Page 62 of Hellfire to Come
No sign of Echo.
No sign of Chester.
No sign of the wolf.
Brooklyn sat up straighter, hands braced on the dashboard. Her breath hitched.
I slowed the car, every muscle in my body coiled like wire.
We exited the car silently and started for the door but Brooklyn stopped and picked up something from the long steps leading to the front patio. When I reached her, I found her holding Alice’s glasses, turning them between her fingers before she glanced at me.
“Why would she leave her glasses here?” a line deepened between her brows.
“Maybe she was sitting here waiting for you and forgot that she left them on the steps?” It sounded dumb even to my own ears. Alice couldn’t see enough to walk without them, why would she leave them behind?
The expression on Brooklyn’s face said she was thinking the same, but she didn’t want to voice it. “Yeah, maybe she waswaiting,” she muttered instead and moved toward the front door with purpose. We both knew one thing for sure.
Something was waiting in that house.
I just prayed if it was something bad, that it was something I could kill.
That would make my day for sure.
Chapter Twenty-Five
BROOKLYN
The door creaked open like it resented us returning.
My hand hovered over the doorknob, fighting a weird feeling that the ground under my feet was shifting. But that can’t be a bad omen, can it? We were long overdue for some good news, for something nice to befall us.
The house was quiet, you could say a bit too quiet. Not the kind of silence that followed sleep or stillness, but the brittle hush that wrapped around guilt and grief. I stepped inside slowly, clutching Alice’s glasses like a lifeline, the weight of the last twenty-four hours still clinging to my bones. My boots scuffed the floor with every step, and behind me, Dominic’s presence followed like a second spine, rigid, watchful, wound tight with the same unease thrumming through me.
The scent of rosemary and faint blood hung in the air. Not fresh. Faded. Echo’s attempts at warding, probably. Or maybe her attempt at helping Alice.
Dear gods, Alice.
My steps quickened. I was halfway to the stairs before movement caught my eye. A shadow detaching from the hallway near the living room. Slow. Hesitant.
Samir.
He was standing partially in the dark, hair a disheveled mess, eyes shadowed and bloodshot. His clothes were wrinkled, his posture a far cry from the confident arrogance he usually wore like a second skin. He looked like something that had been gnawed on from the inside out.
“Planning to keep sulking in the hallway until the house burns down around you?” I asked, voice cold as steel, the annoyance from his stupid behavior drilling a hole in my brain.
He flinched. Actually flinched.
“You’re back,” he said, like he wasn’t sure if it was real. “Alice…she’s awake.”
“No thanks to you, she’s not.”
The air turned sharp. Behind me, I could feel Dominic’s energy shift. He sharply focused on Samir, on alert, coiled tight, already reading the room with deadly precision.
Samir’s mouth opened, then closed again. I stepped forward.
“Speak,” I said. “Or I start pulling confessions out of you the hard way. I can feel you’re not telling us something crucial, and I’m about ready to physically get it out of you. Don’t make me force you to tell the truth.”
“I…” He swallowed. “I couldn’t find her.”
