Page 32 of Nemesis

There are less demons clinging to his skin, for one.

Maybe the ocean water washed them away, not the fight, like it erased the feel of Saint’s hands on my body.

I climb into the passenger seat and look over at him. His dark hair is still damp. I unbraided mine and dried it before rejoining him in the hallway, all my armor put back together. Although, isn’t it strange? I felt more at ease underwater, mostly naked, than I do right now.

Fuck these favors.

If Saint had won, would he have asked to be rid of me? Or was he planning on asking for something worse?

Kade pulls out onto the main road, heading toward North Falls. There’s a road that follows the cliffs up toward the more popular, touristy neighborhood of Sterling Falls.

We pass the spot where town folks regularly cliff jump. Although empty today, it’s a popular spot because of how the coastline is. There’s a little protected pocket where the water is considerably calmer. Plus, a staircase carved out of the rock instead of the insane ladder.

I face forward. We crawl past Bow & Arrow, dark and silent this early in the morning. Halfway down the boardwalk, the pristine white-sand beaches that the tourists flock to is empty minus a few runners. It’s weird seeing it at this time of day. Usually, I’m leaving Bow & Arrow just before dawn, with everything cast in shadow.

“Where are we going?”

He doesn’t reply.

We continue down the road, and my throat gets tighter as soon as we move off the main strip of businesses and into the high-end residential neighborhood. People who paid an extraordinary amount of money to have mansions built with an ocean view—but not the cliffs. They wanted sandy, private beaches.

Somehow, I know what house we’re going to before we arrive at it. Because of course. It couldn’t be easy, right? It couldn’t be arental farther east, toward the reservoir. It couldn’t even be Kade bringing me to the forest to do wicked, cruel things to my body.

I might enjoy that more.

But when he turns into the exact driveway I predicted, all I can see is blood spilling across it, and her body?—

I didn’t see her body, though. I wasn’t here when it happened—I was trying to avert another disaster and nearly got blown to pieces in the process. Not that it matters. Nothing matters when her death is thrown in my face over and fuckingoveragain.

“What’s wrong?”

The house is different. It was all dark, bulletproof glass and stone before, kind of ominous in the way it had been fully morphed into a fortress. Not to mention riddled with bullet holes and blood.

It was sold. Changed. But they’d have to bulldoze it and cleanse the land to erase the death that sticks to this place.

I ignore his question and ask one of my own. “Why are we here?”

He climbs out. I let out a long sigh—again—and follow. I skirt the pavement where Nyx’s blood once stained it. In the year following, someone’s gone to a great amount of trouble to either refinish it or replace the slab entirely. There’s not a trace of her anymore.

It still makes my hackles rise when Kade and I go inside.

Whether this has been redone or left the same is a mystery. I didn’t venture into the house, my curiosity sated by standing in the driveway. But he leads me down a hall to a kitchen in the back and grabs a folder from the counter. He tosses it across the island to me.

“What’s this?”

“I haven’t been entirely honest with you,” he says.

I scoff. “You’ve told me nothing, so…”

“I didn’t want adate, per se. More like, I wanted your expertise in a matter.”

I inch closer. Sunlight streams through the huge windows, giving the room a bright and airy feel. The ocean is just outside the door, the sand smooth and free of footprints. This house sits at the end of the neighborhood, after all. To my left there are huge sand dunes, and going right along the water would lead me back to the boardwalk.

What I mean to say is: I’m not trapped.

I flip open the folder and stare down at a photo of a side profile of a man. My stomach drops, but I try not to show my hand to Kade. I keep a blank face and scan the rest of the short write-up about Reese Avery.

Parents: deceased.

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