And—gasping—she opened her eyes. “Hunter?”
“You okay?” I asked her.
She looked around. “I… My parents…”
“What did you dream?”
“I dreamed about them,” she said. “They were in their house, and people were coming for them. People were going to hurt them. They were looking for me. Or maybe for you. I don’t know. I have to go.”
“Wait,” I said.
She got up off the bed and ran for the door.
I started after her. “Paige, I didn’t dream that. Did you dream about me at all? Maybe your dream didn’t mean anything.”
“I have to make sure they’re okay,” she said.
I made it to the hallway.
She was already in the living room.
I sprinted after her. “Talk to me.”
“I have to go, Hunter.”
I careened into the living room to see her at the door, struggling with the knob. It was locked.
I ran over to her. “There’s an alarm system. Everything’s locked down. Let me—”
She let out a desperate sob.
Geez, she was really freaked out. I turned to the alarm keypad, my fingers flying over the buttons.
And the door opened.
“Chance?” I said.
He pushed past me to enter the code on the alarm system that told it he wasn’t an intruder.
Paige grabbed the door and vaulted outside.
“Wait!” I called after her.
“What’s going on?” said Chance.
“It’s her parents,” I said. “She had a dream.”
“A dream?” said Chance.
“She has dreams,” I said.
“Like you?”
“Kind of.” I went out the front door.
Paige was unlocking her bike. “I have to go,” she said to me, tears staining her face. “You understand. They might be hurt.”
“Hold on,” said Chance. “I’ll drive you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
~hunter~
When I said that my family had a hard time owning cars, I wasn’t lying. But I didn’t mean that we didn’t have any vehicles. We did. We had a four-door sedan and a truck. But neither of them had legitimate registration or insurance. It was all faked stuff. We had a contact named Marlena who handled those things for us. They looked good, and they were enough to get us by if a cop pulled us over or something. But further scrutiny into them didn’t hold up. Basically, if any one of us got a ticket, that meant we had to move again.
My parents had taken the truck on their mission against Imri, but the car was still here.
I knew how to drive it and all, but I pretty much never got to drive, because there were four drivers in our house and two cars.
Chance managed to convince Paige that she should let us take the car to go see her parents. He asked her a bunch of questions about the dream. What kind of people had she seen? What were they doing? Were they armed?
They were the kinds of questions my mom usually asked me after one of my dreams.
Chance was taking Paige’s dream seriously.
Based on her answers, he decided it would be better if we went in armed. He and I loaded up with weapons, two pistols and a shotgun each.
As we drove, I sat in the back seat and loaded them.
During all of this, Paige’s eyes were huge. But she didn’t say anything. She seemed to accept what was going on.
Or maybe she didn’t accept it. Maybe she was too afraid to question anything.
Paige and her parents lived in an RV that was parked in a trailer park at the edge of town. There were only two trailers besides hers, and they were parked near the opening of the park.
Paige’s family’s was all the way at the back, tucked against some trees.
The light of the moon illuminated the scraggly dead grass in the small yard in front of the RV.
The windows were dark.
Everything was still and silent.
Chance pulled up to the RV and turned off the engine.
Paige hesitated, her hand on the door handle. She looked nervously back at me. “Maybe it was only a dream.”
Chance shook his head. “We can’t be too careful.” He opened the car door. “I’ll go first. Hunter last. We put Paige in the middle.”
Paige licked her lips. “But my parents will flip out on me for bringing people here. If they see you first, before me—”
“It’s better that they’re safe,” said Chance.
We all got out of the car.
The cold air nipped at my nose. My fingers.
There was no sound at all, except the distant sound of wind breathing through the trees, rustling their bare branches.
Chance started up the steps to the RV. They squeaked under his feet.
We went behind him.
He turned the knob on the door. It seemed like the grating sound of the metal gears turning inside was deafening.
The door opened inward with a groan.
Inside, it was dark.
Paige started to say something, but I stopped her, putting my hand on her shoulder and shaking my head.
She looked at me with terrified, wide eyes.
Chance eased his way into the RV, his hand resting on the butt of the pistol at his waist. He held out a hand, signaling us to stay put.
We halted.
We watched as Chance crept further inside, as the shadows swallowed him up.
And we waited.
I could hear Paige’s breath. There was a hitch in it. She was shaking.
I had an urge to touch her, to comfort her.
But I didn’t.
I only breathed too.
A thudding noise.
Chance reappeared, his expression severe. “We’re too late.”
“What?” said Paige.
She scrambled into the RV.
Chance caught her. “Hold on. Are you sure you want to see—”
“Are they okay?”
He shook his head.
She looked stricken.
Slowly, Chance let go of her. “They’re in the next room.”
She swayed slightly, and I was afraid she was going to collapse.
I ran to her, putting my hand on the small of her back, supporting her.
