“He’s slammed me up against trees and brick walls and told me that I have to know who’s behind all of this, but I don’t,” she said. “I don’t know anything, Jared, I swear.”
His gaze fell on a stack of photos on the table beside the cell. Reaching out, he picked one of them up. A fire ignited inside him, seeing Charity’s crime scene photos so close to his sister. He held it up to Brad, barely managing to speak because his jaw was clenched so tightly. “Did you show her these?”
Brad sighed, leaning his hands on the desk. “Yeah. So what?”
Jared turned and, without taking his eyes off Brad, handed Mykaela his keys. “Wait for me in the car.”
She took the keys and headed for the door, but Brad darted in front of her. Mykaela jumped back, and any doubt about what she’d accused Brad of vanished. It was true. Brad lost his conscience—he’d crossed the line. He’d probably traumatized Mykaela for life. For what? What information could a seventeen-year-old girl possibly have that would warrant this behavior?
Standing firm in front of Mykaela, Brad glared at him. “Jared, are you crazy? She’s the only lead we have.”
“It’s okay,” he said to Mykaela. “Go.”
She edged around Brad and hurried over to the exit. When the front door to the station shut behind her, Jared shook his head at Brad. “I can’t believe you. That’s my sister.”
“She was there with Charity; she all but admitted it just now. She’s the only girl who’s lived to tell what happened, and she won’t. She’s the only one who knows exactly what we’re up against.”
“And that makes all of this okay?”
“Yes!”
Closing the space between them, Jared reared his fist back and let it fly. It clocked Brad on his jawbone and sent him sprawling on the floor. “Look at yourself, Brad. This obsession is killing you. You’re a breath away from being no different than the monsters we fight.”
Although he wanted to deliver a good, hard kick, he walked away and left Brad on the floor.
When he went outside, he saw Mykaela sitting in the passenger’s seat with her knees pulled in to her chin. For a second, he saw the little girl who followed him around, whining when he went off to do things she wasn’t allowed. At least she’s in the front seat of the squad car this time. The grim thought didn’t make him feel any better.
He pulled the car door open and slid into the seat, taking the key from her when she offered it.
As they drove down the road, she said, “Thanks for bailing me out back there. No pun intended.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, glancing at her. “Before it came to this.”
“I tried.” She shrugged. “You were always too busy or taking Brad’s side. You never listened.”
He realized she was right. He’d been too focused on himself, and lately Morrigan, to give a second thought to his sister. “I’m sorry. If I’d known…”
Mykaela kept her gaze focused on the dashboard. “So, you’re a Hunter, too?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“And Dad?”
“Him, too.”
“And he died trying to stop the killer last time?” She felt tears burn her eyes. “That’s what happened, right? That’s what you wouldn’t tell me?”
“You’re pretty good at putting the pieces together,” he said.
“Why did Sheriff Baxter try to arrest Dad?”
“The town was starting to get suspicious,” Jared said. “Bill signed the warrant so Dad would be in jail when the next body turned up. But Dad wouldn’t have that—he wouldn’t be locked up in a cell while some innocent girl lost her life. So we went hunting for the monster.” Jared fell silent, his eyes gazing out at the darkness around them. “What’s this about Dylan being one of them?”
“He’d never hurt anybody.”
“You have to break up with him, Mykaela.” He glanced down as his phone rang. Looking at the caller ID, he was infuriated to see it was Morrigan. He was sick of her only calling him when it was convenient for her. Silencing the ringer, he turned to his sister. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I won’t do it,” she said.
He pulled the car over and put it in park. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m falling for him,” she said. “Big time. I know he’s not doing this—he’s trying to stop it, just like you guys are.”
“It doesn’t matter. He has to leave, or I’ll have to kill him. I took an oath.”
“You don’t have to,” she insisted. “You can choose to look the other way.”
He laughed. “I’m a Hunter, Mykaela—I won’t have a choice.”
His phone rang again, making his anger skyrocket. He opened it, shouting “What?” into the receiver.
“Somebody’s grumpy,” Morrigan said, in her playful tone.
“Yeah, a little bit.” Tapping his foot against the floorboard, he glanced at Mykaela, who was staring out the window. “Now’s really not a good time.”
“But I want to see you—"
“Then you should have answered when I called you.” He slammed the phone shut. “Look, I’m really sorry. But he has to leave.”
“You’re no different than Brad,” she said, biting on her lip as it quivered. “You won’t even give him a chance to defend himself.”
“No, I won’t. He made the choice to kill himself that way. This is his punishment.”
Mykaela opened her mouth to say something, but his phone rang again. She sighed, turning away from him.
He wanted to reach out to her, to comfort her in some way so this pain wouldn’t be so prominent, but his phone was ringing, and he’d been waiting all day. So he answered it.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I want to see you,” Morrigan said. “You have every right to be mad, and I’m sorry. You deserve answers, okay? I know that.” She sniffled, and her voice cracked. “And I’ll give them to you, but I have to do it face to face.”
