“I’m sorry,” she said, then added, “She’s stronger than she looks.”
Granddad was in her face before I could blink, and I jumped to her defense. “Granddad, this isn’t her fault.”
“You’re right,” he said, turning his anger on me. “It’s yours.” He pointed to the door we’d come in through. “When I tell you to get away—”
“What?” I asked, interrupting his tirade. “Are you going to tell me how right you were to insist Jared stay away from me? Are you going to keep more secrets from me until I’m in another perilous situation where that information would have come in handy? Are you going to send me away?”
Both Grandma and Granddad stilled.
“Bill,” Grandma said as another thud echoed around us. She squeezed his arm to calm him.
But my own anger refused to be squelched. It spread like a nuclear blast. “Just so I have this straight, you guys get to keep things from me again and again, treat me like I’m an idiot, and I’m just supposed to obey your every order like a robot?”
Granddad seemed to snap to his senses. He stepped back as though appalled at his own behavior. “I’m sorry, pix.”
The thought of being sent away caused a hollow pain to well up inside me. My chin wrinkled as I tried not to cry. Did they really think so little of me? To decide my future without even talking with me about it?
I stood there, accusing them with my stare. I was six again and my parents had just disappeared and I had no control over my life whatsoever. No direction other than certain doom.
“We just want to keep you safe.”
“Then stop lying to me. Stop keeping things from me.”
He wanted to talk more. I could see it in his eyes, but he cleared his throat and dropped it for now.
Turning to Betty Jo, he said, “Betty, I am so sorry. I—”
“No,” she interrupted. “You’re right. I risked everything by not following your orders. I was just … I was so scared.”
That made Granddad feel worse. He pressed his lips together and put a hand on her shoulder. “No, this is my fault. I should have caught on to this sooner, when Cameron first felt it.”
“Felt what?” I asked, questioning Cameron, but he didn’t have time to answer before another thud echoed in the room. “This won’t hold him,” I said, my tone worried. “It doesn’t matter what you put him in, he can dematerialize and pass through anything. I’ve seen him do it.”
“Not in there, pix,” Granddad said. “That room was built to hold anything supernatural. Do you remember the symbols on the walls?”
I thought back and nodded. There were hundreds of symbols carved into the metal walls. I just thought it was decoration.
“Those are impenetrable bars to supernatural entities, like a steel cage would be to us. Nothing preternatural can get past it. It will hold him.”
I was shocked. “You built this room to hold Jared?”
Exhausted, Granddad stepped to a folding chair and lowered himself into it. Grandma knelt beside him. He squeezed the hand on his arm, then said, “No, hon. We built this room to hold you.”
I glanced at the vault, at the thick metallic walls and steel door. “Does the word ‘overkill’ mean anything? Because I’m pretty sure a small closet would suffice. And what did I do to deserve imprisonment anyway?”
He smiled sadly. “We built it after you were taken. After you were possessed. We thought that if we managed to exorcise the demon, we would need a place to hold it. Otherwise, he could just jump into someone else. And, we just didn’t know what you would do with it inside you. If you would try to kill us.
We had to plan.”
“Oh. And I love that you never told me that either.” Now I was just being childish. What were they supposed to do? I had a demon inside me. They had little choice.
“You’re right. I’m so sorry, pix. You’re getting old enough to be able to handle all this. We won’t keep anything else from you.”
For some reason, I seriously doubted that.
“I think it’s going to hold,” Mr. Walsh said. He’d been inspecting the room, walking around it and checking for faults in the metal. Brooke was sitting against the vault door with Cameron, and for the first time, I realized she was shaking uncontrollably. I was about to step to her but was blindsided.
“It’s up!”
We all turned to Glitch as he beckoned us from the doorway.
“Glitch?” Brooklyn asked, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
He winked at her, then turned back to my grandparents. “We have audio and video out. Nothing in.
Didn’t have time.”
After another thud that sounded like the earth beneath us was giving way, Brooke and Cameron stood.
We followed Glitch as he led the way to yet another outer room, a small supply closet on the other side of the vault. There was a monitor set up, along with other technical equipment.
“Did you do all this?” I asked him.
“With the help of Mr. Lusk, Cameron’s dad, yes.”
Mr. Lusk popped up from underneath the desk and nodded a hello. “Cameron, how are you?”
Cameron massaged his throat. “I might need a beer, but I’m okay.”
Mr. Lusk cast him a dubious frown.
I frowned at him too. “I thought beer didn’t do anything for you.”
“Okay, an aspirin, then.”
I looked closely at the monitor, at the green glow of a night-vision camera projected onto the screen. It was Jared. I sank into a chair and watched as he paced like a caged animal, his shoulders hunched, his movements sharp and calculating.
Glitch reached over and turned a knob on a speaker. “It would be better if I’d had more time, but it should work.”
That’s when I heard Jared’s breaths, his whispery curses, his soft footsteps.
“We can hear him, but he can’t hear us. I didn’t have enough—”
“Are you sure?” Brooke asked, interrupting. She’d come in behind me and noticed the same thing I did.
“Because the minute you said that, he turned.”
Jared had spun around when Glitch spoke, looking up at the camera in the corner, his eyes bright, his stare hard and intentional.
I decided to test it. I leaned forward and asked, “Can you hear me, Jared?”
A slow, purposeful smile spread across his face, one that I was getting used to. One that held no humor whatsoever, no warmth, nothing but scorn and indifference.
“What happened to you?” I asked him.
He took a step forward. “Open the door and I’ll tell you.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I’ll take you quick, Lorelei, painlessly, if you open it now.”
Grandma gasped and put a hand to her mouth. Granddad draped an arm over her shoulders.
“Why do you want me dead?” I asked.
His head tilted to one side. “It’s what I do.”
My chest squeezed painfully around my heart, hitching my breath, stinging my eyes. Was it all just a game? From the beginning to the times that we’d kissed, was he just playing with me?
“Come on, pix,” Granddad said as he took my arm to lift me out of the seat. “No good can come of this.”
“Stay,” Jared said, his voice calm, threatening. I stood to leave the room and he stepped closer to the camera. “Stay or they all die.”
I hesitated, then sank back down into the seat. Grandma kneeled next to me. “If he gets out of there, hon, we’re all dead anyway. He’s just taunting you, baiting you.” I suddenly understood why everyone was so afraid of Jared when they had found out what he was. I could now empathize on a level I didn’t want to.
“No,” Cameron said, bending to the monitor. “He probably does want her to stay, so he’s making empty threats.”
“And the hybrid speaks,” Jared said.
“How is he hearing us?” Glitch asked, checking wire after wire. “That room is encased in steel ten inches thick. And there is no audio in. I guarantee it.”