“Because if it had been any more than one, they would have attacked us.”
Willow shuddered when she realized a Savage was watching and stalking them the entire time. It had seen them kissing and listened to their conversations.
“You think one of them followed us all the way here?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then it would know we were with Gus.”
“I thought about it a lot while I was patrolling the house, and I think I’ve figured it out. It was daytime, and we were in the middle of that field when we encountered Gus and his family. The camp was on the edge of the field, far away from the woods we exited. I don’t think the Savage who followed us was able to track us once we entered that field.”
“Wouldn’t they have still seen us leave with Gus? His old pickup is pretty memorable; once they saw it, they would know what to look for and ask around about.”
“From the second we left the woods until we left the camp was maybe only an hour. However, by the time we got to Gus’s house, the phones were already down. I think once it couldn’t follow us anymore, it broke off in search of a town to call in backup and keep us trapped here. Their first stop would be the police station. From there, they could take control of everything fast, and they did.”
Willow rubbed at her eyes as she tried to process everything he’d revealed. She was exhausted; she’d give anything for a few hours of sleep, but she was afraid to take her eyes off the window.
“How did we miss one of them following us?” she asked.
Declan had been questioning and kicking himself in the ass about that same thing. He could only come up with one explanation. “I think it was a turned hunter.”
Willow stiffened as she recalled the hunter by the waterfall, his cruel smile, white-blue eyes, and the sword at his side. It could have been any other turned hunter who followed them, but she couldn’t shakehisimage from her mind.
A turned Hunter would be far stronger, better trained, and faster than a human turned vamp who was forced to become a Savage. A turned hunter would have more patience and would hold off on attacking them until it saw the perfect opportunity… like trapping them in a town.
It might also have orders to bring them back alive, or at least one of them, and that would explain its patience in tracking them.
“Shit,” Willow said again.
That about sums it up,Declan thought as he stared out the window. The fact he hadn’t sensed another’s emotions in the woods told him the hunter stayed pretty far back from them. It had tracked them using all the techniques they trained hunters with.
Of course, he could be wrong about how the Savages knew they were in this town, but he didn’t think so. If they had another vampire with an ability like Elyse’s or Brian’s, they would already be in captivity. Instead, the Savages were using humans to help trap and locate them.
“We have to get out of this town,” Willow said.
“We will.”
Another Savage sprinted across the street and into the woods as smoke started trailing from it. “They're not very discreet,” she muttered.
“They don’t have to be if they’re controlling the town. I don’t think there’s much of a population here. It won’t be difficult for them to change their memories afterward.”
“Or they could be planning on killing them or turning them into Savages.”
“Or that.”
Willow shook her head as the possibility squeezed her chest until it felt like an elephant was sitting on her. “Even if we beat the demons, the battle with the Savages will never end.”
“No, it won’t.”
“Do you ever get tired of it?”
“Do you?”
She held his gaze as she spoke. “I get tired of the killing. I’ll do it; I’ll do whatever is necessary to survive and protect others, but I don’t like it. And these Savages…” Her voice trailed off as she turned to stare out the window again.
“Many of them didn’t choose this life,” Declan guessed.
“Yes.”
