Page 67 of Cast in Shadow
“Why would she need to keep you out?” Nguyen asked, eyeing Emerson.
I opened my mouth to respond, but he beat me to it. “Because I frightened her. Enough so that she faked her death to hide from me and blocked me so I couldn’t find her.” The regretpainting his dark features, and the weight of his gaze on me, took all those old feelings that had been bubbling back up and gave them a good stir.
Nguyen leaned back, lifting his chin as he crossed his arms over his chest. “So, you’re the reason she won’t let anyone in. And here I thought she just needed time.”
No. Nope.
“We are not doing this.” I stood, coming around to stand between the two men. “This mission isn’t about any of us or the choices we’ve made in our personal lives. It is about stopping Megan Navali before she draws something into this world that we can’t stop.”
“Isn’t that why he’s here?” Nguyen asked, sucking air through his teeth. “To kill it if we fail.”
Emerson could have mirrored his defensive stance with the crossed arms and narrowed eyes, but he didn’t. Everything about him remained stoic, as if Nguyen’s posturing didn’t affect him in the slightest. “It’s not that simple. A demon powerful enough to infiltrate someone’s mind has the potential to rain destruction on a massive scale.”
“Can you?” Shay asked.
“Kill it?”
“Rain destruction?”
He eyed the chair next to her, then strolled over and sank down into it like they were old friends. “Yes.”
Intrigue danced in her expression. “Why don’t you?”
“Because I took an oath a long time ago to protect this realm from our kind. Every member of the Brethren did. For as cruel as the human world can be, it’s still filled with a kind of goodness that doesn’t exist in my realm.”
She studied him for a few more seconds before shifting her attention to me. “He’s not exaggerating, is he?”
“No, and my experience there was a blip compared to his.”
“How long is a blip?” Nguyen asked.
“Too long,” Emerson said darkly.
I shook my head. “Just long enough to figure out how to get home. But none of this is helping us solve the Navali problem.”
“Have Bravo and Golf reported back yet?” Nguyen asked.
All eyes moved to Dennis, who looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “We’re in the middle of a classified meeting in a bar that is blocks from my laptop. How am I supposed to know?”
“I take it you located her,” Emerson said, sitting forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
Dennis was the one to respond. “Facial recognition put her in Andreno Heights early this morning.”
“Facial recognition?” He looked impressed and maybe a little amused. “Isn’t that a dangerous thing for someone your age?”
Was he teasing me?
If so, I refused to take the bait. “Things are changing fast. The technology exists. We can try to fight it and stay trapped in the past, or we can embrace our current reality and figure out how to use it to our advantage. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take every edge I can get.”
Some of his amusement drained away, but the admiration lingered. Maybe he was finally figuring out that I could still be me and, at the same time, not be the same woman he knew all those years ago. Time and experience had a way of peeling back a person’s assumptions about the world and about themselves. I was better for having that knowledge, but the lessons I’d learned—and continued to learn—left indelible marks.
And one of those lessons was when to stop chasing my prey.
“We need to set a trap,” I said, looking first at Emerson, then at the others. “I want to bring Megan to us.”
“Traps only work with the right kind of bait,” Nguyen said.
“She wants magic and power. Lucky for us, I know someone who has exactly what she’s looking for.”
