A chilly draft woke me up. With a foot still inside sleep, lifting my eyes just high enough to look around the room, I realized it was coming from the half-open window, but the more I tried to recall whether I had left it like that or not, the foggier my thoughts got.

I was contemplating getting up and closing it when the sheets ruffled next to me. It felt like someone switched their position, moving the bedspread along with them.

My heart started to beat faster.

No one should have been there. Maybe I was imagining things—perhaps I was way too tired to make out sounds correctly and my nerves were still on edge from last night. Halfway through the process of convincing myself it must have been something else, I heard it again. This time, though, a voice followed.

"You know, warlocks can cast protection spells on the physical part of you, but nothing can keep me from finding your mind."

My stomach felt heavy and twisted. By instinct, I reached out to the lamp on my nightstand, but I didn't find it. The impulse made me stumble out of bed and slam my back against the wall. There, I steadied myself enough to make sure I hadn't imagined that, too.

I hadn't. Through dawn's blue light I could only make out the shape of his face and his blue eyes staring back at me. Roy. "Who are you?" I asked. He couldn't know that I recognized him. "How did you get in here?" I tried to stay cool, but sadly I wasn't getting any good results. Maybe if I screamed loud enough Hunter would hear me from the other side of the street.

And what if my dad or my mom came in here? Would he kill them and Emilia?

"You know who I am." He sat up slowly, a sneer curving his lips. "Don't you?"

"I don't...."

My eyes narrowed, and I noticed something then. My room looked completely different. I hadn't found my lamp because it wasn't there—in fact, nothing was there. The only things I could find were my bed and the window. No door, no closet, the pictures on my walls, which seemed to be swaying, had disappeared, and the corners of my eyes were blurry.

"I'm dreaming," I concluded. "You're not real."

His sneer grew. "Are you sure about that?"

I knew I wasn't safe. Not even in my own head. "What do you want?"

"That's easy." He pushed himself slowly up from the bed, not hesitating for a single moment on his answer. "I want your heart."

Panic surged through me. Even if this was just a dream, he was able to make the hairs on my nape rise. "My heart? I don't understand—"

Wrong answer. Before I could do anything about it, Roy appeared like smoke in front of me, his hands pushing me harder against the wall. I let out a small cry. You weren't supposed to feel pain in a dream, and yet his touch felt like a burning torch on my skin.

His mouth lingered on my ear, his teeth clenched. "Stop acting dumb."

I opened my mouth, but another voice spoke over mine. Like an echo. Olivia. The room shook for a moment, and Roy's grip became stiffer. It had sounded a lot like...Dad.

"You can't hurt me."

"You think I can't?" He laughed, a guttural noise that would have scared anyone away. "I can hurt you however I want." He let his hand drift to my chest, a finger pressed right over my heart. The burning sensation worsened.

I couldn't hold back the cry, and Dad's voice came through one more time. Olivia, wake up. Slowly, the room began to melt, and that must've angered Roy. He pressed his face harder against mine. "I'll get to you, Olivia. I'll prove you're one of them. And when I do, I'm gonna kill you."

His finger melted into my skin, the room twirling into shadows as a scream was torn from my chest. There was a moment of silence, and then everything shattered.

"Olivia, for the love of God, wake up!" Dad's hands found me first when I sat up, his arms cradling me like they used to do when I was a kid. "Jesus, sweetheart...what happened?"

I dug my head into him, panting. I doubted I had ever felt such comfort in that old drugstore cologne he loved so much. "Just a bad dream."

He sighed, combing my hair with his fingers. "Dream? With those screams you made me believe someone was trying to rip your organs out." His words sent a shiver down my spine. When I didn't reply, he pushed some space between us. "What were you dreaming about?"

The lie felt thick in my mouth. "I can't remember."

I looked around, daylight creeping through the curtains. Dread settled like quick drying cement in the pit of my stomach when I noticed they were swaying slightly with the wind. The window was open.

"You would tell me if something was going on...right?"

I looked back at him. His eyes were holding back some concerned uncertainty. "What do you mean?"

"Well, with everything happening with Sally and the recent disappearances, I just don't want you to feel like you can't tell me or your mother if something is going on. You can trust us."

"Dad," I said, drawing my legs close to me. "Did anything happen?"

His lips met on a flat line, his hands folding over his lap. "Liv, Mr. Raegan called me last night. He said he got a call from the hospital where Sally's getting taken care of." He stopped for a moment. Like he had to think the words through. "They said that she woke up for a couple of minutes. And when she did, she kept repeating this one thing...."

