"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" Lucas asked as he sped down the freeway.

I'd been tight-lipped since getting into his car twenty minutes ago, my mind too full of Lilly's urgent phone call to answer any of his questions.

A lot could happen in twenty minutes.

"Drive faster," I said, staring at the cars zooming past us.

"I'm not risking a ticket until you tell me why."

I sighed. "I'm helping my brother with a case. A missing boy."

"Was that who was on the phone?"

"It was the boy's girlfriend. She said she knew where he was, but something was wrong."

"Is she in danger?"

"It sounded like it."

He pressed on the gas pedal. We lurched forward.

We drove in silence for another ten minutes before an idea popped into my head.

"Do you know a Terrance Smith, by any chance?" I asked.

"Should I?"

"He's a nephilim in the area. Thought maybe you guys keep up with each other or something."

"It's not like we get together for play dates." He paused. "My dad might know. He has connections."

"Why keep yourself separate from your kind?"

He scoffed. I thought I had offended him, but I had no idea why.

"Do you have monthly cambion conventions?"

"My situation is different."

"How so?"

"My brother is a nephilim." The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. I hadn't meant to tell him that.

"How does that work?"

"Our mom was human."

"Was? She died?"

He had a problem with tact as in he had none.

I stared out the window. "She left."

"Why?"

Was he serious? I turned to look at him. His eyes were on the road, thankfully. Studying his profile, I noticed a faint scar by his right ear. I didn't ask even though I wanted to know. Didn't want him to think I cared or something.

"Maybe I should call her and ask."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."

He looked sorry. He may have been coming across as an insensitive ass, but it looked like his intentions were in the right place. Maybe he did just want to get to know me.

Too bad I wasn't interested.

"You're atrocious at small talk."

"Not usually."

I scoffed. "Could have fooled me. Almost everything that's come out of your mouth has been offensive or insensitive."

"Asking to be friends is offensive?"

"Don't be obtuse. You know what I mean."

"Obtuse?" He chuckled. "You make me nervous."

Interesting. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Maybe I care what you think."

"Why would you?"

He cleared his throat. "What's the address again?"

While I hadn't been paying attention, we'd pulled into a housing development. Pretty, expensive houses stood all in a row. Perfectly manicured lawns, spotless streets, quiet as the dead. This was a place where facade ruled. Starving hyenas pounced on any whiff of scandal.

It was the closest to Sheol you would find on Earth.

I read off the address and searched for the right numbers on the sides of the giant houses.

I tapped my foot, butterflies in my gut doing the tango that had nothing to do with Lucas. Now that I thought about it, Lucas' aura hadn't had the same effect it normally did. I barely even noticed it.

Maybe that meant I was getting used to having him around.

Not a good thing.

"It's here," I said, pointing to the last house on the left.

"Should I pull into the driveway?" he asked.

“We’re trying not to be noticed. Just stop the damn car and let me out. Then go park down the street.”

He stopped. I bounded out the door and raced to the front stoop of the three-story house. It had white siding with chocolate trim and a four-car garage. I bet you would have found a vintage inside. Rich people loved useless cars.

I tried the door. Unsurprisingly, it was locked. I took a long pin from my hair. It wasn't as good as my lockpicks, but it was all I had on me. It wasn't like I had expected to be breaking and entering when I'd left the house.

I knelt. Before I could even get the end into the lock, Lucas told me to stop.

I looked over my shoulder. He’d parked a few houses down. Close enough for a quick getaway, but not enough to connect the car to us.

"It's the middle of the day. Someone will see you and call the cops," he chided.

"You have a better idea?"

"Did you try knocking?"

I hadn't. I pounded my fist against the door and waited.

Nothing.

"Any more brilliant ideas?" I asked.

I walked off before he could say anything, going around to the back. In a house this size, she probably couldn't even hear the knocking. At least, that was what I hoped.

Lucas jogged to catch up. "If there is danger, we should stick together."

"Have you ever even been in a fight?"

"Have you?" he deflected.

