connected to them they did that, they robbed you of your life. Can’t you feel it? It’s why they’re called soul stealers.”
Ari looked sick but she didn’t defend herself.
“When the Dark Ones asked for her, it seemed like a smart idea. What better way to destroy them than to give them something that would consume their lives? She did it to us without us being aware of it.”
Lorri leaned down and ripped Andy’s head off, rather suddenly. She picked up one of Andy’s arms and dragged her, walking away from the small group of us. “Enough of that,” she mumbled like a psychopath.
Ari threw up, Lucas turned his face away, and Lydia shivered at the sight of the violence.
None of us moved for several moments, shocked and horrified by the betrayal. When one of us did move, it was Lydia. She curled into herself and sobbed.
Chapter 28
Angels and Demons
Ari
The words were truth. I didn’t want them to be, but I truly was the best weapon the good had against the bad. I had systematically destroyed all their lives without even trying. My chest felt empty.
Lydia looked my way but even she didn’t want to console me.
Lucas, still in wolf form, sauntered away. He was going to shift and put clothes on.
I hurried to Aimee, putting a hand on her arm. “I need you to do something for me.”
Her gray eyes sparkled with tears. “What?”
“I need you to take me somewhere.”
“Now?” she questioned in disbelief.
“Quickly. Think of New York City, the Roses Academy.”
She scowled but took my hand.
The sick feeling I already had from Lorri ripping Andy’s head off increased the moment we arrived in the entryway of the Roses Academy. I turned to Aimee. “Thanks. Don’t bring Lucas here. Just let me be here alone for a while, please.”