"What thing?" I almost didn't want to ask.

"She wouldn't stop saying that some guy with blue eyes wanted to kill her," he explained, sounding completely disturbed. "But that wasn't all." Two very long, very silent seconds went by before his next words made my mouth feel like sandpaper. "She told everyone to warn you about him. That he would come after you, too."

ﺵ

"What else did he say?" Hunter asked.

I glanced at him sideways as Ms. Aldrin went on about the key functional groups in organic chemistry. "He insisted that I told him if anything was happening, and I could only come up with the excuse that it was me the one who helped her calm down that day when she was attacked at the parking lot, which could have possibly led her to an overwhelmed state of delusions."

The bell rang a couple of minutes after, everyone pouring out of the class with the eagerness of lunch break. Hunter rounded his stool and waited until I arranged my stuff.

"You did the right thing," he said.

I shook my head. "I became part of the group of people who say she's crazy. Worst thing is I know for a fact she's not. And not only that, but now I have to deal with paranoid parents. I can only hope I don't become the next Rapunzel."

"It's better this way—avoid danger at all costs. The less people know about it, the safer they are." He followed me out into the hall, a gentle smile on his lips. "But in any case, if they happen to lock you in your room, I can always come and get you out. I already know the way up."

I waited a couple of seconds until we were left alone. "I'm just scared, Hunter. Jared hates me, there's a psycho guy coming after my heart because he needs it to break all Hell loose, and I'm here, hoping I'll wake up anytime soon and this will only be a really fucked up dream I had."

I didn't even want to think about dreams in the moment because all I would see was Roy's face when he tried to dig his fingers into my chest and—

"If you feel like that and it's only been a couple of days, imagine how I've felt the last eighteen years." He stepped closer, his hands steady on my shoulders. I wanted to pull him into me—taste the feeling of his closeness like I had last night. "You know, about yesterday, I—"

"There you are," Will's voice cut him off, and I stepped back instinctively. "I can't find anyone today. Thought you both were lost, too."

"Too?" I asked, finding his tone more serious than usual.

"Yeah, well, I can't find Jared anywhere. Dan told me he saw him walk out with Patricia during first period. Supposedly he never came back. His things are in his locker, car keys and backpack included."

Hunter crossed his arms. "Are you sure he's not here at school?"

"I looked everywhere, dude. Nada, no traces of the guy." He sighed. "Something doesn't feel right. He hasn't returned any of my calls, and Dan said they looked like they were in a hurry."

For some reason, the idea of them sneaking out of school together made me very uncomfortable. We were talking about Jared, the same guy who made me tell my third grade arts teacher that I had taken a purple Crayola home because it was the right thing to do. He had never skipped a single class since kindergarten. This wasn't something he would do.

My heart sped up as the thought flashed through my mind. I looked at Hunter, my voice barely over a whisper. "You don't think Roy—"

"Whoa," Will said, looking puzzled. "What did you just say?"

I didn't understand why until Hunter scratched his head nervously. "Yeah, I think I forgot to mention that Liv knows about Roy." Will didn't say anything, and Hunter realized why. "She knows about everything, actually."

I doubted I had ever seen Wilson as speechless as he was right now. His eyes widened, their hazel color darkening. "Are you insane, Hunter?"

"What was I supposed to do?" he asked, rubbing a hand over his face.

"Oh, I don't know. Not put her in danger like that, maybe?"

Hunter's jaw tensed. "It would've been more reckless not to have shown her what's truly going on."

"Do you have any idea—"

"That's enough," I said, my cheeks flaring. "How do you even know about Roy?" Maybe asking that didn't make any sense. He'd been Hunter's friend since they were kids, after all. If anyone knew about his...powers, it had to be Will. "You're one of them?"

"No." Will sighed. His eyes drifted to me, and a golden flame flickered inside of them. "I'm a—"

"Dragon," I said softly.

"We went to see Gideon yesterday," Hunter continued. His words seemed to have shocked Will, who turned his head away with a grimace.

"Why would you mess with warlocks?"

Hunter shook his head. "The fact that one of them turned you into a pigeon once doesn't mean I can't trust Gideon."

"You told him about what happened back at the lake house? About Sally?"

Just thinking of it made me shiver, but neither of them noticed. I wondered who else knew about this world—who else was part of it. I didn't know what to believe anymore. I couldn't trust my own eyes. All these years by Will's side and now he turned out to be just like the guys who I saw back at the bar shaping fire in their hands.

