I killed his lead. I took away his hope and I never even asked him why he was there in the alley that morning. He falls silent and music fills my ears as he parks the car.
“Carter, I’m sorry. I—”
He stops the ignition and his hand reaches out for mine. When they touch, my whole stomach turns into butterflies and rainbows. I almost miss the vomiting urge.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but the best part about all of this is you. Please, please don’t be sorry about that.”
My mouth is suddenly cotton. I feel everything around me more intensely. The last time he kissed me replays in my head and I want him to do it again. I want his lips on mine and his body pressed close to me more than I knew could be possible. I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want this. It’s scary and exhilarating all at once.
“We should go in,” Carter says.
I nod, unable to speak. I don’t think I could talk even if my brain was working. We walk toward the entrance of the Nucleus House.
An escort is waiting for us once we’re inside, and much to my surprise, he leads us into the Triad chambers—not the council chambers, the Triad. I look at Carter, and he grips my hand. If we’re going to see the Triad then this is big.
The inside isn’t as elaborate as I expected. The council members sit in ten chairs and above them are three more—the Triad. The small group of Enforcers from the mall all turn around to look at us.
“Miss Grey.” Sabrina Stone, one of the members of the Triad, says my name. She’s more beautiful in person, smooth marble-like skin and long red hair. “Glad to see your encounter left you with little injury.”
I nod at her. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Let’s skip all the pleasantries,” the man beside her says. He towers over his empty chair; his dark bushy beard grazes the high back of it. Victor Prescott. He and Carter have the same set to their jaw.
“Though we are glad to see that your training has not been wasted,” Mr. Prescott adds.
There’s something in his voice and in his stare that’s a challenge, like he’s testing me. I stare straight back at him. I’m not scared of Victor Prescott, though I’m sure he wants me to be. Intimidate the little girl to see if she cracks. I’m all bricks and mortar though—because I know what I saw. He turns away first, settling his gaze on Carter instead. And then on our entwined hands. His face becomes stone then.
“Enforcers on the scene, what say you?” Mr. Prescott says
Shira Plum steps forward. She’s tall, supermodel tall, and I forgot how pretty she was. Shira was two years ahead of us in the ST classes. Everyone always whispered her name in the hallways because she was witch and prom queen. She knew how to break the quarterback’s nose and get everyone to sign up for No Shave Week with only a smile. Her younger sister Taylor is her opposite. She isn’t popular, has brown hair, is short and Static, but Taylor is so much nicer than Shira.
Shira was and is the badass. Her voice is sweet and dripping with venom all at once. “We dispatched ten Enforcers to scour the area at the park as we speak, per Miss Grey’s phone call, and so far they have found no demons.”
“What?” I say.
She doesn’t look it me. “There are traces of sulfur in the air, rotted human flesh, graying and dry—so we can assume that there were demons present recently. But how many, we can’t say yet.”
“Six,” I say. The Triad looks at me. I shouldn’t be speaking, but this is wrong. They weren’t there. “There were six. One that seemed to be in charge of all others—it was black and it killed that girl.”
Another Enforcer clears his throat. Graying hair, glasses, short. “The girl, yes. We did find a witch there. About sixteen, red hair, deceased.”
“Was she drained?” Rafe Ezrati, the third member of the Triad, asks. His hair is graying, but his chin is strong and his assurance clear. I wonder for a moment what Rafael Ezrati looked like. I almost wouldn’t be standing here because of his great-great-whatever-grandfather. Because of that one question I almost missed day one of Enforcer exams.
The Enforcers all shift. Gray-hair speaks up again, “No sir. There was no evidence upon examination that her essence was drained in the normal way. Her magic was no longer present, but we believe her source of death to be the claw wound to the neck. There were no other indications of death besides a stab wound to the chest.”
The whole room grows quiet.
“What we can’t seem to figure out is why the demons would be working together, why they are gone, and why they would waste the essence of a young witch. It doesn’t seem to fit any of the patterns we have ever seen before,” Gray-hair says.
Rafe nods. “Yes, well, it seems that the demons are playing a new game.”
“Indeed,” Sabrina says, but doesn’t add anything more.
Victor Prescott speaks next. “I expect that everyone present can keep these matters among us until we figure out what’s going on. We must be cautious and we must maintain the highest level of discretion.”
Slowly, everyone agrees. I cross my arms because levels of discretion aren’t going to solve the mystery here. In fact, I think it’s just the opposite. But nobody asked me. The others start to clear out of the room, and I hear Victor Prescott call Carter’s name.
“You ready to go?” Carter asks, ignoring his father. I nod and his hand rests on the small of my back as he leads me out the door.
We make it a few feet before my phone rings. Poncho’s voice is low on the other end. I’d given him my number the first day, though I never thought he’d use it.
“I found something.”
I leave Carter outside, insisting that I’ll only be a minute.
There’s no movement in the library. No cats, no breeze. I start to say Poncho’s name when he appears from the stacks and puts a finger over my mouth. His eyes are wild, worried. He nods his head toward the back of the room. I follow him through the stacks.
“I found something,” he says again.
“What is it?”
He reaches around me, taking a brown book from his pocket. “Someone worked really hard to keep it hidden.”
I turn it over in my fingers. The leather is worn with a string around it. “What’s so bad about it?”
Poncho only shakes his head. He starts to speak, but changes his mind and takes a step away down the aisle. “Poncho—” I start to ask another question, but Carter yells my name. I get that he’s worried, but now that that he’s inside Poncho’s definitely not telling me anything else.
I make my way back through the aisle, the weight of the small book heavy in my bag.
“You ready?” Carter asks.
I nod. “Thank you,” I say to Poncho, right before I exit, but the room is empty.
The sky is a dark gray when Carter drops me off at my car. My hand lingers on the door, and I look back at him, finally asking the question that’s been bothering me. “What do you think it means that the demons kept talking about how I smell?”
“What?”
“The demons.” I bite my lip. “They said I smelled different. That whoever that Kriegen is said I would.”
He shrugs. “They were probably talking about your essence. You are a witch.”
“I don’t have an essence anymore, you know that, so that doesn’t make sense.”
Carter hugs me, and it’s not that great in the tight space of his car, but I like it. “Whatever. It’s been a long day. I’m glad you’re safe.”
And it’s here, right now, that I realize it’s too exhausting to fight whatever I feel for him, and that somewhere through this crazy afternoon, I stopped trying to deny that. He’s too right, too comfortable for me.
“You’re going straight home, right?” I nod. “Are you telling your family what happened?