Page 41 of Blood Illusions

Since Justice had his hands full with the vampires’ ashes, I opened the front door, and we cautiously walked inside. Luckily, there wasn’t anyone lurking in the living room.

“There’s containers in the kitchen,” Justice announced.

Damon and I followed him into the kitchen. I opened the cabinet and found a plastic container big enough for the ashes he held in his large hands. He carefully dumped the ashes into the container.

Justice scrubbed his hands at the sink and shook them off. Then, he turned to Damon, who was leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. “We should take the ashes to the PMC to be analyzed.”

Damon raised an eyebrow. “Why the PMC? Why not The Grove?”

Justice leveled him with a cold stare. “Tell me, does The Grove have a state-of-the-art forensic laboratory?” His tone held an edge of accusation.

Damon curled his lips into a sneer. “How do we know we can trust the results?”

Justice sighed again as if he was tired of having the same old argument. “You’re going to have to trust us.”

“You keep saying that,” Damon replied. “But it’s a line I’m not buying.”

“We don’t have time to fight over this.” I looked at the container. “I think there’s enough ashes for both our labs to analyze it.”

They both gave me a skeptical look.

My voice picked up speed. “Then we’ll see if the results come back the same and settle the argument of whether or not we can trust each other.”

Justice grabbed another container and slammed it on the counter, making me jump.

He dumped half the ashes into it, then slapped the container into Damon’s chest. “Satisfied?”

Damon examined the container. “Works for me.”

Justice grabbed a brown paper bag from under the sink and held it up high. A tight smile played on his lips. “Do you want to put the hand in here?”

Damon snatched the bag from him. “Yes, I do. I don’t want any surprises with The Addams Family’s Thing here.”

I grabbed my weapons from the couch where I had left them and headed toward the door. I tried to ignore my clammy hands and focus on the task ahead. “Can we get out of here before those vampires come back with reinforcements? We don’t want Equinox to be a sitting duck out there.”

“Right behind you, sis.” My brother’s tone was reassuring, but I couldn’t push back the fear bubbling up inside me again.

Damon opened the thick wooden door for me and winked. I forced myself to smile and curled my fingers around my bow. I pulled another arrow from my quiver and nocked my bow. My heart thundered, and blood whooshed through me as I scanned the forest again for any movement. Sunlight filtered through the canopy, but no matter how hard it tried, it could not seem to chase away all the shadows.

Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

Equinox grazed on the grass as if he didn’t have a thing to worry about. So, maybe the reinforcements weren’t here yet. I glanced at my forearm, and it wasn’t burning.

I looked over my shoulder at Damon. “I think it’s clear.”

He moved onto the step next to me. “Good. Let’s get out of here while we can. I hate holding this crap.”

Justice was the last one out, and he locked the door. “I’ll ride Equinox to the PMC and get this analyzed right away.”

“You do that,” Damon drawled as he headed to the Fairlane.

Justice picked up the sack of books, then carefully placed the container inside the burlap bag.

“Are all the books in there?” I asked curiously.

Justice gave me a winning smile. “We’re lucky. They are.” He approached Equinox and climbed up on the pegasus’ broad back.

I frowned. “What makes it lucky?”

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