I guess it made sense, though. Wilson liked playing with fire.

"And about what happened yesterday," Hunter said wearily, glancing at both sides of the empty hallway before he continued. "He was here."

"He wanted to test me, check if I could see through his glamour." Suddenly, I didn't like how lonely the place felt—just the three of us standing there while everyone else feasted on Gloria's mashed potatoes. "He even used Anthony's face to shield his own. My guess is that he saw us talking back at the party."

"I don't get it," Will said. "Why would Roy come after you? Just because he saw you back at the party with Hunter? That doesn't make any sense."

"He tried to mess with my mind. He used some sort of compulsion—or at least he tried to—so that I would believe Sally was alone in the balcony that night. Maybe he was trying to clean up his tracks."

"You didn't tell me he tried to get into your mind before, Liv," Hunter said.

"I didn't think it'd matter since I was able to stop him." I sighed. "I guess resistance to those sort of things is included in the whole Keeper package."

"Keeper?" Will asked, sounding genuinely taken aback.

Hunter opened his mouth as if he were about to explain, but a high-pitched beeping cut him off before he could even begin. The noise made me jump, and it took me a moment to realize it was coming from my pocket. I reached inside and picked up the call the second I saw his name written on the screen.

"Jesus, Jared, where are you? Will has been looking everywhere for you."

The voice that greeted me was certainly not what I had expected. "Oh, hi there, Liv." She stretched the 'i' with a honeyed pitch.

"What are you doing with Jared's phone, Patricia?"

I heard bottles clinking in the background and she snickered. "I was going to call Oliver's for some pizza, but I guess I must have dialed your number by accident. My mistake. I should've known a pizza place didn't have heart emojis next to its name."

"Put Jared on the phone."

"Yeah, he's kinda busy right now."

"He's busy? Seriously?" I felt as if someone had dunked me in gasoline and thrown a match at my feet. "Where are you?"

There was a moment of silence before she spoke again. "Why do you care so much? I'm simply having a little fun with him."

A small muscle on my mouth jumped with anger, and Hunter frowned. He and Will were staring at me, both their faces smeared with genuine confusion. "I swear to God, Patricia—"

"All right, all right. You got me," she said, sighing. "I guess it was foolish for me to think that taking your little human boy would be easy."

"What?" Something inside me cracked and broke, and I felt the color draining from my face. "Who are you?"

"That seems hardly relevant right now." Her voice was as cold and pointed as an icicle, but still smooth, cautious. "But I'll gladly tell you if you agree to come. We can even get to an agreement. Little Jared gets to walk out of here and I get to be the one who proves everyone you're a Keeper."

She wanted to prove I was a Keeper? The hell was that supposed to mean? "I'll do whatever you want. Just don't hurt him."

Will took a step forward. "What's going on, Liv?"

"And I believe you, Olivia. Rumor has it you're a nice girl, so why don't you prove it and come get your best friend? He doesn't seem to be scared—at least not for now." Bottles clinked in the background again, this time followed by the one voice I would recognize anywhere.

"Hey, Patricia! Where's that bottle of scotch?"

A cry got stuck in my throat. Jared. "Tell me where you are."

"Gladly, but you need to come alone," she said, and I knew it wasn't a suggestion. "No guard dogs, meaning I want that Inferno of yours as far away from me as possible. It would be a shame for your friend to pay the consequences if I find out you brought someone—"

"I told you I'd do whatever you wanted," I snapped.

"Fair enough. I will send you the address," she said. "I'll be waiting for you, but don't take too long. I've heard humans are not as interesting pets as one would think."

The line went dead after that, leaving me alone with a loud silence that shouted Jared's name with every second that passed. How? How had I let that happen? My chest felt tight, as if someone was pressing a heavy weight over it, and I wanted to scream.

"Olivia," Hunter's voice, as soothing as it always was, couldn't tear the feeling of sickness away from me. "What just happened?"

"I have to go." I didn't try to keep the anger out of my voice, but neither of them let me walk past the entrance doors. "Get out of my way. Both of you."

"First you can start by telling us what's going on," Will offered instead.

"Who picked up his phone?" Hunter stared straight at me. Like he knew the answer already.

"I don't know," I said. "But that wasn't Patricia. It might have been her voice...but I doubt she would refer to Jared as a human and then tell me that she wanted to be the first one to prove everyone I was a Keeper."

