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A
s I climbed the rickety stairs to the attic, the railing swayed. Or maybe it was me. After my conversation with Faith, everything felt off balance.

The room didn’t help.

Crossbows and rifles hung from metal hooks on the attic’s Peg-Board walls—along with knives, Tasers, chains, and a pickax. Another reminder of the war we were fighting.

Jared sat on top of a sleeping bag in the middle of it all, with his elbows propped on his knees, staring out the window.

Alara and Elle had claimed the remaining bedroom in the house, outfitted with a fold-out sofa hidden behind a wall of bundled newspapers. When I saw the sofa, I wondered if my father had ever slept there. Priest and Lukas ended up in my aunt’s great room, surrounded by her paintings. They
seemed that to sense that Jared and I needed time alone, or they didn’t want to get stuck in the attic with the two of us.

Seeing Jared sitting there with his hands clasped behind his neck, something he only did when he was worried or uncomfortable, reminded me how vulnerable he really was—and how well he hid it.

He turned around as if he sensed me watching him, and his face broke into a smile. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I smiled back and walked toward him.

Jared pulled me down in front of him, and my legs slid into the empty space underneath his, leaving us barely a foot apart.

“I can’t believe you’re really here.” His thumb ran down the side of my face, pausing to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. He lifted my chin, never taking his eyes off me. When his lips finally grazed mine, I felt it everywhere.

A soft sigh escaped my lips as his hand slid around to the back of my neck. The next kiss was hungrier. Fingers trailing over my skin. Teeth tugging at my bottom lip. Hands tangled in my hair. I had forgotten the way the rest of the world melted away when he touched me.

“God, I missed you,” he murmured against my lips.

I nodded, unable to say the words. Because as much as I’d missed Jared, I felt damaged and broken in ways no one could fix.

Jared held my shoulders gently and leaned away from me, studying my face. “You’re shaking. Did something happen?”

“I’m just cold.” I tried to keep my expression unreadable.

He wrapped his arms around me, heat radiating from his body into mine. For a moment, I let myself feel it. The warmth and safety I only felt with him.

“I still can’t believe you’re here and I’m holding you.” He tugged me closer, burying his face in my neck. “I thought about you all the time, Kennedy.”

“I tried not to think about you.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.

His shoulders tensed.

“Not because my feelings changed.” Tears pricked my eyes. “Because it hurt too much. I—”

“What?” Hope edged its way into his voice.

I shook my head and closed my eyes.

Jared pulled me against his chest, his heart beating fast. “Talk to me, Kennedy. You’re scaring me.”

Tell him.

“I was afraid I’d never see you again.”

He stiffened. “You didn’t believe I’d come back for you.” Jared still thought he wasn’t good enough for me—that his mistakes eclipsed everything else about him. He didn’t realize I was the one who wasn’t good enough for him.

Jared let his fingers slide down my arms. “You don’t know how hard—” He inhaled deeply. “It killed me to leave you behind that night. You were hurt, and I just walked away.”

“You didn’t have a choice.”

“Yeah.” He sounded disgusted. “That’s what I told
myself, for about five minutes. Then I circled back to the interstate and hitched a ride to the closest hospital.”

I lifted my head off his chest and stared at him. “Are you kidding? What if you’d gotten caught?”

“I didn’t care. I needed to know you were okay. But when I got there, you were already in the emergency room. I tried sneaking back to see you, but the cops were all over the place.”

I remembered lying on the hospital bed, praying he was okay.

If I’d known he was so close…

“Eventually, they moved you. I watched them wheel you into the elevator. Your face was still muddy and you had this look in your eyes.” Jared bit his lip. “I don’t know how to describe it. You looked so alone, like you didn’t care what happened to you. It took everything I had in me not to go over there. Watching those elevator doors close with you inside—” He shook his head. “Felt like it broke me.”

Every part of me ached for him. I rested my palm on his chest, above his heart.

Jared laid both of his hands on top of mine and held them there. “You’re the only thing I thought about, Kennedy, I swear. I didn’t care about the demon or the dead crows or the end of the world. I know it was selfish, but all that mattered was finding you.”

The back of my throat burned. “I thought about you, too. I wanted you to find me. I just—”

He squeezed my hand. “What?”

I struggled to find the words. “I know you said you were thinking about me, but after everything that happened, I didn’t think you’d want me anymore.”

And I don’t deserve you.

Jared looked stunned. He pulled me into his lap and pressed his forehead against mine. “You’re the only thing I want. But it’s more than that. The way I feel about you…”

“What?” I didn’t know what he was about to say, but I wanted to hear it.

“I need you,” he whispered. “More than I’ve ever needed anything.”

I tugged on the collar of his thermal and kissed him like I might never get the chance again. When we finally came up for air, Jared pulled the sleeping bag around us. “I’ve never said that to anyone before.”

I wanted to tell him I felt the same way, but I stopped myself. “Are you sorry you said it?”

