I fell on my knees next to Patti and took her in my arms. She held on to me, weakly.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

“I don’t know what happened. I felt so sick and scared . . . and . . .” She shuddered, and I held her tighter.

“Who was here?” Kaidan asked.

The sight of him crouched there with wild eyes made me realize how fast everything had taken place. His hair was soaking wet and he had water droplets on his chest and shoulders.

“I have no idea,” Jay said, thoroughly freaked out. “It was so weird, dude. And you should have seen Anna! What is that thing?” He pointed to the hilt, which I still clutched. “It was all lit up. She moved so fast. I’ve never seen anyone move like that!”

It hadn’t felt fast to me. It had felt horrifically slow, like a nightmare.

Kaidan crouched next to me, all coiled tension, taking my face in his hands. “What happened?”

“Three whisperers were on Jay. Two on Patti. One was trying to possess her.” Patti’s shaking hand flew to her mouth and she made a strangled sound of disgust. I kept going. “I killed four of them . . . but one got away.”

“One got away . . . ,” he whispered.

We stared hard at one another as the danger pressed down on us. Kaidan stood, shoving his hands through his hair, and paced to the wall. He leaned against it with both palms, whispering at first, “Shite. Shite, Anna . . . ,” then yelling and punching a hole through the wall.

Jay stood as if ready to calm Kaidan, but Patti grabbed his hand.

“It’s okay,” she told Jay. “They need to go.”

“You all should go somewhere, too,” I told her. Inside I trembled. I’d put them in danger. “I saw one earlier in the kitchen. I thought I was imagining it, but it must’ve been a whisperer. It saw us hugging. You two need to go into hiding. Just keep moving. Don’t stay in one place more than a night.”

I helped her to her feet. She and Jay ran upstairs to pack their bags. I turned and found Kai leaning his back against the wall, the palms of his hands pushing against his eyes.

“Kai.”

He dropped his hands and stood, looking at me with the same kind of fear that had filled his eyes the night of the summit in New York City. Fear for me.

“I don’t think they know you’re here,” I said. “That’s to our advantage.”

He thought about that, nodding.

We needed to move fast. “You’re not on the suspicion list, so you can stay in the know. We’ll go our separate ways and—”

“No.” Kai’s hard voice carried an end-of-discussion ring to it. “I stay with you.”

Oh, no. His attitude was grim and unyielding. I wanted to stay with him, too, but it wasn’t smart.

“As soon as they catch you with me, they’ll know you’re on my side and you’ll be an immediate target, too. Think this through—”

“We stay together.” His steely eyes warned me not to argue. I’d never seen him more dead set on something. I knew he’d follow me if he had to.

I sighed and looked away. “Okay. Let’s get our stuff and get out of here.”

He softened a fraction with relief.

We grabbed our bags. Jay gave me a quick hug as Patti embraced Kaidan.

“Please be careful,” I whispered to Patti.

“You don’t worry about me.” She talked fast, her voice shaking as she took my face in her hands. “Just remember you can do anything you put your heart to. I’d do anything for you, Anna. I’d fight this battle for you if I could.”

Patti and I squeezed each other equally hard.

My throat constricted as I whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, sweet girl. Now go.”

With a gentle shove from the strongest woman I knew, we were gone.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MERCENARY

Kaidan reached for my car keys and took the driver’s seat. I sat next to him, fitting one of Jay’s ball caps on my head as Kai peeled out of the neighborhood. He looked down at the speedometer as if impressed.

“This little thing has some power.”

“Yeah, my dad probably had that in mind when he bought it.” It was sad to think that Dad had bought my car knowing I’d have to make an escape in it someday.

Kaidan did a double take at me in the hat. I wondered if I looked stupid, but then his red badge gave a widening pulse. He tore his eyes away and hit the gas harder, pressing me back into the seat. I was afraid to look at the speed as we merged onto Interstate 81.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

He shook his head, and when he spoke he sounded angry. “No idea. Deeper into these mountains, I suppose.”

I rubbed his shoulder to try and calm him.

“This is my fault,” he said. “I should have taken an earlier flight, then you would’ve been back at school. None of this would’ve happened.”

This was the peril of loving—wanting more time together, taking risks. I hated knowing we’d put ourselves in danger, but it was impossible to regret the time we’d had together.

“It was bound to go down eventually, Kai.”

“But it didn’t have to be now.” His hands went white as he gripped the wheel, and his jaw tightened. I felt sad for him because I knew he was going into this without any belief we would survive.

“We have to have hope,” I whispered.

As he opened his mouth to say something, his phone rang. My heart sped as he pulled it from his pocket.

We both glanced at the unknown Oregon number, and Kaidan cursed.

Pharzuph.

I stayed completely silent while he answered.

“Hallo.”

“It’s Pharzuph. This is my new number, so program it into your phone.”

A chill zapped up my spine.

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you in Atlanta?”

Kaidan glanced at me and I watched, holding my breath. It was still weird to hear Pharzuph speak with a young American voice.

“Not yet,” Kai said.

“Meet me at our former home tonight at nine p.m. I’m flying in, and we have some things to discuss.”

Kaidan cleared his throat. I watched the pulse jump in his neck.

“I’ll see you at nine o’clock, sir.”

“Don’t be late.” Pharzuph hung up.

Kaidan’s hand curled around the phone so hard I worried he’d crush it. “He sounds like a right prick. Even more than usual.”

“Oh, he’s obnoxious in this new body. You’re gonna want to beat the crap out of him the whole time.”

He huffed at that and almost smiled. I pried the phone from his hand and twined my fingers with his. We both held tight.

I turned in the seat to face him. “If we can manage to make it to Georgia without being seen together, I want to stay within a mile of the house to listen.”

“Anna—”

“No. You were the one who wanted us to stay together, so you need to let me do this. If anything happens to you, Kaidan, I swear I will show up there. And I will kill him.”

At the seriousness of my voice and words, his eyes slammed into mine.

“Keep talking like that, Anna Rowe, and I’ll have to pull this car over.”

I grinned. “No time for that. I’m gonna lie down and try to stay out of sight.”

I crawled into the backseat, earning a smack on the bottom as I went, and covered myself with a blanket I’d grabbed from Patti’s. At least this way, from the outside, Kaidan would appear to be alone in the car. His head turned long enough to run his hot gaze over me curled up on the small seat.

I reached up to poke his shoulder. “Eyes on the road, you.”

He obeyed, reaching for the radio. “Try to sleep.”

The odds were stacked against us. A year and a half ago I had held my hands up to the heavens and told them to deal me in, and they had. Now the prophecy was about to happen—this war on earth between the demons and their children—with me leading the way. My stomach was in knots.