I smirked. "Plenty. I don't need a white knight to protect me."

"Well, I do. So, I'm sticking at your side so you can protect me from anything scary."

I couldn't tell if he was making fun of me or not.

It didn't matter. I rounded the corner and got a good look at the back of the house.

Chunks of glass surrounded the shattered sliding glass on both sides of the door. Blood smeared across the jagged pieces.

Lucas bent down to pick a piece up, running his finger across the red stain and coming back with blood. "Still wet."

I went to go through the door when Lucas grabbed my arm. "Wait. We don't know what we're walking into."

I shrugged him off. If the blood was still fresh, there was a chance I wasn't too late.

I didn't slow down as I rushed inside, ignoring the glass that crunched under my feet.

I skidded to a stop as soon as I entered the living room.

Lilly stared at me with dead eyes, neck twisted like Regan from The Exorcist, mouth open in a silent, eternal scream.

There was no blood, which meant whoever had done this had left evidence behind. I needed to remember to get a sample. Peter might be able to tell me at least what had broken through the glass.

Lucas gagged behind me. I turned. His hand covered his mouth, his eyes glued to Lilly's unmoving form.

"First time?" I asked, keeping my voice gentle.

"It's not yours?"

I thought about the headless demon from two weeks ago. He hadn't been the first dead body, either. Damian tried his best to keep me sheltered, but I wasn't great at listening.

Plus, I'd been in Peter's morgue countless times before. He'd even shown me how to perform an autopsy. Peter seemed to think I'd be better off going to med school than following in my brother's footsteps as a demon wrangler. Saving lives instead of taking them, with the bonus I was less likely to get my ass killed.

Unless, you know, zombies. Hospitals were ripe with the potential for zombies.

Lilly was different though. Events replayed in my head as I tried to think of what I could have done differently, how I could have saved her from this.

Because make no mistake, this was my failure. She had trusted me, and in my hubris, I'd kept her a secret from Damian. He would have been able to keep her safe.

She would still be alive if I weren't such a selfish child.

Lucas pulled me into a hug, comforting me as if I was blubbering and hysterical. I wasn't. Looking at her, all I felt was regret.

"This isn't your fault," he whispered in my hair as if he'd read my mind. "You tried."

I pulled away, redirecting my self-loathing in his direction. "Trying isn't good enough."

He shook his head. "You can't save everyone."

"I can't save anyone," I yelled.

He flinched and turned away. "We should call someone. This isn't something her parents should come home to."

I took out my cell phone. We couldn't call the police or anyone human. Our best bet was for me to call Damian.

I hesitated. Calling Damian meant telling him everything. He would rightfully blame me and ship me off to a school in Australia or something.

I swallowed down my revulsion at my continued selfishness. Telling Damian wouldn't bring her back, wouldn't undo the damage. I wasn't ready to blow up our relationship.

I scrolled down my contact list to Peter's name. I didn't press the button. This wasn't something he would keep from Damian, either.

I scrolled past Peter's name and pressed Wes' name. It rang until Wes' chipper voice asked me to leave my name and number and he'd get back to me.

I hung up, feeling the urge to punch a wall.

"I'll call my dad," Lucas said, turning his back as he took out his cell.

He didn't get the chance to call anyone.

"Don't fucking move," a gruff voice said from behind me.

Great. One of the neighbors must have called the cops.

I raised my arms up and turned slowly, scrambling for some explanation that wouldn't end with me in handcuffs.

My heart stopped when I got a good look at the man. Tall and built like he'd been to war and won, he wore no uniform. Instead, he wore a black turtleneck stretched across taut muscles, green cargo pants with enough pockets to make any boy scout proud, and a long black trench coat that would have made Spike from Buffy jealous.

It wasn't any of that, though, that had stolen the breath from my lungs.

Resting on his shoulder was a cutlass sword. The runes glowing on the hilt told me this wasn't some pirate far from the sea. He was something far worse than a human cop or a hungry demon.

Sentinel. Legal assassin.

All I had to defend us was a cell phone and a demon-bloodstained pen.

