I didn’t hesitate. “I would risk everything to keep those I love safe. Here goes beating the odds.”
He smiled then. “I thought you would say that. Good luck, Angel, but I don’t think you will need it.”
What the hay? I thought as I left Ives’s, now was as good a time as any to try out my newly-possible commanding skills. If it worked, awesome, we were all getting out alive. If it didn’t, then I was banking on Chase finding me before it was too late and saving the day. I did have my ruby-tipped dagger as a backup.
Fat lot of good it did coming here. I had a 50/50 chance of getting rid of Alastair once and for all. Maybe not in the way I’d hoped, but effective nonetheless. Plus if it did work, it would be kind of kickass to be the Queen Bee of the underworld.
Regardless of what happened, I was going to make sure this was his last trip to Earth.
Chapter 27
The last time I had been here, the woods were thick and brimming with overgrown green trees. Now it was just frozen patches of grass and dead leaves. It brought an ominous touch to the air, and to what I was about to do. Moonbeams filtered through the bare branches. Winds whistled, knocking the twigs together and making me edgy. They were the only sounds in the eerie forest—no birds, no crickets, no little woodland creatures like before.
Shit was definitely going south.
After I left Ives, I went straight to my school, ignoring the buzzing cellphone on the empty seat beside me. It had gone off the entire way back into the sleepy town of Spring Valley. I knew that Chase had probably followed me out to Ives’s place, but by the time he got there, I would be knee-deep in demon poopy.
Blowing out a breath, I stepped from the football clearing into the dense covering of pine trees. Time was of the essence. The rising panic hammering in my ribs had no doubt already tipped off Chase that I was doing something reckless. It was just a matter of minutes before he began tracking me here.
The deeper I traveled, the more vibrant the pulsing at my side became. I used that connection to Hell, to Alastair, to guide me. Pushing on, I ran on trembling legs, powered by the desire to see my mom. My hair whipped me in the face, underbrush tangled with my shoes, and branches lashed at the fabric of my sleeves.
If that filthy bastard so much as played me, I was going to go ballistic. I was going to squeeze his fiery balls until they bled. Mom had better be there without a hair out of place. I wanted her back undamaged and just the way she was before being kidnapped.
I didn’t know how realistic that was.
Dogged with exhaustion, I refocused my fading energy and concentrated on my rage, putting one foot in front of the other as I raced between the trees. The last thing I wanted to do was kiss the ground in my tired-clumsiness. Not exactly the force-to-be-reckoned-with entrance I had planned in my head.
Nothing ever played out like I imagined. Oh, just the opposite.
Breaking through to a small overrun clearing, I felt the ground vibrate under my feet in a tremble of remembrance. My hip was blazing. A sense of déjà vu rippled inside me. And there was a patch of scarred ground, blackened in an odd oval. This was it—the place where I had met Death.
All around, dark trees shot up to the midnight sky. Ice crystals formed in various flowery shapes on the branches. If I closed my eyes, I knew that I would see the events of that fatal night unfold. So vivid. So real.
And then before I tumbled into the past, I saw my mom. It was a renewed sense of purpose, seeing her.
She lay like sleeping beauty, waves of her honey hair spilling over her creamy shoulders. Long lashes tickled her pale face. Alastair had situated her on top of a stone altar, not very comforting. Altars made me think of sacrifices. Sacrifices made me think of blood. Blood made me think of death.
I wanted to avoid all of those things.
She was covered in a crimson blanket, just another visual of that sticky substance that made me fidget. I despised it, but after I got past the images my mind was creating, a beam of hope bloomed inside my chest. She was really here—no illusion. The asshole hadn’t lied.
“Mom,” I whispered, a puff of white air expelled from my lungs as I rushed forward.
The world around me disappeared. I had tunnel vision just for Mom, assaulted by the overwhelming feeling of seeing her. I wanted to cry, to laugh, to fist pump in the air.
Running, I reached her side, and my spirit sagged, along with my body.
I dropped to my knees. She wasn’t moving. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing, and she most definitely wasn’t responding. Her lifeless body scared the ever-loving crap out of me. Fear crept into my bones, making me shake.
Was I too late?