Exhausted, Granddad stepped to a folding chair and lowered himself into it. Grandma knelt beside him. He squeezed the hand on his arm, then said, “No, hon. We built this room to hold you.”
I glanced at the vault, at the thick metallic walls and steel door. “Does the word ‘overkill’ mean anything? Because I’m pretty sure a small closet would suffice. And what did I do to deserve imprisonment anyway?”
He smiled sadly. “We built it after you were taken. After you were possessed. We thought that if we managed to exorcise the demon, we would need a place to hold it. Otherwise, he could just jump into someone else. And, we just didn’t know what you would do with it inside you. If you would try to kill us. We had to plan.”
“Oh. And I love that you never told me that either.” Now I was just being childish. What were they supposed to do? I had a demon inside me. They had little choice.
“You’re right. I’m so sorry, pix. You’re getting old enough to be able to handle all this. We won’t keep anything else from you.”
For some reason, I seriously doubted that.
“I think it’s going to hold,” Mr. Walsh said. He’d been inspecting the room, walking around it and checking for faults in the metal. Brooke was sitting against the vault door with Cameron, and for the first time, I realized she was shaking uncontrollably. I was about to step to her but was blindsided.
“It’s up!”
We all turned to Glitch as he beckoned us from the doorway.
“Glitch?” Brooklyn asked, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
He winked at her, then turned back to my grandparents. “We have audio and video out. Nothing in. Didn’t have time.”
After another thud that sounded like the earth beneath us was giving way, Brooke and Cameron stood. We followed Glitch as he led the way to yet another outer room, a small supply closet on the other side of the vault. There was a monitor set up, along with other technical equipment.
“Did you do all this?” I asked him.
“With the help of Mr. Lusk, Cameron’s dad, yes.”
Mr. Lusk popped up from underneath the desk and nodded a hello. “Cameron, how are you?”
Cameron massaged his throat. “I might need a beer, but I’m okay.”
Mr. Lusk cast him a dubious frown.
I frowned at him too. “I thought beer didn’t do anything for you.”
“Okay, an aspirin, then.”
I looked closely at the monitor, at the green glow of a night-vision camera projected onto the screen. It was Jared. I sank into a chair and watched as he paced like a caged animal, his shoulders hunched, his movements sharp and calculating.
Glitch reached over and turned a knob on a speaker. “It would be better if I’d had more time, but it should work.”
That’s when I heard Jared’s breaths, his whispery curses, his soft footsteps.
“We can hear him, but he can’t hear us. I didn’t have enough—”
“Are you sure?” Brooke asked, interrupting. She’d come in behind me and noticed the same thing I did. “Because the minute you said that, he turned.”
Jared had spun around when Glitch spoke, looking up at the camera in the corner, his eyes bright, his stare hard and intentional.
I decided to test it. I leaned forward and asked, “Can you hear me, Jared?”
A slow, purposeful smile spread across his face, one that I was getting used to. One that held no humor whatsoever, no warmth, nothing but scorn and indifference.
“What happened to you?” I asked him.
He took a step forward. “Open the door and I’ll tell you.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I’ll take you quick, Lorelei, painlessly, if you open it now.”
Grandma gasped and put a hand to her mouth. Granddad draped an arm over her shoulders.
“Why do you want me dead?” I asked.
His head tilted to one side. “It’s what I do.”
My chest squeezed painfully around my heart, hitching my breath, stinging my eyes. Was it all just a game? From the beginning to the times that we’d kissed, was he just playing with me?
“Come on, pix,” Granddad said as he took my arm to lift me out of the seat. “No good can come of this.”
“Stay,” Jared said, his voice calm, threatening. I stood to leave the room and he stepped closer to the camera. “Stay or they all die.”
I hesitated, then sank back down into the seat. Grandma kneeled next to me. “If he gets out of there, hon, we’re all dead anyway. He’s just taunting you, baiting you.” I suddenly understood why everyone was so afraid of Jared when they had found out what he was. I could now empathize on a level I didn’t want to.
“No,” Cameron said, bending to the monitor. “He probably does want her to stay, so he’s making empty threats.”
“And the hybrid speaks,” Jared said.
“How is he hearing us?” Glitch asked, checking wire after wire. “That room is encased in steel ten inches thick. And there is no audio in. I guarantee it.”
Cameron reproached him with a baleful look. “He’s an archangel, Glitch-head. He can do things like that.”
Glitch flipped him off, but Cameron paid no attention.
“Why would he want her to stay?” Grandma asked, and Cameron offered her a much softer version of his reproach.
“Because he really is in love with her.”