Page 28 of Prince with a Chance of Darkness

She eased her hold, confusion coating her gaze. “Mina? What time is it?”

There was an alarm clock on the table between the beds, but it was blinking. “I’m not sure. Daytime. There is some light coming through the curtains.”

“Curtains? Our rooms have shutters. Not curtains,” she said, sitting up slowly. Her eyes widened as she glanced around the room. “Where are we and why does it look like some demented candy wonderland?”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Her hair, which had always been exactly like mine since birth now had a long forelock ofwhite that hadn’t been there before. I reached up and touched it, smoothing it with my hand, sure I was seeing things. Willa would never dye her hair. She wasn’t that cool.

She swatted my hand away from her face. “Why are you acting so weird?”

“Your hair.”

“What about it? Are you going to mock my bedhead?” she asked with a groan. “I’ll have you know, you’re not looking so great right this second either. What are you wearing? When did you get silk pajamas?”

I nodded to her. “Probably the same time you got them.”

“Huh?” she looked down at herself. “Am I high?”

“If you are, I am too,” I added.

She stiffened. “Where are we?”

I twisted around on the bed and opened the drawer of the bedside table. In it was a small notepad with a motel name and address on it. “Uh, we’re in Mill Hollow, South Carolina.”

Her eyes widened as she snatched the pad from my hand like I’d suddenly forgotten how to read and was wrong. “Shut up!”

I remained silent as my sister scrambled out of the bed and ran to the door of the room. She opened it, stepped outside and was gone for about a minute before she came back, walking in a daze.

“I take it from the zombie-march you’re doing that we are actually at the—” I lifted the notepad again to check it. “Rider’s Rest Motel. Weird name for a motel. Especially one as pink as this. What kind of horse are they referring to? My Little Ponies?”

“We’re at the Rider’s Rest Motel.” Willa shuffled her feet until she was across the room to me once again. She sat on the end of the bed. “How did we get from Romania to here?”

My hand went to my upper chest. I slid my fingers partially under the V-neck of my pajama shirt and tensed when I felt puckered skin where it had once been smooth. I unbuttoned myshirt enough to look down at the area in question. There was a scar there—right above where my heart was. “Willa?”

Her attention came to me. When her gaze reached the scar on my chest, she cupped her mouth. “Oh, God!”

“What?” I asked faintly, unsure I really wanted to know.

Flashes of being in the cave came back to me. Helen and Lester—her creepster of a boyfriend—had been there. Why had they been there?

“She stabbed you,” Willa said, her hand still partially over her mouth.

I started to ask who she was talking about but stopped. I felt it then, the pain of when our aunt had stabbed me with a dagger that had our family crest carved into the blade. Helen had been rambling about an intervention. Some scheme to free a badass demon to help return things to the way they used to be—before supernatural and slayers broke bread together.

I huffed, my spine stiffening. “Ohmygod, that bitch totally stabbed me!”

Willa moved off the bed with lightning speed and slammed the motel room door shut. She locked it and slid the small chain into place.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She glanced over her shoulder at me. “What if Helen is here? What if her and Lester and his crew of creeps are out there?”

“Then I’m not sure that flimsy chain on the door is going to do much to stop them,” I returned.

She offered an unamused look. “Be serious, Mina.”

“Dude, I am. That chain wouldn’t stop a toddler having a tantrum. It’s not doing a damn thing to stop Helen,” I replied.

“Could you try to be serious?” she asked, returning to the bed. “You were stabbed in the chest by our psycho aunt.”

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