"I don't know how he found us, anyway," Jude said. "How could he have had any idea who took you?"
I shrugged. "Well, Jason's pretty amazing." But Jude was right, now that I thought about it. How had Jason figured it out so quickly? He'd beaten us to Shiloh. Was there something odd about that?
Jude glowered at me. "So I hear. Been spending my whole life hearing about Jason."
I didn't say anything.
"My mother never shut up about him. About her visions. About the abomination. But I used to wonder why, if he was such an abomination, she spent so much time talking about him." Jude walked around me and stood at the window himself. He stared through the glass. "If it weren't for the fact that everyone else is convinced that you have to kill him, I'd kill him myself.
"He's so self-righteous," Jude continued. "Thinking he can protect you. That night on the beach, he never knew that I had performed the ritual and placed the bell in your bag. Dingle's bell. There was a certain poetry to the way that it represented Azazel and also fit the ritual. It was just like Azazel to steal something from an authority figure for his own purposes. Like weapons. Like fire. I thought of that. Me. And I carried it out. And Jason never knew. He was clueless."
"I'll never kill him," I said. "You have to know that. You know how much I love him."
Jude snorted, still not looking at me. "You two have been arguing a hell of a lot, though, haven't you? And for all you know, he was screwing Lilith."
"He was not. There's no way he . . ." Jude was wrong.
Jude turned back from the window. He took my arm and began to lead me out of the room. "We've got some things to show you, Azazel," he said. He smiled. "But, just between us, I kind of hope you're right. I hope that when it comes down to it, you aren't able to kill him after all, because I'd love to step in and finish the job."
I jerked my arm out of his grasp. "You're no match for Jason," I said.
He snatched my arm back. "We'll just see about that, won't we?"
* * *
Noah had a laptop, which was running off battery power. There wasn't any electricity in the abandoned house. Gordon had the laptop open and was crouched over it on the floor. We were all in a large room on the first floor. Probably a parlor or a sitting room of some kind. There wasn't any furniture in this room, either, but the walls were decorated in graffiti. Someone had spray painted a large message proclaiming that Randy loved Sara, "4-ever + always." There was also a distorted mural of a naked woman on one of the walls, also rendered in spray paint.
"Gordon, you're going to run the battery down," Noah was saying.
Jude was still clutching my arm. We stood together in the doorway.
"This battery will last hours," said Gordon.
"Not if it's running video," said Noah.
"It's not running video right now," said Gordon.
"No, but—"
Jude cleared his throat. Both of my brothers turned to look at us.
"Where's Lilith?" asked Gordon.
"Still asleep in the room," said Jude.
"Should someone be watching her?" asked Gordon.
Jude glared at him, but he dropped my arm and left the room. Noah got up and came to me. He untied my hands, and I stretched them, rubbing my fingers against each other. I hadn't realized how uncomfortable I'd been tied up until I wasn't. Noah led me further into the room.
"Sit down," he told me.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"We have some things to show you," said Gordon.
"Show me?" I asked. How? What were they going to show me?
Gordon set the laptop down in front of me, so that the screen was facing me. He had a video file open. It was paused, but I could see a woman's face, frozen in the middle of speech.
"What is this?" I asked.
"We're just not sure that you know everything about Jason that there is to know," said Noah. "We want to make sure you're informed, little sis."
"I know Jason better than I know anyone on earth," I countered, folding my arms over my chest.
"So you know about the sorority girls," said Gordon.
"Yes," I said. "I do." But I remembered something that Hallam had said to me, in the kitchen in our apartment. Something about what Jason had done that night. And the way I remembered it, Jason had told me that he hadn't done anything but watch.
Gordon raised his eyebrows. "You do?"
I stared him down.
Gordon reached around the laptop and hit play on the video. The woman's face unfroze. She was young—maybe in her mid-twenties. She had a large scar on her face. It twisted over her features, purple and contorted. Her voice was halting and hesitant.