I emerged from the cabin in the woods as the light of another day rose on the horizon. The storm I’d started had long since calmed, but the ground was still soaked, and so were my clothes.

I needed to do something about these bodies. I couldn’t very well have the police or some random hunter stumbling across this scene and tying it back to me. The last thing I needed was to get locked up here and have to find a way to break free and disappear.

My exhaustion was bone-deep, and I just wanted to lie down on the grass and go to sleep for twelve hours. But there was still work to be done. Even if the portal was closed, I refused to give up hope. Even if it took ten years, Brooke and I would find someone else who could manipulate time. We would find someone who could send us home.

In the end, I decided to bury the bodies in the basement of the cabin. It was the safest place I could think of, and with the portal now closed, no one should be coming through here any time soon.

It took time to lift each of the bodies up with my telekinetic power and float them down the steps and into the basement. I piled the ten of them up in one corner, trying not to look at their faces as I dropped them there and turned to leave.

But there was still one more person to deal with.

I trudged through the woods to find the detective sleeping against the tree. I laughed. How the heck could he sleep tied to a tree like this? He was still breathing, so I knew he wasn’t dead, but he was completely out cold.

I clapped my hands twice, and he didn’t even move.

I thought about just putting an end to him right now. He had, after all, been the leader of this group. If I left him alive, there was a good chance he would come after me again. I had no idea how many of the Others lived in the area, but if they had planned to face the emerald priestess or her daughter, surely they would have brought everyone at once.

I knew I was taking a risk in keeping him alive, but since he was the only one besides the nurses who knew the truth about the emerald priestess, I hoped he would still have some usefulness. Besides, I might need help getting in to see the girls so I could give them the memory potions Rend had made for them.

I just had to hope that last night’s events would help convince him to leave me the hell alone.

“Detective,” I said loudly. “James.”

He stirred, a string of drool coming from his mouth.

He swallowed and opened his eyes slowly. Then, he quickly became alert, snapping his eyes to mine.

“What happened?” he asked. “What time is it?”

I glanced up at the sun coming through the trees. “I’m not sure what time it is,” I said. “Still somewhat early if you’re worried about making it to work on time.”

He shook his head. “That’s the least of my worries right now,” he said. “The portal?”

“It’s closed,” I said. “We got here too late.”

He slumped against the ropes that still tied him to the tree.

“What are you going to do now? Are you going to kill me?”

“I should probably put this dagger through your heart for what you did last night,” I said. “But I’m hoping you can still help me. If you agree not to attack me again or get any of the Others to come after me, I promise you that if you help me free the girls from the hospital and find a way home, I’ll let you come back home with me.”

“I’ll do whatever you ask,” he said. “I swear it.”

“I don’t trust easily, but right now, I really want to believe you, James. I’ll tell you right now that if you so much as think about betraying me again, I’ll kill you without hesitation.”

“I won’t,” he said. “Not after what you did last night. Those were our best people across five states. The leaders of the Others won’t be happy when they find out what happened, though. They’ll be expecting a report this morning.”

“Then you’ll give them one,” I said. “Do they know you were trying to kill me? Or did they still believe you were going to be fighting the emerald priestess and the doctor?”

“The doctor,” he said. “They knew about the fire and that the priestess was nowhere to be found, but I told them we would take care of the doctor.”

“Okay, good. So tell them the good doctor is dead,” I said. “That won’t be a lie, so you should be able to convince them relatively easily.”

“What do I say about the rest of the group, though? They’re going to notice when none of them check in or show up at home today.”

“Stall for time,” I said. “Tell them the doctor is dead, but you have suspicions that the priestess is still alive and in hiding. Say that the group agreed to stick around until you find her.”

“Okay,” he said. “That should buy a few days at best, though. If none of the others check in with their group leaders, someone is bound to come looking for them.”

“Then we need to make sure we’re long gone by then,” I said. “I’m going to let you go now, okay? You don’t breathe a word of what happened here to anyone, you understand?”

“I won’t,” he said. “I want to go home just as badly as you do.”

I shook my head. “You know, it’s entirely possible that portal was open when we first got here last night. If you hadn’t wasted my time by trying to kill me, we might have been able to go home.”

“Would you have, though?” he asked. “Would you have left those girls here?”

I sighed. “No. I wouldn’t have left them here,” I said.

“I didn’t think so,” he said. “The way you talk about them, it’s like you feel responsible for them, even though you weren’t the one who brought them here. If you hadn’t been here, though, most of those girls would have been dead in a few months, anyway.”

“Thanks in part to you,” I said. “Why were you working for the emerald priestess, anyway? What did she have on you?”

“Let me go,” James said. “I’ll tell you on the drive home. It’s a long story.”

