DESPITE THE danger, Clay and I stayed in the hotel for the rest of the next day and for one more night, only leaving after a newspaper with details of a fire that destroyed two conference rooms at the Hawthorne was delivered to our hotel room. As soon as I saw the headline, I grabbed the paper from the edge of the bed next to where Clay was sitting.

The number of casualties was the first thing that caught my eye.

“Fifteen people,” I gasped as I read the headline. I turned quickly to the main article and breathed easily when I saw that the three girls I’d encountered in the bathroom weren’t among the deceased.

“Fifteen witches,” he corrected quickly—as if what they might have been was justification for their deaths.

“You still don’t get it do you?” Regardless of what the Rain thought, they had been people and they were murdered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, his eyebrows creasing into a frown.

“How do you know they were all witches? How do you know they were evil?”

“Dad did his research. Despite what you might think of him, he’s not a bad person.”

“Not a bad person?” I repeated in disgust. “Is this you talking or the ‘retraining’ you went through? I can’t listen to you defend him,” I said as tears stole my voice. “It hasn’t only been evil creatures that he’s killed.”

His face fell into a frown as my words made their mark. “I’m sorry, Evie,” Clay said. “I swear that’s not what I was trying to do. I don’t agree with everything he’s done, or what he’s still doing. He’s made some monumental mistakes, but he’s done them for what he believes are the right reasons.”

“Don’t do that,” I said. “Don’t justify things for him.”

“It’s just hard. Being part of the Rain, believing all the things they taught me, it’s been such a big factor in my life. Sometimes I don’t know how to turn off that part of me.”

He looked so desperate for forgiveness that I couldn’t stay mad. In the hours since our reunion, I’d seen enough to know that despite occasional slips into his old mindset, he was consciously trying to see more of the world than his family’s narrow viewpoint allowed.

Covering the distance between us, I wrapped my arms around him to offer him some comfort. “I don’t expect you to change who you are, but you need to understand my side of this. I’ve been pushed into a war I don’t want anything to do with, just because of the way I was born. My life is in danger every single day, not because of anything I’ve done, but because of my ancestry.”

He pulled me closer to his body and rested his head against my chest.

“I hate ultimatums, but unfortunately, you will have to choose between me and your family. They killed my father; they still want to kill me. That will never change, so you can’t have both of us in your life—it just won’t work.”

“I know, Evie and trust me, I get it. It’s just going to take time for me to adjust.”

“Time, I have.” I kissed his cheek softly, knowing that despite his best intentions, it wasn’t going to be easy for him.

As soon as we’d finished packing, we walked to the bus depot as fast as we could without drawing attention to ourselves. I pulled my hoodie low over my face and avoided all cameras. Over the next few weeks, we traveled by bus, train, and taxi, staying no more than a few days in any one location, until we were halfway across the country.

While we traveled, he repeated his promise to stay with me again and again, trying to assure me that we could have a normal life. Each day he had a different plan for our future—a different city we would live in, a different life we’d lead.

We talked about going overseas, but I didn’t have a passport and severing his ties with the Rain meant Clay didn’t have access to the connections he needed to get me one—at least for the short term. Not to mention the high incidence of security cameras at airports. The Rain was certain to be on high alert for Clay and possibly even me by now. Their reach was significant, and there was no way we could leave the country unnoticed. We were better off trying to hide under their noses than fleeing—at least for the moment.

After what seemed like an eternity on the road, Clay managed to convince me that Detroit would be a good place to stop for a while, even though we both understood how dangerous it would be. We just hoped that between the decades of urban decay and the sprawling cityscapes the city was big enough for us to hide. Even if the Rain found out that we were in Detroit, finding our house among the thousands of abandoned properties would be next to impossible—or at least that’s what we hoped.

Clay’s greatest desire was that we could settle down and live together like a regular couple. I just prayed for cover away from invading eyes. I told him that I didn’t think normal existed for me.

“I don’t want normal,” he said in reply. “I just want you.”

Although I would have been happy to squat in one of the abandoned apartment buildings, Clay wouldn’t hear of it. He wanted to give me every luxury he could—even if that just meant electricity and running water for the moment. His idea was for us to have a regular domestic life, even if it only lasted a few months.

I reminded him that life with me could never be truly regular.

He found an apartment he thought would be suitable and was as excited as a puppy as he led me through a rabbit warren of hallways to show me. He’d already paid two months’ rent in cash and was determined to make it work for at least that long.

Ignoring the bloodstains on the carpet along the hallway and the rising damp on the walls, a bubble of excitement built in me that easily matched his contagious enthusiasm. A hope that we could actually make it work built inside me too. Maybe it wasn’t an entirely stupid idea; maybe, if I was willing to live in the slums, we could actually hide away with each other long enough to have an almost normal life.