“No.” He shook his head in the darkness. “I’m just not used to talking about the way I feel. I was always the guy who never let anyone get too close, because I didn’t want to care. Not like this.”

“And now?”

He tightened his arms around me, the only answer he could give. I rested my head against his chest and listened to the sound of his heartbeat.

As I drifted off to sleep, I heard Jared whisper something else. “I don’t even remember how to be that guy anymore.”

I
awoke with Jared’s body curled around mine, his chest rising and falling against my back in a gentle rhythm. His lips grazed my neck each time he took a breath, sending a shiver up my spine.

I forgot about where we were and all the things that had led us here, until a streak of light fell across the wall of weapons.

I untangled my body from Jared’s and tiptoed down the attic staircase.

We needed Faith, no matter how crazy she seemed. She knew more about Andras and the Legion than the rest of us, and if she was right about the Illuminati, we were in the dark on yet another front. As much as I hated the
thought, if I promised to sit on the sidelines, maybe she would reconsider and help us.

I padded down the hallway. The bare white walls and the emergency lighting along the baseboards reminded me how different my aunt’s life was from mine—and how much lonelier.

When I reached Faith’s door, I stood there with my fist poised in the air.

You can do this.

A strange sound came from inside. Was she crying? The sound grew louder, and I recognized the insistent whimper.

Bear.

“Faith?” I called through the door, knocking over and over. “It’s Kennedy. Is everything okay?”

A door opened down the hall, and Alara poked her head out. “What’s going on?”

“Something’s wrong.” I pounded harder. “Her door is locked, and Bear’s in there whining. She’s not answering.”

Alara jammed her feet into her black tactical boots and buckled her tool belt around her waist as she walked toward me.

“Can we break down the door or something?” I asked.

“It’s not as easy as it looks in the movies. You have to kick it in just the right spot.”

Alara pushed me out of the way. “Back up. This is a one-woman job.”

I stared at the layers of chipped white paint coating
Faith’s door. It had been painted at least a half dozen times, each new shade slapped over the peeling layer below it.

Something terrible is waiting on the other side.

Alara kicked the middle of the door with the bottom of her boot. The wood cracked and splintered. The second time Alara’s boot made contact, the lock snapped and rusty screws rolled across the floor.

The door swung open slowly, and I stumbled into the room.

A sweet scent clung to the air. At least it wasn’t sulfur, the telltale sign of a demonic presence.

Bear whimpered, and my eyes drifted to where he sat next to the four-poster bed.

Tiny green pods the size of olives were scattered all over the floor.

“Oh my god.” Alara clamped a hand over her mouth.

Faith was slumped against the headboard.

My mind flashed back to the night I found my mother’s body—her empty stare and her pale arm hanging over the side of the bed.

I just wanted her to wake up.

I inched closer to my aunt, unable to stop myself.

Wake up, Faith.

Faith’s eyes were closed, her face smeared with the pink stain she’d been painting on the bear traps earlier. A metal bucket was tipped over next to her bed, a pool of poisoned sap oozing across the floor.

Wintersweet.

Above the headboard, crushed green pods streaked the walls in the same intense shade of pink. They formed jagged letters exactly like the ones that had etched themselves into the mirror in my dorm room. But the message was different.

Voices drifted down the hallway. Jared, Lukas, Priest, and Elle were talking about something—maybe breakfast and hot showers or crazy aunts who tape garbage bags over their windows. They didn’t know Faith was dead—that I’d lost another family member, even if I barely knew her.

“We’re in Faith’s room,” Alara called out, sounding strangely calm. She looked up at the Eye of Ever painted on the ceiling above my aunt’s body. “The Eye wasn’t strong enough to protect her.”

Maybe nothing would’ve been.

Lukas stopped just inside the doorway. “Hey, what are you guys—”

Elle took one look at Faith’s body and the dripping wall, and screamed. “Is she dead? She’s dead, isn’t she?”

Priest’s eyes darted from my aunt’s bound wrists to the green berries scattered across the floor. “What the hell happened?”

Jared stared up at the message on the wall, transfixed.

“A vengeance spirit or something poisoned her.” Alara stepped away from the bed, trying to distance herself from the body and the message.

“Something?”
Elle backed into the doorjamb and jumped. “What kind of something?”

For once, I was the one with the answer. “A demon.”

Lukas, Jared, Alara, and Priest guided me and Elle out of Faith’s bedroom, their weapons drawn.

“We should bury her.” I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her lying under the sinister message.

“Not until we sweep the house.” Priest tossed Jared an EMF, taking command.

“Stay here with Elle.” Jared kissed my forehead and handed me a semiautomatic with silver duct tape wrapped around the barrel. He slid his hand up the side of my leg until he reached the pocket of my jeans. The metal clinked as he dropped salt rounds inside. “Just in case.”

“In case of what?” Elle flattened herself against the wall.

“I’ll stay with Kennedy and Elle.” Lukas’ eyes flickered over Elle’s face when he said her name, but she was too terrified to notice.

Instead, she clamped her hand around his arm in a death grip. “You won’t leave us, right?”

