Chapter 32

32

S he sleeps hard the next night, and wakes before she truly knows why.

Killian’s breathing softly in her ear, and the sun is up, but they didn’t get back to the safe house until around 5 AM. Once this is done…her sleep schedule will be so messed up she won’t even begin to know where to start to repair it.

So instead she stays still, focusing on what could’ve possibly woken her up. What brush against her awareness, what thing that roused her from the perfectly lovely sleep.

But something has.

“Killian,” Chloe whispers, into the soft sunlight spilling into the room, as the press of awareness grows against her. “Killian, something’s…”

Killian shifts, finally, lifting his head to peer out the window, like he can’t fully believe what he’s seeing.

Chloe rolls over to glance out as well, and there’s a hint of magic, a trace of something else, already fading into the snow.

“What?” Chloe asks, half groggy, pushing herself up on her elbows. That hurts the ribs, but she ignores it.

“A teleporter,” he says, voice sharp, sitting up. “A teleporter, somehow.”

The fear immediately flashes into his eyes.

“A teleporter was here, they found us, I don’t—”

Chloe jerks herself up to standing, grabbing her shirt and throwing it on. “Who—”

“Human,” he says, already standing, and somehow his clothes are back, like they’re less material and more part of the body, the canvas pants and the college undershirt.

He spreads his arms, power flooding through the room, surging across Chloe’s bare skin and stealing the air.

Chloe freezes, breathing hard out of her nose, but he just stares out the window, his eyes ablaze.

Before—

“They couldn’t see in,” Killian says, his voice so terribly remote. “Just the outside protections. Just the shielding.”

Which at the minimum means they know a demon is hiding something. That there is a place a demon is trying to keep secret in all of this. That there is something to barter with.

“Same general flavor of the other person who’s been dogging our steps,” Killian mutters, twisting his face.

He doesn’t move, he doesn’t breathe, just stares out the window.

“If they found me here,” he starts, as if far away, “then they could follow me to Seanna.”

He turns to her, whip fast, too fast for her to track.

“Text her,” he orders, and the fear threatens to choke his words away. He rattles off a string of numbers as Chloe scrambles for her phone, then again once she had it in her hands. “Tell her to go to her mother’s house and to stay there. Tell her ‘code word Crimson.’”

“Will she be able to get there?” Chloe asks, while tapping on her phone, her heart pounding. “Is it too far away, it’s cold, it’s—”

CHLOE (4:21 PM): Code—Crimson. Go to your mom’s house.

The moment she finishes the text, he tosses her jacket at her, barely giving her time to shrug it on, then gently picking up her hand.

Before she can blink, they’re inside a car, the windshield buried in snow and dust powdering every surface along the dashboard, and Chloe flinches at the sudden change in location.

There’s no seeing out the car, no telling how much snow is on top, no light filtering in through the windows. It could be feet, it could just be darker where they are, it could—

Without bothering to pause, Killian flexes some power, and all at once, all the snow bursts away, a blast of heat hitting Chloe’s face.

She throws her arm up to protect her face, but as soon as it’s begun, the heat fades away, leaving the windshield sizzling and steam curling up from the metal siding.

“What—” Chloe starts, before her phone bings again.

UNKNOWN (4:25 PM): I don’t believe you. What’s my favorite ice cream?

Without even needing to look at her screen, Killian recites: “The pistachio from Fentons with a scoop of mint and eight cherries, no whipped cream.”

Chloe stares at him for a beat, before tapping it out and sending.

CHLOE (4:26 PM): Pistachio. Scoop of mint. Too many cherries, no whipped cream, from some place called Fentons.

The text clicks over to read, and Killian doesn’t relax, just sits there, staring at her, his eyes reflecting back the dim light at her.

There’s a three-foot-wide radius of melted snow around the car, the pavement glistening from the sudden water. They’re in a run-down neighborhood, the type with no sidewalks and no trees and a rusted down swing set in the end of the cul-de-sac. A few of the houses had yards full of decrepit cars, covered in snow like ghastly skeletons of metal.

The door to the house in front of them swings open, and the girl stomps out, in brand new snow boots, and all at once, Killian relaxes.

She eyes them with a scowl, then points down the street, towards a cross section, as if asking a question.

Killian nods, a simple inclining of his head, and she rolls her eyes, before stomping obediently towards the cross way, not looking back. She has a backpack slung over her shoulder, and if Chloe wouldn’t know better, she would have thought that she is a normal middle schooler, the sort with homework and boy troubles and a stable home.

Killian watches them, his head swiveling to follow her until she disappears around the corner, unmoving besides that.

“Is this your car?” Chloe murmurs when he remains motionless, even after they can’t see her anymore.

“Of course,” Killian answers, remote, his eyes unfocused. “I have surveillance planted around all her friends’ houses.”

