“Is—is she dead?” I whispered against the softness of his hoodie. I felt a shudder tear through him as he held onto me.
His lips moved through my hair. “Stay here.”
For once I didn’t argue.
At the same moment that Chase dashed off the porch, the door behind me flew open. Tears were openly streaming down my cheeks, freezing on the way down. Travis was at my side before I could process his presence.
“Angel, what is it? What did my asshole cousin do now?” he asked, searching my pale face.
All I could do was shake my head as I brushed aside the tears with the back of my hand. Winds of sorrow blew back my hair, mourning the loss of someone too young to die. I knew from the retched pain that seared my gut that she was dead. Chase let out a growl that was part sob, and his emotions slammed into me with the force of a wrecking ball.
I staggered.
Emma stood in the doorway, eyeing me wearily. She reached behind her, pulling out a wicked red dagger.
I hiccupped back a sniffle at the sight of the gleaming knife.
“Are you guys trying to wake the dead?” she asked, poised for danger.
That did it. My eyes welled up again with a new set of waterworks.
“Jeesh, are you PMS’ing?” She crossed her arms and stared at me.
Travis finally noticed Chase in the distance. His turquoise eyes narrowed at the sight of his cousin carrying a motionless body in his arms, one with flaming red hair. He hissed a sharp intake of air. “No.” His sandy head began to shake back and forth in denial. “No!” he said much more forcefully. Then like spontaneous combustion, his eyes burned amber, mirroring his cousin’s.
“Oh God,” Emma said, coming up behind me and hugging me. We clung onto each other as the men we loved mourned the loss of one of their own.
Sierra was dead.
Chapter 15
Her body had been brutally beaten. Knowing Sierra, she had gone down fighting. We might have had our differences and maybe we disliked each other more days than not, but I never in a millions years would have wished her this. Not death. And certainly not one so disturbingly horrible as hers appeared to be. My stomach knotted.
It didn’t have to be said.
We all knew who was responsible.
Alastair.
The name echoed over and over in my head, along with the image of his awful face. This was our first warning. He hadn’t forgotten about us. He hadn’t gone off into the blistering sunset as I had hoped. I trembled to see what was next. He wanted me. For what, God only knew, or more like Hell only knew. I couldn’t help but feel that Sierra’s blood was on my hands. I might not have plunged the knife that killed her, but maybe I could have prevented it—saved her.
No one saw this coming, a mistake we would never make again—underestimate a demon.
I wished I had been able to do something. Too little too late, but it never occurred to me that Sierra might be in danger. How foolish it had been to assume that Chase and I were the only targets. Of course Alastair would use people we cared about to get us to bend to his will. This sucked.
Apparently it was open season.
The details after we found her body were shadowy. It felt like a raging storm hung over my head as I dragged my feet back home. Alone. Afraid. I walked through the door zombified, not hearing or seeing anything. The world was black and white; it had lost all its color, all its brightness, all its hope.
The person I needed most was there as I staggered in, blood chilled and heart heavy. My mom. “Oh, Angel,” she said, seeing my pale face. “I’m so sorry.”
“Mom?” My process time was slow.
In a few quick strides, she was at my side. “Devin called me and told me.” Her voice was soft and overrun with worry.
“What?” I could not believe that he had called my mom. Nothing was computing.
“Oh, baby.” She wrapped me in her arms, gentle tears rolling down her cheeks. “I heard about that girl. Th—that you found her. I came straight home.”
I nodded, unable to speak. Then my body began to shake, and I was sobbing uncontrollably. Seeing my mom did that—broke down the detached exterior I had put up, needing to keep it together for Chase.
“Shh,” she whispered, running her hands down my hair and leading me into the toasty family room. “I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t know what I would have done if she weren’t here. The idea of being alone in this house was unappealing and drab. Torn in two, I didn’t know which I wanted more. To protect her from this insane, painful, deadly world I’d tumbled into, or empty my broken, dispirited soul to the one person who always made everything better.
I decided that tomorrow would be soon enough to stress about how close she was getting to all of this. Tonight I let her comfort me, take care of me. We both needed it.
If anything ever happened to her…