“No.”

“What do we do?”

“I’m gonna leave.”

“What?” he yelped. Is she freakin’ serious? She’s abandoning me!

“I’m making her mad,” Vera explained. “She doesn’t want me here. Can’t you feel it?”

Well, yes, he could. The rage in the room practically wiggled in the air around Vera, but that didn’t mean he wanted her to leave.

“The past few nights, you’ve walked her back to her room, right?”

“It wasn’t like this.”

“I know, that’s because I’m here,” Vera said through her teeth, as if moving her lips too much might make the room explode. “You can’t leave her here with Chloe.”

No shit. But he couldn’t do this alone.

He slumped forward, hands on his knees, a sudden urge to vomit rushing through him. Vera placed a hand on his back; there was a gentleness to her touch.

“I’ll be right outside. Trust me. It’ll work.”

She better hope it would. That was his sister in that bed!

But before he could reply, Vera turned for the door and left.

Max was alone, with Chloe, and with whoever, whatever, that was.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Vera

What. The. Literal. Hell!

That was not sleepwalking and definitely not a sloppy drunk. Holy Mother of Hades. How long has this been happening?

Vera collapsed against the side of her car with the breathlessness of the mental marathon she’d raced inside. The texture of the air in that house, she felt it. As soon as Maxwell’s mother left her bedroom, Vera didn’t hear it—she sensed it, with the force of a hand shoving her shoulder. I’m here. I see you.

And the woman did see her, though not the teenage girl who was supporting a classmate—she saw inside her. She saw her parents. She saw what they could do. That woman wanted Vera out. Vera didn’t know how she knew that, but she did.

She looked toward the front door, a coil of energy surging beneath her skin. Vera could hear the crispy rustle of leaves swaying in the trees. She could smell the mossy stench of algae from the creek a mile away. She could feel every prickling speck of rust on the car beneath her fingertips.

The adrenaline made her feel electrified, bouncing on her toes with her skin tingling.

Come on, Maxwell, get out of there….

Vera didn’t know how to help him, but that creature thought she did, and that alone put them in danger. Those candles it lit, throughout the entire house, were not a warning but a demonstration. To Vera. Of what it could do. Somehow Vera’s mind cleared of all clutter, and that truth was implanted in her very cells.

The demon believed Vera possessed her parents’ gifts, and right now, she wished it were true. Vera reached for her phone, fumbling inside her purse with quavering fingers.

What time was it in Barcelona? Morning—early morning, but still morning. She could call them.

Where was Maxwell?

Breathe, just breathe….

Gusts puffed out audibly as she peered at the modest ranch house, bopping on her toes, her phone gripped in prayer position at her lips. “Please, God, let him come out safe….”