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Now
It was dry out in Arizona, but the air coming in from the car’s open windows was nice and cool. The arid desert stretched hard, though it was hard to see just how far it went in the dark, moonless night.
Silver was driving as fast as she safely could, given that it wasn’t long until sunrise. As she and her companions had neared the border with Utah—and their final destination—she had offered to give Adam a much-needed break from driving.
The hybrid had driven most of the way and was currently napping in the backseat, snuggled as much as he could in the cramped space. Every time the car jostled, which happened often considering they’d been offroad for quite some time now, Silver’s eyes darted to his sleeping form in the rearview mirror. Most of his face was hidden under his jacket save for his eyes, which were closed, but he never stirred.
Still, letting Adam rest wasn’t why she had decided to take the wheel. Driving simply offered a great distraction from the nervousness of being inside a moving vehicle. It was easier to keep her phobia at bay when she was in control of the car.
Rolling her window all the way down, Silver breathed in the cool breeze. It felt so refreshing on her skin, soothing her anxiety further.
Another good distraction was the cheerful blonde sitting beside her in the passenger seat and talking her ear off.
“Just think about it for a second,” Reese prattled on. “If vampires and werewolves and skinwalkers and whatnot all exist, why can’t ghosts be real?”
“You’re not a ghost,” Silver insisted.
“We don’t know that for sure! I mean, you said it yourself, when you try to use your powers on me, it’s like there’s nothing there, right? So what if,” she paused dramatically, staring at her hands as her voice took on the cryptic quality of someone sharing some conspiracy theory. “What if it’s because I’m not there?”
Silver reached out and slapped the girl’s arm without missing a beat, not putting any force behind it.
“Ow!” Reese cried out dramatically. “What was that for?”
“False alarm. Not intangible.”
A surprised giggle erupted from the girl’s mouth as she rubbed the side of her arm, but the sound quickly died down. “If it’s not that, then why doesn’t your magic work on me?”
An excellent question. Silver herself would love to know the answer.
Magic allowed her to do some pretty extraordinary things: super strength and speed, accessing people’s thoughts and memories, physically healing her body and others’, mind-controlling anyone who was susceptible to it—to name a few.
Yet, none of these seemed to work on Theresa. The girl’s currently sprained ankle proved as much. It was both unusual and disconcerting.
Then again, Silver herself was unique, the only one of her kind—whatever said kind was. Perhaps the real problem was her.
In the past seven years she’d had her powers, her ability to use them was limited and arduous. If she had any hope of one day killing one of the most powerful vamphyrs on earth, it was vital that she improve her magical stamina, which was what she’d been trying to do all this time. But the only thing that seemed to help so far—albeit minimally—was burning the bodies of supernaturals she’d killed with her own hands.
But then, somehow, something changed.
The previous night, she and Adam had saved Theresa from a vampire blood-ring operating out of a nightclub. The amount of magic she had used to get the three of them out should have knocked her out for a whole day, but all it did was tire her out.
It was... strange.
Silver had been mulling this over all night, trying to understand what could have reinforced her power so much and whether she could do it again. No matter how she spun it, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it had something to do with Reese. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Silver’s magic started changing shortly after they met. Why else would so many supernaturals be after the girl? And why else would Master Drake want her?
What complicated matters even more was the fact that there were other aspects of Silver’s powers that did work on Reese.
“Dead people don’t have an aura,” she said. “But you do. Ergo, not dead.”
Reese considered this for a second. “Is it maybe some new color you’ve never seen before?”
“Nope. Just a good old yellowish-orange, like all humans.”
Supernatural auras were different from human auras. To someone like Silver, who could actually see these life forces when her magic was activated, each race had a different colored signature. Hers was silver—obviously—while vamphyrs’ was gold and vampires, red.
Werewolves and hybrids auras were slightly more fascinating. Their signature colors were brown and purple respectively, but the texture of their aura changed based on what form they were in. Both were always surrounded by their signature glow, but when they were in human form, their body appeared almost crystal-like. It irritated Silver’s eyes to look at them in the sunlight, but in the dark, she recently discovered, they were quite a sight. Beautiful.
Coughing, she shuffled in her seat and rolled her shoulders.
