Chapter Nine Aria
Chapter Nine
Aria
“Do you know how to find him?” I gasped the second my eyes shot open to the morning that had taken hold of the motel room. Pax was already awake, flying off the bed and dragging on his jeans.
Both of us had clearly woken up with the exact same intentions.
“Fucking hope so,” he all but growled as he snagged his phone from the nightstand.
“Peter Conway,” he mumbled, typing his name into the search bar. “Thirty-three. Indiana—at least, I hope that’s where he still lives.”
He started pacing as he scrolled through the results, anxiety ripping through him on tormented waves.
I sat forward, the sheet pulled tight against my chest as I waited. Praying that he would find something. That we could do something.
A heavy exhale whipped out of Pax when he landed on something. “Think I got him. Fort Wayne, Indiana.”
Pax searched something else. “It’s about six hours from here.”
I threw off the sheets and jumped out of bed, limbs trembling as I hurried to get on my clothes.
“If we scared off the Ghorl, maybe its thoughts didn’t have a chance to take hold and the guy second-guessed his plans,” I reasoned. “Maybe we can get there to stop it before the Ghorl returns.”
My stomach tightened. If Peter was still alive? If the man had taken off?
Then we had to do something.
The problem was, Peter wouldn’t even know to be extra vigilant.
Wouldn’t know that he had been directly targeted, since he was hunting in Faydor through the night.
Our Laven family had spread out and covered too much ground for there to have been a chance for us to find him during the night.
At least Ellis had given the warning to be extra vigilant during the day.
My hands shook out of control as I zipped up my jeans, a frenzy lighting through me as I snatched the shirt I’d had on yesterday from the floor and pulled it over my head.
There was no time to delay.
Pax dragged on his tee, too, rumbling, “There’s a number listed. Probably a long shot.”
Still, he dialed it and tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear as he sat on the edge of the bed, grabbed a boot, and shoved his foot into it.
The sound was dull, but I could hear the faint ringing on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” a man answered.
“Peter? Peter Conway?” Pax said in a rush, the words an appeal.
“You’ve got the wrong number, man.”
The line went dead.
“Shit,” Pax spat, and in frustration, he threw the phone onto the bed as he pulled on the other boot, then pushed to his feet. He took a step in one direction, then one the other, continuously dragging the fingers of both hands through the locks of his white hair.
His eyes wild.
He looked manic.
Unhinged.
Likely the same as me.
“We have to get to him before it’s too late,” I said, stuffing my feet into my shoes.
“It’s probably already too fuckin’ late, Aria. The address I found could be as wrong as the number.”
Gloom shrouded his spirit.
Rushing over to him, I fisted my hands in his tee and jerked him toward me. “Don’t give up on me now, Pax. We have to try.”
Remorse blustered through his expression, and his hand snatched my waist. “Not givin’ up on you, Aria. I just don’t know if I can protect you and the rest of our family, too. You’re what’s important.”
I shook my head, just barely. “Every single one of them is important—and they have their Nols, who love them just as much as you love me. Don’t forget that. This has never been only about us, and selfishness is not going to serve us now. We have to do whatever we can.”
The tattoos on his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Fuck, I know. I’m just—”
In a flurry of motion, he clutched me against him, his body a burning flame against mine. He buried his face in my hair. “This is all so fucked up.”
“I know. But we can’t lose hope in the middle of it.”
Peeling myself out of his hold, I leaned down and grabbed our bags where we’d left them packed at the foot of the bed. “We need to go.”
We made it into Fort Wayne a little before noon. Our nerves were frayed. We’d spent the entire trip on edge as we sped as quickly as we could without drawing too much attention to ourselves.
I could barely take in the quaint beauty of the city as I sat forward in the seat, though there was no missing that it was frozen.
Covered in snow.
I had the cell gripped in my hand as it gave directions to the address Pax had found, my attention rapt as he wound through the city.
My heart thundered and my spirit screamed.
We had to make it.
