It was looking at me.
“What the hell is it talking about?” I stumbled backward, bumping into Mom who looked as horrified as I felt.
“That bastard,” she whispered, and I knew she didn’t mean the demon.
That’s when I understood. The way Father Donnelly had put a demon inside Daddy. The way I inherited that essence. He hadn’t just been trying to create a super-Hunter, he’d been trying to create a bride for this monster.The collar hides the teeth.
Stuart’s prophecy was right.
“You.” The hand reached further through, followed by an arm, a shoulder. The portal stretched around it like a wound tearing open. “You were made for me. Bred for me. Blood and essence and power, crafted across generations. My perfect vessel. My bride.”
It had never been about saving the world.
It was about creating something Samarek could use.
“I was the endgame,” I whispered. “This whole time. I was Donnelly’s endgame.”
“Allie, move!” Mom grabbed my arm, yanked me back as Samarek’s hand swiped through the space where I’d been standing. “We need to close it. Now.”
“How?” Daddy was already moving, putting himself between me and the portal. “Her blood didn’t work before. We tried?—”
“It has to be blood,” Zane said, his face pale but determined. “With my father, it’s always blood.”
“We tried that before,” I said. “My blood. It did nothing.”
“You tried it alone,” Zane said, and that’s when I understood.
“We’re both a vessel that’s been shadowed,” I said. “Blood flowing but tainted by a demon.”
“My blood, too, then,” Mom said.
“And mine,” Zane said. “And yours,” he added, nodding to Daddy.
“On three,” Mom said, pulling out her knife as Samarek snarled and leaped, appendages and wings bursting out, but its bulk still trapped—though I knew it could break through any moment.
“Hurry!” I said, as Mom counted, “One. Two. Three.”
As one, we used our blades, sliced our palms, then let the blood flow onto the door.
“Blood, freely given,” Zane murmured as Samarek snarled and the ground shook and I feared the Safe Room would fall through the ceiling and squash us all.
“NO.” Samarek’s voice was a thunderclap. “You would betray your own father, boy? Your own blood?”
“You were never my father.” Zane’s voice shook, but he didn’t back down. “You were just the thing that used my mother. The thing that made me into a weapon. I’m done being what you created. I’m choosing something else.”
Then he went quiet. The glow on the door disappeared. The light around the frame faded. The portal collapsed in on itself, folding and twisting and shrinking until it was a point of light, a spark, nothing at all.
The floor became plain, boring concrete once again, with no portal in sight.
Samarek was gone.
We’d done it.
I sat back on my heels, breathing hard, staring at the empty space where a door to hell had been. Daddy was on his knees beside me, clutching his shoulder, blood seeping between hisfingers. Zane was flat on his back, chest heaving, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
Mom bent her knees, pulled me into her arms so tight I couldn’t breathe.
“You did it,” she said.