Will's head jerked up, his narrowed eyes pinned on Hunter. "You don't think we're dealing with a—"

"Shapeshifter," Hunter finished. "Most likely. Are we completely sure this Patricia girl isn't part of, you know, our world?"

"I've never sensed anything," Wilson said. "Not that I hang out with the math kids often, but from what I've heard, the girl's pretty calm. The only remotely exciting she did was make out with Jared for the past two weeks."

I felt a sour taste rise in the back of my throat. I'd never had a problem with Jared's love interests, but to think of him fooling around with Patricia—to think he was now with someone wearing her face as a mask—made me sick to my guts.

"I need to use the restroom."

Halfway down the hallway Wilson called out to me. "Liv, wait. Are you—"

"I'll be right back, okay?" I said, my tone lingering close to the defensive line, and I caught Hunter raising his eyebrows. "Let me splash some water in my face before we do anything."

Before he could add anything else, I walked around the corner and found my way through the other hallway. My legs were in autopilot, and the only thing that made me stop before the restroom doors were Hunter's words filtering through my mind. His voice sounded wary, tense.

Don't do anything...stupid, Olivia.

A chill danced along my skin and I chewed on my lip for a moment. Half of me wanted to head back and tell them where Patricia was keeping Jared, but the other knew damn well it would be like tying a noose around his neck. I thought about my options, then. I didn't have any.

Without letting myself think twice about it, I left the restrooms and made my way to the back doors. "Looks like you don't know me that well yet, Hunter."

It was a thirty minute train ride. I'd taken the pink lane from Central Park Avenue to Millennium Park, where I hopped off and headed down Michigan Avenue. The city looked like any other Tuesday at midday. Everyone buzzed up and down the street, heading out to their lunch hour or rushing back to the office, and the familiar, fresh breeze—smelling of fog and fish—from Lake Michigan ran through the buildings.

Anyone would've called it a beautiful day. The transition from fall to winter was becoming obvious; blown off leaves scrunched under my sneakers as I turned the corner to Randolph Street and headed east. My phone vibrated for what was probably the tenth time inside my pocket, but just like the last nine times, I let it go straight to voicemail before checking the exact location Patricia—or whoever it was—had sent me.

Only two more blocks, Jared, the thought settled in my mind. I'm coming to get you.

From where I stood, across the street, I could finally see the old, brick building that rose next the Oriental Theater where Patricia said it would be. A tacky sign hung from its wall, its green letters spelling out LOTUS TAVERN, and for a moment, I wondered if I was looking at the right building. For all I knew, it was even the first time I'd seen the place.

The other edifices rose high, casting their shadows over the streets below where traffic started to build up. I made my way across the cars and came to a stop in front of the double doors. Their windows were blocked with cardboard and dust covered them like a thick layer between the glass and the carton sheet. Anyone would've said the place was abandoned.

The door gave way with a gentle push, and I took my time to look around once it had closed behind me. There was a single corridor leading to a set of stairs, which were glowing under a red lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. As I approached those, I noticed the walls were chipped, covered in graffiti, and the music loudened when I reached the open space.

It looked like an old party salon at first, but then I tried to peal through the layer of enchantments and found that the place was filled with baskets of liquors, and there were a few stools, tables, and chairs scattered around. At the end of the room stood an old bar, where someone with wavy, brown hair was lowering the volume on the big boom box on the counter behind them.

"I didn't think you'd actually show up alone," she said, turning around. If Hunter hadn't proposed it earlier, I would've thought it was Patricia. The only thing that showed them apart were the eyes, which weren't brown anymore but a sickening yellow. They stretched in a line. Like those of a lizard. "You must really care about Jared."

I dug my nails into my palm, trying to control my nerves when I didn't find him anywhere around the room. "Where is he?"

"I thought we could get to know each other before we brought the kid into the argument," Patricia said, her thin lips breaking into a smile. With a swift movement, her legs had gone over the bar and she fell with the grace of a cat on the other side a moment later. I sucked in a breath, and she laughed. "I've heard a lot about you the past few days, Olivia Rhodes."

When I didn't reply, she went on, licking her lips. "You know, nobody believed Roy when he said he had found a Keeper to do his stupid ritual. It's not the first time he gets a lead on false hope, and now that everyone inside the Veil is so on edge with the need of an outbreak, it seems like you came into the picture in the perfect moment."

