It's too quiet here, too creepy, but I can't leave without Bas. Just the thought tightens my lungs. It makes my breath shallow and irregular, like a gear that won't catch.
This is how I felt as a girl when Mom was sick and I couldn't do anything to help her. The feeling is fuller here somehow. It's 3D despair. Despair that floats around me.
"Where is he, Shadow? Can you smell him?" All I want is a clue that he's alive. "Sebastian! Bas, where are you? Please be here."
Something pale catches my eye at the base of a tree in the distance. I drop Shadow's reins and sprint over.
Growing under one of the sprawling trees, between two roots that look like outspread arms, is a patch of white flowers. The petals are mutedly bright in the darkness, like teeth are at night.
I kneel in the soft dirt and touch the furry leaves.
White begonias.
Mom's favorite flowers. She had them planted all over our yard in Connecticut.
At home.
Home.
The pressure at the base of my skull pulses harder, matching the drumming of my heart.
It's been eighteen months since I left home. When depression had her, really had her, it was like a dimmer switch had been turned down inside her. I couldn't reach her. Neither could Dad or Josie. Sometimes we couldn't do anything at all for her but watch her suffer. After my visions started, there was no point in staying. My problems would only have detracted from the care she needed. But I never meant to be away so long.
How has it been a year and a half?
I spot more clusters of begonias up ahead. They weave a path, making a trail that's almost bioluminescent in the dimness. I don't even think twice. I follow it, conscious of Shadow walking close behind me.
Soon I come to a break in the woods where a field of begonias glows under direct moonlight. A figure sits at the very center, surrounded by the white blooms. I can't see well in the low light but the figure looks small. Not lanky like Bas.
It's not him.
Then … who is it?
As my eyes begin to adjust, I see that it's a woman with honey-colored hair that rests on straight shoulders. Her long white dress pours over her legs and feet, and blends with the flowers that surround her. She's wearing a gold necklace with two charms that rest close to her heart. Though I'm too far to see the letters engraved in them, I know they're "D" and "J."
And as I near, she smiles like she's been expecting me.
My blood freezes. I stop.
It's not possible.
"Mom?"
"Daryn, my sweet daughter," she says. "I knew you'd come home."
CHAPTER 4
GIDEON
"Twenty minutes out. Probably less," Travis Low says as he peels out of the tiny airport that serves Jackson Hole. The SUV fishtails on the soaked road but Low regains control and pushes past eighty miles an hour in a matter of seconds.
I look through my window. Rain clouds hide the tops of the mountains in the distance. The Grand Tetons. I flew over them in the fall. On the back of a demon that had taken the form of a dragon. I also lost Bas here and got my left hand cut off.
Lots of fun memories in Wyoming.
It's hard to believe that roughly three hours ago we were still in Georgia. Moving a team this fast takes money but if there's a limit to the unit's budget, I haven't seen it yet.
In the passenger seat, Jared Suarez checks his GPS. "Thirty minutes is probably closer. Traffic a mile up."
Between swipes of the windshield wipers, a string of red brake lights appears up ahead. "Drive around it, Low," I say, thumping the back of his seat for emphasis.
Suarez shoots me a dark look. "This is the United States, Low. Don't drive around it."
"Drive around it, Low," I repeat. "That's an order."
He laughs. "Blake's full of it today, ain't he?" he says to Suarez, loading his Texas drawl with all the sarcasm it'll hold, which is plenty. He meets my eyes in the rearview mirror, chewing his gum in slow motion. "Yes sir, Blake sir."
We're all on equal footing under Cordero so I shouldn't be giving orders to anyone, least of all a commando thirteen years older than me. Travis Low has a hell of a lot more relevant experience than I do. Life experience, in general. Fortunately, Low and I go way back. Jared Suarez, too.
Last fall they were "Texas" and "Beretta" to me, respectively. The guys who stood guard while I was interrogated by a demon disguised as Cordero. They saved my life from that demon.
Low's a six-foot-five, two-hundred-fifty-pound lethal giant. Like Bas, he's always looking for his next laugh. Low doesn't take anything seriously except missions and his three-year-old son back in Texas. The guy drops everything when his kid calls and gets this heartbroken, happy look on his face. I've wondered if my dad felt that kind of pain when he talked to Anna and me back home while he was deployed.