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“Why did you have a gun in the cemetery?” I ask.
He lets go of me at last and steps back as if the question itself builds an invisible wall between us.
“I wanted to die until I saw my guardian angel.” His gaze drifts over me. “You saved me, Zaiya. Now I want to save you.”
The sentiment makes no sense. We’re strangers, though he stirs things in me I don’t trust.
“Save me? You don’t even know me.”
Whatever softness showed in him hardens again. He steps back towards the doorway.
“I’ll be collecting your debt soon.” His eyes travel slowly down my frame. “And you’ll pay with your body.”
A shiver moves through me as he leaves the shed. I stay where I am, trembling long after he’s gone.
Edwin has stoked the heat inside me. I hate that I can’t separate fear and desire when it comes to him. And that my body’s natural reaction to his threat is to throb.
But even that isn’t the most frightening part anymore. I stepped into the path of the Serpentium Order. And now something in the dark is looking back at me.
CHAPTER 13
ZAIYA
By the time I slip into the Bolton home, my pulse is still too high. The air inside is warmer than out on the street, suffocating with the smell of dinner cooking in the oven. But being in the house won’t shake the sense of Edwin behind me. Watching. Even when I looked back and saw nothing, the sensation clung to me. My hands are unsteady as I set my purse on the kitchen counter.
The room glows soft orange with the setting sun. I stayed out all day, trying to avoid returning only to lie, but Calista and Wayne had gone somewhere I couldn’t find. Now I pour a glass of water to waste more time before facing the Boltons in the living room. I take a sip, willing the coldness to stifle the heat still surging through me.
Edwin should terrify me. Men like that take what they want.
But what keeps replaying in my mind isn’t the danger.
It’s the way my body responded.
“Zaiya, is that you?” Evelyn calls from around the corner.
My flinch makes the water slosh in the glass before I set it down in a hurry.
“Yes.”
I step into the living room and find Evelyn curled against the couch cushions, while Frank sits back in his recliner beside her. Blue light flickers across their faces from the television.
“Calista went to dinner with a friend,” I say, fulfilling my duty.
Evelyn barely reacts. She only pats the empty cushion to her right. “Come sit with us.”
Her tone is off. I know the sound of someone trying to seem pleasant when they mean to hurt me. This could be a setup. The moment before I’m locked away again.
The smile she forces doesn’t reach her eyes.
Still, I sit where she tells me to.
Frank raises the volume on the TV. The screen changes, and my whole body goes rigid.
Asher’s picture appears beside the news anchor.
“Authorities are investigating a fatal crash that claimed the life of Asher Zapera, the twenty-eight-year-old son of gubernatorial candidate William Zapera, early Saturday morning. According to his parents, Asher had gone after his younger sister, Zaiya, who left home unexpectedly, following what they describe as a period of emotional instability.”
My hands clamp around the edge of the couch cushion.