"I thought the ones who stayed here had agreed to live in peace with humans. That you knew how important they Veil was to keep danger away from this world," I said, reciting Hunter's words. For all I knew, I could sound like kid who thought they knew the first thing about the adult life. "If you break that wall, you would be—"

"Unleashing a true Hell on Earth," she finished, her smile wider. We were only a couple of feet away, and I retreated some steps. "I know. But I would also make justice."

"Condemning innocent people? You call that justice?"

"Tell me something, Olivia Rhodes," Patricia began, and I caught a glimpse of something moving under her skin. It certainly looked like— "Would you consider being forced into hiding fair? Do you think it feels nice to pretend all the time because poor, little humans cannot be risked? Their lives don't matter more than ours. Why do we have to be the ones who suffer the consequences and not them?"

"You have powers. They don't," I concluded, feeling a lump build inside my throat when I realized I'd used the word they instead of we.

"Exactly," the shapeshifter let out angrily, and I no longer heard Patricia's voice. What came out of her throat sounded more like a roar than the honeyed voice I knew. "Why should we deny what we have? It's been long enough, sweetie pie. And you're exactly what we need. Our ticket out of this misery."

She took a dangerous step closer to me. I caught sight of something silvery peeking out of the long sleeved blouse she wore, and I found myself backing away. The wall kissed my back soon enough. I realized I had nowhere to run.

"Wait—you promised," I blurted. "You can do whatever you want, tear my heart out right here, but I need to see Jared walk out of here unharmed."

"Or what?" she said, laughter stuck in the back of her throat. "Tell me—what could you possibly do to me? You're not trained. You don't know what you can do."

My stomach dropped to the floor, a guilty fear engulfing my conscience. I'd gotten myself into a bad situation purposely. So many times before watching horror movies with Jared, the both of us complaining about how stupid characters were, throwing themselves into deadly situations without any care at all, and now it was me the one who found herself about to meet Death.

Love makes you reckless, Jared would always say. Unless it's Romeo and Juliet we're talking about. Love—if you can even call that love—just made them idiots.

I felt like an idiot. "Please..."

The shapeshifter's laughter sounded feral, and this time I was able to see her skin move again. Like it was bubbling. Her eyes seemed to glow a neon yellow. "Oh, you humans amuse me. 'Please' this, 'Please' that. All you do is go through life begging for things instead of getting the job done yourselves. If you didn't want your little pet to be messed with, then you shouldn't have involved him in the first place."

"He was not involved," I spat, noticing how close she'd gotten. There was a table to my right, chairs piled up to my left. I had nowhere to run. "You brought him into the mess."

"But of course I would!" She almost sounded indignant. "You still don't get it, do you? In this world, our world, people won't ask for your heart. They will rip it out of your chest with their teeth if they have to." The image made my stomach turn. "Let me ask you something: have you ever seen a lion ask its prey for permission? We kill in order to get the things we need the most. It's basic Darwinism. Survival of the fittest."

I could've sworn something moved near the bar—like a shadow—but it went too fast for me to tell. My heart twisted with the hope that it had been him. "Jared!"

The shifter growled, her chilly, clammy hands pushing me against the wall. The amount of strength she had was enough to slam my head against one of the bricks, and ripples of pain spread through my body.

"That's cute," she muttered, her breath moist against my skin. It smelled like rotten meat and vodka. "Keep calling out to him. Scream, wail; I doubt he'll hear you."

I had to swallow a cry. "What did you do to Jared?"

"I put the kid to bed so that we could have our grownups talk." She sneered, and I felt the tip of something cold caressing my arm. Risking a glance, I found the silvery blade she was toying with. "Do you know what this is?" The shifter asked, probably amused by the horror look that spread over my face. "They call it the Reaver Blade. Supposedly it can capture the essence of any supernatural being once it's driven through their heart, use it as fuel to make itself stronger. Its touch will burn them, and that's all you need to find out if there's special blood running through their bodies. Keepers were said to fight with them a long time ago."

She dragged the blade up my stomach, then my collar bone, and let it linger against my cheek. "What are you waiting for, then?"

"It's such a shame I can't kill you myself," she said. "Just pushing it into your heart and watch you die would be great...but ironically enough, we need that intact. I guess this will do."

Without hesitation, she pressed the blade tight against my skin and let her hand fall back. At first I felt nothing, but then it all came crashing down. It was as if someone had slammed a burning-hot stone on my cheek and smeared ethylic alcohol over the cut. Everything stung, and for a moment, I thought she'd done more than slice through the skin.

Cuts weren't supposed to hurt people like this.

