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He was tactful, respectful, compassionate, and strategic while speaking to the parents, all while never actually telling a straight-up lie.

Beyond him being a federal agent.

“If you could give us a moment alone in here? We won’t disturb any of his things, he’ll come back to his room exactly as he left it,” Dante promised.

A rookie move and a surprising one coming from Dante. You never promised that victims would come home. We couldn’t even promise we’d come home alive.

Dante knew this, knew the percentages were at about fifty-fifty, being generous, yet he made the vow.

On his soul, I figured, not mine. Though I had a shoddy moral compass, I never made promises to families.

The mother lingered, looking around the room with glassy eyes. Eventually, the father gently took her by the shoulders, whispered something in her ear, then drew her out.

Then there was just Dante and me in a child’s bedroom. Dante, whom I almost … respected as a hunter?

Hell had definitely frozen over, and all the devils were here. But we knew that already.

To escape that thought, I walked around the room, gauging Jackson’s general interests—supernatural books, semi-obscure foreign movies, and … trucks.

It made me smile, then I grimaced, thinking of what this boy could be going through if he were in the hands of a Black Annis. Better not to humanize the victims; focus on the monsters instead.

“Window is locked,” Dante observed. “But…” He crouched down to rub something on the floor between his fingers. “Black tar residue.”

“Bingo.” I pumped my fist. “We’ve got ourselves a Black Annis.” A smile stretched my lips. I was excited to hunt what I hadn’t before, but I wasn’t psyched that the chances of finding the kid alive were slim to none.

Black Annis liked to savor their victims, but this was the first, and she’d likely be starving. Regardless, he’d be lucky to survive the night.

Which meant we had only a handful of hours to find her, or Dante would be breaking his promise, and these parents would be burying an empty coffin.

Though I remembered the steel in the mother’s eyes. She wouldn’t bury anything, not if she didn’t have proof. Foolish as it was, until her dying day, I knew she’d hold out hope that her son was coming home.

“We’ve got about until midnight,” Dante deduced, rolling in his lips while most likely calculating the kid’s odds of survival, the same as I had.

“Better get hunting, then.” I spoke with a strength I had to force.

He nodded.

Though I’d feigned excitement, I knew neither of us really were. We’d kill the monster in the end because we were good at our jobs, but it was unlikely we’d save the victim.

We weren’t superheroes, and this wasn’t any kind of fairy tale.

We’d closed the door to Jackson’s bedroom, said our goodbyes—where Dante had given the parents a fake card—and we’re heading to my car when a cruiser pulled up.

“What wonderful timing.” Dante’s grin was the first genuine one I’d seen since we set foot in the house.

His eyes were on Colton, who had folded out of his cruiser, his stare directly on us. It was not friendly.

Neither was mine. Whatever warm, complicated feelings I’d had toward Colton last night were long gone. It was nice to finally find out that his Boy Scout routine was nothing more than that—an act. He lied about being engaged and abandoned innocent children because their parents didn’t earn enough to matter.

We came toe to toe on the sidewalk, standing in front of our cars.

“What are you doing here?” Colton planted his hands on his hips.

“What aren’t you doing here?” I tasted flames on my tongue as I tried to shrug off the grief and pain from two parents desperate for someone to help them, to save them from the living hell they were suspended in.

And there was Colton, uniform neatly pressed, not a hair out of place. Not doing a single thing to help.

His eyes narrowed to slits. “What is that supposed to mean?”