She looked back at me, horrified.
Chance led us through the house.
He turned on the light in a tiny kitchenette.
It couldn’t have been more than four feet deep. There was a small sink and stove squeezed together on one side. Directly opposite, a refrigerator was jammed up against some cabinets. There was less than two feet of space between them.
That was where Paige’s parents were.
They lay tangled together on the tile floor, blood seeping from wounds in their heads.
It looked as if they’d huddled together, trying to protect themselves from assailants.
But it hadn’t worked.
They’d been beaten. Stabbed.
They were mangled and ruined.
Paige let out a little sound, something high-pitched and strangled.
Chance knelt down next to the bodies.
Paige shook her head. Her eyes were shining, but she wasn’t crying. She wasn’t doing anything.
She turned away from the carnage.
Then she gasped.
“What?” I said.
She pointed.
I turned.
Writing on the wall. Writing in blood. It was brownish-red, the letters dripping.
Chaos and Order should never be joined.
What? What did that mean?
Paige sort of crumpled right in front of me. She doubled over, a sob ripping from her throat.
I wrapped my arms around her, and she didn’t resist me.
She buried her face in my shirt, her shoulders shaking.
She was crying so hard that she wasn’t making any noise.
Chance looked up at me. “Her parents were Kieran and Eve?”
*
* *
Paige was sitting on the couch in the living room of her RV, staring into space. She hadn’t spoken in a long time.
Chance was pacing.
“Kieran and Eve got us out of the solar flare, right?” I said. “We were talking about them in history class the other day. They united the nations and got everyone to work together to bring order back to society. And then they disappeared.”
“I met them,” said Chance. “When I was a kid. I was five years old or so. They came and took me away from my mom—Mina, that is. They said I was going to come live with them.”
“What?” I was confused. “How come you never talk about this?”
“I was a little kid,” said Chance. “I only barely remember it. Besides, when I think back to that whole part of my life, it seems sort of blurry. I feel like I should have been upset. They kidnapped me and took me away from my mom. But I don’t remember feeling upset about anything back then. When I asked about it later, my mom didn’t understand it, and then we went to live with Marlena and Hallam.”
I knew about this. Marlena was currently our contact for forged documents, but she and my parents used to be closer. There was an accident involving her husband, Hallam, and she and my parents had never been as close afterward.
Chance was still talking. “Anyway, Marlena talked to me about it a little bit. She said that when I was a baby, before I went to live with my mom—with Mina—that Zaza and Kieran were, like, together or something. And for some reason, they were raising me.”
I looked at Paige. “My mom and her dad?”
“Yeah,” said Chance. “Anyway, I guess when Eve and Kieran were together later and they couldn’t get pregnant, they kidnapped me to be their surrogate kid, because Kieran used to take care of me.”
“My mom kind of… got around, huh?”
Chance shot me an annoyed look. “That’s what you’re focusing on here?”
“What should I be focusing on?”
“Well, there’s obviously some kind of weird connection between all of us,” said Chance. “Our parents knew her parents. And then the fact that she randomly shows up in your life, and you’re both having dreams. Something’s going on, Hunter.”
“I know,” I said. “That message on the wall. Isn’t my power supposed to be pure Chaos?”
“Yeah, that’s what they say,” said Chance.
“So, that message has something to do with me. Her parents are dead, and it’s got something to do with me.”
“Maybe.”
“We need to call Mom and Dad, don’t we?”
Chance stopped pacing. “Probably.”
I started to get out my phone.
“Wait,” said Chance.
“Wait?”
“It’s only that they’re busy,” said Chance. “They’ve got a shot to stop Imri, and that’s huge. If we call them, they’ll rush back here, and they won’t get to kill him.”
That was true.
“Look, maybe we should try to figure things out a little bit more before we bother them,” said Chance.
“How would we do that?”
“Marlena might know more about Kieran and Eve. Maybe if we talk to her, we can figure out who killed them and what the killers want.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“I’ve done a couple of the pick-ups for IDs and stuff,” said Chance. “She’s got an apartment in New York City.”
“So, we go to New York?”
He tilted his head from side to side, as if considering it. “Yeah.”
“And what about Paige?” I turned to look at her again. She was still expressionless and motionless.
“We’ll have to take her with us.”
* * *
~azazel~
Jason flounced backward onto the hotel-room bed. “You and me in a hotel room,” he told the ceiling. “Feels like old times.”
I picked up the piece of paper on the bedside table, which listed various numbers. I grinned at him. “You want to get room service?”
“Maybe.” He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “That could be cool.”
“We shouldn’t.” I toyed with the piece of paper. “We’re not on vacation here. We’re on a mission.”
He took a deep breath, savoring the moment. “Oh, what’s the difference? Mission? Vacation? We’re childless and fancy-free, and we get to go shoot stuff. It’s the closest thing to a vacation we’re ever going to get.”