“What about the article?” Reese asked, sounding unusually nervous.
“That has to be fake,” Silver replied. “We’ve already established that you’re very much alive, so your dad couldn’t have killed you. And you have your ID with you, so we know for a fact you were fifteen when the article came out, not eighteen like it says.”
“So... what’s the alternative then? How do you explain it?”
“Someone planted it trying to cover up something. The fact that your name only has one online search result is impossible. Everyone has a digital footprint. Social media.”
“Actually, Mama never let me have that. And I never really got the appeal, anyway.”
“Maybe so, but your school must have had a website with pictures or something.”
“That’s true. I was the school mascot when I was a senior. They put me on their blog with the team and everything. And I was president of the debate club! We won the championship two years in a row.”
Shocker. “See? None of those popped up in the search results when I looked you up, and they definitely should have. That’s why Adam’s going to the police station where your supposed killer was arrested.”
“Come again?” the hybrid suddenly spoke up.
His voice was heavy with sleep, coming out all rough and hoarse. The sound caused shivers to run down Silver’s back, stirring memories from last night. She promptly pushed them down before they could surface.
She was just cold, she told herself as she closed the window.
“Nice of you to join us,” she said.
Adam ignored the snarky tone and sat up, stretching his arms to the side. “Sorry, where exactly am I going?”
“To make sure I’m not really dead,” Reese quipped.
Silver replied, “Reese’s father was supposedly arrested for murder—”
“My murder.”
“—in Cortez, Colorado. The records are public, so you should be able to ask for a paper report.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Adam said, “but don’t police stations have Wi-Fi and all sorts of technologically advanced equipment? I mean, I don’t have a problem going on a risky solo quest, but I can’t cloak my signature like you.”
The thought made Silver tighten her grip on the steering wheel. Even now, having given her magic a rest all night, she was feeling a tiny itch to tap into her powers and reach out for the car’s battery.
The last time she’d done that, she’d nearly choked Reese to death.
Supernatural auras reacted to electricity, but each race was unique. Silver could draw energy from electricity and temporarily recharge her magic. Her power would increase tenfold, but it was like taking enhancement drugs and crashing as soon as the effects wore off. That kind of loss of control was unbearable.
For Adam, if his signature reacted to anything that was connected to the internet, anyone could track him. And since his race was rare—hybrids were rarely created and often got persecuted in the wild—Master Drake would suspect it was him and send someone to make sure.
The good news was that Silver could prevent that by cloaking both of their signatures.
The bad news was that her magical stamina wasn’t fully recharged. The urge to drop her cloak and draw power from electricity would be much too strong to resist, and she’d end up in withdrawals.
She couldn’t have that. Not again, not this soon.
“Normally, I would’ve,” she told Adam, “but I can’t trust myself around power sources, yet. Don’t worry, though, I have a plan to keep you safe. Oh, and also, you should stop by a store and get us a burner phone.”
“What’s wrong with the one you have?” Reese asked.
“Out of credit.”
“We could recharge it,” Adam suggested.
Silver shook her head, her fists tightening over the steering wheel. “I’m not holding on to it after Levi texts.”
Remi had given her that phone. It wasn’t bugged—she’d checked—but that didn’t matter.
“Besides,” she added with an air of nonchalance, “I’d rather not use the same phone when we get in touch with Reese’s parents.”
Adam leaned forward in-between the seats. Silver reflexively shifted to the left, but fortunately, he was approaching to talk to Reese.
“What are you gonna tell them?” he asked.
“Silver suggested leaving a trail to explain why I will slowly disappear,” the girl said, uncharacteristically melancholic. “The cover is that I’m meeting new people, but I’m not having the best college experience.”
“What about your school or your friends? Won’t they notice you’re missing?”
“Classes don’t start till next week. Plus, I haven’t met any of my roommates yet.”
“Didn’t you say you had a friend?” Silver recalled. “What was it, Oscar?”
“Ollie,” Reese corrected sadly. “He lives in a different dorm. And we’re not really talking right now anyway. Don’t worry, nobody will notice I’m gone unless I miss more than a week of class. And by then, I’ll drop out and say I’m going on a trip with some new friends.”
