“Lorelei, I can explain.”

Cameron was there in an instant, kneeling beside me. “What happened?”

“Guys!” Glitch came running down the mountain, yelling breathlessly. “Guys, there are three unconscious men up there.” He stopped beside me and bent over, panting. “I swear. I think they’re dead.”

He’d stumbled upon the massacre. That meant he’d been close when Jared went postal. I glanced back at Jared, my eyes wide. “Would you have hurt him too?”

Jared looked down as though unable to face me.

“If you had seen him,” I pushed, “would you have hurt him too?”

Cameron stilled, his muscles tense, his expression wary.

“What are you talking about, Lor?” Glitch asked, huffing from exertion beside me.

“Would you have killed him?” I asked again, my voice a mere whisper, afraid of what he might say.

Keeping his face averted, he said, “I didn’t kill anyone.”

But wasn’t that what he did? Wasn’t that his job? Maybe death came so naturally to him, he didn’t think twice about it. Maybe, when his temper flared, he couldn’t stop himself.

I shook so hard, my teeth rattled. Tears blurred my vision and I swiped at them angrily. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I’d slipped into a state of shock. I’d just seen the deaths of three innocent men. Everything slowed, every sound echoed in my head, and a desperate sorrow swallowed me whole. I knew things I no longer wanted to know, saw things I no longer wanted to see.

When did it all become so serious? So real? Jared wasn’t human. He didn’t belong on this plane, just like Cameron said. He was trapped here because of me. And clearly, he could kill in a heartbeat if he wanted to. I hadn’t taken that knowledge seriously before. Now I had no choice.

I heard voices but couldn’t make sense of what anyone said. Then I felt Cameron pick me up and carry me down the rest of the mountain. Faintly, as if from a dream, I heard Jared call to me. But Cameron yelled over his shoulder.

“Go back to where you came from, Reaper,” he said, his voice angry.

Then we were driving. The inside of the car felt like a funeral parlor. The inside of my heart felt even more dead, a hollow void where life had once thrived. I’d started crying and I wasn’t entirely certain why. Glitch held me in the backseat and Brooklyn sat beside us, petting my hair, whispering promises that everything was going to be fine.

But she didn’t see what I saw. I brought a supreme being onto this plane. A force so powerful, even other supernatural entities were afraid of him. A force that didn’t play by our rules. Didn’t believe in our set of moral standards. And I’d set him loose upon the human race.

Nothing would ever be fine again.

A DIFFERENT ANIMAL

A week later, the investigation into the injuries of three Tourist Channel employees outside a Riley’s Switch residence raged on. Injuries. As in, no deaths. Everything the crew had recorded since their arrival had been erased, along with any evidence as to what they’d been doing outside a vandalized residence. None of the men could remember what happened. They could barely remember their own names. Cops questioned just about everyone in town and scoured the area for clues. The trail ran cold at every turn.

I knew it might look suspicious if I didn’t go to school, but I just couldn’t manage it. I felt like the world had dropped out from under me. Everything I had learned. Everything I had seen. And to top it off, Jared was gone. I had turned on him the minute he showed me his true self, practically ordered him away. He left because of me. He said he didn’t kill anyone, and obviously he hadn’t. But I wouldn’t listen to him.

Still, that man’s neck was broken. I heard it. I saw the unnatural angle of his head on his shoulders as he crumpled to the ground. And yet, according to police reports, there were no deaths. All three men were present and accounted for. I had accused Jared of the worst crime imaginable and sentenced him before he even had a chance to explain. I was no better than those people who had burned my ancestor, the prophet Arabeth, on the streets of her village. No trial. No chance to defend herself. Just a village teeming with fear and superstition. How was I any better?

With all the questions and doubt about what happened rolling around in my head, I missed a week of school. An entire week. I hadn’t done that since I had pneumonia in the fifth grade. The homework Brooklyn brought me every day sat on my desk untouched. Just like the lunch Grandma and Grandpa had brought up earlier. They came in every so often to check on me. I knew they wanted answers, but I couldn’t talk about it, not just yet. And even when I could, I’d have to come up with a whopper. The whole I just don’t feel good would only last so long. I had no idea what I was going to tell them.

And to top it all off, I’d lost my necklace. Again. I had to have lost it either in the Southerns’ house or in the forest outside it. Either way, I worried that, if found, it could trigger questions possibly leading to us.

“There she is,” Glitch said as he and Brooklyn walked into my room carrying pizza and orange soda.

“Phew,” Brooklyn said, “we were worried you might have gone out partying, it being Friday night and all.”

I smiled and sat up. My bed was a rumpled mess, as were my pajamas and quite possibly my hair, but at least I’d managed a shower. “How was the game?”

Glitch shrugged and pulled a small table over to the bed. “We won. How was your day?”