Logan shut the door behind them and looked around the room.
Helen loved this space more than any other in the house. She’d decorated it herself using a palette of cool ocean blues and greens. There was no clutter because she hadn’t lived here long enough to collect it, and the blond oak furniture was all streamlined and understated. She’d used the insurance money she’d collected when her last house burned down to buy a few high-quality pieces and she loved every one of them. She really hoped that the unexplainable fires that haunted her all her life wouldn’t destroy this piece of solace she loved so much.
“Are you ready?” asked Logan.
“As I’ll ever be,” said Drake. “Helen?”
She was never going to be ready for whatever they were going to do, but the sooner it was done, the sooner she would be rid of them. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Drake sat on the edge of her bed, tugging her down beside him. He stroked the side of her face with a barely there glide of his fingers. She couldn’t handle his gentleness, not when she knew how things would end between them.
She covered his hand to stop his caress, but instead, she only managed to press his hand against her cheek. Her skin tingled and streamers of what she could only describe as electricity were winding their way down her body, through her chest and stomach, down her legs until they disappeared through her toes.
Drake offered her a reassuring smile. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”
Helen closed her eyes, fighting the sting of tears. He had no idea what he was going to do to her. She could see it in his face, in the earnestness of his expression. He’d never hurt her on purpose. He was going to watch her die, but she couldn’t believe he would be the one to kill her.
Logan reached up and placed an elegant, long-fingered hand on Drake’s head, then did the same thing to Helen. She felt a jolt of something she couldn’t name and then suddenly, she was back in Gertie’s Diner helping Miss Mabel into her seat.
Thomas wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do with Miss Mabel. She kept eyeing the front door like she thought she might actually be able to outrun him. The last thing he wanted was for her to hurt herself doing something stupid.
“You never did get to eat tonight. Are you hungry?” he asked her, hoping to help her relax and quit thinking about escape.
“I suppose I am.”
“Do you think Helen would mind if we rummaged through her fridge?”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t. The woman doesn’t have a selfish thought in her head.”
Thomas checked outside again, hoping none of the Synestryn had found them here. If Zach had spilled so much as one drop of blood on the driveway, this place would be swarming with them soon.
“What are you looking for?” she asked him. “You’re making me nervous with all that fidgeting.”
Fidgeting? It sounded like something a two-year-old would do. Thomas tried not to be offended. “I’m just making sure we weren’t followed.”
“By whom?”
Not whom. What. Dealing with humans was such a pain in the ass. He would so much rather just go kill something. Tonight was supposed to be a prime-time killing spree, too. This area was crawling with demons, though no one had figured out why yet. And Thomas didn’t particularly care. He was nearly out of time and he wanted to make sure he made the most of what he had left.
The wind shifted outside and he felt the last leaf on his lifemark—the image of an ancient tree stamped into his flesh—sway over the skin on his chest. One leaf left. Once it was gone, his soul would die and his ability to distinguish right from wrong would fade. He’d no longer care about the people he loved. He’d no longer love.
Part of him longed for it. No love meant no grief, and the grief he carried for Kevin kept gnawing at him, eating him from the inside out. He was so fucking tired of hurting. Tired of watching his brothers die. As soon as they found Kevin’s sword, he was going to leave the Theronai before he could hurt any of them. He’d find the biggest, baddest nest of Synestryn he could and dive in headfirst.
But before he could do that, he had to make sure they found Kevin’s sword, and before they could do that, they had to make sure Helen and Miss Mabel were safe. His vow to protect humans demanded no less.
“Listen,” he said, trying to hold on to his patience, despite the pain and grief gnawing at his insides. “This is really a lot more complicated than it seems. Why don’t we just go have a sandwich or something, okay?”
“Don’t you get all snippy with me, young man.”
Young man. Thomas couldn’t help but smile. He might look like he was around thirty, but he’d passed his five hundredth birthday a few years ago. “No, ma’am. No snippy here. Come on.”
He helped her up off the couch and got her settled behind her walker. She was so frail, he worried about hurting her every time he got close. Every move he made with her was carefully controlled, slow and methodical. It took them a few minutes to get into the kitchen, and Thomas tried to hide his impatience. He had no idea how long Logan and Drake would take, but the longer they did, the more dangerous things were going to get.
Thomas sat Miss Mabel at the kitchen table and peeked inside Helen’s fridge. She had several stacks of sealed trays with clear lids. Inside each one was a full meal, though it would probably take three or four of them to fill him up. It looked like more than two dozen trays and each of them was labeled with dates and contents on a strip of masking tape. Boy, this chick was organized. “What do you want? Chicken and noodles, beef Stroganoff, or spaghetti with meatballs?”
“We can’t eat those,” she said. “Those are tomorrow’s meals.”
Thomas peered at her over the refrigerator door. “There’s no way the two of you could eat all this food in one day.”
“Not just us. Helen takes food all over town, bringing it to people like me who have trouble making it on their own.”
“So she brings you food?”
“Every day. And we go out at least once a week. I’d like to go more often, but she’s all booked up. Tonight was our night out, which you boys completely ruined.”
Again, Thomas had to struggle not to smile. Miss Mabel was cute when she was disgruntled. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to spoil your fun.”