I laughed. “It’s so not.” I set down the paper, but it sliced into my finger as I did it. “Ow.” I popped my finger into my mouth.
Jason sat up, concerned. “What happened?’
“Nothing. Paper cut.”
“Let me see.” He reached for my hand and scrutinized the wound.
“It’s nothing.”
“I could fix this, you know.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at me.
I looked away, smiling shyly. “Jason, it’s only a paper cut.”
He shrugged. “So?”
“So, you know that I don’t need to be all hyped up on your blood.”
His voice lowered. “Why not?”
“Because…” We didn’t do this as much as we used to. For one thing, it was kind of pointless with Hunter down the hall, blocking any of Jason’s magical blood’s effects. For another thing, the blood sharing was always kind of… intimate, and we didn’t have much in the way of privacy these days.
“Honestly,” he whispered, “I’d probably feel better if you had some immortal blood in you. If we get hit with some stray bullets, I want you to be able to heal.”
I gave him a coy look. “If I get hit with a bullet, you can give me blood then.”
“Then we’ll have to rush.” He grabbed me by the waist and tugged me closer to him. “I don’t want to rush.”
I giggled. “Well, I guess that’s a good point.”
Jason pushed me back into the mound of pillows on the hotel bed. He climbed over top of me, a heated expression on his face.
I felt a tingling warmth wash through me. My breath grew shallow.
He gazed down at me with hooded eyes.
I ran my fingers over his jaw.
His eyelids fluttered shut.
I kissed him.
His mouth moved on mine—eager and agitated, like he wanted to devour me.
In truth, I was the one who’d be devouring him.
He settled against me, his body cradled against my hips, my thighs pressed against his legs.
He broke the kiss for a second.
My eyes flew open, and I found that he was gazing down at me.
I drowned in the intensity of his expression.
Very deliberately, he bit down on his bottom lip.
A tiny bead of blood appeared, dribbling down over his full lips.
I smelled it first—tangy and metallic. Even after all this time, I hadn’t lost my taste for it. It was an acquired taste. To me, the smell of it drove me into a frenzy.
I latched onto his lip, sucking it into my mouth, drinking him.
He moaned against me, his body pushing me into the bed.
I arched against him, one hand wrapped around his neck, the other roaming over the hard muscles of his back.
The blood filled my mouth—salty and succulent.
I could feel it go to work on my body right away. Almost immediately, I felt stronger, younger, more vibrant.
My tongue found the wound on his lip, the place where his teeth had penetrated his skin. I worried at it, lapping up every drop.
Jason groaned, his hands tangling themselves in my hair, holding onto me, urging me closer, urging me to take more.
But he healed quickly, and the wound was already closing up.
He moved his mouth away from mine.
I sighed.
He gave me a dark look. “More?”
“I…” I felt a little breathless. “That was probably enough. You keep giving it to me, I’m going to end up looking half my age.”<
br />
“And that’s a bad thing because…?”
I punched him in the stomach. “Shut up, you ass.”
He stroked my face. “Not that I want you any different than you are right now. You’re perfect.”
Oh. My heart beat faster. I loved it when he said shit like that. I ran my hand over his shoulders. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he growled. And then he bit his tongue and shoved it in my mouth.
There was more blood this time, a bigger wound. Besides, his tongue always seemed to bleed a little more freely than his lip.
I sucked on it, sucking the blood right out of him.
It was magnificent. It tasted amazing.
Jason writhed against me, gasping, clutching me.
Jason’s blood—all of the immortal’s blood—was ambrosia, the food of the gods. It conveyed immortality. It was warm, flowing perfection.
I sucked until the wound closed.
And I didn’t even try to say we should stop this time.
I bit his tongue myself, making a new wound, getting more, more of him inside me, swallowing him up.
His breathing grew labored. He relaxed against me, his weight settling into me.
That happened because he was getting lightheaded, and he had a hard time holding himself up.
A thrill went through me—half guilty because of what I was doing to him, half turned-on at the extent he’d go to please me.
I lost myself in the delirium of drinking him, the blood making me feel wild and crazed. I dug my fingers into his skin, pulling him even closer.
He grunted. His hands moved slower against me.
I sucked and sucked.
With effort, he pulled himself away.
I reached for him. It was always hard for me to stop.
He put a hand on my chest, holding me back. “Shh, sweetheart. That’s enough.”
I moaned.
His eyes were half open, and he ran his tongue over his teeth. “God, you make me crazy.”
I wanted more blood. It was an ache, a need…
But Jason lay back on the bed and pulled me back with him, and his hands pushed their way inside my shirt, distracting me with other aches, other warmths, other desires.
His lips against my ear. “Tell me you need me, baby.”
“I need you.” My voice was ragged.
“And I need you,” he breathed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
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