Sam: You’re lucky I’m so busy with the flower arrangements for this event, but Hecate help you when I have a little free time because I’m gonna hex your flat ass.
Sam: Can you at least give me a sign, a smoke signal…something to let me know you’re alive???
Me: I’m alive. Just busy.
The text feels just as guilty as it sounds. I’ve been ignoring her for the past five days since we’ve been back. But just the thought of being alone with her spikes my anxiety through the roof. What if I somehow hurt her? Snatch her soul.
Sam: Doing what exactly?
Hiding?
Planning something?
You know you’re not getting rid of me, right? I’m worse than scabies, bitch.
Heaving out a weighted sigh, I slide the phone into my back pocket without replying, yet again. I’ll turn off the location sharing when I leave tomorrow. She’s going to hate me when sherealizes I left without a word. But it’s better this way. Safer.
I massage my temples. Since coming back from Faerie, the migraines have increased in intensity by a hundredfold. There’s a constant fiery throb in the back of my head.
On my bed lies a pile of clothes and the two remaining sets of hellseeker gear I had left in my closet. All I need is my weapons, toiletries, and I’m all set. I don’t have a plan yet, but I need to get out of Ashville. Then I’ll figure everything out. I don’t know how long those bandages Malik slapped on the cracks in my mind barrier are going to hold, but I can’t risk staying here any longer. Maybe in the absence of the crushing feeling that I’m a ticking time bomb, I will gain some clarity.
Sadly, my mother’s journal is still at the compound. I left it there when I got Emily out. It cuts me deep that I can’t take with me the only thing that belonged to her, but I can’t show my face at the compound. I also can’t ask my aunt to get it from my locker. I haven’t yet read through the hundreds of messages from Noah and Aunt Josephine. Or called Grayson back. As far as they know, I suddenly disappeared for a month. I wonder if they think it’s linked to the umbra demons or if I had something to do with Cain’s or Erik’s disappearance and fled like the little lightborn murderer I am. It’s better they all think I vanished. If the Aureal Knights are looking for me to make an arrest, it gives me a head start.
However, I do have to sneak into my aunt’s house before leaving. Those books in my grandmother’s office, filled with medical jargon about fae, were a study into their anatomy. I ignored them at the time because I was looking for an oracle, but I have to go through them again and search for some clues about my mother and what they did to her. Maybe I can make sense of what I truly am and the full extent of my powers, especially how to control them. Unfortunately, when my grandparents died in that lab explosion, so did their research. But there’s a safe inthat room, hidden beneath a painting—my mother mentioned it in her journal. Maybe my grandmother kept some research documents inside. It’s worth a shot, even though I have no idea what the combination is.
I kneel and bend forward, resting my weight on my elbows to pull out the suitcase from under the bed. Damn it. Why the fuck did I push it so far back? Huffing in frustration, I crawl until I reach the side handle, ass in the air. Something pulls taut beneath my solar plexus.
“Need a hand?” Hearing Kaiden’s gravelly voice in my mind startles me, and I hit the top of my head on the bed frame.
Ow! Motherfucking fuck.I swallow the rest of the profanities as I scoot backward.
“Don’t stop on my account. The view is fantastic,” he drawls as I look at him over my shoulder. He’s leaning on the doorframe, tattooed arms folded over his chest. Of course, that infuriating, sexy smirk is pulling at his full lips.
Why must I always make a fool of myself in Kaiden’s presence?“What do you want?”
He arches an eyebrow after taking in the spread on my bed. “Going somewhere?”
“That’s none of your concern,” I snap.
As soon as I finish saying that, the sound of the front door slamming shut reverberates through the apartment, followed by Sam’s angry voice. “I swear to Hecate, Iris Harper, I’m going to shove that fucking phone up your ass.”
I scramble to gather all the clothes and shove everything in the closet before flinging shut the door. Kaiden’s eyebrows draw, but thankfully, he says nothing as my best friend comes into view.
Wrath-filled emeralds land on Kaiden and she quips, “What the fuck are you doing here?” before shoving past him to stomp into my bedroom.
“Hello to you, too,” Kaiden says, sarcasm dripping from histone. “I popped in to let Iris know she’s my date to a charity gala tomorrow.”
I snort a surprised, unladylike laugh. “Yeah, sure. Dream on, buddy.”
“Call me buddy one more time, angel. I dare you. But if you think I care that we have an audience, you’re sorely mistaken. I’ll bend you over my knee and have my belt bite into that perky ass faster than you can blink,” he tells me through our mental bond.
Heat crawls on the back of my neck, blazing in my cheeks, which earns me a side-eye from Sam.
“There are rumors that Lucifer is back, and he’s allowed passage topside to Belial—one of the nine kings of Hell,” Kaiden says, out loud this time. “He’s going to make his first appearance at the gala.”
I scoff. “Why would a demon attend a charity event?”
“How come Lucifer is back? Wasn’t he in hiding because of the uprisings? Did anything change?” Sam juts in.
