It felt like I should be dead.

Wasn't death supposed to be peaceful?

Instead, I felt bruised, sore all over, like I was a peach someone had dropped from a second-story building.

I groaned as I twisted over on—a couch?

"Rise and shine sleeping beauty." A voice said beside me.

For a second it sounded like I was back home in the city and dad had come in to wake me.

My heart clenched when I realized this wasn't the case.

"What—?" I grumbled.

"Are you hurting?"

I blinked and as my eyes adjusted, Damian's face came into view.

"Damian?"

"That's what they call me."

I tilted my head trying to make sense of things.

I couldn't remember if I'd made plans to stay over at Damian's; in fact, I couldn't remember much of anything.

My brain felt swollen and slow.

"H-how did I get here?" I asked as I sat up and stretched.

I was in Damian's living room no doubt, but beside the familiar room nothing else made sense.

"Well, uh, my mom's your mom's emergency contact so..." His eyes dropped down to his lap.

"Emergency contact? Was there an emergency she had to be contacted about? What did I do this time?"

Damian squirmed uncomfortably. He knelt beside me on the couch, his brown hair a bit lopsided and untidy, as if he'd been up all night.

"I know that look on your face, Damian. Something's wrong. Aw, fuck, my head hurts."

"You don't remember anything? Nothing at all?"

"Of course not, genius. Would I be asking if I did?"

Despite himself, he smiled, though his eyes looked haunted.

He took my hands into his and that's when the worry began to settle in.

"Someone--someone broke into your house."

I stared at him.

"What?" I cried, jumping out of the couch. "Was it dad's murderer? Is he back? Is my family hurt?" My pulse quickened and a need to vomit burrowed in the pit of my stomach.

As dizziness overcame me, Damian caught me in his arms and pulled me into his sturdy chest.

"Damian, is my family hurt?"

"No one knows," He murmured against my hair, holding me to him.

I shook my head in denial and pressed my palms against his chest to push him away.

I didn't need comforting.

What I needed now was answers.

"What do you mean no one knows?"

"Yes, Aim, no one knows because--because your family is missing."

Damian waited beside me at the public bus top.

The air was still humid from last night's snow, the streets still wet and it looked like we'd be expecting more snow tonight.

Across the street a bakery advertised a 2 for 1 special on muffins, the red awning over the shop entrance drooping, weighed down by the remnants of snow.

There was a ringing in my ears, like a cricket was lodged in my ear canal and wouldn't stop rubbing its wings together.

I tapped the side of my head but it didn't help.

"We got worried after you ran off with Christian. When we arrived at your house, Christian was there, and so was the police." Damian said.

His hand rested over mine, comforting, warm and familiar.

"Then what happened?"

"Christian said you'd run off into the woods and that he wasn't able to find you. And that your family had been abducted. Police did a search and said something about evidence of foul play."

No duh. If nothing foul had been involved maybe there would have been flowers strewn everywhere and not blood.

"The police sent a search party after you. I helped and Christian wanted to as well but the cops didn't let him.

I turned my head slightly to look at him.

"Why not Christian?"

"Well...because." Damian hesitated. He looked across the street at a kid and mom leaving the bakery. The child dropped his toy, the mom picked it up and gave it back to him.

"Spit it out, Damian."

"Well, he's sort of their main suspect. They took him downtown for interrogating."

I nodded, sticking the pieces together.

The puzzle was finally starting to make sense.

After Damian had revealed what had happened, bits and pieces had begun to come back.

The paramedics checking on me at the bottom of the ravine. The glaring lights of a hospital bed.

She's fine to go home. Just a minor concussion.

We gave her a sedative since she was pretty hysterical and kept screaming about ghosts.

And in the end, despite remembering everything that had happened last night, I had more questions than I did answers.

But I knew someone who would.

"Dai, I can't go into work today."

"I understand." He nodded. "I can call my mom to let her know you're coming back home."

Placing my pack in his lap, I stood. "No, I'm not going back to your house. I have something I need to do."

"Aimee, I think you should let the police handle it. It's not safe for you to go around investigating. You could be in danger too."

His eyes crinkled at the sides with worry.

"I'm not going to do anything stupid, Damian. I'm just going downtown to see Christian."

His mouth opened in protest but he clamped it shut and said nothing.

I'd been to the police station once before in my life, when they'd asked mom to come down for a few questions.

Do you know anyone who might have wanted to hurt Luke?

Did Luke have any enemies?

They'd made me sit in an uncomfortable leather couch that squealed when I moved like a fat-bellied pig being gutted.

Some lady had even tried to hand me a doll.

I'd been fifteen.

I wondered, as I climb the red-bricked building with its chipped façade, if my dad's cold case file was stuffed somewhere in a filing cabinet, collecting cobwebs.

I reached the front door which was made of clear glass. I could see a man sitting behind a window beyond it.

He looked bored as he took a swig of his coffee.

I imagined it must have been cold from the face he made.

As I approached the window, he glanced up at me, his eyes going back down to his magazine, uninterested.

"Excuse me. I'm here to see someone."

"Name?"

"Christian...err, Dannek."

"Oh, right. The Romanian national."

"Yeah, um, him."

"And who are you?"

I raised my chin and squared my shoulders.

"He's my...we're...family."

"Are you on his visitor's list?"

"No, how do I get on it?"

The cop sighed.

After some bureaucratic crap and lots of red-tape, I was finally allowed to see Christian.

A guard led me down a corridor lined with cells, his baton thumping against his leg with each step.

"Visitor for Dannek."

As I approached the cell, his form came into view.

I found him sitting on a cot with his hands over his mouth as if he'd been praying.

Could people like him—whatever he was—even pray?

His chin tipped up at the sound of our approach. When his eyes saw me, he stood and neared the bars.

"Aimee, thank God you're safe."

"Well, yeah, no thanks to you."

His eyebrows drew together in admonishment. Like him being some type of supernatural creature was supposed to scare me.

I mean, it did help to have metal bars between us, I wasn't going to lie.

"You've no idea what you're talking about. There are bad people after you."

"And let me guess, you're one of the good guys?"

"There are no good guys. Not when it comes to you."

I scowled.

"If you're trying to make me feel better, it's not working."

"Listen to me. They have to let me out of here in the next couple of hours. They're only holding me on speculation and unless they can charge me with something, they have to let me go. After that we can—"

"Wait, there is no we. I only came here for answers.

His lip pressed into a thin line.

"Why did you come here, Christian? Our life was fine and then you show up," I lowered my voice. "With your freakishly human speed and then my family goes missing."

"I didn't have anything to do with it. But I can help you find your family. All you have to do is trust me."

"Trust is earned."

"If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it a long time ago and you know it. Back at your apartment, for one."

It was my turn to grimace.

My eyes traveled up to his.

We stood there for a few moments, staring one another down.

Today, his eyes were a deep ocean blue, framed by a set of long and full eyelashes.

"Meet with me after I get out. I'll answer all your questions."

I turned this around in my head for a moment. I did need answers. Not knowing anything about my family's whereabouts was eating me inside. And I'd never forgive myself if I didn't find out everything I could about who had taken them.

"I pick the place."

"Deal." He nodded.

"I'll text you the address."

"I'll be there."