Silver remembered how Reese and her friend had been in a fight right before she was taken by Adam’s squad. She had begged Silver to let her call him, even furthering her cover story and buying them time. Clearly, she was still upset about the fallout.
Adam, though, had no idea. “You don’t think your parents would be okay with that?”
“Oh no, they’d be fine with it. They’re very supportive of me discovering myself and exploring the world.”
“Then why do you look so sad?”
“I just hate lying to them, you know? Or Ollie. That’s not how we are with each other. But I get that it’s safer for them this way, so it’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
He patted her on the shoulder. “You can make amends later.”
She gave him a small smile.
Silver cleared her throat and added, “We also need sustenance. There’s some canned food at the safehouse, but we don’t know how long it’ll take Levi and Quinn to get in touch.”
A couple days ago, when she’d first rescued Reese, Silver had reached out to her skinwalker friends, who ran a sanctuary for runaways fleeing from the supernaturals. A few hours ago, Levi had finally written back, telling Silver to hang tight for a few days since they were currently in the middle of relocating. She figured it was only fair that she and her companions waited at one of the sanctuary’s safehouses.
“By the way, how far are we?” Adam wondered.
“Almost there.”
They were very close to a section of the desert terrain where the rock formations created a natural cave big enough to hide a car in. It wouldn’t be long after that, considering the shelter was a short walk away, carved down into the ground decades ago.
Silver had picked it on purpose because it was close to Colorado, which would make Adam’s trip there shorter. But the main reason why she picked this safehouse was because one of the rooms was specifically designed to contain a supernatural.
And since they were currently traveling with a vampire hostage, that was kind of important.
The whole time they were on the road, Silver had allowed herself not to think about Shauna, passed out in the backseat on the opposite side from Adam. It was easier to pretend not to notice her old friend, whom Silver had abandoned when she ran away from Master Drake’s estate.
Instead, she had put Shauna in a magically induced coma, one that she wouldn’t wake from until Silver decided it was safe. That was a conversation she wasn’t looking forward to, but it was one she needed to have so she could find out what Shauna knew.
Like, why was she a vampire now?
What was Master Drake planning next?
And why did he want Reese so badly?
At times like these, Silver wished her prophetic dreams worked on command, but no. That part of her powers only manifested in extreme life-or-death situations—which apparently had only happened twice so far, despite the many dangerous situations she often found herself in. The first time, her dream had led her to run away from the estate and seek refuge with Levi. As for the second time, well... She accidentally discovered what happened when she burned the bodies of her victims.
But that wasn’t a memory she liked to dwell on.
Stepping out of the car, Silver glanced up at the sky with a frown. It wasn’t so dark anymore.
“Let’s hurry up,” she said. “We have to get Shauna inside before sunrise.”
She went around the car and picked up the sleeping vampire, intending to carry her as she led the way for the others to follow. But as she turned around, she nearly collided into Adam, who had apparently walked around to her side of the car. He touched her arms as she cradled Shauna, which sent a jolt through her that he didn’t seem to feel.
“Can I help?” he murmured.
The same memory from before tried to resurface. A dark room at the blood-ring’s club. His shimmering crystal form under the strobe lights, mesmerizing her. Their arms wrapped around each other. Adam’s lips coming dangerously close to—
Nope!
Silver handed the sleeping vampire over without thinking, trying to ignore the goosebumps traveling up her skin.
“You don’t need to whisper,” she told him brusquely. “She won’t wake up until I lift the hypnosis.”
A small, self-effacing smile flashed on his face. “Forgot, sorry.”
Quickly turning away, Silver busied herself with helping Reese. The latter winced as she walked, but her injury hadn’t fully dimmed her lively curiosity. Her eyes roamed around the vast, desert area, no doubt searching for some kind of secret entrance.
“Whoa, it’s like a storm cellar,” Reese noted once they reached the trap door, partially covered by shrubs and hidden in the shade of a rock formation.
“It just looks that way on the outside,” Silver told her. “The inside is more like a bunker.”
After setting Reese down at the top of the stairs, she turned to the panel on the side and flipped a switch. Her magic stirred, itching to reach out to the electricity suddenly powering the bunker. The urge was strong like a pulse, but Silver was surprised at how easy it was to ignore compared to just two days ago.
