“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Something.”
Jared kept the book under his arm on the return trip to the loft. He escorted me to the end of the alley and then leaned down to kiss me goodbye. Before our lips touched, he looked up as if he sensed something around us.
“I should go. It’s already attracting them.”
I clenched his jacket. “I don’t want you to go alone.”
“Claire needs to stay here with you. I can’t leave you unprotected.”
“What about Bex? Can’t he stay here with me?” I asked, searching his face as my mind raced to find an alternative.
“Bex is with Lillian,” he said. I immediately understood his indicative reply; he was covering all the bases.
“Jared.…” I said, tightening my grip.
He pulled me to him. “If we wait much longer, they’ll come to us, and we don’t want that. This is our only option.”
I leaned back and closed my eyes, shaking my head. “There has to be another way. There has to be—,”
Jared cupped my jaw and his thumb brushed my cheek. “As long as your heart is beating, so is mine.”
I tried to forge a brave expression on my face. “I love you.”
Jared’s eyes grew soft and the corners of his mouth moved upward. “I love you. I’ll see you soon.”
Claire gently rested her warm hands on my shoulders as we watched him pull from the curb and then disappear around a corner down the street.
I felt my insides wrench. “Tell me he’s going to be all right.”
Claire turned me to face her and grinned. “I wasn’t overdoing it, earlier. He will come back. And if they piss him off, he’ll come back with a few demon notches in his belt. Jared doesn’t know how to fail.”
We walked upstairs and I sat on the couch, trying to relax so Jared wouldn’t be distracted by my fear.
Claire sat beside me, fidgeting.
“You want to watch a movie?” she asked.
I slowly turned my head toward her in disbelief.
“You want to watch TV?” she asked, leaning over to grab the remote from the coffee table.
“No,” I snapped.
Claire blew her bangs from her face and sat quietly beside me for awhile. After a long, awkward silence, she took in a deep breath of air.
“I was a daddy’s girl,” she mused. “When we used to go on vacations, tagging along with your family, of course, I’d get so jealous when my dad would compliment you or even mention your name. When he would be away, with Jack, I would get so angry that you were spending time with him instead of me. My mom would try to explain, but…to a little girl that would rather be with her dad than at an amusement park, I refused to even try to understand.”
Claire’s eyes darkened. “When Jack died…I hated him,” she swallowed. “When my father started feeling weak just an hour later…I hated you. My Dad was an Archangel. I never thought I would lose him. He was lying there, fading away, and all I could think about was that I had all of this strength, this speed, the intelligence…I was built to be a savior and I couldn’t save my own father.
“As hard as it was for me, Jared took it harder. When Dad took his last breath, I thought Jared was going to die with him,” she closed her eyes and a tear fell down her cheek.
“I was angry with him at first. I felt betrayed that he went to you. But now I see that he didn’t have a choice. You were the only hope he had left…you were the only one that could make sense of his purpose for existing, and he needed you. He needed to know that our lives were worth something. I can see that now. And I’m glad you have each other.”
I didn’t realize my mouth was open until she looked at me with wet eyes and chuckled.
She scooted closer. “I shouldn’t have hated you. My father loved you like family and it was just as important to him to keep you safe as it was any of us. It didn’t mean he loved me any less, I know that now. I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you.”
I wanted to hug her, but thought better of it. To my surprise she clasped my hand between hers.
I shook my head. “I owe you for so much—for the time away from your father, for my life…for Jared. You don’t owe me anything.”
A warm smile spread across Claire’s face and she squeezed my hand. “So we’ll start over.”
I started to speak but her eyes widened, and in the same second she stood with her back to me. I peeked around her to see the door slowly open, and for one fleeting moment I expected Jared to walk in.
But it wasn’t Jared.
A man in a charcoal-grey suit and tie strolled in through the door, looking around as if he were appraising the loft. When he smiled at me, Claire’s hands balled into fists at her sides, and her knuckles turned white under the pressure of her grip.
He was extraordinarily handsome, teeth gleaming white, black hair perfectly trimmed and slicked back. At first glance he seemed benign, but I recoiled when his black eyes bored into mine.