Frowning, I kicked the door shut behind me, balancing the two drinks. Had she decided to take a shower while I was gone? “Eva?”
No answer. I dropped the breakfast off in the kitchen and strode into the bedroom. No sign of her. Unease pounded against my skull as I toed the bathroom door open. Empty. Nothing but the gleaming tiles and silent shower head.
“Fuck.”
Something was wrong. This wasn’t like her. She wouldn’t have just left without saying a word, especially when she knew I’d be back at any moment. Body buzzing, I stormed through the apartment, searching for any sign of her when—
The hidden doorway leading up to the roof was hanging wide open. Relief shook through me. She was up on the roof. She had to be. I tried to ignore the little voice in the back of my head that suggested an alternative explanation. Someone else had opened that door. And they had taken her.
I was up the stairs in a heartbeat. “Eva!”
She wasn’t there.
Charging down the path that led to the edge of the roof, I fought back the urge to scream at the skies, shouting in rage. It was all my fucking fault, whatever had happened to her. I never should have left her here alone. I never should have put a second entrance into my apartment. I never should have—
“Hello?” a soft, feminine voice called up the stairs. For a moment, my entire world shuddered to a stop. Eva was here. She was okay. I’d jumped to conclusions. She’d needed to go out for some reason, and she was here now. Everything was fine.
I charged back down the stairs, and my heart stopped once again. It wasn’t Eva who stood before me now, but her two roommates I’d met that night atInfernal.
The pink-haired girl, whose name I thought was Sarah, shifted on her feet at my charging storm, clearly uneasy by the look of rage and pain that twisted my face. The other girl, Anya, paled.
“Eva isn’t here, is she?” the brunette asked in a barely-audible whisper.
My lips flattened. “No. She was until ten minutes ago, but she wasn’t here when I got back from getting us breakfast. I suppose that means she didn’t go home to see you two.”
Sarah pressed a trembling hand to her heart. “No, she hasn’t been answering our texts so we tracked her phone to find out where she was. To be honest, we were trying to find her all night, but she had the tracking turned off. When it popped back up this morning, it led us here.”
I closed my eyes, trying to control my emotions. It was hideously difficult, especially since my monster wanted out. Charged emotions always brought him to the surface, scraping, begging, clawing, screaming into my brain. It took almost all my concentration to keep him at bay.
“How much has she told you about what’s been going on?” I asked in a voice that held far more steel than I intended. None of this was their fault, and I didn’t want to scare them. But I was about to lose my fucking mind.
Sarah and Anya exchanged a glance that told me all I needed to know. They knew some of it but not all. I wondered...did they even know I was a demon? I let out a massive sigh. I couldn’t very well drop that bomb on them now.
But what else could I say? The truth was the only thing that would make them understand what had happened to their friend. To...Eva.
Rage and pain boiled in my gut, threatening to burst free.
“She said there’s a demon death cult after you guys,” Sarah finally said, swallowing hard. “That Charlie, her boss, is part of it all.”
My lips flatlined, and then I motioned them toward my couch. “There’s a little more to it than that. Sit. I’ll explain everything. And then I’m going to do everything in my power to find the assholes who have taken your friend.”
I’d rip apart the entire city if I had to.
3
Eva
Storm clouds rolled across my vision as lightning cracked the sky. My mother, laughing, tugged me down to the shore, our toes sinking into the rough black sand.
“Oh, darling!” she shouted up at the wind-streaked skies. “Isn’t this the most alive you’ve ever felt?”
At only eight years old, I didn’t quite understand why my mom was so excited about getting caught in the middle of a rainstorm, but I rarely saw her this happy. Those whiskers stretched out from the corners of her eyes again. I didn’t know the last time I’d seen them.
“Yes, it is,” I said, smiling up at her and her windblown hair whipping around her face. “But can we go inside now? It’s cold.”
She dragged her gaze away from the churning ocean waves, and her eyes softened as she tucked a finger beneath my chin. “Of course, darling. I’m sorry. It seems I got carried away again. This is on my list, you know.”
Mom’s list. She talked about it all the time. All the things she wanted to do before she died. She’d even started one for me, but I’d only put one thing on it: go to Disneyworld and ride all the rides.