I tried to reach a hand to cover the wound, but she was faster, seizing both of my hands with hers and knocking my head back against the wall. The blade was still tight on her grip. She sounded amused, almost shocked. "Well, I'll be damned. Roy was right, you are a—"

She couldn't finish, though, her words lingering mid-sentence as I saw her body flying through the air. I looked for whoever owned the pair of arms that had slammed her against the wall and I only found a tall figure walking over to her slowly. I wasn't able to make out too many details, but they wore a jacket, blonde curls falling shoulder-length. I found myself hurtfully disappointed. I wanted to find Hunter instead.

"Danielle," a gravelly voice said, and I knew it must've been a guy. "Long time no see."

The shifter, who I assumed was actually called Danielle, let out another growl. This time, though, when her skin trembled, I saw it morph into something else, leaving Patricia's soft features behind. Instead there was a prominent jaw, which blended with her mouth and nose and almost stretched into a nozzle. Her eyes had sunken into their sockets, her teeth sharp like those of a dog, and I could see her nails growing.

I had to find balance on the wall behind me, a sickening feeling burning in my stomach. Werewolf.

"Owen," Danielle growled, her voice sounding more...animal-like. "What a lovely surprise."

For a second, the name sounded familiar, but I couldn't pinpoint from where exactly. The blonde guy—Owen—stepped closer to her. "You shouldn't be in Chicago," he said. "And you shouldn't be messing with things that are not of your damn business."

"Still holding onto old grudges?" she teased. "I thought that after the funeral you would move on, you know. Do what other people do and let her dead corpse rot in the ground."

That was enough to set Owen off, and before I could process what was happening, I found him launching himself at Danielle. She ducked under his blow, avoiding his fist by a short distance. This angered him, and when she tried to retaliate the attack, Owen caught her wrists and slammed her to the floor. He was fast, strong. For the first time, I saw her struggling with an opponent who shared her levels of expertise.

The rattling of glass bottles snapped me out of their fighting haze, though, and I looked across the room to the bar. It sounded like someone had dropped a bottle or let it roll on the floor. I wanted to believe it was Jared, so once I made sure Danielle and Owen were too focused on their brawl to notice me, I made my way across the room.

I felt dizzy, the pain in my head merging with the stinging on my cheek, and I willed myself to walk faster.

From the front, everything looked in order. The boom box was still working and two glasses—one empty, the other one completely filled—stood neatly on the counter. Something didn't feel right. I rounded the bar slowly, and a small cry cut through my throat. Part of it was because of the glass bottles crashing under Owen's weight when Danielle threw him against the table and the other because of Jared's crumpled body on the floor. He was holding another half empty glass, face pulled into a frown with his eyes closed.

"Shit—Jared." I threw myself next to him, slapping him a couple of times on either cheek. "Hey, buddy. Can you hear me? It's Liv. Open your eyes, okay? Please, just open..."

It felt as if my heart was about to jump out of my throat. I bit my lip to hold back a cry, and the effort made the skin on my cheek burn harder. I could feel droplets of blood oozing out of it, but the thought faded when Jared's mouth opened to let out a couple of slurred words I couldn't understand.

"What? What did you say?"

He half-opened his eyes, gaze lost somewhere behind me. "That's not...Patricia." He swallowed, and I noticed how his hand was shaking. "I...I don't think this was vodka." Jared's head fell back, the glass cracking when it hit the floor.

The smell was too overpowering—vanilla, maybe. I pressed my finger against it and gave it a good sniff. He was right: it smelled nothing like vodka. Then I noticed something dissolving in between my thumb and my index finger as I rubbed it. It felt like some sort of powder, but this one looked different. Like it was glowing.

Realization hit me like a truck, and it was hard to swallow. This is bad. This is really bad.

There was another crash, and I peeked over the bar to see someone else had joined the fight. A bald man had teamed up with Danielle to fight Owen, who didn't seem to have much trouble of handling both of them. The guy was as pale as a sheet of paper, which made the tattoo of a green viper snake on his head pop out like a beacon. His skin, however, looked tough and bumpy, even shiny—almost...scaly. Another shapeshifter?

I didn't want to wait for more people to join the fight club. All I needed was to get Jared out of there. Taking his arm and gently securing it around my shoulder, I tried to pull him up. I'd done it plenty of times before, but he'd always been at least half-conscious to help me.

I did my best to drag him out of the bar area while Danielle threw one of the chairs at Owen, who let it crush against his arm unimportantly, but my body couldn't handle his weight on its own. I would've fallen face forward if it hadn't been for the extra pair of hands that kept me standing and held on to Jared's other arm.