The neighborhood wasn’t great—most of the apartments around us were abandoned and the ones that weren’t were filled with less than desirable neighbors. In some ways, that worked in our favor. No one was going to ask questions, because no one wanted to have to answer them. I even doubted that most of our neighbors would dare go to the police—they were probably almost as wanted as I was. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the plan. It certainly wasn’t the worst place I’d stayed.

 

 

I AWOKE with a whimper on my lips as dreams of the day I’d lost Dad haunted my night. Almost instantly, Clay was tucked around me whispering against the back of my neck, reassuring me that it would be okay. I twisted around to him and nuzzled into his chest as I fought back the unwanted tears that had sprung to my eyes.

He stroked my hair for a few moments until all of the remnants of the nightmare had passed. Then he reached behind his neck before shifting his position.

“I want you to have this.” Clay fastened the gold chain he’d always worn around his neck around mine. “I want to make new promises with it . . . for us and our life together.”

The thick gold chain had a thin, circular pendant with an intricately carved dove engraved on one side and Clay’s name on the other. I touched my fingers to the rough surface. “I can’t take this, it’s a family heirloom.”

“Consider it a good luck charm to chase the nightmares away.”

“It’s your good luck charm though.”

He brushed his fingers through my hair. “I’ve got everything I want right here; I don’t need any more good luck.”

I couldn’t remind him that we’d built our “everything” on precarious foundations that could crumble at any moment. It was too cruel to mention. For three weeks, we’d managed to live normally in the small apartment he’d found, but we were constantly on alert for anything that was out of the ordinary. It wouldn’t take much for our pasts to come crashing into our lives again.

Instead of ruining the perfect moment though, I leaned into his touch and continued to trace the lines of the scars on his chest.

“What about this one?” I asked, running my fingers along a series of three-inch-long cuts near his left shoulder. It was a new habit of mine, asking about one of his scars each time we were in bed together.

His eyes dropped to watch my fingers trace the marks. “Harpy. I was fifteen.”

I stilled my hands on his chest and leaned down to rest my chin on them.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever had to face?”

Screwing his mouth up thoughtfully, he seemed to consider my question. “A wendigo. In Canada.”

“What happened?”

“About a year after I left y—” he paused and looked at me in such a way that his unfinished sentence was clear—after he’d left me and returned to his family, “—I had an assignment outside of Ontario. My mind wasn’t really on the job, for obvious reasons, and it almost cost us our lives. It was only that we’d all had so much training in how to deal with different threats that we were able to survive and get the upper hand.”

“You’ve been doing this for a long time, haven’t you?” I was just beginning to understand how deeply ingrained his hatred for all things other had been. It was a wonder that he’d been able to see through it to save my life—and even more of a miracle that he’d fallen in love with me.

He stroked the side of my face. “As long as I can remember.”

“How many . . .” I trailed off, not entirely sure I wanted to ask the question or know the answer, but ever since his casual disregard for the fifteen lives lost on the night we’d reunited, I’d found myself wondering how high his death tally actually was.

He frowned. “Too many. More than I can begin to count.”

The look of consternation on his face indicated his thoughts had turned to his family again. I often wondered whether he missed them, but he always steered the conversation in another direction when I’d indirectly brought them up.

“Where do you think they are now?” I asked gently.

Blowing out a breath heavily, he said, “I don’t know. I’ve tried tracking the GPS on their phones, but they must have changed them.”

It didn’t surprise me that he had a way of tracking them—or that they’d easily been able to work around it. From the little I’d learned from Clay about the Rain, they were experts in tracking and evasion, in addition to murder.

“Do they have a way of tracking you too?” I asked.

“I got rid of my phone before I left the hotel, which means they can only use the normal methods. So long as we stay off the radar, avoid security camera feeds, and that sort of thing, we should be able to evade them.”

Clay’s words reminded me that he’d chosen a life on the run with me over the security of his family. As much as I hated them for what they’d done to my father and what they’d tried to do to me, I hated that Clay had to turn his back on everything he knew for a meager existence in hiding. All for me.

“I don’t regret my choice,” he assured me, stroking my hair again. “I know you think I’ve struggled with it, but I haven’t. It’s all new. The week we had back in Charlotte didn’t really prepare me the way I thought it had, but I couldn’t bear to be away from you.”

“I know.” I kissed the spot over his heart.

“They’d have hurt you if we’d stayed.”

“I know.” I rested my head on his bare chest.

“I love you, Evie.”

Climbing over his body, I allowed the chain that now hung around my neck to fall against his chest as I leaned in to kiss him. “I know.”