"Nice jacket," I said, trying to break the tension and bring the red alert down a level. "Would look better on me, though."

The sentinel smirked. Clearly, he was proud of his fashion statement. "Ya think?"

"How about you let me try it on?"

"How about you explain what the fuck you're doing here?"

"It isn't what it looks like," Lucas said.

If I didn't think it would get me skewered, I would have face palmed.

The sentinel tapped the non-edged side of his blade against his shoulder, studying us, contemplating the best way to kill us.

My hands tightened into fists. I couldn't count on backup from Lucas, and I had no weapon. My odds of starting a fight and winning were slim to none. However, the odds of both of us surviving if I did nothing were a lot worse.

"What is it, then?" the sentinel asked, eyes narrowed.

I wasn't as quick with my mouth as Lucas was.

"Lilly didn't show up to school, so we came to check up on her," Lucas said.

The sentinel would have to be dumber than a box of rocks to believe that.

"I'm going to have to bring you in," he said.

"Worried about witnesses?" I retorted.

I couldn't be sure he was the culprit, but it seemed damn coincidental that he just showed up right now.

"Tell me what you know, and maybe I'll let you go."

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

"We don't know anything," Lucas said. "Wrong place, wrong time. That's all."

"Talk before I let my blade do the talking."

Wow. He sounded like a video game villain caricature.

I shrugged. "She was like this when we got here."

"See anything?"

"Just you." I let the implication hang between us.

He could have denied it. That he didn't, told me what I needed to know.

"Guess we have a problem, then," the sentinel said.

Lucas walked in front of me, shielding me with his body. Now wasn't the time for heroics.

"No problem here," he said. "We're very pro-sentinel. Keep up the good work keeping people like us safe."

I could see where Lucas was trying to go with this. Sentinels didn't have the same ability to detect preternatural creatures as we did. They were, after all, human. Or they used to be. No one knew what a sentinel became after they graduated from sentinel academy. All I'd heard were stories. Sentinels were the stories parents told their misbehaving non-human children. They were our version of the bogeyman.

Only our version was standing right in front of us with a gleaming sharp sword.

"Still bringing you in," the sentinel said, not buying what we were selling.

If he had been the one to kill Lilly, he would have known she wasn't human. It stood to reason we weren't either.

I moved around Lucas so he was no longer blocking my way. Raising one fist over my face while keeping the other tucked into my belly, I took a step back with my left leg, falling into guard stance. He might have had a sword, but I had my fists. Many years of training with Damian had molded my body into a fighting machine.

At least, I liked to believe so.

Lucas groaned. "Don't be stupid. You can't win."

"Once we're in the compound, there is no leaving."

Sentinels didn't take prisoners and then let them go. If we were lucky, we'd be tagged and shipped off to a reservation. I had a feeling, though, that this guy would be more likely to hide our bodies than relocate us.

"Your friend's right, sweetheart. You don't want this to get messy."

I snorted. "You'll never take me alive."

Why did that line always sound better in the movies?

The sentinel smirked. "If you want to do this the hard way…"

I rushed forward. The sentinel swung his blade, trying to catch me in my approach, but I saw it coming and dodged. Facing his back, I executed a sidekick, my foot connecting with the small of his back before he could turn around.

He stumbled forward but didn't fall. He swung his sword with controlled movements in my direction.

"Get out of here, Lucas," I said.

At least he might make it out of this alive. Small comfort, but small was better than none.

I didn't look to see if he'd listened, focusing on dodging the sentinel's swipes and aiming to hit him in the genitals once he missed. Yeah, it would be a cheap move, but when it came to life or death, there was no cheating.

His blade came down on my right. I turned to the left, connecting my fist with his side. He grunted. Before I could follow up with another blow, a second sentinel walked into the living room, dressed as a member of the men in black.

Sentinel number one took advantage of my distraction and grabbed me from behind. He pressed the sharp edge of his blade against my throat.

I went still.

Lucas sighed behind me like a man already accepting his fate. "Don't you know they always come in twos?"