I found a pair of pale blue eyes staring back at me, and for a moment I wanted to believe it was Hunter. For the second time in a row, though, I found myself flooded with disappointment. When I got my eyes to properly focus, I noticed his skin was a dark shade of brown, almost like a toasted almond, making the blue of his eyes stand out even more. He looked around our age, maybe a bit older, and he was wearing the same clothes as Owen: dark jacket and jeans. I'd never seen him before, which sent alarm bells all through my mind.

I tried to yank Jared closed to me, shying away from the guy. "Let go of—"

"Calm down, okay," he said, his voice deep. "I'm here to help you. You're Olivia, right?"

My eyes widened, my breaths becoming short. "How do you—"

"I'm Dominic," he said before I could finish. "I'm Hunter's friend."

And then everything clicked. Now I understood why Owen's name was so familiar. He was talking about my friends. Dominic, Caiden, and Owen. We've known each other since we were kids, but we had to go our separate ways for safety measures. Hunter's words ringed in my ears, and I winced.

"Are you all right?" Dominic asked, his featured pulled into a tight frown.

The ache in my head started to grow stronger. If something happened to Jared.... He needed help—now. "Let's just get out of here."

He muttered something that sounded like "Gladly", and tightened his grip on Jared's arm. We rounded the bar and headed toward the exit. Owen caught a glimpse of us and kept on fighting Danielle's claws and the bald guy's quick, snake-like moves. We were halfway there when two other figures stepped in front of us: a man and a woman, both as pale as the bald man.

The woman had long, straight black hair that fell almost to her hips. She was dressed all in black, and I could see that the freckles covering her face spread all throughout her body. She sneered, her grey eyes looking as if they were empty, translucent. "Leaving so soon?" she asked.

"Vultures," Dominic growled under his breath. "Get out of my way, Amantis. You too, Ryon."

Ryon, whose eyes were as transparent as Amantis', gave Dominic a light shrug. "I'm afraid we can't do that. We heard the little shapeshifter bitch wanted to take credit for finding Roy's Keeper, but we can't let that happen. Hand her over, Hawthorn."

A shiver spread through me, and my legs trembled. "Nobody's gonna put a finger on her," Dominic said, and I felt him tightening his grip around Jared.

"What a waste," said Ryon. His gaze was fixed on Dominic, while Amantis took a dangerous step toward me. "Two Infernos helping a Keeper...and for what? Loyalty to your friend? You're already considered traitors to the Infernals. Make yourselves a favor and hand the girl in. Maybe you can earn some mercy by joining your rightful side. Maybe He will honor you with a quick death rather than the torture you've got coming for yourselves."

"You got that wrong, fella," said another voice from behind them. "We're more than just two Infernos." Ryon turned around, but he wasn't fast enough. A guy, who I assumed had to be Caiden, came up into the room from another hallway I hadn't seen to our right. He was Dominic's size, slightly leaner, and his blue eyes were glowing in the dim-lit salon. I didn't know why exactly, but he reminded me of Roy somehow.

With an effortless movement of his hand, Ryon was sent flying through the air like Danielle. Amantis was faster, though. She sidestepped Caiden's reach and threw herself at me. A scream was caught in my throat and I closed my eyes, waiting for her to get to me, but nothing happened. Instead, I felt two hands yanking me from behind, Owen's chest suddenly against my back.

"Get the human out of here, Dom," he said to Dominic, who had taken Jared over his shoulder. His eyes went from Owen's to mine, lingered there a little too long. "I'll get her out of here. Just go."

Dominic nodded and headed toward the hallway where I'd initially come from. Looking around, I found the place wrecked. Danielle was crumpled into a corner, moaning, the bald guy, whom I felt tempted to call Viper, kneeling next to her. Caiden himself was taking care of Ryon, and I suddenly panicked when Amantis got up from the ground.

Owen's grip loosened around me, raising his hand with a subtle movement. Amantis reached her hands to her throat, gasping for air while he locked his fingers into a fist. He was the one doing it. He was choking her. "I think we were clear, Amantis. You're not touching the girl."

I backed away from him, Amantis' gaze following my steps. She had a strange look on her face. It almost seemed like she was...amused. "You...can't," she choked out, "hide her forever."

"We can certainly try," Owen said. His fingers started to turn a chalky white from the pressure, but Amantis only laughed.