I released the ropes that surrounded him, and he stepped away from the tree and stretched. His face twisted in pain as he moved his body around and worked out all the kinks from being in one position for so long.

I half expected him to pull out a second gun and try to come after me, but he didn’t. He simply walked back down the path through the woods and out to his car.

I followed behind him and listened as he started telling his story.

“When I first met the emerald priestess, I was only twenty-years-old,” he said. “I had just been admitted into the police academy. My mother was a single parent, and I still lived at home with her and my younger sister, Amanda.”

We reached the police cruiser and climbed inside. He fished his keys out of his pocket and started the car up. He backed down the rough path slowly as he spoke.

“Amanda was only thirteen when she was recruited to join the local cheerleading team.”

I groaned. I had a feeling I knew exactly where this was going.

James laughed, but there was no joy in the sound. “I see you already know what the local cheerleaders were up to,” he said. “But I had no idea what was really going on at that school. I thought cheerleading was a stupid waste of time for someone as smart as Amanda, but I didn’t think it was dangerous by any means.”

“When did you find out the truth?” I asked.

“About six months after she first joined the squad, our mother got sick,” he said. “Cancer. It was bad, and it spread fast. I tried to be there for her as much as I could, but I had a rough schedule back then, and I knew we would need my income to get by since Mom had to stop working. Amanda wanted to drop out of school for a semester to help out at home, and even though I hated the idea of her missing some of her work, I didn’t see much choice. We couldn’t afford a full-time nurse at the time, and there was just no way for me to be home every day.”

“But the cheerleading coach wouldn’t let her quit,” I said, a clear picture coming to me.

“They were ridiculous about the whole thing,” he said. By now, we had reached West Turner and had started back toward town. “Amanda came home crying saying the coach had threatened her. She said that if Amanda dropped out now, she would see to it Mom didn’t live out the week.”

I shook my head. The Order had to be destroyed. How many lives had they ruined over the years? How many people had they killed or terrorized in the name of power?

“I was furious, of course, but Amanda begged me not to say anything to the coach. She said I would only make it worse, but I wouldn’t listen,” he said. “To be fair, I had no idea the coach was really a witch, and even though Amanda knew something of the truth by then, she must have been too scared to tell me.”

“What did you do?”

“I went straight up to the school and confronted the cheerleading coach. I wore my uniform up there and everything, hoping to intimidate her and show her that I meant business,” he said. “She was a relatively small woman, but she had fire running through her veins. She tore me a new one, insisting that I was out of line and that if I didn’t back down and allow Amanda to continue on at school, she would personally see to it that I never joined the police force. I refused to back down, thinking this woman couldn’t possibly have the power to have me kicked out of the academy. I was a model recruit. Top of my class. I thought I was invincible back then.”

“You kept pushing her?” I asked.

He nodded. “I threatened to report her to the principal for harassment. She threatened my mother again, though, saying she would personally make sure my mother died a horrible death before the week was over unless I allowed Amanda to stay on the team,” he said. “I lost my temper.”

“What happened?” I asked. When I glanced over at him, there were tears at the edge of his lower lashes.

“She got up in my face, screaming at me, and I just snapped,” he said. “I pushed her. I shouldn’t have done it, but I was a real hot-head back then. When she threatened my mother, I couldn’t take it anymore. I pushed her backward, and she hit the white-board. I went to apologize, but she got this crazy look in her eyes. She lifted her hands into the air, and they were covered in green flames. I freaked out. I pulled my gun and shot her twice in the head.”

“Oh my God,” I said, raising a hand to my mouth. “You killed her?”

“I didn’t mean to, but I’d never seen anything like it,” he said. “I had no idea magic was real, but as soon as I saw those flames, I knew she was going to kill me. I had no choice.”

I sighed, thinking how many times it had come to this choice. Most of us pushed to the edge were forced to become killers. When it was kill or be killed, what choice did any of us have?

“What did you do after that?” I asked.

“I ran. It was after-hours, but there were still a few people there at the school, so I knew someone had to have seen me. They must have heard the gunshots,” he said. “I drove home as fast as I could, threw a bunch of clothes into a bag, and started putting together a plan. I called a friend who had moved to New York City after graduation and asked him if I could crash on his couch for a while. I still remember the heartache on my mother’s face when I told her I had to leave. I couldn’t tell her why, because I figured the less she knew, the better, so I lied and told her I couldn’t handle the pressure of the academy. I told her I needed to get away for a while.”

“What about Amanda?” I asked. “What did you tell her?”

