I hoped to hell she was right. The last time she’d helped with a little fire she’d burnt down a house. With me in it.

This time, we made it to the door with no major issues other than a softly whistling Erik.

I pushed the door open and into the wane light of a weak looking moon. Dark storm clouds hung distended over the city, thick and ominous, which made the night even uglier than it normally would be. The wind was not strong, not like North Dakota, but the bite of the air was damp and heavy.

The street we were on was fairly quiet. A side street with a dead end and no active stores, dirty and abandoned. At the other end of the dead end, traffic zipped by; no one even looked our way as the humans rushed about their lives. Like watching a movie, we all stood, staring at the flash and blink of traffic, the constant flow a perfect foil to the nearly silent alley in which we stood.

“It’s like we don’t really exist,” Pamela said softly, echoing the feeling that rippled through me. The humans were blind to the world around them; I could only hope that would include my parents.

“Let’s try to keep it that way.” I paused, checking the traffic before preparing to cross the lanes.

Alex took that moment to act like a bucking bronco, laughing and jumping about, arching his back and throwing his body every which way for no apparent reason. Not unusual for him.

“Alex, not now,” I snapped, my nerves twanging at the high end of the stress meter.

He stilled mid-air, dropping to all fours. “Sorry.”

Doing my best to not snap again, I jogged out of the alley, Berget beside me and everyone else lining up like I’d wanted. I wondered what people would see when they looked at Alex or if they would even see him in the dark night. Probably not, or at least, I was banking on that.

There were no screeching tires, no honking horns as we jogged down the sidewalk. So I assumed whatever the humans saw didn’t bother them.

Score one for us.

I held tight to the threads of the black coven members, let the emotions the group was feeling keep my mind busy, and for a split second I wished I hadn’t. My throat tightened with horror.

The black coven members were running on a high of elation that could only mean one thing.

They’d managed to bring a demon through.

Which meant one of the kids was done.

“Fucking hell.”

Chapter 10

BOSTON HADN’T CHANGED much since I’d left and I found myself retracing steps I’d taken years past. At a major intersection, my feet stilled. To the left was Beacon Street, and from there we were within a few minutes of being in front of my parent’s house.

My heart pounded as I thought about how long it would take. No more than ten minutes. I could spare that. Berget put a hand out. “You don’t have to, Rylee. You don’t owe them anything.”

She was right, and she was wrong. Where would I have ended up if my life hadn’t played out they way it had? Would I have found Giselle? Would I have Liam in my life? As horrible as my parents had been, I had to see them. Just one more time.

“Do you want to see them?”

She shook her head, almost violently. “No. I don’t want anything to do with them.”

That made this easier in some ways.

“Stay here.” I pointed at the intersection and didn’t wait for the others to answer as I bolted down Beacon Street at full speed. My guts churned and a pang started to wind its way through me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to puke or if my heart was just trying to explode.

This was fucking ridiculous. We were in the middle of a major battle, of fighting for the world’s safety, and I decided I needed a detour into the past. What the hell was wrong with me? My rational mind told me to turn around, what was done was done and there would be no changing it. I knew that. But the little girl from my past, the girl I’d been so many years ago, who huddled inside me, the one who was afraid and weak, the one who cried for her parents when no one was looking, she wouldn’t be denied. Not this time.

I had to see the ones who’d raised me, the ones I’d loved more than any others in the world, even after they’d turned me out. Even after they believed the worst of me.

I pushed all that away and ran as fast as I could. If I was going to do this, I was doing it fast. And with that decision, the anxiety fled, and I knew I’d made the right decision. I had to reconcile this part of my life before I fully committed myself to being the one to stop Orion.

The buildings around me took me back to my childhood, the expensive homes, the money that was as abundant as the air we breathed. Brownstones for the most part and the occasional fancy custom built house were everywhere, but I didn’t hesitate in my footsteps. Didn’t pause in my run. My feet knew where they were going and they took me home unerringly, with a spooky déjà vu that washed through me.

I stumbled to a stop in front of the building I’d grown up in. Made of brick, there were units on each floor. Third floor was where we’d lived. The fence was wrought iron and the gate was keyed, there was no way I should have been able to get in. Except for the fact I could short circuit electrical devices just by touching them. I lifted my hand to the keypad, wondering if the pass number would be the same. My fingers hesitated as I stared at the top floor. Behind me a car pulled up, slowed, stopped and then a door slammed. My hearing slowly came back online and it was only then I realized I was nearly hyperventilating.

“Oh, my dear, isn’t that your daughter?”

I didn’t recognize the voice, but I turned and the world slowed to a halt. A limo had pulled over and four people were stepping out, two couples. One set I vaguely recognized, friends of my parents, they’d been over for dinner a number of times during my childhood. The woman of the couple, she stared at me with her mouth hanging open and her hazel eyes wide with shock. Her trim body and meticulous makeup made her look far younger than she was. Leanne was her name, if I remembered right. She’d been friends with my mother since I was a child.

The other two people, they were far more familiar.

Amelia and Robert Adamson.

My parents.

Fuck, Amelia looked like Berget, even more so now that Berget was older. Nearly white blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and features that would make angels weep for her beauty, even now. Dressed in a pale blue dress, it peeked out from beneath her long white woolen coat. Robert was slim, had his light brown hair slicked back; he was every inch the professional businessman in his Gucci suit. Her eyes widened and then narrowed like a set of shutters.