“What do we do now?” Mel asked, spinning in a full circle.

  “I don’t see any other reason why we’d come down here unless it was to go inside,” I replied, motioning to the house.

  “Do you think anyone’s in there?” Grace asked.

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  We studied the house for another minute or two before silently making our way towards it. I noticed the lawn was perfectly landscaped and someone had even done the edging around the walkway. I approached the front door and reached for the knob, hesitating at the last second.

  “Should I knock?” I asked, looking back at the girls.

  Mel shook her head no. “I say bust right in, if someone’s inside better to catch them off guard.”

  I turned and reached for the knob, this time twisting it around. The door opened without a hitch, releasing a small wave of chilled air from within. The house was so small, we could see the entire front room from where we stood. I held a finger to my lips, signaling them to keep quiet, then stepped in first.

  There was a tiny kitchen that had all the usual appliances and a table for two sat beneath a rear window, the view to outside obscured by a hideous pig themed valance. A leather sofa and recliner sat around a television stand that had succulents in place of an actual TV. All of them were surrounded by wolf and pig figurines.

  There wasn’t much else to see. I moved through the front room and headed straight for one of two doors that sat on the back wall. If someone were in here somewhere, they’d be behind one of these.

  Grace lingered inside the front doorway, watching as Mel headed for the door on the right, grabbing its handle the same time I grabbed mine. We looked over at each other and I held up a hand, silently counting to three.

  Once pushing

  BONUS CHAPTER

  PAST—2026--MEETING

  You’re not supposed to let where you come from define you, but its where I came from that made me who I was. A few hours ago, I graduated at the top of my class. I guess that’s something I should’ve been happy about.

  I wasn’t.

  A diploma meant nothing when you had a golden ticket that guaranteed you’d be riding shotgun straight to hell.

  And I was trying my best not to think about this right now but wasn’t that how it was supposed to go?

  After high school you plan out your next chapter. You make a series of decisions that will shape the rest of your life. If only I could’ve been that lucky. I could picture the abhorrent looks on my parents’ faces if I dared to openly rebel against their regime.

  But until the shackles closed around my wrists and ankles, I wanted to get lost in this temporary façade of freedom. For just a little while I would keep pretending that I wasn’t any different than the other girls at this party.

  In a few weeks they’d be heading off to take on frat boys and stress over finals. I was doing my best to be optimistic, but it wasn’t going all that well.

  I’d be trapped in a high-rise office learning my family’s egregious business secrets and engaged to some pretentious asshole I had never met before.

  Yay me.

  Couldn’t wait to live out such a fucking dream.

  I weaved around a couple practically dry humping in the middle of the makeshift dance floor, trying to locate my sister amongst the crowd of gyrating bodies. She’d sworn this was going to be a mid-sized get together. I’d been expecting about twenty people tops that ran in the same circle as us, not all these nameless, sweaty over perfumed strangers.

  If there was ever a question about turning a mansion into a nightclub, Troy Sainte had proven it could be done. I’m not sure his parents would be as impressed as I was. Still, the guy truly outdid himself--gaudy strobe lights and all.

  The colorful flashes were not mixing well with my alcohol consumption. There was a dull pounding in the back of my head from an oncoming headache. The volume of the music wasn’t doing me any favors either. I could feel the bass through the tips of my booted stilettos.

  Gracelyn materialized in front of me, reaching out to help me escape the sea of twerking and guys doing dance moves that rivaled a Sims.

  “You find her?” she yelled, damn near destroying my eardrum in her attempt to be heard over the music. I spared her the same pain and shook my head from side to side.

  She raised her brows and tapped the red cup in my hand with the tip of a perfectly manicured nail. “What’s this?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Her pretty face morphed into a scowl, and she snatched the drink away.

  I laughed at her mothering. I hadn’t planned on drinking it. I wasn’t that reckless. I’d been looking for a place to ditch it without having to venture all the way back to the kitchen. Gracelyn simply dumped the contents in a houseplant and left the cup beside a few others that had been abandoned.

  I tapped her shoulder to get her attention again, mouthing, “Mel?”

  She looped her arm through mine and pointed in the general direction of the patio, beginning to lead me that way. I kept an eye out for my sister as we made the short journey to that side of the house.

  Passing an area with a pool-table and ridiculous amounts of game mounted on one wall, I did a quick check to make sure she wasn’t hanging with the group of people gathered around it.

  I didn’t see Lamia anywhere, but someone else did catch my eye.

  He was standing off to the side, a pool stick clutched in his right hand as he waited for his turn. He just so happened to look up as were passing. Our gazes collided; a curious sensation pricked at the back of my neck. He had some seriously blue eyes. And an unnervingly beautiful face--high cheekbones, perfectly accentuated jaw. Supple lips pressed firmly together.

  He looked down for a moment, causing a strand of dark brown hair to fall from its resting place. When he glanced back up, my failure to pay attention to where I was going had me walking right into an angled part of the wall.

  “Ow.” I rubbed where my shoulder had connected, refusing to look behind me to see if he or anyone else witnessed that.

  “I told you to watch out,” Gracelyn trilled, failing to suppress a laugh.

  I hadn’t heard her say anything at all, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

  “Shut up. I was checking for my sister.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t sure if she was hidden amongst those hotties or not either.”

  I rolled my eyes, playfully nudging her in the side. We left the room behind and continued outside. Melantha was waiting for us in the only area of the patio that wasn’t congested with foot traffic. She was easy to spot with her navy blue and pink hair styled in two adorable sailor buns.

  “Did you find her?” she asked as we approached.

  “Nope.” I leaned against a portion of the stone railing that served as a decorative fence around the flagstone.

  “Mm, she’s probably on a mattress somewhere, being bent into an origami.”

  “That’s really the only explanation for her disappearance,” Grace agreed, nodding enthusiastically.

  “Thank you two so much for that visual.”

  “Well, what else would you expect her to be doing?” Mel asked.

  “What’s the time?” I questioned, blatantly ignoring that.

  Mel lifted her wrist and tapped the screen of her smartwatch. “Quarter past nine.”

  “Shit. We need to be back by eleven,” I reminded them.

  “You can’t tell your parents she went off with some friends of her own?” Gracelyn asked, fixing her hazel eyes on my face.

  I stared at her with raised brows. “Are…are you being serious?”

  She shrugged. “Is that so unrealistic?”

  “No, but I’m not trying to earn my sister a death sentence. You know how our parents can get.”

  “They would most definitely storm the movie theater we’re supposed to be at. Then they’d send their bloodhounds to track her down while we get our asses reamed raw,” Mel summarized perfectly.

  I sighed and looked towards where Sainte’s backyard became overtaken by trees. Somewhere back there was a pathway that led deeper into the woods. For a brief second, I thought my sister may have ventured down it, but that would be a little extreme.

  “What do you think we should do?” Grace asked.

  Boisterous laughter erupted from behind the opposite side of the patio before I could answer her.

  I looked to see what was causing the commotion. A few of the people we’d seen just a few minutes ago spilled outside, clearly having a good time, blue eyes amongst them.

  DAEMONIUM

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