“Is this all off-grid?” Reese wondered.
“Yeah,” Silver answered, shaking her head as if that would calm her. “The lights run on solar-powered batteries, and the running water comes from a lake nearby. Over here,” she motioned Adam toward the room at the end of the brightly lit hallway.
“Watch her head!” Reese cautioned, which made Silver roll her eyes. Leave it to Theresa to sympathize with someone who literally tried to buy her from a blood-ring mere hours ago.
“Is this going to hold her?” Adam asked, eyeing the wooden doorway. It was identical to the rest of the rooms, but the difference was that there was a mini prison cell behind it, with thick bars stretching from one wall to the next.
“The bars aren’t steel,” Silver told him. “They’re special-made to hold a vampire.”
He glanced at her knowingly but said nothing as he got Shauna situated on the mattress in the corner. Silver had a feeling he was thinking up various reasons why there would be a prison cell for supernaturals, but he was smart enough not to mention it in Reese’s presence.
Spinning on her heels, Silver gave a quick tour of the bunker. “Bedroom, bedroom, bathroom, supply room, pantry. There’s more than one bed in each room, so you guys can pick where you want to sleep.”
“Are we all bunking together?” Reese wondered.
“I’m camping outside for a few days, away from all this,” she gestured around them.
“Ah. Right.”
Stepping into the bathroom, Silver quickly went to work getting the plumbing up and running.
“Why does it smell like hybrids and werewolves down here?” Adam questioned, sniffing the air. “Just barely, but it’s there.”
“Quinn’s rescue squad must have used the place not too long ago,” Silver told him.
“Are they all werewolves and hybrids?” Reese wondered.
A pang shot through Silver’s heart as she thought about Hisa, her old friend from her early days at the sanctuary.
“One of them was a vampire,” she admitted, “but she died a long time ago.”
This made Theresa’s jaw drop. “You were friends with vampires?!”
“Just the one. And she was an exception in vampirism.”
What about Shauna? her mind threw back at her.
Silver pushed the thought out of her head. There would be time for that later.
Once everything was set up, she went back out to the desert. It was easier to breathe when she stepped away from all the power sources, so she closed her eyes and did just that.
The first light of day was just starting to break, turning the sky a faint pink color. It was nice and serene out here, removed from the crowded noise of civilization.
“So what now?” Reese wondered.
Moment of peace over.
“Reese, you and I will stay here,” Silver said then turned to Adam, his body half-in, half-out as he leaned against the trap door opening with his arms crossed, “while you get us everything we need. We don’t know when Levi will get back to us, so we have to set Reese’s cover story as soon as possible.”
“What about your friend?” Adam asked.
“I’ll deal with her myself.”
“I meant the one that betrayed the sanctuary.”
Right. Remi.
Silver wished she didn’t have to tell them all about the werewolf. He was someone she’d trusted at the sanctuary, the first person who welcomed her when she first arrived, made her feel at home. It pained her to remember his betrayal because it was his fault that Levi and Quinn had to evacuate their beloved sanctuary, which they’d spent decades building.
But the fact that he then sold Silver out to a group of hybrids made it personal. If she allowed herself to think too long about it, the hurt and anger would get the better of her, and that was a distraction she simply could not afford.
“One problem at a time,” she said. “We don’t know who he’s working for. We won’t know anything until I talk to Levi or Quinn.”
“Can he find us here?” Adam wondered.
She shook her head. “There are too many of these safehouses in Arizona alone. We’ll be okay here for now, but we shouldn’t stay in one place more than a week.”
“Wait, guys,” Reese suddenly spoke up. “What do we do about Shauna’s, uh, diet? I mean, I don’t mind volunteering my services if—”
“Hell no!”
“You are not doing that,” Adam seconded.
Reese had the sense to look abashed. “But then how—”
Silver cut her off. “Adam will just get us some blood bags.”
“Apparently, Adam can conjure things out of thin air now,” the hybrid deadpanned, which made Reese giggle.
Silver resisted the urge to crack a smile. “I have a plan for that too. I’ll explain everything in a bit, but first, there’s something we have to do.”
“What is it?”
She held up the burner phone in her hand. “I need to test a theory.”
