Page 58 of Visions of Darkness

The words dripped with wickedness.

And with it, a single tear slipped down my cheek.

Chapter Fifteen

Pax

Night hedged me in where I was hidden at the edge of the woods that grew up on the far side of the facility, concealed in the darkened shadows that hovered over me like phantoms.

I watched out the windshield of the car through the pattering rain that fell onto the pitted pavement. It gathered in soiled, polluted puddles, the droplets glinting as they hit in the diffuse light that shone from the industrial fixture above the single door that led into the side of the building.

The sign it illuminated readAdmissions.

I’d been here for hours, watching the few people who came and went.

Cataloging.

Categorizing.

Plotting.

Well, I’d been plotting for two days. Ever since the night when Aria had confessed the power she held and Timothy had heard the thoughts the Ghorl had been feeding into the monster’s mind.

I didn’t care how many warnings Ellis had given me—there was no way I was going to sit idle and let something happen to her.

She was in danger.

I knew it.

Knew it all the way to my twisted, fucked-up soul.

My soul that recognized her across the miles and space. The connection was the only thing that had kept me from going completely mad over the years. What had kept me from becoming exactly the kind offreakmy father had thought me to be.

Two mornings ago, after I’d found the Kruen and thrown myself on it, knowing it’d burn me so that I’d be awakened, I’d tossed necessities into a bag and left my shithole apartment in Las Vegas. I’d driven straight through because there wasn’t a thing that could keep me away from her.

Yeah, I knew what city she lived in. I’d gleaned the information through the years and tucked it away. Maybe it was just the comfort in having an idea of where she lived. Knowing she wasn’t that far. That her home was real.

Thatshewas real.

Or maybe I’d known somewhere in the back of my mind that one day I would have to use that information.

That it would come to this.

I think I’d probably known it since the first time she was hospitalized, the day after she’d turned sixteen. She’d come crying and trembling into Tearsith that night, terrified that she’d been locked away.

She’d always been too trusting of her family, but I got that it was just her heart. She loved fully and without restraint, when in reality, she should have been skeptical of any asshole who came into her space.

Maybe I was just jaded. But I’d learned the hard way that people couldn’t be trusted. Hell, I saw the proof of it in their thoughts every fucking night.

Rage held me as I sat in the car and waited for the right opportunity to make my move.

The double doors at the front of the facility had long since been locked for the night, and the only way in was the Admissions door a hundred yards in front of me.

I knew firsthand. I had slunk around the perimeter, masked by the gloom, checking windows and doors and looking for an access point, while my spirit screamed in awareness.

Howled with the knowledge that Aria was inside.

I could feel her in a way that Nols weren’t supposed to be able to.

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