Page 37 of Living Legend

Reese rolled his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked up at me skeptically, pushing himself all the way back onto his bed until he was propped up against the wall. “What was with you back there, by the way?”

“What do you mean?”

“Right before Ariel came in. You seemed really into whatever was in that photo. It’s like you were in your own world, deep enough to almost fuck up the entire plan.”

I bit my tongue, the decision whether to let Reese in on my family drama or not looming. He’d been there shortly after my mom left and he was the friend I’d needed at the time. He’d never met her, so he only knew the things I’d told him. Surprisingly, Reese was always the one who wanted to look more it all, but I’d always halted him. I’d always told him I didn’t care.

“It was a photo of Jonah and Amelia, with my dad.” I swallowed hard. “And my mom.”

“Your mom!” Reese shouted, right before I jumped up to cover his mouth. We didn’t need attention, especially for this.

“Yes. I don’t know anything else but that. They looked like they were friends, which is odd because my father never mentioned having any sort of friendship with Amelia. From the stories of my mom, they weren’t close enough to take photos like that.”

“Are you going to ask him about it? Or at least your dad?”

“No, not now. The woman has been a mystery to me pretty much my whole life; she can stay that way a little bit longer,” I answered, sitting back in my spot.

Reese rubbed his chin, blonde stubble poking out along his jawline. “So, Jonah was best pals with your mom and a messenger who went to Purgatory before the demon invader arrived has gone missing. Could this day get any more interesting?”

Another idea I had been mulling over found its way out of my mouth. “Maybe?”

Reese slithered down the wall, lying flat on his comforter. “Lay it on me.”

“For now, the stuff with my mom is going to have to take a backseat, because Keegan Finley could be a major key. Completely disappearing is something else, along with our questions about the portal keys. We can’t ask anyone about it; it’ll just lead back to all the messenger angel shit,” I began, trying to ease him into the notion running around in my head.

“Okay, that makes sense.”

“When I was looking through the book, I noticed Keegan did go to one place out of the ordinary before the Purgatory trip.”

Reese pushed himself up onto his elbows, getting a better look at me. I fiddled with a loose thread on my jeans as I continued. “I’m thinking we can go there, get some answers to our questions, or at least try to.”

Reese nodded. “Okay sweet. Where are we going?”

I sat my elbow on my thigh and tilted my head into my hand. “Oculus.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, pressing his lips tightly together. I knew it was taking everything inside him not to grab me by the shoulders and tackle me to the ground for suggesting another Oculus trip at all. “Why do I feel like you are constantly trying to get me killed?”

“I’m not, I promise. I want to figure this out as much as you do. The quicker we do, the faster the demons go home. If Keegan went to Oculus, that meant Jonah trusted him. It also means he spoke to Natalia, so she’s our next best bet. She seemed like she wanted to help.” I knew the main thing Reese heard was that the demons could go home sooner rather than later. The minute Dani told Elise they weren’t going back as soon as they’d hoped, Elise lost her mind. If Natalia could bring us closer to what we needed, than we had to try.

“Riddle me this Nick: we don’t have a portal key anymore, so how the hell do you expect us to get to Oculus?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at me expectedly.

I jumped off the desk and paced across the room. I kept stopping at his bed, opening my mouth, then turning around to walk away again. I knew he wasn’t going to like it, but he had to keep sucking it up. Once I’d made my sixth circle, I crossed my arms over my chest.

“We’re going to fly.”

Reese put his hand out, motioning towards the bathroom and back to me. “What’s with all the back-and-forth pacing? Flying is fine.”

“We’re taking Dani and Elise. I plan on telling them all this tomorrow morning.”

Reese looked around his bed, then his room, then the walls and ceiling, as if he was contemplating everything I said, like he was breaking down every word, every syllable.

“But they can’t fly. The minute someone sees those wings, we’re fucked.”

I covered my mouth and just hummed in response.

“You don’t expect us to carry themandfly, do you?” Reese laughed. He dropped his elbows, flopping back down to the bed. I cleared my throat to try to fill the awkward silence, since I didn’t know how to respond. After a few moments, he sprung up, his eyes boring into mine.“You expect us to carry themandfly?”

“It’s not that far of a flight.”

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