He pushed a strand of red hair out of her eyes. “It’s gonna be okay.”

She nodded over and over like a battery-operated toy with a glitch.

“I’m going to check the salt lines.” Alara headed for the stairs with her nail gun drawn and a rifle leaning against her other shoulder.

Bear followed, racing to get ahead of her.

I stood next to Lukas and Elle, listening to the familiar chirping sounds of the EMFs.

Elle stared at Faith’s door with a dazed expression, and scooted farther away from it. “I can’t believe she’s dead. And the way it happened… I never should’ve taken that bracelet from the museum.”

“This had nothing to do with the bracelet.” My hand tightened around the grip of the gun. What happened in my aunt’s room was connected to the message scratched into my mirror at Winterhaven.

“Kennedy’s right,” Lukas said. “When objects are haunted, the vengeance spirit is attached to the item itself. And the bracelet is buried out in the woods somewhere. Trust me, I’ve dealt with a lot of vicious spirits. This is something else.”

Elle looked up at Lukas, her chocolate brown eyes still dazed. “Why do you do it?”

“What are we talking about exactly?” He shifted his gaze between Elle’s face and the spot on the floor between
them, as if he suddenly realized how close together they were standing.

Elle rubbed her face, smearing a trail of black eyeliner across her cheek. “I know you’re trying to keep a demon from opening the gates of hell and turning the world into his personal playground. And I get that. But Kennedy said you’ve been fighting these killer spirits since you were a kid,
before
the demon even escaped.” Her thoughts spilled out in a crazy stream of consciousness. “Why would you risk your life like that?”

I remembered asking Jared and Lukas the same question when I first met them, wondering why anyone would take those kinds of risks.

Lukas wiped the smudged eyeliner off her face. “Because I want to protect people.”

Elle nodded as if she understood.

After that, the hallway was quiet. No flickering lights or wires ripping themselves out of the walls, only the sound of familiar voices and normal EMF readings, until Priest and Jared returned.

“The house is clean.” Priest propped the Punisher against the wall next to him.

Jared slid his fingers between mine like it was something he’d done a thousand times.

Bear trotted up the stairs with Alara behind him. “Salt lines are all intact.”

“I want to bury her.” After all the terrible things that had happened to Faith, she deserved some peace.

We buried Faith in the fresh grave she had dug herself.

Alara recited a prayer, and we took turns tossing handfuls of dirt into the hole. I kept picturing my mother’s gravesite, the details as clear as a photograph.

Standing behind a mound of overturned earth. Staring down at the white roses—some bent or broken—and the dirt-covered petals scattered over the glossy coffin.

I looked away when Jared and Lukas refilled the hole. I couldn’t watch. Instead, I kept my eyes fixed on the headstone, where Jared had chiseled the year of her death.

Had Faith known the end was coming all along? Did she see it in one of her dreams? I added them to the list of unanswered questions piling up in my head.

I still didn’t know why my mother had kept the Legion a secret from me, or if she had ever planned to tell me the truth. Was she afraid of the Illuminati—of men like Archer who might hurt us?

My eyes skimmed over the epitaph:
May she sleep with the doves.
Faith had probably chosen it herself. I tried to imagine writing my own. What would it say?

The girl who destroyed the world
.

I followed everyone back into the house. They stopped to talk in what would’ve been the living room in a normal home.
Standing there, surrounded by my aunt’s prophetic paintings, I was vaguely aware of the conversations around me.

“How did he get inside?”

“Andras can’t cross a salt line.”

“We don’t know what he can do.”

Until I heard something I couldn’t ignore.

“Do you think this means Kennedy is one of us now?” Alara sounded hopeful.

“You heard what my aunt said about not wanting me to be part of the Legion.” I tried to act like it didn’t bother me.

“Who else would she choose? Your dad?” Priest asked. “He’s not exactly the next generation.”

“Did you really just say that out loud?” Alara hissed at him under her breath before turning back to me. “Adults spend half their time lecturing us about the things they won’t let us do, then they end up changing their minds.”

I thought about everything my aunt had shared with me about the Illuminati, Archer, and her past. She wouldn’t have told me her secrets if she didn’t trust me, and Faith had seemed less guarded when we were alone.

What if Priest was right, and Faith had changed her mind and chosen me?

“Maybe.” I didn’t try to sound convincing.

“We should get our stuff together and get out of here,” Priest said to Jared, or maybe Lukas. I wasn’t paying attention anymore.

I focused on the silver buckles that ran up the sides of
my boots, the loose thread on the bottom of my shirt, a brown smudge on my hand. It took me a second to realize what it was.

Dirt. From my aunt’s grave.

My stomach lurched, as if the smudge was blood. After the past twenty-four hours, it was close enough, and all I could think about was getting it off.

Jared looked up when he saw me rushing toward the hallway.

“I’m just going to wash my hands.” I could tell he was worried by the way he was tracking my every move.

Before he had a chance to respond, something hit the roof with a thud.