He wrapped his arms around my back and flipped us so that he was pinning me to the bed. Kissing my throat and chest, he tickled my sides until I squealed.

“You love me too,” he said.

“I know,” I giggled.

His lips met mine and my laughter fell away. I was quickly becoming insatiable when it came to our time together. No matter how often we made love or how regularly he caressed me, it never seemed like enough, and we’d rarely left our hideaway.

He kissed me hard until I was panting and desperate beneath him. Rolling over and dragging me with him, he stopped when he was on his back and I was perched on top of him.

“So beautiful,” he murmured as his hands roamed over my exposed body. “This has to be my favorite sight in the whole world.”

“I know,” I said as I watched the adoration in his eyes.

 

 

AN HOUR later, he’d showered and were getting ready to go out to search for an under the table job. With the city’s municipal resources stretched, there seemed to be an abundance of jobs as cleaners and maintenance workers, jobs that required minimal background checks and which suited Clay perfectly. Few locations had CCTV, which made the area more favorable.

The money he’d taken from his father’s emergency stash was already starting to run low. He’d shown me a few different techniques of obtaining credit cards—rather than just stealing them as I had been—but he didn’t want to use plastic when we were staying in one place. He wanted to stay off the grid, and I couldn’t blame him. Neither of us was ready to give up what we had.

“I don’t want you to go,” I pouted. It was going to be the first time we’d be apart since our reunion and neither of us was looking forward to it. I stood at the door waiting for him to leave, but wanting him to stay.

“I don’t want to go either,” he said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “But we need to figure out a way of getting some more funds if we’re going to stay here.”

He kissed my pouted bottom lip.

“The sooner I go, the sooner I’ll be back home.”

I smiled at the word, home. It was like magic to my ears. I hadn’t had a home since Dad’s death.

“Go then, I’ll be here.”

“Okay, I’m going now,” he said as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed his lips to mine again. Walking backward so that he could kiss me for as long as possible, he dragged me from the apartment and out into the hall. Laughter fell from between our joined lips as he refused to let me go. He only released me once we were almost at the turn in the corridor. He stopped, wrapped his arms around me, and held me against him for one last, proper kiss before reluctantly pulling away. I watched him walk away until the corridor turned for a second time and he disappeared from my view.

As I turned around in the now-empty hallway, I noticed a fresh batch of graffiti on the wall in front of our apartment. I rolled my eyes at the lack of respect the residents seemed to have for the building. True it was a rat-infested hovel, but it was home. Yet almost every day, a new piece of artwork appeared. This newest piece was odd because it blended so well with everything that had already existed there—usually they were painted loudly, covering over what came before as taggers competed for fast disappearing space. Disregarding the new graffiti—a crescent moon shape with what looked like a crudely-drawn M in the middle of it—I headed back into my apartment.

Closing and locking the door, I headed for the shower. Standing under the warm stream of water, I allowed myself a moment of pure, unadulterated happiness. My initial joy at our reunion had fast been tainted by the consequences of our relationship. In my darkest times I still believed I was responsible for Dad’s death and Clay’s alienation from his family. It was likely that belief would always linger. After such a perfect morning though, it was almost impossible to linger on the darkness. If only for a few precious moments, I was free of even the slightest twinge of remorse. The time alone under the water gave me the opportunity to process how content I was with the new life I shared with Clay. As long as we were careful and stayed hidden, the biggest problem with our little slice of paradise was the neighborhood.

As if my thoughts had signaled the neighbors, my perfect moment was broken by shouts and the slamming of door. Before I could work myself up, I pushed my concerns away again. For Clay, I could put up with a few noisy strangers in the surrounding apartments.

Stepping out of the shower, I reached for a towel, but stilled as I glimpsed movement out of the corner of my eye. For a fraction of a second, a flicker of platinum hair reflected in the mirror. Twisting around, I tried to confirm what I’d seen, but there was nothing there. My imagination was running rampant now that I was alone for the first time in weeks. Maybe some of Dad’s paranoia had rubbed off on me after all.

I snatched the towel from the rack and worked to dry myself. As I did, I tried to ignore the growing sensation of being watched. It was a ridiculous notion. There was no way the Rain could have found us so soon. We hadn’t been complacent when it came to our safety. If anything, we’d been overly cautious—shopping in the late hours and avoiding cameras.

None of my silent reassurances calmed the ill at ease rumbling in the pit of my stomach though. Trying to push it aside, I hung the towel over the rack before slipping into my underwear and a T-shirt.

Another quick flash of blonde flickered in the mirror.

I twisted in place as fast as I could. A moment later, long before I could comprehend what I was seeing, a blinding blow struck across my temple and everything went black.