They sit, Chloe’s skin prickling with Killian’s power, until a few minutes later he slumps back, closing his eyes.

“She’s within her mother’s doorway,” he mutters, rubbing his face. “She’s safe now.”

“I take it you didn’t want to just take her yourself because…” Chloe prompts him.

“Because if they’re tracking me, I shouldn’t be giving them a map to her,” he finishes, then gently takes Chloe’s hand in his once more.

She braces herself for another teleport, but he simply swipes his thumb across her palm, like he’s considering things, until Chloe’s phone beeps.

UNKNOWN (4:34 PM): Not cool. Tell him I’m at my mom’s.

Chloe just turns her phone to him and lets him read it. His hand briefly tightens on hers, and he slowly lifts his gaze to hers.

He’s stricken. Fear coats every single line in his face, every single micro motion in his skin, every muscle across his shoulders. He’s terrified, like he cannot even move his mouth to speak from the fear, like it has stolen his words and he cannot find them again.

“Oh, hey,” Chloe says, and his hand stills against hers. “She’s safe, you succeeded.”

Mute, he nods.

“And now we…” she trails off, not quite sure. “Go back, get the research, find someplace they don’t know about to stay?”

“Track down their magical trace, destroy them?” he suggests darkly.

“Or that, yeah, sure, that could work,” Chloe says, then tightens her hand on his in what she hopes is soothing. “Research first.”

He doesn’t smile back, but before she can register it, they’re back in the small house with the frugal curtains and the creaky bed.

This time, going from sitting to standing, Chloe staggers into him. He catches her with one arm as if she weighs nothing, setting her upright again, but his gaze is already trained outside the little window.

Chloe pulls out of his grasp almost without him noticing, then grapples for the backpack, slinging her shoulders in it. Her ribs pang her, sudden, and he twitches but doesn’t look towards her.

“Is there anything else you need from here?” she asks, as he does nothing but stand at the window, chin dipped down and eyes angry. “Anything before we leave?”

He cocks his head, still not quite looking at her. “Do you still have that gun?”

The answer is of course she does. She hasn’t had a chance to clean it yet—hasn’t had enough of a moment where she wasn’t either asleep or giving an impromptu tutoring session to a twelve-year-old—but it’s not something she would leave behind.

So she pulls it out, checking the chamber in a smooth idle motion before strapping the holster to her hip.

“Do you want to investigate?” he asks, his voice lowering as he stares into the snow.

Sure enough, the teleporter had laid a trap, neatly disguised under the residue left by his teleportation spell, and Chloe crouches in the snow outside the rickety house, peering at it.

The house is far worse looking from the outside, with a partially caved in attic and a front door that sits uneven in its frame.

If she hadn’t been inside of it, she would’ve thought it abandoned.

The trap reeks of a stored ward, something easily transported, with barbs in it to entrap all sorts of humans and non-human people. Demons and Wights would equally fall to this trap, be stuck in one place, in a constant loop of pain, until they could overpower it.

By her estimation, it would take a Wight a few hours. More than enough time to come along and collect them.

Humans…it could be for forever if they were caught off guard.

Killian stands next to her, completely impervious to the blowing snow settling in her hair as she shines her flashlight against the already partially buried trap.

“They’ll know when I start to take it down,” Chloe warns, “and I can’t reach the trace until I fully complete it.”

“Of course,” Killian mutters, shifting. When she flicks the flashlight to his face, he doesn’t squint. “How fast can you break it?”

Chloe sits back on her haunches, the wind biting into her cheeks. “Thirty seconds. How fast can you read a trace?”

“Near instantly.” But there’s something in his stance, something that belies some more hesitation.

So Chloe trails her finger along the edge of it, letting her mind seep into it.

“This sort takes concentration to keep up,” she murmurs, as the lines reveal themselves to her. “Concentration and energy.”

“What are you suggesting?” he asks, but it’s curious, nothing biting.

“That it’ll weaken—significantly—in three days’ time,” Chloe says, dusting her hand away from it. “The trace will be fainter, harder to parse, but the trap will be…less.”

He hesitates, like he’s debating. Like he’s trying to weigh what is important in this moment, what to pursue.

What math he has to do.

Before he sighs, scuffing his feet against the edge of the trap, a scowl setting on his face.

“This is a trap of urgency,” Chloe says, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Dry snow clings to it, too. “The trap is that they’re betting you want to know now, when things are the freshest.”

“They’re right,” he mutters.

“With a bit of planning I can do a counter trap,” Chloe says, and his eyebrows quirk, just a bit. “Intentionally lay one so that whoever comes sniffing gets locked. Set off theirs from a distance. Find out who it is.”

He leans back, his arms still crossed, but there’s an evaluation there, more analytical than straight angry.

“How much planning?”