This wasn’t right. Not right at all.
I darted to the nightstand, opened the little drawer there. It got stuck, but I pulled it open. Her favorite book—a Joanna Lindsey historical romance novel she’d read over and over again, until the pages were falling out—was still in there, tucked away next to a packet of tissues. The pills she took made her eyes water.
Stumbling back, I stared at the little paperback in the drawer. What was happening?
“Josie?”
I whirled at the sound of Seth’s voice. He stood just inside the doorway. “Where is she?” When he didn’t answer immediately, panic eroded my fragile grasp on rational thought. “Where is she, Seth?”
“I don’t know, but—”
Wheeling away from him, I stormed toward the closet and ripped the doors open. Mom didn’t have a lot of clothes, mostly comfortable things like lounge pants and worn jeans, but she did have a few dresses.
They were gone.
Seth said my name again, and this time he was closer than before. “She has to be here somewhere. Maybe she’s at the lake.” That didn’t explain the missing clothes or pills, but I jumped on it like a lifeline. “Sometimes she goes down there. And the weather isn’t bad today.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think she’s there.”
“No.” I sidestepped him as he reached for me, hurrying toward the door, but he was right behind me, wrapping an arm around my waist, pulling me back against his chest.
“Stop for a sec, Josie. She’s not at any—”
A burst of strength I didn’t even know I had in me allowed me to break out of Seth’s embrace. He shouted my name, but I took off into the hallway, spinning out of control as fear for my mother took hold, sinking its razor-sharp claws into me, digging deep. I gave into it and I ran.
“Shit.”
This was about fifty levels of suck. Things were definitely off, and it wasn’t just the conversation about pie.
I took off after Josie. Damn, that girl was fast when she wanted be, and strong, too—abnormally strong in that moment she broke free, especially considering what had happened this morning. She was already downstairs, flying out the front door. Cursing under my breath, I leapt from the stairs and landed in the hall.
“Jesus H. Christ on a crutch.” Josie’s grandfather stumbled into the wall beside the doorway, his hand against his chest.
Shit on a brick.
“Forget you saw that.” I headed for the still-open door, turning back for a second, tossing out another compulsion. “And…I don’t know…go eat some more pie.”
Then I was outside, crossing the porch with one jump. Hitting the gravel, I spotted her breaking off at the treeline. I took off after her, chasing her through the tall oaks, and then she disappeared around a bend. Picking up speed, I burst out from the trees and skidded on sand-colored pebbles, kicking the tiny rocks into the air.
Josie was a few feet in front of me, standing near a pile of driftwood, staring across the still waters of a huge-ass lake. I brushed a strand of hair that had come loose behind my ear as I stared at her stiff back.
Gods, the last thing I needed was for her to run off like this, but dammit, her emotions were heavy, tangible in the cooled breeze, practically a third entity between us.
“She’s gone,” she said, turning around. Her blue eyes shone as she stared at me, her expression pleading, and there was a tug in my chest, an unsettled feeling, because I couldn’t answer that unspoken plea. Squeezing her eyes shut, she reopened them and walked past me, back toward the stand of trees. I turned, relieved when she stopped, her back to the trees. “Something’s wrong with my grandparents. They would never be okay with her leaving…or with someone taking her.”
Stepping forward, I stopped when a look that said she was ready to bolt again flickered across her face. “I think your grandparents are under a compulsion.”
“A compulsion?” she whispered, and a sudden gust of wind picked up her words, tossing them around. “Someone like you has been here? Took my mom and messed with my grandparents’ heads?”
I could already tell this wasn’t going to go over smoothly, but there was no point in lying. “It could be a pure, or a god or…”
“Or what?” She took a step back, her hands balling into fists. “Or what?” she shouted.
It could’ve been a Titan. But taking her mom and placing her grandparents under a compulsion didn’t make sense. If they knew where Josie lived, knew about her mom, I doubted anyone would’ve been alive in that house. But then again, the only Titan I’d ever met was Perses, and he was whacked enough to show me that Titans were capable of anything.
“God. This isn’t right. My mom hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“I know,” I said as carefully as possible. “I understand.”
“You understand?” She laughed as she raised her hands, pulling her hair back. “How in the hell do you understand, Seth? Have you ever had your entire world turned upside down? Told things you never thought possible were true? Had your mother possibly kidnapped by a mythical creature?”
“No.” And then I surprised the hell out of myself. “But I know someone who has. I knew someone who had their entire world turned upside down, who lost their mother and a lot of other people.” I couldn’t believe I was actually talking about her—about Alex—but I forged on. “So I’ve seen this before. I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to keep it together. Your grandparents are okay, so that leads me to believe that whoever took your mom didn’t want to upset or harm them. That’s a good sign.”
Her throat worked as she swallowed hard. Some of the panic receded from her expression, but her muscles tensed, and I knew she was going to run again. I really couldn’t blame her. The girl had been through a lot and she probably needed space and time, probably someone who could comfort her, but I couldn’t chase her around Bumfuck, Egypt, and I sucked at the whole comfort thing.
And we were running out of time.
Josie let out a sound that tore into me just as intensely as claws from a furie would, and she twisted at the waist, about to take flight. I took a step forward, ready to tackle her ass if need be, but before she could run, the ground under my feet began to tremble. Before I could take my next breath, a great and terrible sound— like a thousand shouts booming along a mountain—erupted.
Awareness curled its way down my spine as the glyphs bled onto my skin, swirling in warning, and gods, that was a really, really bad sign.