Before I can warn her, Joey spits blood onto the floor and mutters, “If Royal shows up before that psycho kills us, I’m gonna hit him for letting me get taken in the first place.”
“If Royal shows,” I whisper.“It’s because he followed me.”
Joey’s eyes widen.
“Wait.What do you mean followed you?”
“I was bait,” I confess.“So, we could find you.Save you.What does that say about me?”
Joey stares at me like she’s seeing something new, something dangerous.“He’s in deep.With you.”
The window rattles.A silhouette moves past the glass.My pulse spikes.The door crashes inward.
Metal shrieks.A body slams through it.For a second I think it is the Leaper, wings and all.
But then he steps into the light.
Royal.
Black hoodie.Blood on his hands.Knife already drawn.
His eyes hit me first.
Then Joey.
Then maybe Martin’s behind him, trying to rush him from the shadows.
Royal moves before I can breathe.
Martin lunges.
Royal’s blade flashes.
Martin crashes to the concrete screaming, leg opened from knee to thigh.
Royal kicks his weapon away and hauls him up by his hair.
Joey flinches.I freeze.Getting a good look at his face, my mind goes blank.Not Martin.I don’t recognize him.
Royal’s voice is calm but cold enough to crack steel.
“Where are the others,” he asks.“Who’s helping Crowley.Who took Joey?Who told you to touch Becki.”
He spits blood.“You think I’m scared of you?”
Royal tilts his head.“Not yet.”
He drives the knife into the man’s shoulder.Deep enough to make him scream.
Joey closes her eyes.
I don’t.
I watch Royal break him open with questions, slow and merciless, until the truth spills.
“Old Man Montgomery,” he pants, shaking.“He pays Crowley.Who said the girls needed cleansing.Said Paradise had to be purified.Said the ritual would call the Leaper.”
My stomach drops through the floor.Old Man Montgomery?Sophie’s father.The man my Daddy blackmailed me to blackmail Sophie?
