Kai watched the traffic flying by on the interstate, stomach in knots, waiting for the inevitable. He wasn’t alone. Two other collectors stood by, which meant there would be at least three who lost their lives in the accident that hadn’t happened yet. Kai had said goodbye to any fantasies he’d entertained about their magic skipping him. This was his fourth collection in five days, and he no longer had to worry about how he would find his charges. With his advanced powers, he simply just arrived at his collection. He’d been having dinner with the pack when he found himself staring at the sunset on the side of a busy highway, the name Javier Mendoza burning its way across his wrist.

He’d never really noticed how his magic felt before he’d lost it, but since its return, that power coursed through him like a steady stream of caffeine. Miller said it would wear off, that it was the side effect of advancing their magic prematurely. Kai had no frame of reference, but he refused to take the witch at his word. Especially the way he felt of late. Something had him even more on edge, but he didn’t know why.

“Kai.”

Kai turned, looking for the source of the familiar voice. The boy materialized as if from thin air, the same way Kai had arrived. The boy wore black leather pants and a black t-shirt. There was an actual sword strapped between his shoulder blades, like he was a video game character, and there wasn’t a single inch of visible skin that didn’t have the name of a soul he’d collected. He was the reaper they’d sent for Quinn. The one who hated Mace.

“I’m sorry I…” he trailed off, shaking his head. Why couldn’t he remember his name?

“Cael,” he supplied, his tone clipped, hands behind his back, fingers laced like a soldier at ease. He didn’t look at Kai, instead watching the traffic, scanning each car as it passed.

Four reapers. Four people fated to die together, each crossed over separately. The idea of just standing there, waiting for a fatality this massive made him sick. “Four people?”

“There will be more, but only four will die here,” Cael assured him, tone casual. The two other collectors eyed them curiously but said nothing, keeping their distance. Both had far more collections than Kai, but neither anywhere near the amount of Cael. Quinn said that Cael lived in the in-between, some shadow world between darkness and light away from the Grove.

“So, I hear you and your pack have been stirring up some trouble in your world.”

Kai’s stomach dipped. “How so?”

Cael cut his eyes to him briefly. “Blood magic? Bringing people back from the dead? Human sacrifice? That’s some old world, next-level pagan shit. People are spooked.”

“What people?” Kai asked.

“The ones who aren’t powerful enough to defend themselves mostly. Not all of the supernatural world has the magic necessary to fight a war with druids who’ve hard-wired themselves into the mainframe. I get that your oracle thinks there’s a new generation of descendants ready to take up arms against the Grove, but I think she’s going to find that most people don’t want to make waves. They just want to keep their heads down and toe the line.”

Kai digested that information. People knew what they’d done. People knew about the ritual. Tate once told Kai the supernatural world gossiped like the tabloids. Apparently, that hadn’t changed. But where were they getting their information? Was it a byproduct of Josephine seeking out these others, these special teens that were supposedly like them? Was this a warning from Cael? “People like you?” he asked.

Cael looked at him, raising a brow. “I don’t worry about your world. I’m content in mine, but not everybody who lives in the in-between wants to be there. Some would happily fight beside you to take down the Grove.” He shrugged. “But there are others who are taking advantage of the Grove being so distracted by your little pack. There are bad people out there who the Grove’s kept at bay for years, and they are starting to resurface because the Grove is trying to find a way to kill you without having to take the blame.”

“So…we should leave the Grove in charge? They rule with fear and intimidation; they kill whoever they want with impunity. They withhold information to keep us helpless. They killed my friend in front of me because he forgot he had a book in his pocket.”

“They were going to kill him anyway. They wanted to punish his father for lying to them.”

Kai’s jaw dropped at the casual confession. “What?”

“They thought he was plotting against them, but they had no hard proof. On the surface, Allister appeared to be doing everything right. Your friend would have died regardless. They went in looking for an excuse. At least that’s the rumor.”

“So, why didn’t they kill us all that night if they’re so worried?”

“And look like our government is afraid of children? No, that’s not how they operate. When they take you out, it will be in a way that can’t directly be traced back to them.”

“Like releasing nine demons from their cages so they can possess a bunch of shifters and rip us to shreds?”

He nodded. “Something like that, yes.”

Something occurred to Kai then. “Can I ask you a question?” Kai asked.

“You can always ask,” Cael said.

“Did you collect those three kids from Wolf Creek?”

He frowned, his eyes squinting before realization dawned, and he shook his head. “The cheerleaders? No. That was a strange situation.”

“Do you know who did collect them?”

Cael’s brow creased. “Nobody collected them. There was nothing to collect.”

Kai opened his mouth to ask another question and then closed it again. What the hell did that mean? Had he and Ember been right when they said they were soulless? Was there another soul eater running around?

“Does the word zakar mean anything to you?”

“No. Should it?”

Kai didn’t have time to ponder the answer. The sound of screeching tires pierced Kai’s skull followed by a crescendo of metal colliding with metal again and again.

“Here we go,” Cael said.