He sighed, and again looked at his little sister. She looked like she was about to cry, too. He felt his necklace grow warm, and suddenly, he needed to see Morrigan. Nothing else mattered.
“It’ll be a little while,” he said. “I have to take Mykaela home.”
“Okay, just hurry, please?”
He nodded, then realized she couldn’t see him and said, “Yeah, sure. I have to go.”
He sighed as he shifted gears and drove toward the house. “Look, it’s been a rough night. We’ll just talk about this another time, okay?”
She didn’t answer him. He hated it when she sulked. Still, instead of trying to talk things out with her, he dropped her off at the house and went to see Morrigan.
***
Jared repositioned himself in the chair to keep himself awake. After ditching Mykaela to go get answers from Morrigan, he felt eaten up with guilt and shame. Especially since he didn’t even get any answers. He did get a couple of other things, though.
To compensate for the guilt, he’d talked to Sheriff Baxter first thing that morning. Now, all they needed to do was wait for Brad to come in. When he did, he took one look at Jared and his features lurched into the most horrid—betrayed—expression Jared ever saw. It made Jared’s guilt multiply.
“What’s going on here?” Brad squared his shoulders and crossed his arms over his chest, tilting his chin in the air in the defiant gesture he’d used for years.
“Jared’s told me some upsetting things,” Sheriff Baxter said, tapping his fingers against the desk’s surface. “Like—you assaulted his sister?”
Brad chuckled. “It was more of an informal interrogation.”
“With a minor,” he said. “You arrested her, and didn’t even bother to let her call her mother, or her brother. I haven’t found any report of that arrest, either. And as far as I can see, you don’t feel like you’ve done anything wrong.”
“Dad, it’s not about that. She was there with Charity—"
“Stop it, just stop it!” He stood up and sla
mmed his hand down on his desk, his face turning bright red beneath his white mustache. “I’m sick and tired of hearing it, and so is everybody else. All you’re doing is bringing a bad name to this force and your family. I’m sick of cleaning up after you. The other officers already think I give you special treatment—if they were to find out about this, my reputation would be finished, and you’d be fired.” He stopped suddenly and huffed out an irritated breath. “Give me your badge and your gun. You’re suspended without pay until further notice.”
Brad clenched his jaw—the anger, betrayal and shame on his face more violent than the worst hurricane. He yanked the badge off his shirt, pulled his gun from the holster and laid them both on the desk.
He spun around on the heel of his boot and marched out of the office, his shoulders straight, his hands clutched into fists.
“Brad, wait.” Jared bolted after him, overcome with remorse and pity. “Brad!”
Outside, Brad whirled around and jammed a finger in Jared’s face. “You’re the last person I want to see right now.”
“I had to do it, man,” Jared said. “You’ve got no regard for the law anymore.”
“Last night, I was seconds away from getting Mykaela to tell me what happened. And then you came barging in and ruined everything.”
“You’d no right to arrest her, Brad. It was ridiculous.”
“It was necessary. She’s the only one who can tell us what happened.”
“She’s a seventeen-year-old girl, and you probably scared her half to death.”
“I’m trying to protect this town. I don’t see anybody else rushing to help me, either. You’re too busy obsessing over some girl who gets you all wound up and strings you along, begging for more. Dad’s too busy looking over my shoulder, and Mykaela—the only eyewitness—is too busy trying to get it on with the enemy. Am I the only one who sees what’s going on around here? Am I the only one who cares?”
“Of course not, but you’re the only one who’s willing to break and twist the law to get what you want.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s what it takes!” He stepped back and wiped his mouth with his hand, breathing heavy. “You know what? You can stay here and drool over Morrigan, and Mykaela can stay and wait for Dylan to kill her. But I have a job to do.”
With that, he took off walking down the sidewalk.
***
Mykaela was getting ready to go out with Dylan when someone knocked on her door.
“Come in,” she called as she continued to brush her hair.
Jared opened the door and then leaned against the frame, crossing his arms over his chest. “I just thought I’d let you know Brad was suspended from the force today.”
She glanced up at him. “For what?”
“You know,” he said, shifting his gaze from her to the floor.
Mykaela felt a pang of sympathy for her brother. It must be hard on him, to stand up to his friend that way. Especially when she knew how much being on the force meant to Brad, and how much it must have torn Jared up to take that away from him. “I’m sorry. He must hate you.”
Jared shrugged. “He needed to be punished. It’s that simple.” He took a couple of steps forward. “Mykaela, what we talked about last night…I really need you to listen to me.”
She shook her head and dropped the brush on her dresser. “I really don’t want to hear it.”
“Mykaela, he’s more than dangerous.” He grabbed his head. “Have you completely lost your mind?”
