Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
I was right behind her, searching the area as we moved.
It was quiet.
Still.
Tree limbs stretched out over the road to make an arch, some bare but others still green in the winter.
The houses were older, and each was on at least an acre of land, if not more. Set back from the road and fronted by lawns and more of those abundant trees.
“This is it,” Aria rasped when we made it to the address about halfway up the street. It was a small white house with a porch out front. Potted plants overflowing with colorful flowers sat at the top of the steps on either side, and a huge barren oak grew proudly in the middle of the yard.
Aria didn’t hesitate. She ran up the walkway and bounded up the stairs. One second later, she was pounding on the door. Her palm smacked against the wood while I shifted, letting my gaze rove over the area, searching for anything amiss.
Silence echoed back from every direction.
The area almost too calm for my comfort.
Aria banged again. The wood clattered against the force. “Dani! Dani! Are you in there? It’s Aria. Open the door. Please.”
A flutter of movement suddenly whispered behind the drapes that covered the window to the left side of the door. In it, a wave of intensity rushed through the atmosphere, and a second later, metal ground as the person on the other side worked through the locks.
The door flew open.
Big, pale eyes rounded with shock stared back.
Dani.
She staggered where she stood, completely bewildered at finding us there.
“You’re alive,” Aria seemed to beg before she threw herself at her friend.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Aria
Relief blew through me on a gale force as I hugged Dani to me.
Fiercely.
So fiercely I thought I would break her in half. My tiny slip of a friend who was alive and breathing in my arms.
Whole and real and unharmed.
“Oh God, I was so worried.” It poured out of me as I struggled to get her closer.
Relishing the slosh of the blood that beat through her veins.
Her cropped, short hair, which was normally a shock of white in Tearsith and Faydor, was dyed a bright pink, and the ends stuck up and poked me in the face. I had to suppress the urge to weep into them.
“Aria?” Dani wheezed into my embrace, squeezing me back just as tight. “You came? I can’t believe this. I didn’t think to hope . . .”
Clutching her, I breathed out the terror I’d been holding in since I woke this morning. “I thought I was going to be too late. We tried to call, but it just kept ringing. I was so afraid.”
“What do you mean, ‘too late’? What is going on?” Except I thought she must have anticipated it, with the chill I felt sweep through her.
Or maybe all of us could feel the threat that loomed. Dark clouds that churned and spun. But I swore I could feel the tiniest speck of light in the center of the storm.
Hidden and trying to burst free.
I gathered myself enough to pull back so I could look down at my friend’s cherubic face. She had a giant scar slashed at an angle across the left side of her forehead, wore wire-rimmed glasses, and had her makeup done in a way that made her look like she might be a professional.
She was stunning and beautiful, and God . . .
Emotion gripped me, and I grabbed her by the cheeks, unable to stop myself from touching her.
Needing to feel the palpable, undeniable truth that we’d made it on time.
“I saw you . . .” My words were thick. “In Ambrose’s mind last night while I was in Faydor. He came here . . . to this house . . . in the middle of the day.”
Her pallid skin, which was covered in nearly as many tattoos as Pax’s, blanched further, and she nodded in understanding. “I guess he’s coming for all of us, isn’t he? We all know something has changed, even though I’d hoped somehow, in the middle of it, we’d all be safe.”
She breathed out a shaky sigh. “I’ve kept my doors triple-locked and the alarm on day and night. I wasn’t about to come outside. I nearly lost it when I heard the banging on my door, thinking it was the end. That I was trapped. But then I heard your voice, and I peeked out . . .”
Her tongue stroked out to wet her lips. “For a second, I thought I must be being deceived into thinking it was you. But it is . . . You’re here.”
“I’m here.”
“Ah . . . I see how it is. Already forgetting about me.” Pax’s voice was close to teasing, and I let her go and shifted around to look at him at the same time that Dani pushed out a tinkling laugh. Her gray eyes washed over him where he stood at the top of the steps, keeping guard.