We had to stop this tragedy.
Pax made a right off the main road and into an older family neighborhood. Most of the houses appeared unique, each different from the others, the yards of different sizes and the paint different colors.
Some were surrounded by tall wooden fences, and others remained open to the ruddy river that ran on the opposite side of the road.
Trees soared, their branches stretched out like bare bones in the frigid winter, and the ground was completely covered in snow except for the sidewalks and roads.
The heater cranked through the vents, but it didn’t do anything to allay the chill that suddenly slicked across my skin and sank all the way into my spirit.
Pax flinched, fingers twitching on the steering wheel.
“Do you feel it?” I asked, the tension suddenly so stark that I could barely speak.
A harbinger of wickedness.
“Yeah, Aria, I feel it,” Pax grunted.
He sat forward in his seat, both of us peering out the windshield as we approached the address.
Your destination is on the right, the computer-generated voice proclaimed, though somehow it felt like it was issuing a sentence.
A penalty.
Pax slowed to a crawl, and ice slipped down my spine and a chill raced through my body.
Because up ahead was a two-story house painted a sage green with white accents, and coming down its walkway was a tall, lanky man who ambled along with his head down and his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.
He was headed toward a gray truck parked in front of a closed garage.
Short, black hair and pale, pale skin.
“Peter,” I rasped, blinking, unable to believe I was laying eyes on another member of our family.
But there was no relief in it. There was only a crash of desperation and a frenzy of recklessness when we saw another man step out from where he’d been hidden behind the truck.
Arm trembling as he lifted a gun and aimed it over the hood.
“Oh God,” I wheezed.
In the middle of the road, Pax shoved the car into park and threw open his door. “Stay in the car,” he gritted as he jumped out.
I couldn’t help but do the same. Needing to do something. To stop this from happening.
Only it was too late.
Because the man uttered his name, and Peter looked up.
The second he did, the crack of a gunshot rang out.
It echoed and rolled.
Disorienting.
Everything set to slow as a scream locked in my throat.
Stunned, Peter gripped his chest.
“Fuck,” Pax spat at the same second as he whipped his gun from his jacket pocket.
Shock covered Peter’s face, though I thought I saw realization dawn beneath it. When he discerned that he had been the next fatality. That our family’s twisted fate had brought him to his end.
Something close to sorrow billowed through his expression before he stumbled to the side, then dropped to his knees, slumping face down on the snow-covered lawn in his front yard.
Snow that turned bright red.
A rattled ball of grief lifted, but I pressed my hand over my mouth to keep it contained, knowing I had to get to the man before he knew I was there. Put my hands on him and pray I could extinguish the cruelty he had been given, all while wondering if it was too late for him.
If he’d fully succumbed and welcomed the wickedness. A willing vessel to inflict pain.
Only I had no time. There was nothing I could do but let that rattled ball of grief go when the man brought the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
It rang out, and the man crumpled to the ground.
My legs wobbled from the horror, and I dropped to my knees on the pitted pavement.
Pax rushed around the front of the car, and he curled his arms around me from behind and tried to get me onto my feet.
“We have to go, Aria. We need to get out of here.”
“Peter,” I wept. “We were too late. We were too late.”
“I know. I know. I know, baby.” He mumbled it against the top of my head. “But we have to go.”
I gasped through the tears that blurred my eyes, and I swore I could hear Ambrose’s laughter roll through the trees. His satisfaction that he had taken another of us.
His words from that night infiltrated my mind. The vitriol.
This life is filled with many mysteries, is it not?
A child lying in their bed, waking to a paradise unseen, believing they are a chosen one.
But no . . . that paradise is only a shroud.
A cover for the affliction we’re to be given.
A man walking in darkness. Charged with a burden unlike any other would ever be asked.
Asked to carry an albatross so great he’s on his knees, both night and day.
But why suffer when we can be so much greater than that?
Awareness pulsed through my consciousness, and I rasped, “I remember. I remember where I saw his name.”