She glanced at her reflection in the full-length mirror. “Yeah, I might have lost my mind a little.”
“Girls are dying. Charity, Susan, Rachel, and you’re dating the one responsible?”
“He didn’t kill them.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he saved my life, okay? If it wasn’t for him, I would have washed up on the shore right next to Charity.” She hissed out a breath when she realized what she’d just done.
“What are you talking about?”
She sighed, turning away from him. “Brad’s been right all along. I was there with her. I was drowning, dying. Until Dylan pulled me out.”
He stared at her, his mouth moving in an attempt to form words. Taking a deep breath, he finally spoke. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Because you didn’t tell me things like this happened! You didn’t tell me you were a Hunter, or that these…creatures…exist, or that Dad died fighting them.” She wanted to yell at him, to scream at him. “I didn’t know, and I thought everybody would think I was crazy.”
“It’s not easy to break that kind of news to somebody.”
“Tough! It’s not easy to almost drown, either.”
“Okay, so I should have told you,” he said. “But none of that changes what has to be done.”
“Look, I love him, and he loves me—”
“And that’s all that matters? You sound pathetic.”
“No, that’s not all that matters, but it’s a big part. Do you have any idea what my life would be like if I lost him?” He dipped his head, shaking it with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Right. Because you never stop to think about me, or my feelings. All you see is black and white. Here’s some news for you—there are grey areas. Things that aren’t right or wrong. Things that just…are.” She held steady eye contact with him to show him she wouldn’t back down. “Dylan, and my feelings for him, fall under that category.”
“I’m a Hunter. I have to kill him.”
“You would do that to me?” She stared at him, her eyes filling with tears. “You would kill the one I love? The one who saved my life?”
“If he doesn’t leave, I won’t have a choice.”
She shook her head, blinking back the tears. “I’m just supposed to do what you say, because you know what’s best, right?” She eyed him in a challenge. “Well, I won’t. You don’t listen to anything I say. You listen to Morrigan, to Brad, but never once to me. I tried to tell you what Brad did; I tried to tell you how I felt about Dylan but you were always too busy.”
“I’m not perfect, but this isn’t about all of the things I do wrong. It’s about Dylan. He’s a monster, Mykaela. And I took an oath—”
She clenched her teeth so tight, she thought they might break. “Fine. Then right here, right now, I take one, too. I vow to protect him. From you, from every other Hunter, and from his own people. If you want to kill him, go ahead and try. But, you’ll have to kill me first.”
“You’re being an overdramatic child—you know that, right?”
“And you’re being a mindless Neanderthal.” Spinning on her heel, she turned away from him. “Like you said, it doesn’t change what needs to be done.”
Chapter Seventeen
Sins of the Sea
Dylan sat on the edge of the cliff—the one that Mykaela fell from—twice. He dangled his legs over the edge, shivering as he realized how close he’d come to losing her. He wouldn’t let it happen. He would do anything to protect her.
“Well, well, well.”
His back stiffened at Morrigan’s singsong voice. He didn’t even bother to turn and look at her.
“How’s my favorite little traitor doing?”
“I’m no traitor.”
She boomed a laugh. “Right. And I’m not an evil bitch.” She sat down next to him and hung her legs over the edge.
“Why are you here?”
“Look, it’s not like I’m not enjoying this little game, but we’re running out of time.”
He eyed her and fought the desire to nudge further away.
“We need you back. The kingdom needs you back.” Her blue eyes, normally so mischievous, now wilted with desperation. “It’s total anarchy down there. Everybody’s fighting for the crown.”
“Let them fight.”
“We both know you’re the only one even capable of being a leader. Why would you turn your back on us at a time like this? I gave you everything.”
“You
gave me everything?” He was so mad, he wanted to punch her. Standing up, he backed away from the cliff and Morrigan instead. “You took my life. You turned me into a monster!”
“I gave you power.” She stood up and faced him. “I gave you immortality. And, what do you do? Run away the first time something is asked of you.”
“I don’t want to be the king. I don’t want to lead anybody. Let someone who wants the job do it.”
“You earned it. You wreaked so much havoc that you earned the prince’s title, and now you just want to give it all away?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head in disgust. “You’re a disgrace. I should have chosen another.”
“You should have.”
“You have two choices.” She pointed to the ocean behind her. “Go back and claim the throne.” She took a step closer. “Or stay here and be hunted down.”
“I’ll never go back.”
“It’s insane, Dylan!” She cried. “You have both sides after you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Because of Mykaela?” She stepped back and crossed her arms, giving him an even stare. “What if your precious Mykaela found out the truth about her father—would you care about that?”
“Stop it,” he warned.
“What if she found out that you peeled the flesh from his bones while his heart stopped beating? What if she knew how he screamed?”
Soul of the Sea Page 15