It didn't take long for me to notice why she kept laughing like that. Viper had left Danielle's side and was taking a run to get me, his yellow eyes glowing with hate and his scaly hand clutching the Reaver Blade. Owen didn't have enough time to react. Viper was already too close, so I only shut my eyes and braced myself for impact.

Someone shouted. I couldn't tell who exactly, though, because their voice had drowned in my ears. The world became silent for a moment, time feeling as if it was getting stretched like a rubber band. My heartbeats slowed down enough for me to feel them thump one by one inside my chest, and the all-too familiar sensation of heaviness and drowsiness made me realize what was happening before everything snapped back to reality.

Viper crashed face forward on the bar, breaking a hole into the old, moldy wood. But I was no longer near the spot where he now lay motionless with the blade still in hand. Instead, I found the comfort of two warm, sturdy arms holding me still five safe feet away from him. This time, I didn't need to turn my head to know I'd find the eyes I'd been wanting to see.

His hot breath brushed the skin of my ear, and for a second, it felt like nothing in my body hurt. "Maybe we should work on our definition of the word 'restroom', because this looks like the city instead."

Relief spread through a small part of me, enough to let my body rest against his. "What the hell took you so long?"

"You're hard to follow. More than I thought."

The sound of dry coughs coming from one of the corners broke off the bubble of safeness we were in. My head snapped in the direction it came from, and I found Caiden staring down at Ryon, who was clawing at his side, a silvery, thick goo prickling through his fingers. Was it...blood?

"Amantis was right, you know," he managed. His teeth were covered in that silvery thing too. Did Vultures bleed silver and not red? "You can't hide her forever. We're not the only ones looking for her. Roy will find her. The Veil will fall to pieces and we will all get justice for—"

Caiden's boot smashed against Ryon's temple, knocking him to the side. Close by, Amantis was taking in ragged breaths, her neck marked by the ghost of fingers that hadn't actually touched her. "Got a little tired of hearing you, buddy. Sorry."

"Get out of here, Hunter," Owen said, examining the room. Danielle was still crumpled against the wall, not moving. "Caiden and I will take care of this mess."

"I ain't gonna touch the blood. I'm not a janitor, man," Caiden grumbled, kicking one of the boxes aside. Its fillings were spilled all over the floor, which was, indeed, stained by blood splattered here and there—the silver goo included—and the tables and chairs were now torn into pieces. The place was wrecked to the ground.

"Let's go, Liv," Hunter tugged at my arm gently, but I didn't move, my eyes locking on Viper's hand.

"Wait." I didn't realize I was moving until I heard Hunter asking me what I was doing. The Reaver Blade gleamed under the dim lights, blood staining its tip. Something about it seemed compelling enough. Maybe it was the energy surging through it—I wasn't sure. Either way, I found my hand reaching for the blade. The soft metal on the grip grazed the tips of my fingers until they laced around it, and a strange feeling pulsed through my arm.

Suddenly I was no longer at Lotus Tavern, but the strong, white light of a narrow corridor blinded my eyes. It took me a moment to get them adjusted to the new lighting. When they did, I realized it was a hospital corridor. A couple of gurneys and wheelchairs were settled next to the wall, and a guy on a white coat strolled past me as if I wasn't even there.

When I turned around, I found room 403. The window blinds were open. It was clean—as clean as you would expect a hospital room to be—and I could see flowers and 'Get Well Soon!' balloons floating next to the bed. There, lying motionless, still as a corpse, was Sally. It was hard to recognize her. The bags under her eyes had grown, her skin pale as chalk, and an overall feeling of drainage seemed to be engulfing her.

I tensed, a breath stuck in the back of my throat, but the image didn't last long. A burning sensation spread through my hand, and I was back at the old tavern before I could understand what had happened. There was a red mark where I'd picked the blade. Like I'd put it right over a flaming hot stove.

Somewhere, I thought I heard Roy laughing. It was faint—distant—but it echoed right into my ear and settled there as a reminder that something was wrong.

A weird feeling washed over me before I could tell Hunter what was going on, and the floor tilted under my feet. His arms were tight around me, steadying my body against his. I knew he was talking to me. I could feel his breath on my ear, his lips moving, but even as I tried to make sense of what he was saying, all I could hear was Roy's distant laughter and the steady beeping of Sally's heart rate monitor. Both were spreading like poison inside my head as black dots started to creep into the corners of my eyes.

And before everything faded, I heard her voice. Three words that wereenough to make my heart stop: Help me,Olivia.