“I told her the same thing, but Amanda knew better. She knew I’d gone to see her coach, and by then, she knew her coach was part of the Order of Shadows,” he said. “Of course, at such a young age, she didn’t know about the demons or the true nature of the Order, but she’d gotten a taste of the power they held. She knew something had happened between me and her coach. She begged to come with me. She said we should all pack up and get the hell out of there, but I told her to stay put and to deny anything if the police came looking for me.”

I took a deep breath. I could feel his tension and pain as he talked me through these memories.

“In the end, none of it mattered, anyway,” he said. “I never even made it out the door before Priestess Evers found me. She came into my home, murdered our mother right there in front of us. She forced Amanda to take some kind of potion that wiped her memories and put her into a deep sleep. Then, once she’d forced me into her car, she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

I nodded, putting together the remaining pieces of the puzzle.

“Help her here at the institute, keeping the government out of her business, in return for the life of your sister,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. He ran a hand across his face, wiping away the tears that had fallen. “Apparently the guy she’d been using to help her out with the local police had gotten tired of the job. She killed him in the previous fire, so she needed a new cop. My lucky day, huh?”

“Did she at least stay true to her promise?” I asked.

“In a way,” he said with a shrug. “Amanda’s alive, but she no longer knows who I am. I’ve even spoken to her a few times, hoping that somewhere deep inside, she’ll recognize me, but she never does.”

“She’s one of the priestess’s daughters?” I asked.

He nodded. “One of the lucky ones, if there is such a thing in a situation like this,” he said. “Priestess Evers put her in charge of an emerald gate coven in North Dakota. She’s got two daughters of her own now, too.”

“She’s a Prima?” I asked, surprised.

“She is,” he said. “But you can understand why I’ve come to hate the Order as much as I do. And the demons are part of it. I want them all to pay for what they’ve done. Not just to me, but all of these girls and the families they’ve ruined over the years.”

“You’re wrong about the demons. They’re victims just as much as your sister.”

He shook his head. “No, that’s a lie,” he said. “The demons come here at the bidding of the Order to possess these witches and make them stronger, but their spirit turns these once-innocent girls into evil witches, just like the priestess. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Once my sister was taken over by a demon, she changed.”

“And who told you that about the demons? The Others? Priestess Evers? Do you really think those are credible sources?” I asked. “I’ve been in the same position as your sister. They tried to make me a Prima, too. They wanted to force me to take my mother’s place as leader of a sapphire coven in Georgia, and I saw what they do to the demons when a recruit goes through her final initiation. James, it’s not like you say. The demons don’t come here at the request of the Order, they are forced here by horrible creatures called hunters. These hunters scour the Shadow World where the demons live in relative peace, and when they find a demon who is powerful or vulnerable in some way, they kidnap them and force them into the body of a witch. They’re slaves to a witch’s power.”

“That can’t be true,” he said. “My sister. The things I’ve seen her do.”

I touched his arm, forcing him to look at me.

“That isn’t her anymore,” I said. “She’s been brainwashed and taught to be the way she is by the woman she believes is her true mother. Priestess Evers. She’s not the Amanda you once knew, anymore.”

He could no longer contain the tears that fell in streams down his face. He pulled over to the side of the road at the edge of town, and turned his face away from me as he sobbed.

I had never seen a man his size cry so hard, but I knew the pain he was feeling. Losing people you loved more than life to the Order of Shadows was unbearable, so it made sense that he had sought out the Others. He wanted revenge, but killing innocent demons wasn’t the answer.

“James,” I said, placing my hand on his shoulder. “What if I told you I might be able to help Amanda?”

His body shook with the force of his sobs, but he turned to me, wiping his face.

“What do you mean? How?” he asked.

I hesitated, scared to trust him. Everything he’d told me could be a complete lie just to get me on his side. But in my gut, I knew his story was true. His tears were genuine. I’d bet my life on it.

I explained the potions to him, leaving out where I’d gotten them or where they were now.

“If they work to restore the memories of these girls and you help me get them home, I promise you that I’ll get one of these potions to your sister,” I said. “More than that, there’s a way to free her from the demon inside her.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s impossible,” he said.

“Another lie told to you by the Order,” I said. “But I’ve freed thousands of demons over the past year. When I killed the sapphire priestess, we were able to set every witch and demon connected to those gates free. Now that I have the heart of Priestess Evers, I can free the emerald gates, too. I wouldn’t lie to you about something like this, but you have to trust me.”

His sobs subsided, and he gripped the steering wheel harder, glancing in the rearview mirror as a couple of cars passed us.

“Okay,” he said. “I would do anything to save Amanda and her girls. Just tell me where to start.”

I took my hand from his shoulder and nodded toward town.

“Start by taking me back to the Evers house,” I said. “We have a lot of girls to visit today.”